Well
I guess it’s time to break the silence. 2009 has unmistakably been the most horrendous year of my life so far, and we’re not even half way through it. I’ve had a rough couple of months to say the least and while it wasn’t my intention to abruptly stop blogging, I did. I simply didn’t have the energy, the gusto or drive to look back every once and a while and write it down. I mainly just wanted to forget. But you know, spring is upon us and I happen to love spring, the first real sun on my face is one of the most invigorating feelings I know. So, I changed the look of my blog and I hope to be able to change the tone a bit as well. After all, I am about to become an auntie again and there’s nothing like the fragility and power of a new life to snap you out of the false comfort of endless self-pity.
I’ve been slacking at work, calling in sick when I didn’t feel like getting out of bed way too often and just generally not caring enough to even come close to doing my best, which is what I get paid for. Come to think of it, I’m lucky I’m still getting paid. Luckily there’s Wonder Woman Alice, Employee of the Year, who keeps picking up the pieces. She is so annoyingly perfect with her perfectly ironed suits and that perfect smile that never goes away, she always knows what to say and she manages to stay modest so I can’t hate her. I could never hate Alice. I’ve thought about throwing the towel in, quitting my job and leaving this city to start fresh elsewhere or take a few sabbatical months and move back in with my parents, but, and I know this may sound totally crazy, I have Fred and Ginger to take into consideration. It’s as if all the love I had for Ben has been transformed into love for these two furry cute creatures and taking care of them is the only duty I have left where Ben is concerned. And you just simply can’t move two cats to another country. That’s right, I’m being tied down by cats and the craziest thing is that I don’t care because there isn’t a thing that I wouldn’t do for them. They are so sweet, so loving, so goofy and so pretty; they break my heart every time I walk out the door.
I’m still living with Helen but she and Mona got back together so our flat is now occupied by three people and two cats (who seem to get bigger every week). I should start looking for a new place because it could give me a fresh start but I don’t want to live on my own anymore. I’ve gotten used to the company and the comfort of a bigger apartment. Of course Helen and Mona say that I can stay as long as I like but who wants to live with a newly reunited couple? That is not my long-term goal, I can tell you that. So, I’m looking into new roommate possibilities but I have high standards so either I lower my standards or I postpone it all a bit longer. You guessed it right, I chose to postpone. I spend a lot of my time with Theresa anyway.
That’s right, the path to self-destruction continues. I don’t love her or anything, she’s more like a friend with benefits, lots of benefits. The thing is that I’m actually quite hung up on Alice and Theresa is the kind of person who doesn’t frown on me madly crushing on a straight girl. It amuses her. I fully realize that I’m nothing more to Theresa than amusement, distraction and a power trip but I don’t want to be anything else to anyone else right now. I should snap out of it really, I was hoping that the warmth of the sun, that seems to pass right through my heart at times, would help me see sense. And it does, but I still keep going back to Theresa. Maybe it’s more than a warped friendship, maybe it’s also companionship and comfort, it must be.
I’ve been living in this bubble but I feel that with the rise in temperature my bubble of protection is slowly starting to burst, it’s as if I needed that time in my bubble to get ready to face life again, to wake up in the morning and to actually believe that today will be okay instead of pretending to believe it.
So far for this quick update. I hope to be back with more soon (but lately I tend to spend my lunch break on catching up on my sloppy work).
Monday
Since the moment we heard the news about Ben I’ve hardly had any time on my own, not that I wanted to be alone because I really needed the company but it was all becoming a bit too much. People keep on coming over to tell you that they’re there for you but meanwhile you’re being there for them. I don’t mean to seem ungrateful because I actually appreciate all the attention and care but I just wanted some time alone with my thoughts and my memories. It’s not that I wasn’t able to steal the odd hour or two of solitude, it’s more that that wasn’t enough anymore. Also, moving in with Helen didn’t mean that she stopped sleeping in my bed. She’s had it really rough, Ben was one of her oldest friends and at first she was all brave about breaking up with Mona but you don’t just walk away from a five-year relationship and move on, especially not when your best friend just died. And while we find support with one another it is quite emotionally draining to always be around her. I do understand that she doesn’t want to sleep alone, she hasn’t slept alone in years, but I’m used to being the only person (apart from two cats from time to time) in my bed.
I told all of this to Alice after work on Friday and she said that I was more than welcome to spend some time at her place over the weekend. I don’t know what all those years of studying have done to her brain but she seems to have some sort of a solution to every problem and she doesn’t need a whole lot of time to come up with them either. She told me to get Steve or another close friend to come and stay with Helen over the weekend so that I wouldn’t spend it worrying about her and she then said that she would be expecting me at her house the same night after which she would leave me there alone and in peace until Sunday evening. It sounded like a good plan at the time. Steve didn’t have a problem with staying with Helen seeing as he’s practically living at our flat, when he’s not working or sleeping that is. And Helen understood. So I packed a bag with some bare necessities and made my way to Alice’s. We had dinner together and then she left. I didn’t tell her I wanted her to stay (but I think she knew anyway which is probably why she did).
This whole thing with Alice is growing out of proportion in my head; the situation has a lot to do with it of course because at the moment she’s my only escape. She’s the only one who can really distract me. Maybe because she has no connection to Ben whatsoever. But also because, well, she’s wonderful. I’ve only known her for a good month and already I can’t imagine life without her. It’s a bit crazy, I know, but I’m seriously infatuated with her and I need to get over it. I mean, not only is she totally straight, she’s also my colleague. If I don’t find some way to nip all these insane feelings in the bud it’s going to drive me crazy. Because there I was, finally left to my own devices, alone in Alice’s house, surrounded by her things… just hoping that she would return. I thought being alone was what I wanted but I should have known better. Who wants to be alone when their best friend has just died? I just needed a break from Helen, and I’m saying this with the utmost respect for Helen who is very very dear to me, but it had all gotten too intense. What with her break-up I started feeling like some surrogate Mona and in normal circumstances I would have just told her but things being how they are all I wanted was to spare her and forget about myself.
I knew Alice wasn’t going to come back, I was tired but I haven’t really been able to sleep and I was just sitting there thinking about who I could possibly call. It needed to be someone who would get drunk with me in silence and who wouldn’t mind staying the night without asking stupid questions. For some reason I ended up calling Theresa… Maybe because she’s familiar, maybe because she’s not (overly) nice, maybe because she came to see me the day before. Who knows what the real reasons behind our actions are? Either way, I spent the weekend at Theresa’s house (I was hardly going to invite her into Alice’s bed) and she took care of me. She did everything I wanted her to do, she was perfect, she was just what I needed at the time.
Was it silly of me? Probably but I don’t regret it, regret seems like such a wasted emotion these days. And we’ve all got to do what we’ve got to do to get through.
Friday
Even though it may sometimes seem trivial in light of what has happened, life is still life. My life has surely changed a great deal and while losing Ben makes me feel angry and above all sad, I’m still alive and I’m not helping anyone by not at least trying to enjoy it. Do you know who said that to me? Of all people Theresa thought she had to give me a lesson in life. I’m not saying that she’s not right, because in essence she is; it’s just that I didn’t really want to hear it from her. (She showed up at my office last night, with the best of intentions, but still, I didn’t really need to see her.)
What I’m actually trying to say (and what Theresa unknowingly made me realize) is that I think I may need all the drama I create to go on, Ben and I, we were two massive drama queens, in a way it really defined us and our friendship but most of all: it’s just the way we lived our life. He hasn’t got a life to live anymore, be it a dramatic or a sane one, but I do. And I have my own ways of dealing with pain. So that’s what I shall do…
I made it through my first week of work and I’m starting to settle in at Helen’s. And I guess I’m slowly starting to blog again, although I haven’t settled back into my old blog routine, I do need it. At the moment it’s still a bit of a two-edged sword because when I blog I write about Ben and it’s not always easy because every time it hits me that he is really gone. I’ve always said that blogging was my therapy and while it is very therapeutic for me to write down all the things that I do, there aren’t many things on Dyke Tales that I didn’t talk to Ben about. Even though I never told him about the blog itself, I’m sure he would have loved it. But I didn’t need to tell him about Dyke Tales because he was in the know about almost all of its contents (and I need my anonymity, it wouldn’t have been the same if he was reading along, it would have made me self-conscious in some way and that’s just what I’ve always tried to avoid). It makes me see once more what a great friend he was. I also wrote about Ben a lot on here, he frequently showed up in my blog posts and only being able to refer to him in the past tense from now on is rough. (It’s always the seemingly little things that make you cry the hardest.)
I also want to thank you all for your kind words (and if I owe you a long over-due reply to an e-mail, I have not forgotten) and supportive comments. I know that I’m just an anonymous blogger, one of many, but it’s just that anonymity that allows me to share my grief (and all the other things) the way that I do. Some of you have spurred me on to keep blogging and some readers have expressed what my blog means to them personally, I find comfort in that. So, big virtual dyke hugs to all of you who feel for me despite not knowing me.
Tuesday
What is so cruel about someone close to you unexpectedly passing away is that the world seems to stop but actually it just goes on. Life goes on. That must be about the cruellest phrase in the universe. But it is true. That’s what makes it so cruel. It has been more than two weeks and I’m back at work. I’m back at work because life goes on. I also moved out of our flat and am now living with Helen. Our old flat is totally empty. At first I didn’t know what to do with Ben’s stuff apart from put it in boxes but his parents and brothers thought it would be best to give as much things away as possible, as a sort of reminder to people who want something physical to remember him by. I kept his Barbra Streisand CD collection, he sure loved himself some Barbra, we didn’t live together for that long but the times I came home to him singing along to The Way We Were were endless. In the beginning I hated it but I warmed up to it, how could I not… (He could be such a queen sometimes, one of the many things I loved about him.)
I also cleaned the whole apartment all by myself (which is not that difficult when it’s empty) until I thought it was clean enough to make Ben proud, it’s an understatement to say that he liked the place to be clean, so I gave it a last thorough once-over in his honour. And then I left and I don’t intend to return. It’s kind of a relief to be living in a new place now, even though it’s in the same building and it has a lot of history, at least I’m not sitting on his couch or I’m not cooking with one of his pans. And of course Helen’s flat has a lot of memories of Ben as well, but at least it doesn’t constantly remind me of the fact that he’ll never be coming home again.
It does feel odd to be at work, my boss told me to take it easy but I didn’t come here to pretend to work, essentially I came here to get my mind off things. Not that it’s working because everybody’s walking on eggshells around me, with the best intentions I know, well, everyone except Alice. She’s been doing a lot of my work, staying late and coming in early and she came to see me at home almost every day. She says things like: “Ben’s not here to take care of you anymore so I will.” She says things that other people would dread to say to me under the circumstances. I like her, I like her too much and I’ve been indulging myself in her sympathy, but I don’t care. She doesn’t seem to care either. Apart from distraction, Alice is probably the main reason why I came back to work. It’s messy and it’s hopeless but right now I’m in a situation in which I don’t have to care about that. One of the last things Ben said to me before he walked out of the door (never to return) was to just go for it with Alice. It was so like Ben to say that. No matter what crazy crush I told him about, he always said: “go full speed ahead, babe!”
I miss him.
Ben (wasn’t even his real name)
Ben wasn’t very much of a relationship guy, maybe that’s why we got along so well, because we always understood each other’s dramas so well. He was very much a friends guy though; he would have walked through fire for us. He was a little bit crazy, but in a good way, he always had something original to say and there was absolutely nothing that could shock him. He was so easy to talk to and living with him was so wonderful, we should have moved in together years ago. But I guess we were both too hung up on the thought that any day now we were going to meet the love of our life and we wanted to spare each other the loss of a leaving room mate. That must have been it. I truly believe that what connected us so deeply was our hope, our hope that one day we would find true love, because we were never not in a relationship by choice, we were single because falling for the wrong people is what we did best and getting hurt is what we bonded over at Sunday brunch. But we always had a shoulder to cry on because we had each other. The way Ben always fell for the wrong guys, it was almost legendary. It wasn’t tragic, it was just who he was. I’m a lot like him that way.
But we were also very different because Ben was such an optimist and you could almost never catch him saying something bad about someone. He was always there for everyone, he was very sociable, always out and about and he had such a big mouth. He frequently said the wrong thing but it was never out of malice, he just always wore his heart on his sleeve and you could always count on him to give you the truth. Unlike me he never got totally caught up in his own dramas and I know that I left him hanging from time to time, when I felt my own stupid tragedy was more important than his. I regularly put myself first, he never did that.
Ben was such a great guy in so many ways. He was ridiculously good-looking too and he didn’t even have to try. He was the one who got me into going swimming every week, although the main reason why he went swimming was to stand at the side of the pool in his tiny swimming trunks so people could get a good look at his perfectly proportioned torso. He was pretty vain that way but I don’t know any gays who aren’t really. Helen and I once tried counting all the guys he had been with but it was an impossible task. He loved having a good time and he didn’t shy away from one night stands, he was often quite lyrical about them. I loved getting drunk with him, he would get even louder than he usually was and shout out all sorts of obscenities, and I often almost wet myself with laughter when I was with him.
He was also a very good cook (and admittedly quite a neat freak), he won every mother over in a matter of seconds with his charm and he could talk to anybody. He wanted to enjoy life as much as possible and being his friend made you want to do that as well. When I moved to this city and I didn’t know anybody he took me under his wing. He was the best friend any girl could have and it has been such a privilege to know him the way that I did. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do without him.
Wednesday
I don’t know what to do. When someone so close to you dies you tend to question certain things, well, you tend to question everything really. I asked the doctor to extend my sick leave for another week because I simply can’t bear to go to work yet, I know I can’t stay home forever, and trust me I wouldn’t want to either, but there are also quite some practicalities that need to be dealt with. That’s life for the ones that stay behind. Ben and I lived together and our flat will always remind me of him. So I’m going to move out. I can’t stay here, I simply can’t. Helen and Mona, who have not decided to get back together after this tragedy (it must be for real then), have agreed that Mona will be moving out and I will be moving in with Helen for now. It’s not a permanent solution because I don’t want to stay in this building and I don’t even know if I want to live with Helen, but it allows me to leave the flat Ben and I shared immediately and it also allows me to be with Helen. I thought about escaping it all, even for a couple of days, but I can’t leave her now. She just broke up with Mona and even though the whole situation forces them to be extremely civil about it, Mona’s not her friend right now. And Mona lost Ben too of course. We all lost him.
I asked Helen whether she wasn’t going to reconsider her decision to leave Mona but she was very adamant about it being permanent, now even more than before. For so many years it has always been Me, Helen, Mona and Ben. I guess from now on it’ll just be Helen and me. I feel for them you know, I know it took a lot from Helen to finally break up with Mona and one of the reasons why she felt strong enough to do so was Ben, little did she know he wasn’t going to be around anymore. So when my parents, who have been in town since last week and will be leaving tomorrow, asked me to come home with them for a couple of days I had to decline, for Helen’s sake (and my own). They understood.
It may sound weird but I get a lot of comfort from Fred and Ginger, I’m sure they must feel that something is going on, but of course their little cat brains can never understand. I guess that’s what so comforting about it, to them Ben – who loved them so much – isn’t dead (yet). Holding them does always make me cry though, but I’m so glad they’re here.
Last week I was totally numbed by it all, it’s all still a bit of a blur and I don’t really know how time passed. Then last weekend there was the memorial service, which hit us all really hard because it made it so definite and this week I seem to be passing my time by packing up things. I’m not just packing up my things; I’m packing Ben’s stuff as well. I have until the end of the month to move everything out but I just want to get it done as quickly as possible. My parents have spent a lot of time here the past week and probably everyone I know in this city has stopped by. (Even the people I didn’t want to see.) I find myself trying to actually think of Ben as little as possible. I try to stop myself as much as possible from thinking anything at all really…
I know we will all have to find some way to move on, but right now the world is still very much at a standstill for me.
