#two years

I paced the places and the hallways where we'd meet Hoping one day you'd come my way, and sweep me off my feet

Throwback to when I accidentally had a stopwatch running for two years

when i still thought we had months rather than days left together, you told me that i couldn’t let this stop me. you told me to keep my plans, to keep going, to keep smiling, to keep living. i like to think that i’ve done that. so successfully, sometimes, that i trick myself into forgetting just how much sadness still lives inside of me.

i’ve spent my second year without you surprised by the depths of my own sadness. my notes are filled with thousands of words that try to help me make sense of what i’m feeling. my saved folder of grief posts has over 500 entries. my media consumption has been a combination of shows that numb my brain and movies that i know will break me, carefully scheduled to be viewed only on nights when it feels like the grief is suffocating me. my apple music is sick of trying to figure out if i want to drown my thoughts in Fred again.. or drown my sorrows in Noah Kahan. my phone can’t figure out whether it should suggest that i pick up the AI podcast i’m listening to for work or reread The Long Game to get more of Ilya and his dead mom and his sadness that made me consider going back to therapy.

the depths of my sadness keep surprising me because my second year without you has also been filled with momentous joy. i made new friends that have slotted seamlessly into my life, as if they were always meant to be there. i got promoted before i turned thirty. i discovered new cities and revisited old ones with fresh eyes. i learned fancy recipes that i get to make for family and friends because i’m actually a really good cook now. i saw my favourite driver win his home race with my very own eyes, and go on to win a damn world championship. i heard music that got me through my first year of grief live in concert. i went glamping (though i know that one is hard to believe).

i still manage to find purpose and meaning and connection in my life and by god, mom, the world can be so beautiful and also so cruel and i am so fortunate to get to experience it all and so unlucky to have to do it without you.