Wednesday, June 15, 2011

If I can tell anyone anything, because I know so little anymore, I would say to make sure that people you love know it. The rest is trivial, biodegradable.

This is the only truth I know.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Happy Birthday

2007 at Beach Camp

Birthday kids. For this birthday I got him a birthday card that sang "Bad To the Bone" because we were "just friends" at the time

2008
 Pool party at his house that his mom and I threw his as a surprise. The day before the party we ran into a friend's mom who gave it away. We decided not to tell his mom though. The day of his birthday I was in charge of distracting him so we went and bought a Cosmopolitan magazine and laughed at the stupid sex tips. One of them said "Say anything in his ear....anything." Then Chantz leaned in very slowly and whispered "Pickles, Pickles, Pickles." From that day on we would do that to each other randomly when we were out. It was one of our jokes..Hence why one of kitten's names is Pickles. That year I gave him a goodie bag with  Slash's autobiography (one of his favorite musicians), his first Bukowski book, his favorite candy, a music journal, some mix CD's, and a frame with my most favorite picture of us.

Double chocolate, with chocolate filling, and chocolate frosting cake. He loved it.

2009
That year I surprised him with dinner and a hotel room..yeah, yeah...we felt grown up hahah. I also got him two concert tickets to Metallica. He was so excited to see them live again. It was the last birthday I got to spend with him and it was really wonderful.

2010
Last year I was in Spain and this picture was taken on the 14th. It was also our friend Cruz's birthday so we took him out to celebrate Spain style. I wasn't able to be with Chantz, but I did what I could and sent him a box with different Spain things so he could have a little bit of Spain with him. I sent him an awesome Metallica lighter, Absinthe, 2 french beers that are very popular in Spain (Desperados), a switch blade from Toledo the City of Swords, and a letter. I know he didn't have the best of days and I felt awful for that;  I told him when I got back I would take him out to celebrate and that it would be wonderful. The thing is that we never got to do that.

Chantz wasn't big on birthdays, he always said that something always happened that ruined them so he just hated that day. I grew up in a home where birthdays were very special..I swear we pretty much got a birthday week from the treatment we got the week of our birthdays. My goal was to do that for him and I know these last couple of birthdays I tried my hardest to make him feel special, and loved.
You were loved. You ARE loved. Even today, something's going on in your honor. I hate the reason why this Benefit Concert's happening, but I love the purpose of it. I hope that this can at least help someone else, and it can help me in the process too.
Today is not just a holiday...it's your day, and you should be here..it's not okay that you're not. I miss you so much, but I'm trying to take that and do something that would make you proud.
I love you sweet boy, Happy Birthday to you, and I hope somewhere out there you know that you are still loved by so many.

I wonder who you'd be today <3

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Rage

I keep coming back to this one.

Someone said to me:
"I know it must be hard when the world moves on and you are left in the aftermath of his decision."
They said that perfectly. I am so trapped by his decision. To this day. I am so angry with him for doing that. For promising to never put me through this and doing it two weeks later. For abandoning me, and not giving himself a chance. For robbing me of my youth and ingraining in my memory the horror of seeing him that way. I am angry with myself for not getting there faster. For not saving him, or stopping it. With his parents for the way they treated him and pretending like they didn't do this to him..he always felt helpless and not accepted. And for making me feel even more helpless when it happened. With his brother for his hatefulness those last weeks. With my mother for not understanding and being what she needed to be. With her controlling nature and trying to own my grief, and making me feel the same way Chantz's parents used to make him feel. With family members that tell me I need to move on and are surprised that I still haven't. As if there weren't feelings of betrayal associated with me moving on, or it were that damn easy. With my brother for not being there in any way. With those that moved on so quickly. With a roomate that thought the most insignificant things were worth crying over as if her life were about to end. With those that didn't know him that well and acted like they suffered a profound loss. With those that asked why he didn't go to them, when they were NEVER there for him while he was alive. If you want someone to go to you in their time of need, make sure you're there for them when that isn't the case. With those that judged him, amd judge(d) me as well. With the few that tried to shove the bible down my throat so I could "cope." With those "Christians" that claim their god is everything but their god's love was nowhere to be seen. I found more love, support and acceptance in those that dont believe in God, than in those that claim he is their everything. These thoughts are ugly, I am aware, but they are also real, and a part of this process I have to own and work through, just like everything else.

But mostly I am so angry because I am so helpless sometimes. So powerless to the entire situation, except in my acceptance.
I hate it.
If his decision was the catalyst to everything I've gone through these last ten months, then why is it that I had no influence over it? If something's going to change your life so drastically, shouldn't you at least get a fucking say in the matter?

When I come back to anger I burn all bridges and everything I've built so far. I dont think I've ever been consumed by such rage before..but that's really it though, it consumes me. No one else. My anger is only poisoning me.
Each time I come back to it it's different though, it's working through what I haven't dealt with yet. I'm hoping that the circularity of it will eventually end.
Only when I think I am done with a stage for good, it shows its ugly head again. But for my part, I am working in not destroying everything I've accomplished so far. It would take so little time to do so but far longer to start over again. I'm tired of starting over.
And the thing with acceptance, is that you realize that you can't fix it anymore, so you strive for peace.
I didnt want that for so long, it would mean he was really gone...but he is. And I want to do more than just survive. I want to live. I want to love. I want to be at peace.
I'm happy that I'm back in school, and that I'm looking for a job, and doing certain productive things as well as doing this benefit concert in a couple of days.
I'm cutting back on some of my vices, but that's the hardest part. All those vices only delude me into thinking I'm doing better because they make me feel significantly less. I'm working on that too.

Monday, June 6, 2011

What is there to say about grief?

Grief is a tidal wave that overtakes you, smashes you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped.
Grief means not being able to read more than two sentences at a time. It is walking into rooms with intention that suddenly vanishes.

Grief is three-o'clock-in-the-morning sweats that won't stop. It is dreadful Sundays, and Mondays that are no better. It makes you look for a face in a crowd, knowing full well the face we want cannot be found in that crowd.

Grief is utter aloneness that razes the rational mind and makes room for the phantasmagoric. It makes you suddenly get up and leave in the middle of a meeting, without saying a word.
Grief makes what others think of you moot. It shears away the masks of normal life and forces brutal honesty out of your mouth before propriety can stop you. It shoves away friends, scares away so-called friends, and rewrites your address book for you.

Grief makes you laugh at people who cry over spilled milk, right to their faces. It tells the world that you are untouchable at the very moment when touch is the only contact that might reach you. It makes lepers out of upstanding citizens.

Grief discriminates against no one. It kills. Maims. And cripples. It is the ashes from which the phoenix rises, and the mettle of rebirth. It returns life to the living dead. It teaches that there is nothing absolutely true or untrue. It assures the living that we know nothing for certain. It humbles. It shrouds. It blackens. It enlightens.
Grief will make a new person out of you, if it doesn't kill you in the making

(I've been here..I am still here)

Friday, June 3, 2011

Benefit Concert


For your birthday, I am throwing a benefit concert. The purpose of the night is to celebrate the significance and importance of life and to also raise awareness about the realities of suicide and those left behind in the aftermath. All the proceeds will go to To Write Love On Her Arms, a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide in your memory.
I hate the reasons why I'm doing this. I hate that this big celebration is taking place and you wont even be there for it. I'm also angry with you..and hurt about it. I do things in your honor and you dont even know. But I think you would be proud that I am taking this step. I think this is the best way to honor and represent you and your life, and what you loved most....music. This is not me pretending you were someone else, this is just accepting it and rejoicing in it and hopefully making a tiny difference in helping someone else. No one should have to go through this, and I wish that I could do everything in my power to make that happen.
I'm hoping that this will also be therapeutic and healing for me. I've been dreading your birthday for months now, not knowing what I would do...ever since we started dating I did special things for your birthday and I knew that this year was going to be such a painful blow. There's no use in spending the day drinking it away
when I could use the it to help others, myself, and celebrate who you were, right?
I wasn't allowed at your funeral, and I remember being told that your parents said I should just do something on my own to honor you in my own way. It hurt to hear that..I just wanted to be near you and I couldn't. And at the time I was in no place to even plan something. My friends were wonderful enough to plan a friend visitation, and that was very sweet of them. But this is you in every way I can think of. Now I am in a place where I can do this for you. Funerals are a necessary ritual in the grieving process..I know that by not being able to be a part of that, it took me a lot longer to realize you were really gone and led to a lot of bitterness. Now I can have my own sort of closure after all this time and move a little forward in this process.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

You're in my dreams again.
It's been a long time since I've seen you there; and the first that they haven't been nightmares.
All our mannerisms, our way of being, the feelings, the inside moments..they're all there.
It feels like home.
Then I wake up and I can't believe it was only a dream.
You're not here.

Where have you been?
I still need you.