Dear Scott,
Two weeks ago today, you left us behind. All of us: your daughters, your family, your friends, your co-workers, even us, your ex-fiance and my kids. It supersedes reason and it makes no sense and we're all here wondering what the fuck.
For days after I found out, I was in a daze of shock and sadness. Those two feelings curled up inside of me and nested way deep inside of me, making me vulnerable to tearful outbursts at the slightest provocation. Like how you loved flowers and I cried at the store when I saw the cheerful bouquets of daisies and roses--oh, how the roses were your favorite. You loved to go for long bike rides wearing that god-awful neon green/yellow sleeveless shirt, so when I saw a guy biking the other day in a similar get-up, I laughed before I sobbed. Last Monday, I went to that Bonfire Grill by your house and talked with the bartender, just like we used to. But the emotions hit me like a ton of bricks and even though I tried desperately to hide my tears, Todd the Bartender gave me a glass of red, on the house. You'd remember Todd if you saw him - we'd had him before as a server. And PS - it was a really good glass of cab.
A week of this went on - these painful memories pecking away at my beat-up old heart - and I decided I had to Get.It.Together. Set the jaw, get to work, and make life move forward. For next week, I busted my ass at work and put in long days, pulling together projects and people and pieces of paper like a goddamn champ. The more I worked, the more normal I started to feel. I know I used to bitch about how much you worked, but maybe now I understand it a little better: how work can be such a tool to avoid real life and how burying your face in your computer is far preferable to facing life.
And now, somehow despite the set jaw and the hard work, I'm right back to where I was the first week: emotional, rundown, grieving. Only this time, I'm both sad and angry. I'm angry at me and I'm angry at you and I'm angry at God (ya hear me, dude?!). Your friends keep messaging me on Facebook - bless them for reaching out, for searching for something that makes sense, for offering condolences and prayers. Friends of yours that I had never met are finding me somehow and it's both touching and agonizing. I didn't know how many people in your life even knew my name.
Grieving has got to be one of the loneliest processes for humans to go through. No one wants to talk about my deceased ex-fiance - this guy that I once loved and shared a home and a family with, broke up with, and who now is no longer here. I mean, that's awkward on 101 levels, and I get it. There aren't too many people in my life now that know what we went through, that know your beautiful daughters and how much I love them, that know how hard we worked to build a family in spite of some pretty big obstacles. And no one at all really knows how we sorta succeeded and, if we're being honest, also how we mostly failed. I know I said it then, but it bears repeating that I'm sorry for my part in all of it.
Since you left, a tangled ball of emotion lives in my chest. My therapist calls it anxiety, but that sounds too narrow right now. It's anxiety, but it's also anger, hurt, disgust, sadness, worry, guilt, and sorrow. This tangled ball accompanies me to Starbucks each morning, hangs out while I'm in meetings at work, pokes me when I'm out for a long walk in the evening. Its weight grows more heavy as the day wears on until I fall, exhausted, into bed...and then we start over in the morning.
I'm trying hard to let the sun shine on our good times and dim the lights on the rough times as much as I can, but I don't know if that's even the right response or not? Remember when you taught me to garden and how I was most thrilled when the pea pods and six-foot tall sunflowers grew? So cool that they actually grew from seeds - I mean, SEEDS! - oh and how you teased me for being a city girl. How we binge-watched Dexter in the first few months we were dating--we ate pizza on the living room floor so that we didn't miss a single minute of a single episode. I think about these moments and smile...and then my mind inevitably turns to the darker moments of arguments and sleeping on the far edge of the bed, avoiding each other even in our slumber. Did I try hard enough? Is there anything I should've done differently? I lay awake and second-guess myself now.
I'm trying to be tough on the outside, but I can feel myself withdrawing on the inside. It's a lot of fake smiles these days (yeah, you would TOTALLY be calling me out on that!) because my thoughts race sometimes about all of this and more stuff that I can't write about here. I feel guilty about being so sad because we broke up, right? I feel guilty about being so upset because your girls and your family must be feeling it 10x worse. I feel guilty about the sorrow because I don't feel like I have a right to it. And I can't expect anyone to listen to me about it...except the therapist who makes $150/hour to listen, so I guess he kinda has to.
You're missing the Republican and Democratic Party Conventions now- I know you'd be following them closely and ready to argue with me over the dinner table. I'm trying to ready myself for moments like this - things that you would've loved that will sneak up on me as memories. It's going to take time to build up that sort of fortitude.
At the end of the day, you were a guy who wore his heart on his military-pressed sleeve and who had stories to tell but no words with which to share them. Things between us ended terribly and I carry that weight in my heart now.
I'll keep an eye on your girls as much as I can; they are your legacy in this world and their successes, even at these young ages, are a testament to you. Rest now.
Leah
