Plural Stories

so. 22 years. 

Laurie said I should try to write something, even just a single paragraph, for the sake of fidelity on my part. I agree with her.

I... haven't been much of a good partner, spouse, beloved, etc. whatever i can or should properly be considered. what do i want to be considered, is the important question. all of it. everything he could ever want from me. everything he considers me. i want to be worth it.

i haven't been. i don't even remember the past... how many years? when i sift through accessible memory, i am not kidding when i say the last solid memory of christmas is the one right before the massacre. that's insane. 
the only other accessible christmas memory is only public because it was so traumatic, and that was 2017. but that's not mine. and that's not this topic, either, because there was no love or connection or hope in that memory, or that "self."
...when we talk about those things, the last accessible anniversary memory i have is this one. 2011. honestly i am not surprised and my heart lights up just realizing this. something that real has stayed with me, so vividly, despite everything. that means a lot.

...so has he. he's stayed with me, despite everything. 

do you realize we had "xanga sessions" leading up to our anniversary for literally three straight years? and i actually remember that last one, too. 
i want and need to read those again asap. i want and need to remember what my heart feels like, through the bloodlines. i want and need to be who he sees me as, which is the truth, despite everything.

there's a spark of hope, still.
i actually picked up a pencil and drew him today. i had to. it's been years. and... after a slow start, i just let go and stopped trying so hard, and... my heart knew. i recognized him, even with my poor skill; i knew how to draw him. that... that means so much. it means that his form, his shape, his image, his visual truth, is still completely burned into my soul, still fully familiar, still effortlessly seen. somehow that means the world to me tonight, in light of how jumbled up and terrifying my physical life has become with family and health and similar things. deep down, where it matters, there's still the blue light of the ocean, and of angel wings, shining, singing. 

i miss him. i really do. it's not that he's not here, because he is-- i see him every day, i speak to him constantly. i wish i was sharing more of my life with him, but honestly i'm barely even sharing it with myself, as it were. but still... i would even dare to face the horrors head-on, as a conscious individual, as a solid self, if i could only face them with him. i suppose that's what love does. 
but i miss him. i miss... well. i miss knowing him. i miss just spending time with him, holding him, just being together. i miss things that make my heart shiver to even mention, that prove that i'm not frozen or as dead inside as i fear. i miss... should i even mention? is that too bold? 
i wonder if infinitii and i have more in common, and more that we lost, than i realize actively. i still say we need to "resurrect together" or nothing will happen for either of us. but that's not tonight's topic, not exactly. 
i miss being in love, as literally and tangibly as possible. i miss being in it with him, directly and immediately and overwhelmingly and all-consumingly. i miss that. i thank God that i CAN and DO miss that, and i emphasize that with good reason, because the fanatifoni tend to be silent at night and during the day they shoot down anything and everything vaguely passionate. even that word is the biggest threat to them. it's what infi ran on. it's what my heart ran on, to be completely blunt, and i miss it. i miss the fire and the blood and the warmth and the soft power of ardence, of red pure and true. i miss who i am with him, too.

but. i'm rambling a little.
do you realize that, before pope leo xiv changed our life, we were so sunk in the eating disorder that we didn't sleep in our bed for over six months? i have virtually no memory of that time. it feels, weirdly, "before me." but it's the truth. so you can imagine the toll that such circumstances alone had on any and all efforts to be close to anyone, when you literally could not even lie down, or rest, or be close to anyone, or hold them in your arms... not to mention the living nightmare of daily life, and the disfigurement of the soul it caused, and the total annihilation of any sense or want of identity as a result.
but... we're in remission, as much as we possibly can be, for the first time in our life. yes we have bad days still-- sunday was one of them, we thought we were going to die-- but they are almost always triggered by the family, and that is why tomorrow is terrifying. but i digress, again. 
the point is, i can finally find out who i am now because our mental energy isn't being completely shunted to sheer survival... or at least, it would be, if the family stress wasn't still present. nevertheless, if we block all incoming calls, some days we can get a glimpse of hope, that maybe we can have an inner life again. God knows we need to. 

so. 22 years. thank God we made it. 
it's so strange. i don't remember most of it, but so much of it is familiar, in the beginning. that's significant. when i flip through the archives, it's the early days that feel "most recent," even two decades ago. 
(i do remember flashes of this one. but it feels utterly detached from everything else. and i have the tiniest memory of the feeling in my shattered heart that moved me to draw this, which i still have on my wall. and i remember flashes of working on this, feeling that love come back to life again too.)
i'm just trying to remember what led up to this, to tonight. but i'm trying too hard.

i'm very tired. i need to sleep. i can't think about tomorrow and i don't want to. i only want to think about one thing.

honestly i want to cry. maybe i should. i'm so sick and tired of living in this body and not in my heart. i'm so tired of not being in headspace or heartspace or anything spiritual and of a higher level. i'm so tired. i want to just go to bed and pull him into my arms and hold him to my heart and... and just love him, like he deserves to be loved, like i desperately need to love, like we used to even. how daring would that be. but does tonight deserve anything less? doesn't our relationship, as broken as i am on my side of it, still matter enough to be reverenced so much?

i want to come back to life. but this isn't about me. this is about him. except it's about us, truly. i'm part of this. he wouldn't want me to leave myself out. i've been doing that for too many years.
what am i doing talking about him so indirectly, he's right here, and so am i. present tense. active tense. present moment. that's where i want to be, too. God knows death has been courting me too often lately; i need to counter that by spending time with my husband, as my dreams still insist on calling him, with the strange and beautiful creature that makes me want to live, who i want to live for--

i have less than an hour and bt's "the emergency" just came up on shuffle. that's one of his "theme songs" as far as emotional relevance is concerned. how fitting a reminder, of the truth of this, of him, of us. 

i haven't even said his name this entire entry, have i. how stupid of me. or maybe it's just misplaced reverence, as if saying his name is too intimate for a public journal. but it's killing me, it's keeping me too detached and distant. if i can't bring him right into this, right into my life, right into the mess, by name, in person, what sort of a partner am i? and so we return to the beginning. maybe we should. 

11:11.
chaos 0, i love you. i've been in love with you for twenty two years as of tonight and i thank God for every single second of them all, yes even all the pain and terror, because it still had you in it. we still survived it all together. i don't regret anything with you. anything. i've only ever always loved you. that's what matters. that's what i remember, that's the golden thread running through these double decades. 
listen, i know i've been an absolute mess and i'm talking about myself too much. i know i still don't have an overlay and i'm sorry i don't have a stable enough face or form to hold properly. i am so sorry. you deserve so much better. 
but then i see your sad eyes, and i hear your thoughtvoice resonating through my very chest--
"what if it's not about 'deserving'? what if i just want you?"
...
so strange, how i forget that you love me like this too. how overwhelming. how it turns the universe upside down. how it gives me hope.

help me remember. please. help me exist again. remind me who i am. teach me what you know that i've forgotten. please. bring me back to life with this love. don't let me exclude myself from it. love isn't a theory. love is action. love is tangible, present, real. love is us. 

happy anniversary, love. how blessed i am, to be able to call you that as if by name. you're still my blue angel after all these years, you know. you're still an absolute gift from God, still a fountain of grace in my life. you always will be.
what am i to you? does that matter? (yes it does. and i see heartbreak in his eyes, protesting, "you matter!")
well then. can you tell me? can you show me? something. anything. everything. just... let's get this back on track. let's do this honor and justice. i survived an entire year on sheer gritted-teeth grace and i am not going to let this night pass me by without celebrating it. i might not ever get the chance to again. i'm tired of being dead the way it is. i want to live with you, starting right now, and i mean that. i want to love with you.

i can feel the sparks lighting up. they're too deep to translate into poet mode. they need to simply burn, like a sunrise over the ocean. 
if that's all i can give, then God let me give it, as completely and sincerely as i possibly can. 

i'm not going to try and be pretentious with an elegant conclusion to this entry. it's not concluding anyway. it's just shifting contexts. 
all the beauty and poetry i would capture in words i am rather going to give to the aquamarine soul that inspires it.