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5:35 p.m. - 07/06/02
for this one...i need...m/e:rcy.
I secretly listen to Gospel music on days like this. and I start thinking about how, "really, *honestly*" everyone in the world should own Hope For the Flowers and the original cast recording for "The Secret Garden." even though I don't own the former, and only have the second because I steal it from my dad on regular occasions. it's just that kind of day when, set to the right music, inspiration comforts. inspiration comforts, no matter how corny.

what happened to me, really, is still a mystery. hmmh. jenna always said... I think maybe I quit feeling sometime this year. yes, again. the fact that I seem to have these outbursts of "crazy grief" would definitely support that theory. the fact that I can't identify my feelings easily for days at a time (something I'd previously been good at) only to explode into a puddle of tears, well, it would suggest there's something wrong. I don't know how to say this, but...six months ago...my roommate, Tracy...who was this absolutely amazing girl with the best smile and eyese and heart...went into seizures after being stabilized after taking too many pills. went into seizures and didn't come back from them. went through seizures and disappeared from me.

and I don't talk about it. I don't. not the way that you *have* to talk about something like this, not the instantaneous, whenever you think of it, random mentions of this or that, stock-tacking. I don't have people in my life who can *listen* about it. I don't want people to talk with me about it. not really. not before they listen. I don't need the religious or psychological perspective on what happened; I need to talk about me. me. that's why I haven't felt the way I need to feel for six months.

because I made a promise (never spoken to anyone beyond my ears) in the days following That Call, which went along the lines of, I will not make this about me. I will not pretend that your pain, and this horrific outcome of it, are in anyone *mine.* I won't be a victim, because you didn't victimize me. I won't be angry because you didn't mean it. I won't be sad because you obviously had. so much more. sadness...

I won't talk a word of it because I'm still here, and what right do I have to say anything about you, when obviously you are so far beyond me? How can I say, "I feel pain" when your pain went beyond your feeling? How can I say, "it's hard to keep going" when it was obviously so much harder for you? How can I speak these things, as if I matter at all, in the same world as your magnitude? I can't. I haven't. I'm not sure I will.

After it happened, I started to think about the time we spent together at Red, and I started to feel guilty. I started to feel guilty for all the times that I didn't stay up and talk with you; I started to feel guilty about the fact that I was your first roommate (then), and now the only one you ever had - and what a sad job I did. I started to feel guilty about how much of the staff's time I monopolized, about every day I talked in group. I started to think, if I hadn't been there, you would have gotten more from them; you would have been ok. I still think this.

when Paul died, I asked miss spaniels why I had been given the opportunity and support to keep going and he hadn't, why I'd gotten out of it, and he hadn't. she said that he had the support, but didn't use it. she said the difference with me was that I used it. I never believed her; I was still angry. someone should have done something; if only we had known.

I feel like I took up too much room with my living while you were here; I don't want to do it with my grief after you're gone. I feel like I made it all about me: I was hopelessly self-absorbed (we all were); I had the audacity to get better (I had to)...I don't know how to do all this grief work now without saying I deserve the focus. See. I had gotten so much better at I deserve help, not just them, but in comparison to you, I feel like a dirty attention-thief. I'm still trying to give you whatever little piece you needed then, and in the meantime, I'm neglecting myself again.

Tracy, I need your permission to survive this. I don't think I can ask for it yet, but I'm voicing that at some point, I might need...god...

I've moved from Lauren Slater to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. the EKR book discusses a difference between grief and grief work. grief is the natural emotive response to loss. it's a gift; it feels like a release. grief work is the business following: the guilt, the what-ifs, the question-answering, the work that was not or could not be done before the loss. it's jargon basically, but in the language of that jargon, I can see that I have grieved but I've done no grief work, and I think that's what's stopping me from progressing in *all* areas; I can only go so far in one arena before other restraints catch up with me.

I just - still feel as if my taking too much meant your getting too little. The idea of taking more is like vandalizing your grave. It's a second transgression in a world where one strike is more than enough to put me out of the game...

I'm. so. sorry, girl. I am...
chord

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