I’ve fallen behind updating for a variety of reasons. I have been writing on things to post, I just haven’t been able to post them. The past few weeks have just been really hard.
Kim was killed one year ago today.
A few people had asked if I had anything special planned. The thing is, today may be a milestone in technical terms, but it is not remotely “special” to me. It’s the anniversary of the day the love of my life died — the day my heart was broken; the day my life was destroyed; the day my mind, sanity, and ability to function were blown all to hell; the day I continued breathing, but no longer living — and that’s something I can’t even fathom commemorating in any way. It bothers me that I’m even thinking about it at all, because for me today is no different than every single other day has been from that moment. Kim has been gone a year, but from the moment he died, every single second has been a year and this past year has been but a second. I have no concept of time any more. For other people, a year has passed. They think of it as “a long time ago” already. In fact, even friends were already thinking of it that way a few months in, because a few said things to me like, “I know it seems like he’s been gone a long time…” Uh, maybe for YOU. Not for me. In my world, in my reality (or unreality, as the case may be), he walked out the door a few minutes ago. I am still waiting to hear him come in the door every night.
Most people think grief over the loss of a partner takes about a year to get over, because that’s the timeframe usually mentioned. What they don’t understand — what I and other people who’ve lost their partners come to know — is that at the one year mark, the grief is only just beginning.
And so today, I am finally going to watch Truly Madly Deeply again, a film I desperately ached to run to from that very first night I was alone but would not allow myself to watch. I was worried what might happen if I watched it alone in that state and then one of my favorite films (and one of Kim’s favorites too, I think) would forever hold and bring back that specific point in time and I would never be able to watch it again after that. So I waited. I promised myself I would wait one year. So that’s what I’m going to do today. I just want to quietly watch my movie and be left alone.
But really, the only reason I am here posting anything at all today is that I wanted to send this song out into the ether for Kim. It is one I have listened to nearly every day and it pretty much says everything I want to say.
Something’s causing fear to fly
Rising like a dark night in silence
Traveling slow with broken boats
Heading for the sky and I’m an island
I watched you disappear into the clouds
Swept away into another town
The world carries on without you
But nothing remains the same
I’ll be lost without you
Until the last of days
The sun is in the east
Rising for the beasts and the beauties
I wish that I could tear it down
Plant it in the ground to warm your face
And I built myself a castle on the beach
Watching as it slid into the sea
The world carries on without you
But nothing remains the same
I’ll be lost without you
Until the last of days
Until the last of days
Through wars and harvest moons
I will fight for you
The world carries on without you
But nothing remains the same
I’ll be lost without you
Until the last of days
Until the last of days
And now I have to go, because I have already devoted more time and thought and recognition and power to this day than I ever intended to. This day means nothing. This day does not hold me, it does not comfort me, it does not move me.
Only Kim holds me. Only Kim. Forever.
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