A breath for the wounded soul

The one thing I am afraid of the most is not being able to see Chantz ever again. To not be able to hear his laughter...he had this one laugh, that I heard only about seven times the six years I knew him; it was like he had never heard anything funnier in his life. It was full of abandonment and pure joy and I always told him that it was my most favorite laugh in the world. It really was.I'm scared that I wont be able to hear or watch him play his guitar ever again. I swear, when he played, he was completely transformed. No one could touch him there. He would move in a snake-like manner when he really got into it, and the first time I brought it up he had no idea what I was talking about. I think that's what I loved most about him. He was so full of life and passion and sometimes he didn't even notice.

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In other news,
I went out of state this past week and I think that aside from having gotten my two kittens in the last couple of months, this has been the most helpful thing thus far.
I needed to leave Texas and be somewhere where I had never been to in my life. (New Orleans)
It felt like I had been suffocating for the last seven months, and I was finally able to breathe.
It felt like I had no history, like I had never met him or been in love and therefore never lost him.
I smiled and laughed and I could actually get him out of my head for hours at a time.
I saw glimpses of my old self too. It was surreal.
We stayed in a hostel and met wonderful people, and they knew nothing about me. It was beyond refreshing.
I talked about books, art, psychology, traveling, and history with so many people and I felt passionate again.
It was just for a little while, but I felt alive again, and that was a gift I needed because it was starting to feel that I was going to feel like a corpse for all eternity.

Obviously I didn't completely forget about anything that happened but it was almost like it had happened to someone else and I had only heard about it.
But then my best friend showed up a few days later and with it she brought the reminder that I did have a history.
He did exist. And then he didn't.
My mind is burdened by that correlation.
And in the same way, when I crossed the state line back to Texas a week later I was immediately overwhelmed with the familiar feeling I thought I had left behind.
My grandparents home as well, which is filled with memories of family get togethers, holidays, my grandparents funny bickering, childhood, even wonderful Chantz memories, is now only filled the months after his death. I couldn't even go in the room where I slept my life away for weeks after his death for fear of just going back to that place. That home has been a refuge my whole life. One of the few constant things I've ever had, and now I'm scared of spending the night there. It literally makes me remember every little thing I did and thought a few months ago.
I forget I had an independent life in Fort Worth before him, and even during our relationship.
I'm angry with him for that.
But I'm mostly angry at myself for letting it happen because I'm sure he didn't intend for me to feel that way.
My apartment feels more like home than my real home, but I am thankful I am living somewhere else right now.
I'm working on changing that correlation, it's just harder than I thought it'd be.
I'm ready to stop going back to that place mentally and emotionally.
I have decided that after I graduate I am leaving the country for a while, or at least the state and go as far away as I can. Maybe I can start over. And maybe when I come back home it will be different and I will see everything in perspective. I think I just need time.
Everyone keeps saying that, and the whole world can't be wrong.
But right now, I want to forget him. And I want to bring him back at the same time. I want to accept this. I want to stay frozen and not have to move forward. I want to just be happy. I want to heal. I want to rejoice in the fact that I knew him and make him proud. But I also want to fade away and not have to deal with this circumstance.
I want too many conflicting things.
Will my feelings and thoughts eventually become consistent so I will know in which direction to go? Because I'm just on both sides right now and it's not getting me anywhere. I'm ready to change that.

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I met a woman in New Orleans who does caricatures and portraits for a living. My friend and I were her last customers one day and she was super chatty despite her twelve hour work day. She told us about her life, and how she came to do what she did. About her youth and education. She even talked about her father's death. Most people nowadays are so closed off, and to meet someone so wonderfully genuine really made my day better. And without her knowing my life at all, she said something that filled my heart's mind completely that I had to write it down on the spot. All I had was a pack of gum, but I didn't want to forget the exact words so it worked just fine.

"while my grief was legitimate, it need not destroy my life."

It was so simple, and maybe I've even heard it before but when she said it, it just clicked.

Someone else also said something to me a few weeks ago:

Sometimes you'll do stupid shit, sometimes you'll be self destructive (I recommend doing your best not to be, easier said than done, I know, but it's important to try not to fuck your own shit up just because the universe did it to you first), but it's all part of the process. Just keep going.

That in fact, is the best thing I've been told from someone who knows what it's like. I'm realizing slowly but surely that it is a part of the process to feel and do self destructive things, but there is a limit. And one day, I will start caring again, and I need to make sure to keep the rest of my life as intact as I can for when that day comes.
Last week was the first of many(hopefully) weeks to come where I smile because I feel a happiness in me. Because I feel a drive, and hope, and know that life, just like death, does in fact go on. I will feel that I can live a wonderful life without Chantz. I will be able to keep him in my heart for always and cherish every moment with him, as opposed to try to figure out a way to make him disappear. Because unfortunately, you can only do that in the movies, so I better "put my big girl panties on", as Chantz used to say, and accept that there are some things I will never be able to change, and that sometimes the only thing that I can change is my reaction to it.

Honestly, he would be kicking my butt right now. He would want me to move forward and be happy and stop crying about him. Knowing him, he would have done anything to save us from this grief. But really, my feeling of abandonment is so overwhelming and has been this whole time that I think it's beyond unfair for me to do what he would want when he did the one thing he promised me he'd never do two weeks prior. So suck it Chantz. At least for now.

I go back to this poem sometimes so I can be reminded that I eventually need to get to the end of this grief exactly like the end of this poem.

"Heavy"
by Mary Oliver

That time

I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had His hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it --
books, bricks, grief --
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe
also troubled --

roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?

I love you.