It has been over a month since the love of my life died. This weekend is his memorial. I’m dreading it with every ounce of me.

Out of the blue yesterday, my sister said, “I’m dreading this thing on Saturday.” I snapped, “Oh, yeah, because I’m really looking forward to it.” Fuck you for dreading something that, when it comes down to it, doesn’t matter one way or another to you, but is life-changing for me. It is my life that we’re memorializing. This is the person I was going to spend the rest of it with that we’re talking about here.

I realize that other people have other emotions regarding him, even my sister, but they’re not the same as mine. I did not lose a friend; I lost my best friend. I lost the person I would go to when things like this happen. I lost the love of my life. I loved him over fifteen years through substance abuse and emotional evasion and hospital stays and everything. So, fuck you and your pitiful little dread. And fuck you for telling me about it.

She apologized and I apologized, but…

I don’t want to go to the memorial, because I don’t do well in large groups, even under normal circumstances. Hell for me is “teeming masses.” I find people exhausting. They always want to talk. As long ago as I can remember, I’ve been quite taciturn. I can be downright chatty with those that I know well (particularly if exceptional quantities of coffee or booze are involved), but generally, my first inclination is to listen and not talk.

Part of that is just genetics. My Finnish father and grandfather are and were, respectively, men of few words. I very much take after them, not only in appearance (although I’m a girl), but also in carriage. We’re imposing figures; partly because we’re tall with piercing light eyes, but also because chatty people have no idea what to do with us. We fluster the chatty, because we speak when we have something to say and not just for the sake of having words fall out of our mouths on the regular.

I also have social phobia and don’t talk to strangers much. So, yeah, large groups of people and I don’t mix all that well.

I don’t want to go to the memorial, because there will be people there I haven’t seen in years and years. Some I haven’t seen in a decade or more. All of these people will gather in one place to “celebrate a life” that they had nothing to do with for the last however many years. Ex-girlfriends, friends from high school and former coworkers will all gather in one room to talk about how important a man they hadn’t seen in years was to them.

It just seems so fake to me. If the spontaneous mini-memorial my friend had the day we found out he died is any indication, it will be a one-upsmanship competition to prove who really was his bestest friend in the wide world. He’s gone. What difference does it make who was closest to him?

Incidentally, it was me. I was his closest friend and love of his life. I was the one he called when he was down. I was the one he really came to visit with his trips home. It was me. So, all these people talking about how close they were to him is really insulting me and the relationship we had. Perhaps I shouldn’t take it that way, but I can’t help it.

I was there when he was at his worst. I was the one crying in hospitals and visiting him in rehab. I was the one who helped him get back on his feet when we got clean. I was one of three people who never abandoned him. Everyone outside of those three people can fuck right the hell off. They weren’t there. They don’t know fuckall. They abandoned him, yet they’re all coming to his memorial. Get bent.

I don’t want to go to the memorial, because apparently, I have a lot of anger. This isn’t surprising since anger is my go-to emotion.

My shrink still thinks I’m “shutting down,” whatever the hell that means. She thinks I’m not “experiencing” the loss. I told her that I don’t know what I could possibly do to “experience” it more. My heart hurts every damn day–every moment of every day. Just because I’m getting up and going to work and walking my dog and not crying, that doesn’t mean I’m not “experiencing” it. I’m pretty well steeped in experience and it sucks.

Wish me luck.

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Please don’t be offended if I don’t respond to comments on these grief posts. I read your comments, but I can’t always respond. I write this for myself, because it’s all I can do.