5

How has it possibly been 5 months? On one hand, I’m feeling the clarity of memories slip away with the time/distance—this is a terrifying thing. On another hand, I can’t believe I have survived 5 entire months since Paul died. That’s almost half a year! On yet another hand (I am an octopus, right?) I am aware of every month and every week and every day that has passed, as if it has been slow motion.

Then there is this: I have read it and I have heard it and I have witnessed it, but I don’t know that I actually expected it to happen to me. It gets harder. I have needed him more, I have thought about him more, and I have dreamed about him more in recent weeks. I’ve had more things I excitedly want to tell him about. Maybe it’s the winter. Or circumstantial—the holidays, plus recent encounters with people who know me because they know Paul, or don’t know me, but knew Paul. Sometimes I feel like a proxy, living in this town that had so much more history for him than it has for me. Perhaps I am just in an awkward stage, the teenage years between fresh, dramatic grief and moving forward (hopefully this doesn’t last as long as my real one, because that’s still going on.)

There’s no point in analyzing it because the effect is the same. I’m pretty bummed out. My New Year’s resolution to channel all my energy into productive endeavors is great, but exercise and good habits can only take me so far. I guess they are good for long game results, and that’s a good place to focus. Focus? Hmm, how well do you know me?…