Christmas, memories, and how death is such a strange thing

Matt died three years ago on Christmas morning. That is such a weird thing to say. My ex, Matt, died three years ago on Christmas morning. My friend, Matt, died three years ago on Christmas morning. Still feels weird to say and write down.

I miss him terribly and I still think about him and replay memories of him almost daily. My last ex, Steven, reminded me a lot of Matt. That may have had a lot to do with why I was attracted to him emotionally to begin with. Like the way his chin looked and the way he kind of laughed? I don't know if that makes any sense? It was comforting in a way? I don't know. My ex was kind of a judgmental twat overall, which Matt never was, but I tried very much to kind of see past that snob attitude and see his best qualities. Which is something I have done consistently in life with people. One of those symptoms of being a generally optimistic person. Things will get better. Things will be okay. Everything will work out. When things rarely ever have or do. When people almost by and large prove me wrong and let me down.

I have been trying in my new relationship not to do that. Not to get swept up and not see red flags. To simultaneously not keep my guard up so much that I hinder him seeing me and my personality while  keeping my wits about me to not get pulled into some weird relationship littered with red flags and let down.

Matt died three years ago on Christmas morning. It is hard to know for sure what kind of relationship Matt was for me. He and I dated in my early twenties for a year. We had some issues with keeping our guard up with each other. I knew I didn't want to do that anymore and eventually we broke up. I ran head first into another relationship not looking at the red flags or purposely ignoring them. I ended up in a bad situation - and we all know the story there.

But I find myself alternating these patterns. After my bad situation, I fell for someone else soon after keeping myself wound up so tight I couldn't even let my guard down enough for him to actually SEE ME or feel anything for me. After that I ran blindly into a relationship with R where he hurt me quite a lot emotionally and mentally and if I am being honest, fucked up my psyche for quite some time. I keep going from guarded to unguarded.

The only time Matt and I let our guard down around each other was a couple weeks after my dad died. A couple weeks before Matt died. And that is so fucking hard to have to consider or think about. It was like everything that was stopping us from being open with each other, from being fucking honest about everything was discovered in the aftermath of a death. I have been thinking about it quite a lot lately. Those weeks leading up to his death. I was so broken and traumatized.

In particular, I think about one message he sent to me...a lot. I was in the depths of my grief over my father at the time. But nothing compared to the day I found out he died. Once the shock wore off I remember my boss driving me home to grab some things - she didn't want me to be alone and wanted me to stay the night with her and her husband. I remember walking into my bathroom and for the first time looking in the mirror and seeing my face. It was this face of this girl I couldn't recognize. I looked like a ghost.

My knees buckled and I fell to the floor screaming, crying, and rocking myself. I just kept saying, "No, Matt, come back, Matt." over and over and over and over.

That message is particularly poignant to me because of the intensity in which I grieved for him and still do.
I think everyone who knew him still grieves for him intensely. I definitely do some nights I can't sleep because of the weight of the sadness. The ever present questioning of why something like this had to happen to someone that I loved and why the world had to lose him.

What a nonsensical shit storm 2015 was.


-

I feel a sense of clarity that I didn't have in 2016. I felt the last three years I have just been walking in a fog. My senses kind of dulled from the sadness. Grief makes you weird(er than usual). It just does. I was just so helpless and useless after Matt died. I am surprised I got anything accomplished at all.

I know it is weird to say but in the weeks prior to meeting my new boyfriend I started feeling like I was walking out of a long dark tunnel almost. I felt this warmth inside me that I haven't felt in a long time. I didn't cry myself to sleep as much anymore, I started smiling about memories instead of getting weird and sad, I started to just respond differently and refocus.

Maybe it was the act of buying a house? The ending of a relationship that was keeping me kind of stagnant and leaving me unchallenged? I am not sure. But I just felt like I was seeing the world through new eyes.

Then I met, K, and even he had mentioned it was like talking to someone he had known forever. But there wasn't just comfort there - there was excitement. And that was the word. I hadn't considered that word for some time. Excitement. I found it very hard to get excited about things the last three years. But I just felt those butterflies of excitement take me over and I tried to keep myself firmly in reality and not get swept up in a relationship with someone I barely knew. But K is so similar to me and so different in so many ways that I actually enjoy and find balancing in a way. I had always been a kind of head in the clouds kind of person and I appreciate people who can kind of keep me centered in reality and help me to meet my ambitions in a reasonable way. If someone is too out there we just are too weird together and accomplish nothing. If someone is too realistic and digs their heels in - we clash and I just run off.

But I guess all I can say is that I am happy. I was laying in bed with K a few nights ago I started to happy-cry (which I haven't done in SO LONG) and said, "I haven't been this happy in so long that it is kind of weird to even feel it. I almost wasn't sure what it was."

I wasn't even sure what happiness was, what happiness after loss would feel like.
I was pretty sure I would never really feel it again and instead be stuck with feeling some parody of happiness I had created in my brain to process emotions.


And now that I felt that happiness that is all I ever want to feel again after feeling everything I have felt for the last few years.

Gone, are you really gone?

You said you needed time to disappear

But now your spirit's gone and your body's here

So long, I've waited for so long

In the streets under violet light

Like a virgin at midnight

Fall on me in your way

Fall gentle like the rain

'Til only one of us remains

Fall on me like a rose

That runs wild as it grows

That runs wild as it tears this world apart