on unnamed stages of grief; it doesn't feel real and then it feels real and you don't notice the switch
at first she was always just down the street. i knew she was dead, rationally, but it didn't feel like that, it felt like she was down the street in her apartment, it felt like she just wasn't in the same room as me, it felt like any moment now we'd be texting each other. and it was that, that for a long time. a year passed, now it's nearly two, and i never noticed it happening, when it was happening. i only noticed now, when it's already happened. how long has it been this way? how long have i felt this way, how long has it felt real? she is no longer down the street, she is no longer anywhere but her grave and our memories, she is alive but she is only alive in the past, not the present and now, not my head, either.
it's interesting. i feel like i have always loved her and will always love her. but i wasn't always in love with her - and i am no longer in love with her. there is a 17-year old version of me (and a 13, 14, 15, 16-year old version of me) within me, that is in love with her, but she is like an inner child. and one day i will be 30 and i will still contain her as we contain all past versions of ourselves but i will no longer be her, as i'm already not, in a way, i feel like like me Before died with her. it's hard, hard not to know who she would have become. it will only get harder, that and the fading memory, everything else gets easier, but that gets harder and harder, a forever downward trend.
