Someone I once held dear died two weeks ago. I hadn't talked to this person in nearly nine years.
This could be a story of how much of a dick I am. At this point I'm fairly sure that I'm not. We were never suited for each other, but these things are hard to learn sometimes. I can't imagine a space where either of us would have been able to talk to each other without violent storm clouds tainting our conversations. We inflicted deep trauma on each other, and while we may have worked through those days and dealt with those problems, we were never going to be in a place where we were going to reconnect. Her death doesn't change that equation. I'm moving forward with the idea that this is just the way things were.
Her death was horrible and tragic and utterly heart-wrenching. But I feel like that part of the story isn't mine to tell. That story belongs to her family and friends and those that were closer. I am only in orbit above all of that, trying to figure out what that all means for me and trying to do what is best and contributing where I can.
It has put me in a bad emotional space. I haven't been sleeping well at all. I'm facing feelings that I haven't revisited yet. I am not only grieving for a snapshot of her taken so many years ago, but also taking what amounts to a first pass of what those days meant to me and to us. I've been adamantly avoiding digging around in that dirt since the moment I took myself away from it all. And when I do think about it, it is still hot and burning and full of sorrow and pain, and I'm not sure that I can handle it on my own.
As horrible as all of that is, her death has brought me onto the path of reconnecting with our mutual friend. I also haven't talked with her in nearly nine years.
We have different trauma to deal with, and a different set of clouds that circle us. We have been emailing all week, and it has been good. I think it is the first tentative steps toward working things out between us. I feel like we're on common ground now, and we can work from that place. I've tried to be supportive over the last few days, while she has been helping out our friend's family during their really horrible time. I'd like to think that I was able to help out in this way, and maybe I actually have.
It feels like my past has detonated, and I'm dealing with the result. This world is weird and sometimes fucking terrifying. But this is where I live from now on.