12.29

it's that lovely time of year again, where, regardless of how lovely the snow looks or how pristine it all is, inevitably my mind is tugged back to larry, and i'm reminded of how the pain really, truly NEVER goes anywhere, some periods go by where i'm stronger and more adept at managing it all... but then moments come where i remember things, like taking a shower and looking at the shampoo bottle and remembering how beautiful his hair was, and how i loved to touch it and sculpt it and smell it, and then i try to convince the universe to just have him be standing there when i open the shower curtain, and he'll say hi babi and we'll both know the truth of things but just to SEE him, to talk to him, to just be in his presence for a moment, more than what i get to experience within.

i mean there is always that secret realm within me that just contains he and i, perfectly preserved, where i can sort of escape to anytime... if i'm feeling disconnected from will, or from my life, or if i'm bored or particularly happy or just missing him, i go there and i can feel it all again. the emotions come back, the good ones, not the ones following his death, i feel connected to him again... but i miss seeing him, touching him, holding him, talking to him, all of those tangible things that probably don't ultimately matter, but i'm a stupid mortal.

i know that it's common for a person to remember very specifically the events surrounding traumatic events, but i've never had an event worthy of searing it permanently into my consciousness, most things just fall back and sort of surface now and again when or (more often) when they're not needed... but i remember EVERYTHING. i remember arguing the night before because he wouldn't let me play game boy, i remember sleeping separately for the first time ever, i remember the next morning when he left for work, leaving without hugging me, and i told him i wouldn't see him that day cuz i had to take care of my stupid motherfucking cable in kutztown, and he hugged me and kissed me and left... i remember going to kutztown and getting a huge hoagie from mark's, watching titanic and sleeping all day... i remember that my phone was dead till around 9 when i called him and he was leaving work and was being incredibly sweet and saying how he'd missed me so much that day and how he'd had to keep himself content by drawing a picture of me that he sprayed with special perfume and i got that feeling that he was going to visit me, tho he didn't say so... i remember drawing a picture while i waited for him, getting dressed so i looked nice and washing my face and putting on makeup and cleaning up and waiting... waiting... calling his phone and there being no answer, calling his house and mandie saying their mom had gone out searching for him cuz she was crazy... i remember the call, i remember bulk and rob coming to get me and take me to the airport, and john l and vern were there already, and i walked in the room and i remember big larry saying, we lost him, and grabbing me and it was all over, and screaming and not believing and then realizing that succumbing to denial was just ignorant and so i just burst into awareness of it all and... there aren't any words, and then i saw him, in that cold, sterile, death room. i remember calling meg, and my mom, and my sister, and meg and her mom came and my mom and sister got on a plane... that night at meg's house i remember how meg held me and she became larry, her embrace felt just like his, or was his, perhaps, and sleeping and knowing that when i woke up it wouldn't be a dream, that the most meaningful, beautiful, beloved thing in my life up to that point had been completely and irrevocably obliterated, for fucking ever.

i can recall it in much more detail, but i won't ramble on, the point is it's amazing to me that i can recall all of it, all the way down to the emotions (tho in their recollection they are much more subdued) and thoughts, at any time. always right there on the surface, like some massive iceberg, and once i start digging i get lost in its enormity.

i miss him more than i can possibly describe, and yet the only option is to just keep going, what else can i do