Ramblin' Out of the Wild West

Lookin forward to some ups and downs in New York Town. I find myself playing Bob Dylan's "talkin new york" song over and over again. I will be living in New York within the next two months, and I can hardly sit still I'm so excited. I want to walk through the city alone, get a drink at a new place every night of the week. Have dinner in Brooklyn. I can finally visit all of Alan Hardings restaurants. I can wear my boots and not feel out of place.

The internet is effin crazy. You never know who may end up stumbing upon your mundane thoughts. I'll spare anyone who may read this from yet another post on the same ol topic I've been writing about here for almost two years. It's not even as if I could write about it anyhow. I have definitely transitioned out of the grief. The process of grief is such a uniquely powerful experience. When it lifts, there is a rebirth of sorts. A purification of who you once were and the person you are now. Some people take it and are able to use it as a way to better themselves. I've hoped and prayed that I would find my way through the fog and into a purer mindset. And I believe it has happened. Just having the openness to meet new people is a huge statement to where I am today. I've met so many beautiful people in the last few months. For lack of transition I will just say that I feel as if I have seen the sky for the first time. And the ocean. Combined. It's as if the beauty of the ocean and sky were fused together and I am sitting on the sand, jaw dropped, in awe. The way it flows in and out of my life everyday is absolutely enchanting. It crashes down with such force I can do nothing but take cover and look forward to the next time it comes my way.

I think it's time for me to start writing again. At the request of someone special I think its time. The act of writing everything down from day 1 until now was and continues to be cathartic. It started with the hope that somehow through writing I would be able to come to some conclusion as to the reason why this had to happen. I thought that perhaps the more I rehashed everything, the more I battled through the pain with words I would come to an end point when I would say 'ah yes, this is why'. I am probably further from that than when I started all of this. She is so far away now. I think of it almost like a never ending river. I picture this meandering river, flowing back and forth. She just keeps floating down this river, continually moving. For a long time I imagined myself jumping in and swimming towards her. I had so many dreams in which I chased after her, whether it be through the whimsical world my mind created, or simply through an airport terminal. I've stopped chasing her though. I've let her continue on her path, alone, and given in to the fact that I can not possibly keep running her down. I am living my life on my own, allowing her to continue on without me. I have finally accepted the fact that I must live on without her. I now go through life with the understanding that she is constantly with me. I am here today for her. I am living life to the fullest. For her. It's such a cliche, but its only cliche when you don't fully understand its importance. I will be forever grateful to her for putting me through this. Just writing that makes me feel ridiculous. But its true. Oh, of course I would give anything to have one more moment with her. I'd give anything to have her smile at me one more time, or to feel her lips on mine again. But that isn't how this works. She was an angel that came into my life and the gifts she gave me will never truly be able to be put into words.

I can't hold it in anymore. I can't pretend like what happened the night before her seizure simply did not occur. Her family said that they didn't want anyones perception of her to change. I don't care anymore. I am holding this in and it is absolutely killing me. Ignoring what happened is just as bad as ignoring her epilepsy and pretending like she didn't have that either. I have had these thoughts lately that what happened to her was essentially suicide. That she knew she was doing something that was a great risk to her health, and her life. I can't get past the fact that she knew she was taking her life in her hands, and that she was always a greater risk for seizure if she had any alcohol. Not only did she drink the night before, but her step sister decided to put her in a situation in which there were people doing large amounts of cocaine. In a matter of weeks from when she moved out of SB and to LA did she go from living a healthy, albeit difficult, life to snorting coke with her step sister and ultimately killing herself in the process. Her cause of death was overdose. Even though she drowned in the tub of the shower, the amount of cocaine found in her body led the medical examiner to conclude that it was an fucking overdose that killed her. My miss. She was not a drug user. She was strong and knew the dangers of her epilepsy. I will never understand how this happened. How things changed so drastically in such a short amount of time, leaving me here to deal with it. And I will never understand nor forgive her step sister for aiding in the process. For being so ignorant and without any sense of obligation or responsibility.

Much of what I write here consists of the same. Over and over and over again, I either write about how much it hurts, how I don't understand, or the overall disbelief for the entire situation. She is still gone. It is still unfair. It still hurts. I still miss her. I still can't believe that she won't pick up my call, and her phone has been turned off for quite some time now. I still don't understand how she could have been so stupid that night. She was so selfish to leave me here to deal with this. I was told that it would take a year for me to get through the grief. Well, it has been one year and 4 days since she died and I am at home, crying once more.

I did not go to the cemetery today. Instead I drove up the coast to Santa Barbara, and drove through the city remembering her in every place imaginable. From the house on San Pascual, where she came over the first night with Piper while I was living with Josh. I drove to Chapala and Fig, and watched people get off the bus imagining and remembering what it was like to see her get off the 24X with her sunglasses on, always smiling and happy to see me. I drove to the house in West Beach, where we spent so many lazy days together. The tree that was struck by lightning years ago during a particularly stormy winter has since recovered. I went and visited 1134 Garden, and saw her opening our window to toss the keys down for me to open the front door. I noticed the prius taxi that would drive us around and heard her say "red to garden," because she thought that it was so funny that she was in on the taxi lingo. I watched couples walking down State St. on their way to the farmers market. I watched as they held hands and enjoyed the first few days of fall. I drove up to the Mesa to Elise Way. One of the last memories I have of her is standing outside of 2059 Elise Way, watering the flowers in the front yard in her red bikini. I sat and cried in my car as I looked at the front lawn of that house, and noticed that the flowers she watered that afternoon are gone. I drove through the city over and over, and on each new corner I passed a memory that had faded was there again in my mind. From the rainy night we walked to the italian restaurant on lower state, to riding our bikes to butterfly beach. I have used Santa Barbara as an instrument of pain the past year. Each time I feel her fading, I drive up the coast and thrust myself into these memories. More and more time passes between my visits, and I hope that one day I can go up there and not feel pain and simply enjoy the beautiful nature of the town. One day.

Tomorrow will be one year. I have been dreading, and to some extent, avoiding the thoughts of what this day means. Of the thoughts and memories it brings up. For the past year, I have been able keep telling myself, "oh, last year at this time we were in santa barbara" or "we were driving up pch" or even knowing that she was alive and in the hospital. Tomorrow will mark the last day that I can say those things. The last day actually begins the day before. Saturday afternoon. I walked into her hospital room, as I did everyday, and knew that something was wrong. When I say wrong, I mean that I could tell that her fever had risen, and as I wiped the sweat from her face and forehead the only thing I could think of was how are we going to get this fever down. Her blood was infected and she was less than 36 hours away from dying and the only thing I thought was wrong was that her body temperature had risen a little. I will never forget how the sweat drained from her body. All my life playing sports, and watching sports on television, I have never seen anyone sweat as much as she did that day. She was drenched. I kept drying her off, thinking that a cold rag would keep her cool. I told the nurse that we needed to give her tylenol to help with the fever. The nurse just looked at me unaffected, and I am sure she is used to giving tylenol to patients in an effort to appease loved ones last ditch hopes. I stayed with her that day for as long as I possibly could. No one else saw her that day. I woke up early Sunday and went straight to the hospital. As I entered the room, she was elevated in her bed, sweating again, and shaking. She spent the entire time in the coma in constant motion but today it was much more violent. I imagine angels in the room with her that day, standing by her side, shaking the last bit of life out of her so she would finally be able to rest. There were 6 or 7 nurses and doctors running throughout the room, and this is when I knew that I wasn't going to be able to get her fever down. I was the first one in the room that day, and by nightfall I was kissing her forehead and telling her goodbye for the last time.

Very close to one year passing. I think of her now and she is so distant. And to think that I didn't even know what had happened to her until over a day after it happened. I will never forgive those people who kept that from me. How fucking dare they. How fucking dare they do that to me. How fucking evil and without a fucking soul.