Starting Down The Road

The one thing that made Tuesday just a bit more bearable was that I think I laughed almost as much as I cried.

The funeral service was packed ... and absolutely beautiful. Heartbreaking, yes. But beautiful. As much as I wish it would have happened under happier circumstances, it was good to meet his family and his other friends, people that knew him and wanted to exchange stories. And wow, were there stories. There was a whole lot of life lived in those twenty-six years.

I'm starting to feel a bit more human. After getting by for about four days on mostly liquids and a lot of sleep, things needed to get a bit more normal. I've found that as long as I eat with other people, I manage to have regular meals. And as long as I can get through the mornings, I'm able to concentrate during the afternoons (yesterday and today have been wrought with me dozing off at my desk in the AM hours -- not good).

I know my own tendency to assimilate. That alarmingly cold and practical voice in my head puts me on autopilot and makes me think about everything but what's really going on. It's fine for survival, but two months down the road it always makes something hurt a lot more. This time, I'm resisting that with all my might. I am NOT going to adjust just for the sake of normalcy. He deserves better than that.

Instead, I'm watching movies that remind me of the first year of college, occasionally talking to or yelling at my Jon bear (that's kind of a long story that I might tell some other time), talking to Ashli or Darren when one of us has the sudden need. A couple of the pictures I had tacked up in my office are now in frames where I'll see them more regularly.
It's strange, this loss of a friend ... We had better not have to get used to it for quite a few more years.

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