I went to the barn today. I thought it would be terrible, I really did. I was supposed to go a week ago for the barn holiday party and yearly awards, but I couldn’t bring myself to face his empty stall when everyone was drinking and having a good time. So I sent my trainer my regrets, and put off going back until I felt like I couldn’t put it off anymore. When Simon first died, things were pretty bleak…
Moving on looks like many different things. Last week for me, it looked like soup bowls. I’m not one to buy a lot of new kitchenware. It’s expensive, and I don’t even currently own a dining table of any kind. The chances of me setting up a spread with formal china are about as likely as my chances to make the short list for World Cup — it ain’t happening. The plates I use every day are the same ones…
I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation where all of my friends in my immediate surrounding are writers. It’s not that I haven’t had writer friends before grad school. I have — I’ve known writers my entire life. They’ve been this lovely, obscure group of people that I can gush about books with and don’t blink at the idea of making jello shots for a poetry reading of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner turned musical when paired with…
I could write a lot about what’s been going on in the last month, but I’m not. If I did, it would be a mashup of margaritas, anxiety, bad dates, long walks, mental health and palm trees. Maybe soon, but today I want to talk about headaches. My mom has always suffered from migraines. When we were little kids, she would get quiet in the car and tell us that she wasn’t feeling well. After that it was the fastest…
I’ve been a west coast resident for an entire month. So obviously, I’m tanner and I’m thinner than I was when I left Austin. That’s just what happens here. Something in the air. Don’t hate the beautiful people! Jokes aside, I am starting to get in a better place with my health. To help Pascale cope with losing her big backyard and barn time, I walk the dogs 2-3 miles a day. Plus the university’s baseball complex by my apartment…
People tend to show their love and wealth through possessions. One of the first things I did when my Dad visited this past weekend was to hand him a few trinkets I bought him from Japan. Even as I bought them, I knew that they weren’t items he wouldn’t be able to live without but I felt it necessarily to come back with something. To me, coming back with a few items in plastic bags with foreign script says I was…
Sunday is the two year anniversary of Tim’s death. In the two weeks leading up to this milestone, I dreamt about him often. I dreamt that I was in a van traveling up the east coast, carrying his suitcase and things around with me. He traveled with me in the cargo area, but nobody else could see him. I asked him if he was upset he died young. “I accomplished a ton before I died,” he said. It was something…
This time of year in the land without true seasons, Texas is a slur between spring and summer. Days start dipping into the 90’s and the air is a thick slug of humidity from the thunderstorms and rain that linger from spring. The bluebonnets are long gone, but they’re replaced by wild sunflowers that grow everywhere. Two years ago, I was driving around with Tim to the hill country. He had rented a cabin outside of Fredericksburg for us as…
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” – C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed I miss Tim every day, but I am rarely lonely. To me, loneliness is a toxic state that leads to bad choices. People compromise when they’re lonely – they panic. It’s too easy to reach out to those you know are bad for you, and there’s this quiet fear in the background of loneliness. A little voice that says, this is how you’re going to be…
Last week I chatted with a coworker about his visit to a deprivation chamber. It’s a super small, enclosed tub with no light where you’re supposed to go float and meditate without anything around to stimulate your senses. I think it’s to re-create the feeling of being in the womb, or some crunchy granola hippy thing like that. I asked him how he liked it. “It was cool at first,” he said. “The thing that everyone talks about is that without any…
I hate it when people refer to ages in weeks or months. Like why are babies “61 weeks” instead of a year? I’ll break my own rule and say it’s been 20 months since Tim died. That’s less than two years, more than a year and a half. Every month seems important, so I count them. Maybe it’s the same for weeks with babies. Maybe we measure massive growth in the most finite unite possible. It’s surprising to me how much…
Last night I sat on the porch with my roommate as she scrolled through Facebook on her phone. “I’m over everyone with these ‘I Love Us’ stuff,” she said without looking away from the screen. “What are you talking about?” I replied. “You know how they do profile pictures for holidays, well they have a Valentine’s one that says ‘I Love Us’ with a heart and a ton of people are switching to it.” “Barf.” She giggled on the dark porch….