11:11 p.m. - 06/01/03
I'm so sorry. I don't want to feel this way.
I know that, below the surface of the day's events, there are some actually important thought and feeling processes that I could benefit from documenting. My mind's so full of studying for the exams that I should not have to take, however, that I don't know if I want to go there, right this moment. The record that spins in my head is stuck on Tracy. I had dreams about her last night. I kept trying to talk to her but never got any answers to my questions. We did some role-playing thing, where I was trying to hang onto her, and she was going away (dying), and it was all struggle-struggle-struggle, until I lost her. And then I started to cry, and the woman who was watching us "act" this told me that crying was cliche, and I should have made a more difficult choice. The whole dream, she was so light, so vibrant. She kept smiling. I haven't seen that smile in so long, you know? And I saw it last night, and when I woke up everything was harder than I can handle it being. It's easier when I forget a little of who she was in remembering what happened to her; when she's just walking around like only she walks, like it's any other day, like she's free as anyone, and she smiles that smile...it gets so much harder. To wake up, to know she died, and nothing else. I'm studying for exams to graduate. How do I do that, remembering the way her eyes lit up when we made her that poster to announce her senior-hood from the door of her room? It's just so much easier to deal with when she isn't real. When she's someone overshadowed by all the grief and loss. When she's not Tracy the way that Oshiana's Oshiana and Abby's Abby and Rae is Rae. I do the best I can, everyday, not to forget a single fact or feature of anyone there, and then she shows up in my dreams and...it's more real than real life. Grief has metal-can-lid edges, and when things get this sharp and clear, it's terrifying. And I don't want to forget her. I want to dream about her, and everyone, every night. I just want it to not dissemble me so completely so fast.
There's more. About what actually happened with Billy, that I only just now understand. But somehow, that love went away. And I'm too busy with the love that didn't, and the stupid, stupid tests, to talk about anything else.
Tracy, if you see this, don't stop coming in my dreams.
chord
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