Hubs asked me a question that knocked me on my butt the other day. “What were you doing at 23?” I had literally no idea. I couldn’t come up with one single thing that happened in 2006. He knew where he was: “jumping.” Jobs, women, substances, etc. My sister Bernie is 23 today, and I wonder if 13 years from now she too will wonder what the hell she was up to. Probably not. She has a nice healthy brain that hasn’t been controlled for years by anti-depressants.
There’s some time I have lost. I can’t pinpoint much of my twenties, not just 23. I also have no recollection of third grade, which occurred right after my grandmother died. It’s not like the drugs I was using were recreational, aside from some occasional marijuana, and I was never a big drinker, so really I think I have to blame that old cocktail of trauma and psych meds. I asked my mother what I was doing in 2006.
She told me that’s the year my aunt Ka died, and then the floodgates opened.
I handle death very well and very poorly at the same time. Poorly in that when it’s someone very close to me, I will block out a lot of the time surrounding their passing. I honestly don’t remember most funerals I have been to. I also hate going to wakes, as they cause instant panic attacks. On the other hand, someone will pass away and I will grieve quickly, which is nice. I unfortunately do this by picturing them on a sunny island somewhere for an extended period of time.
Ka has been in the Philippines for 13 years.
I vividly remember the night she died. It was Christmas day, and I had cooked dinner for my family. She was in the hospital and it would be the first year she wasn’t with us, but I was going to go see her after dinner. My parents called and said they wouldn’t be home in time and to eat without them. It was strange. Then after dinner, as I was serving dessert, Dad called and said to come to the hospital right away. When we got there and he told me she was unresponsive and unlikely to make it through the night, I ran to the bathroom and threw up Christmas dinner.
That night Jaime and Molly and I went out for milkshakes. They had a vigil the following day at the convent, as Ka was a Sister of Mercy (a nun, in laymen’s terms.) My friend Katy sat next to me and held my hand. The next night there was a wake. I remember many of my friends coming and that got me through it, but I had a big panic attack beforehand. Afterwards my friend Tom took me out to a party. The following day was the funeral, and I sobbed over her coffin, then ran crying from the church. I remember Christina, my best friend from youth, coming and sitting with me in the reception area during the Mass. I had other friends around me as well.
The point is that my friends are the ones who got me though that, who made it so I could let go to the best of my abilities and send Ka off to the Philippines of my mind. I went back into my LiveJournal to see what I was doing in 2006, and one thing is prevalent: friendship. I was spending a lot of time with a lot of amazing people.
That was the year my aunt Mary and I went to New Jersey to meet Kevin Smith. That was a year of many parties and Jackdaw concerts with Katy, Rick, and Tom. The year me and Kev got acupuncture. Endless Wednesday night get-together with Jaime, Andy, Molly, Chelsea, Steve, and Will. Mad Yellow Sun concerts with Nick and Doug. The list goes on. The point is that I was at a low point and didn’t even realize it, and these people were there for me though it all.
Sadly, life, she moves on. My friends are now scattered to the winds. Andy and Christina live on different continents. Katy, Will, Nick, and Doug live in different states. The friends that I still have here have careers and families and lives to live, just like me, so it’s very hard to keep in touch, and eventually we all move on.
I put a meme on Facebook a while back about missing the bonds I used to have with people. From that meme, I got an inside joke from my buddy Dennis, a message from Christina with plans to see each other when she’s next on this side of the planet, a coffee date with Chelsea, and plans to meet up with Lissa and Joe, my friends from college.
Sometimes you just need to say “Hey-I miss your face.”
This is a weird post, as we went from death to friendship. But what really gets us though death? Our friends. Sometimes our family can’t be there for us because they are grieving too, but our friends pick up that slack. I blocked 2006 because of death, but I reopened that door while reading about my friends. You, my random reader, don’t know these people, so you’re unaware, but trust me when I tell you that I have been very lucky in the good friend’s department. They had the power to heal what was hurting in me when I didn’t even realize I needed to be healed.
I have been making a conscious effort to keep up with the people I love for the past few months. Between my mother’s injury and my father’s radiation, I have been holding the people that matter a little closer, thinking of them a little more often, and trying to reconnect. So, if you’re reading this and you’re an old friend of mine, please know I love you, and I miss you, and I will always be grateful for your place in my life.
Call me. Seriously. Whenever.
Ham 'N Eggs 