Thirty-Four Days April 4, 2010

I’ve spent more time than you can imagine trying to figure out how to start this post. Trying to find some possible way to even begin to explain to you what has taken place. I’ve tried to think of ways I could say what has happened without actually having to write it, because writing it makes it real and I’m not ready for this to be my life. I’m just not ready.

In the end though, I’ve decided that the easiest way (or the least painful way, and yes- there is a difference) to explain why I’ve fallen off the face of the Earth, and why I’m still falling is just to say it. So here’s the post. That explains everything. And nothing.

On March 1st, H.A.D. emailed me. He said that he had thought about things, that he had decided that treatment wasn’t for him, so he was quitting. He was also quitting his job (by the time he had emailed me, he had already handed in his resignation), packed up his stuff- left a note for his roommate and was going. The “where” he was going was never made clear, he just said that he had decided that he wanted to drive. And be alone. He was kind in his email- he told me he loved me, that he was sorry. An attempted band-aid to a hurt, … a hurt I cannot even begin to explain to you. I read it in my classroom as the kids around me laughed and talked. The day is a blur of worksheets and movies, sobbing in the bathroom at work and anxiously writing sub plans so I could take some time off.

H.A.D. and I had been long distance- it hadn’t been ideal but we had been making it work. Our plan was 10 days during Spring Break, then I was going to move in with him for the summer and we would take it from there. Spring Break started March 5th. H.A.D. had promised to pick me up from the airport- in fact, we had argued over him picking me up. I had said it was too much work for him, I knew chemo was leaving him tired and he said it was something that he  wanted to do. As selfish as it was, I was secretly glad he was going to meet me, I loved having a dude who would be there waiting for me. On March 1st, he told me not to bother coming. Because he wouldn’t be there.

Of course, I believe in great big things and I flew down to meet him anyway. I waited by the baggage claim as couples around me reunited, each second finding it harder and harder to breathe, my vision blurred with tears and my heart heavy knowing that I was looking for someone who would not be there.  I will never, ever forget standing near a woman who burst into tears when she saw her man come through the entry doors. Her crying was uncontrollable and by the time I heard her say ” I didn’t think you were going to be here”, my crying was uncontrollable too.

I have a friend who lives a few hours away, who drove to the airport and picked me up. And listened to me sob as we drove down the road, drove into Seattle- the city H.A.D. and I had planned to weave our lives together in. We checked into the first hotel we found and while my friend slept, I cried into my pillow- hoping the cheap cotton would be enough to muffle my sobs.

Many people asked me why I still went to Seattle when H.A.D. had told me he wouldn’t be there. I can’t give a good answer other than saying that it was something I had to do. And even more people have asked me why I stayed- spent nights sobbing in a hotel room, looking at the sights that H.A.D. had promised to show me himself. Again, I don’t have an answer. By this point I knew he wasn’t going to magically appear, he had made sure to tell me that he wouldn’t be coming- but I’m a believer. In people and ideas and love and although my head said he wouldn’t be there, my heart would never forgive me if I didn’t stay. I lasted four days before I broke down, in every sense of the word- and booked an early flight home.

I honestly don’t remember much of the trip. I cried a lot. H.A.D. wouldn’t answer his phone but would send me texts/emails so I was still in some contact with him. I wandered a lot. I sat on benches and wept so bitterly people stared. Everywhere I looked, everything I saw was a reminder of something H.A.D. and I had said we wanted to see together or do together or taste together and now I was a girl sobbing on a bench. To say that I was sad, or to say that I cried, it will never do my visit or what happened there justice. It was (and still is) almost like a searing pain that reached every atom in my body. It was (and is) a sadness, an anguish so deeply felt that it literally took my breath away and would leave me grasping for air- and answers.

It’s been thirty-four days. H.A.D. is still gone. We talk occasionally on the phone or bbm, not often though- our fighting is, well, it’s something that defies words. I refuse to accept this- and he refuses to come back. To him, coming back means treatment (he says he cannot be with me and not do treatment, the guilt of not doing treatment would be too hard) and he does not want that. It does not matter that I have said that he does not have to do treatment,- something that still chokes me up to say out loud, he refuses. He refuses. And I refuse to believe that this choice is the best choice- or even in the top one thousand of best choices, so we fight. And when we are too tired or worn down to fight, we don’t talk.

They say that you can tell a lot by a person by how they handle a crisis. If that’s the case, I don’t want to hear what people think of me.  I’d love to tell you that I’m doing well, hell- I’d settle for doing okay, but I’m not. I’m not well by a long shot. Imagine the person you love most in the world, the person who you’ve shared a thousand laughs, buckets of tears, confessions that have made you blush, your accomplishments, your fears, even those family secrets you never thought would leave the vault- now imagine that person leaving. Suddenly. And that they tell you they are not coming back.  Just try, for one second to imagine what that would be like, then magnify that by the largest number you can think of- because imagining it does not come close to what it actually feels like.

Besides the obvious sadness of not knowing how to help the person you most want to take care- there’s a paranoia that sets in and settles into your brain so effortlessly, you wonder if this happens to everyone in your situation. And then you wonder, has this happened to anyone else? And you feel more alone than ever before. You second guess every choice you’ve made, you wonder if you pushed them too  hard, if the fight about the Olympics hockey game was too mean, if you could have said something, did more, loved harder. And you find yourself exhausted, because with every past incident or word or moment that ever passed between the two of you, you replay it in your mind and search for how you could have done something differently to avoid all of this.

It’s a game to play when you drive late at night down nameless roads that are safe because they share no attachment to the person who is making your heart ache. It’s a game to play- you drive down the road and wonder where everything first started to unravel. What was the first choice made that loosened the threads of love and commitment? What was the first word that tugged the string loose, that caused the unraveling to begin? I play this game every night, as I drive around trying to figure out where everything first went wrong. I play this game every night as I think about how much I miss someone who is still here but won’t be with me. I play this game, I torture myself with this game as I let the memory of so many better days wash over me… giving me a brief respite before I realize, that those days are gone.  I play this game every night as I try to figure out how to keep going, how to not scratch the hives that dot my skin, how to calm down to avoid another panic attack, avoid another trip to the hospital. I play this game every night as I try to understand all of this, any of this. I play this game every single night while I try to figure out how to keep breathing when nothing, absolutely nothing feels right.

I miss you.