Songs from an Untamed Heart

March 7th is coming up. This year makes three years since I kissed Matt goodbye. It feels like a lifetime ago...

I was talking with Dearbhail and ribbin last night, saying how this is not my favorite time of year. As I was talking about dreading March 7th, I realized that it almost felt like an act at this point - like I was dreading something because I am supposed to dread it. I was anticipating being a wreck, but this year just doesn't phase me. Three years and a lifetime ago I was in love. And now:

Oh, goddess! I still miss him. Sometimes his place in my heart still aches from the loss. I don't think I'll ever really get over that ache, but I don't feel like I'm bleeding to death anymore. I don't feel like the void is going to swallow me up. There's just an empty place where Matt should physically be. In a way, with all the death I've lived through, my life is starting to resemble Swiss cheese - lots of holes where one would expect substance.

I like my Swiss cheese life. I have been fortunate to know and love many, many wonderful people. I will always miss those people, but I can't cry for them anymore. You can't miss what you haven't really lost.

I haven't lost him, but I'm not Matt's girl anymore. You can't cheat on the dead. Love is partially based on the instinctual urge to mate. It's gooey, corporeal, visceral stuff. It's blood and flesh and mingling fluids. Yes, that's right. I said mingling fluids. That's not to say you can't love the dead. I do love him, but it's not the same. I just can't live my life waiting for the wedding that never came, the life that died on the vine. I want to get out and try to find a piece of that visceral, gooey happiness again.

Watching "Practical Magic" last night, it struck me how much I have always related to the character Sally Owens. I saw myself in her long before Matt ever walked into my life. However, unlike Sally, I know that there's something else out there for me. He's the King of Swords. (Tarot geek, me? Nah!) He's the prince in a dream I had. He's the promise to be kept. Some days I am afraid that he's just the carrot dangled at me so that I'll keep going. Other days I'm just certain he's out there...

I'm not counting my eggs. I have no illusions that I need to grow a little more, let go a little more, and stretch a little more before we'll actually find each other.

So where to next? Well, I'm going to shred Matt's old robe. Then, I am going to work on coming to terms with the fact that I am an adult, and I get to figure out what that means to me. I'm going to figure out how to make sure that I'm taking care of my own needs so that I don't burn out as a new teacher. I am going to delve deeper into my spirituality, practice my energy work, and work on really getting a good barrier between me and the world that I can throw up at will. (I think this will help with the craziness of dealing with pre-teen angst.) And you know what? I am finally going to organize my CD collection so that it feels like all my stuff, not the stuff that was Matt's, the stuff that is mine, and the stuff that was ours. Oh yeah, and somewhere in the next couple months I'm buying a car.

It's going to be an interesting few months.

So, yesterday the man driving one of the cars in the accident that Matt ran into plead "not guilty" to the charges against him. Apparently his laywer told the judge that he would plead guilty only if the judge could promise that he wouldn't serve any jail time. Of course, the judge couldn't promise that, so the preliminary trial is set for June 8th.

I was kinda hoping that this didn't go to trial. I was kinda hoping that I wouldn't have to deal with the drama of this aspect of losing Matt. I guess I was kinda wrong.

On the bright side of things, I'm feeling much better than I was a few days ago. I'm a little flustered with all the trial stuff, but overall my mood has improved. However, I reserve the right to remain moody for at least a few more months while I deal with all of this. I'm on emotional overload. (Can you blame me?)

Despite all of this, I am starting to feel ready to get my life on track. It's time to stop grieving for the loss and start healing through the grief. Moreover, while I still have people I need to love and support, I need to start taking some serious ME time so that I can get myself back into alignment - body, mind, and soul. There are some huge things on the horizon for me (not that I know what they are specifically). I need to be ready to face them head-on. I'm definately not balanced right now, and one more huge thing could send me over the edge. So, it's definately time to adjust.

So . . . Yesterday, I started working on the scrapbook that will contain all of Matt's and my love letters, RPG character sheets from characters we designed together or that interacted a lot, and all of the condolences and articles about Matt (and, perhaps, the accident report and info about the trial - depends on how I feel about that later when I'm more level-headed). In other words, the story of our relationship in pieces. Right now, I'm working on the love letters, and, despite reading the accident report yesterday, it has brought me back to the frame of mind I was in when Matt and I were first courting. It's nice. At the same time, it has made me incredibly depressed, as he is not just living across town. So I'm happy-sad. Here begins my emotional confusion.

Last night I was at my Lindy Hop class, and we were going over leading techniques in close position. This position involves both partners touching, and the men lead with their left leg. This is so close that, for the followers their whole left side is in contact with the lead's right side. THAT close. (Let me insert here that some of the guys in my class are attractive.) It felt so good to have human male contact. I felt like, just for a moment, I could fall in love again - just to have that contact. Then I realized that it wasn't just any human male I wanted contact with. It made me miss Matt all the more. I miss his hugs, the way he would rub the back of my neck, the way he would lead me waayy to hard while dancing and throw me into the couch, apologize, then hug me and start over. I miss his body next to me at night. I miss passionate kisses. (Matt was a fantastic kisser.) I miss sex. It frustrates me to end that I can't take all of these feelings and take them out on Matt (in a very good way). I can't rub his neck, or give him a back massage, or lock our door and pounce him.

The hardest part is, as sad and frustrated as I am, because of the love-letters, a large part of my head is back in the frame of mind it was when I lived in the dorms. I keep flashing to thoughts that I'm still in the dorms and Matt just lives at Pacifico. That's how into the letters I've gotten. I've completely lost my grip on reality and it's all Matt's fault. I know this is not what he meant, but Matt once said that he'd do that to me. I had no idea. . .

I need to finish the scrapbook, though. I am so afraid that I'm going to lose some of these letters while going through my files. I'll feel better once they are all organized, mounted, and in one place where they can't escape.

Well, here's to hoping for some more dream-time visitations by Matt.

Tonight I'm having trouble concentrating. Every time I sit down to do something, something else grabs my attention. (A good example is this entry, which is taking far too long to write because I keep trying to work on Matt's Rubik's cube.) This (hopefully temporary) bout of ADD is probably a side-effect of mourning. I have a hard enough time finishing projects as it is - something else is always coming up. Now finishing projects has become darn near impossible. To complicate this, I keep finding reasons to get out and generally not be in my room. On the one hand this is great, because I keep hanging out with people I haven't hung out with in over a year. On the other had, this is bad because I'm not taking enough time out for myself to really feel and really get a grip on myself and my feelings. I need to find a healthy balance.

( Depression gets a second wind )

I want to let myself feel depressed in one continuous time frame. I just want to get the ickiness of mourning over with. I want to feel something, but I'm so easily distractable right now that when I start to cry something in my head says "Oooh look! A shiny. It's outside. I'm going to go follow the shiny outside." And then, I can't cry anymore.

I'm going to stop here. I just picked up the Rubik's cube for the 100th time tonight. I'm too distracted to even

Well, finals are over. Somehow I managed to finish my last final on 1 1/2 hours of sleep, and probably ace it. (Whew!) I also kept falling asleep during the final, but that's a story for another day.

It's been hard to get up in the morning. ( On Mourning )

I'm off to go do something with myself. Otherwise I'm going to sit here in the computer lab and start crying. (I'd rather cry at home... I have cats and people there to comfort me.)

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, delirious of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding across the stars..." - Jack Kerouac

I woke up early this morning and spent it going over all of the old letters Matt and I wrote to each other. It's funny, I wrote a lot. Matt wrote very little. After about a year of knowing each other, Matt had a tendency to just tell me what he was feeling. He never really wrote me cards or anything like that. He'd show me. I guess it all goes back to the beauty of impermanence - it is a wonderful thing because it doesn't last forever.

( Hindsight is 20/20 )

If there is anything I have taken from this experience, it is a sheer, overwhelming love for life and the people I'm with. I've always loved life, but in the last six months I have lost track of that with all of the studying, stressing out, and reaching for a perfection I know that no one can attain. Matt has made the world more vivid to me, in life, and in death. I wrote in a letter to him that I would want Matt to live, to breathe, to move on with a clear heart should I ever die. While he never told me outright (Matt never talked to me about death - he always lived in the now), I know he'd want me to do the same.

So I go on in this mad, crazy, ever-spinning world to new adventures. Every day is so special. Every day I breathe is so good. While I miss Matt, I am so grateful to have the time that I do to share this world with the rest of you. I hope you find love and peace in your day as well.

Enough philosophy. I have Behavioral Ecology of the Insects to study. (mmmm crunchy!)