This is the Afterlife

2020-2021 ? I will continue to watch myself age, my image of you never will, the space between us and that version of myself will only continue to get further and further away and no matter what I try to hold on to, there won’t ever be anything as satisfying as when I could hold on to you. New albums come out that I know you’d be listening to and I can’t describe the feeling of time passing while everything seems so frozen, so permanent. There’s this confusion around the belief that everyday you recreate yourself and yet somehow I know there’s still apart of me that’s never going to leave 2017.

Aging is weird enough on its own but this kind of pain is the most lonely I’ll ever feel and I’ll admit I don’t really believe in love, it’s just one more thing I’ve grown to accept while I believe that too is a false reality I’ve inevitably grown into.

“here lies Gus”

 “here lies Jello” 

right next to each other, on the very edge of the page, sure to be the first ones I’d see. 

Things like this happen all the time, smells, feelings, phrases people say that seem sort of out of place. 

or maybe everything is out of place, because the place I want it to be, is impossible, and so many things besides memories are little locked windows. Anyways it gets my attention and I love these moments as much as they tear me apart, and I find myself in the middle of an empty desert with nothing but grains of sand rolling one on top of the other, over and over again. These take me out of my own place too. 

So I don't bother misleading myself with a hope that constantly demands that I seek out a stuffing for what will be an endless void.

I know there is no replacement, I know there is no love that will be the same, and I know

no matter how many new people I bring into my life, no matter how many genuine romances are subjected to feeling phony, no matter how happy, no matter how busy, how "full" there will always be a space for you, there will be the space we had together, which I believe will shrink with time, the impact will not, but the memories do not stand out so much, and being with you will be as unfamiliar as an earlier time in my life. This was horribly depressing for some time, and I have done what I can do to remember, to record, I doubt I will return to them as they are available, don't get me wrong, these recordings are already flawed in that they were mostly written down long after they happened, opposed to some of the entries here, most of them, are a collection of bringing forward my past and thinking about the present. There will always be the space of us together, and there will always be the space that holds what we could have been what we did not get to be, this space isn't an image of us living together happily, it's not an image of us playing out our live in any form, its not the good and the bad, the wanted, the unwanted, the imaginable horrors with in our relationship unfolding, and the most blissful awakenings we'd have together over and over,

it is a space where I think you're still here, it is a space that became nothing on the day you died. A space that sends urges through my body.

No matter how many new faces, new places, I will never cease to have the urge to message you, to tell you things, to share things with you, this I can accept, it becomes more upsetting when I can feel the reasons behind my urge, when I feel the love I have for you, when I feel the respect and admiration that sends my entire being into a longing for a response from you, longing for your feedback, your words, your wisdom, your love, for you. I can't ever have that, but the space will be there, and that little space is both a creator and destroyer.

I miss you. It will be a long winter break, I do hope to enjoy some alone time, but I fear for what it will be, and I fear for returning to work after, it will be harder. I want to find mushrooms so I can have a more intimate moment with myself and this house, so I can release some things I don't know how to access or so I can listen to the sink drop, the tape slowing peeling off the wall, to feel a passing car, to feel alone, to feel you, to feel something/ anything.

I told myself I’d go because I’m really looking for people who have been through this however that is for them, it is still comforting to be around people who need to talk about it too. However with my luck I got very sick yesterday, started the day before, I slept from 6-11 then woke up feeling hot and more sick, I went back to sleep around 1-9 and the only reason I woke up was because I heard knocking on my door, 3 times, then another 3, so I thought it must have been important, I was sure it was a roomate trying to ask me something or see if I was awake, so I said hello, when no one replied I was positive no one would be at the door, and ofcorse they were not. 

So I got up and went to the thing, the lunch non lunch provided survivor meeting for this day, surprisingly the closest one to me is a 2 hour bus ride, so I spoiled myself with a lyft, and got a ride back home, I had a feeling I’d be able to get a ride from someone, I wasn’t going to ask. 

it is so good to be around others, and I miss that connection in my home town, even if people know just a hint of gus I feel better but  I still feel uncomfortable knowing other people really don’t know and what they think they know whatever that may be makes me anxious. 

It is so strange to be in such a big city and not be close to any support group, and one I found was for people under 1 year and 6 months, which I fit in but I am really turned off that this is the structure for their thing, because there is no end to this, but I also understand how different these years are, but I also feel I have met people in year 9 who sound the same as people I’ve met in year 1. it was still pretty far from me, so I might end up trying to see if people in this area would respond to a bulliten notice for an SOSL group, not lead by a professional. I think I will proceed with this but it is hard for me to commit to things like this especially with the different turns of mood. 

I confidently believe if your mom had not felt about me the way she does, I would not be alive. If I was alive I’d be in very bad shape, abusing substances and going down the most self destructive route because deep down, there is the guilt, the feeling of being one to blame, the self blame, the lack of acceptance, the unwillingness to move on because you couldn’t... that I didn’t do enough, I couldn’t do enough, that I failed miserably and why should I go on this way? Why should I do it now when clearly I couldn’t do it then? 

but your mom, reminds me you loved me more than anything, and I can only believe her because she is extending that love on to me, and had she not, I no way could have been as strong as I am and have been, I will always have a whole, and interactions will always be missing you, without you, yet there will always be a space for you and so that space will always be unfulfilled. 

For the record I ended up writting a lot down somewhere else, but it really doesn’t get better with time, easier I guess but it isn’t right and it isn’t ever going to be the way it was, and that is the future in general. 

The music we’d listen to, I cycle through it and I’m back on bonobo, there is that song stays the same or something and I feel it so much, the lyrics obviously speak to me but I can also think of all the time we spent listening to bonobo, the first time around, we had been binging on drugs and having a lot of sex and we had come out of that into an intentional sobriety, We got concert tickets to see a show, and right on schedule you broke up with me and I sold my ticket because you didn’t want me to go at all, The way things were also hurts to look back on there is so much to our past that is not ideal for most people, and wouldn’t make sense to most people, because thats just not how “stable” people have relationships, but I always knew there are things we can’t fully understand and that none of the pain either one of else felt was ever intentional. 4 years later we are back and you are much much better than the first time, I often forget how that time was until I start picking out specific memories.. its so hard to find the best ones when the dark ones really swallow them, sometimes it is like that with our recent time too but I can really feel the inside jokes or the things we’d do and I have those moments, I have simple moments like the making of the bed, the creeping up the stairs, I have the week before where I was afraid for my own life, and I was so confused with what was wrong, with what the problem was, 

what thats just it 

there was no conflict, the problem was internal it was the dark but there was no switch, there was no sun, there was no light to come, it was impossible to see through. 

So 4 years later he is better at showing he cares, he is making more attempts to do the “stable “ couple sweet things, I did notice them, I knew that wasn’t where we were before. 

4 years later and he gets tickets again, before we go on our trip, I can’t remember if that was when.. yes it was so he gets the tickets thinking we’d still be in our homes and I’d be graduating, instead we went across the country and I took the semester from school off, 

so we didn’t see them in 2012 and we didn’t see them in 2016. 

I really got on here to say I had a bad dream last night, it wasn’t so bad but it felt awful. 

It started off inappropriate where I was sleeping with both my male roomates (like we’d take turns) that was just weird and there were more specifics about why we did that and where we were but I can’t grasp those, what I can grasp is that you showed up, or I went to some house and you were in it or I talked to someone who told me you were... anyways I find you or you find me and I am just so happy to see you but also very confused, you talk and you don’t sound like yourself, your speech is coming out irregular, it is then explained that you didn’t want to see because, even though you survived you survived with a lot of brain damage while there was no oxygen to keep everything functioning. Ofcorse I was happy to see you and that wasn’t upsetting in terms of the love I felt, but I was upset to think of you hiding away while I just wanted to be close to you, I was upset thinking of what that would feel like and how you were coping with the situation what kind of feelings were you feeling and how similar are they to the ways you felt before, I don’t know what happened after that 

most of 

all of the time, 

I still feel like you’re missing, like maybe it didn’t really happen, maybe I can still talk to you or see you, even though its already been so long, and as time gets longer, our time together seems shorter. 

I am in my own world made up by the worlds of others. I am able to be present in the presence of others, working with children is consuming and for someone like me it’s a good place to be. It makes my constant emotional regulation feel not only appropriate but natural. 

I wonder if I will always be trying to find a balance between creative expression and being present, and while they can be the same, while a process of expression is a current felt moment, it can also be a reflection of a moment before and that isn’t the same as being hyper aware of the current moment, of feeling there and available. 

I’m missing you a lot this month, after getting settled the feelings are coming back strong, I avoided talking about it, but now I feel boxed in, I want to talk about it, but I don’t want anyone to feel bad for me and I don’t want to sound whiny, Its just something I need to acknowledge and need others close to me, if they will be close to me to know so I can get the right kind of support. I am feeling particularly lonely and hopeless, and find my mind returning to this state of longing, wishing none of this ever happened. I like where I am at the moment, but its not where I wanted to be, its not where I really chose to be, its all based on that one event. Everything will always be, after that event, thats just how time works, you do something, something follows. I guess it doesn’t have to be so direct, but this feels so significant that everything relates to it, everything points to it. 

I also start feeling sad, I feel this unhealthy “no one will love me the way he did” which I understand is a common thing people believe and then stay in bad relationships, or relationships that are not the best because they’re afraid of being alone, though this is more specific toward feeling loved and loving, it is similar. I understand someone might love me again but for some reason I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it will be for the right reasons, I don’t believe I will ever feel how I felt with you again, that part of me, that part of my life is over, and all I have is what I can think I remember, and my memory, like everyones, lies sometimes. 

I am lonely and want affection and toward the end of my stay perhaps I was seeking these out in other uh not so normal ways, and now its weird, I have no desires to do this, and I do have the desire to build a relationship, but I do not have the energy, and I have the discomfort of being in love with someone else.