letters to the grave

One night last year I called my friend Jennie and asked her to meet me at my apartment and bring a pack of cigarettes. We sat on the stoop of the apartment building and I remember smoking cigarette after cigarette and inhaling the smoke and feeling nothing from it; the world felt like it was being raised and crashing all around me. It’s a horrifying feeling, to feel that you’re not in control of who you are and what you do and not in the haha-I’m-drunk-and-I’m-dancing-like-crazy way, but in the I-woke-up-this-morning-and-I-can’t-recognize-who-I-am kind of way.

I remember that night very clearly because I remember thinking about how desperately I wanted to be alone, but didn’t want to spend time with my own thoughts. Which is why I called Jennie, because I feel so comfortable with her that I felt I could let my guard down, and which reminded me that I was operating with my guard up with most everybody else and nobody knew.

Two years on this day, my friend Valentine died in a car crash. When I called Jennie that night last year to smoke cigarettes I was doing so because I was hoping smoking and spending time with a dear friend close to my heart would ease me somewhat; take me off the edge of grief I had been running through all night, all day and for longer than I wanted to think about.

I thought about that night this morning, when I woke up and I remembered that today was November 23, the day Valentine died. I remember how I craved solitude but wasn’t strong or stable enough to sit in my mind and reconcile how things have changed — how I have changed— since then.

This morning, I felt brand new. This morning, I got out of bed and I played Stevie Wonder in my living room as I made coffee and danced around an empty kitchen in my pajamas. I live with Jennie now but she had left for class so I had the apartment to myself, and I thought that this was sweet solitude. I sat on my couch and I drank my coffee and I read through the last conversation that Valentine and I had. I laughed to myself in an empty room as I read our conversation; something about Canada (where she went to college), the staff photographer at the local paper we loved working with, me telling her to take lots of pictures and her replying “thanks sophie!!”

I closed my computer and I changed into a green collared shirt and a black sweater and I took a long walk to the art museum, where I met my friend Lindsey for breakfast. As we catch up and talk about our life events since the last time we saw each other — approximately two weeks ago — she tells me that I seem happy, and I tell her that I am. I’m surprised that I do, considering that this is a day that I tiptoe around and dread.

The sadness did not come today in the ways that I expected it to. Last year on November 23 I was on edge and snapped at everyone I cared about because the day was a reminder that grief had a place in my life. This year I thought instead of how happy I was; I thought about my friends, who love and love and love without limits; Jennie, who sat quietly next to me as I felt worlds crashing and falling; Lindsey, who knows my signs of distress and acutely points out when I’m happy even when I don’t realize I am.

As I tried to write this post, I sat paralyzed for a good hour. What kind of post was I writing on the death anniversary of a friend that was filled, instead, with happiness and peace, instead of the stark grief and pain I had grown accustomed to? All I know is that I woke up this morning and was pleased to see that I knew the girl I saw reflected in the morning. All I know is that I walked through campus and listened to Stevie Wonder and snapped my fingers as I mouthed the words. All I know is that I sat on my couch in North Berkeley and I watched half-burnished sunlight pierce through red leaves and trees and turn everything into gold shadows, and I felt happy that I could see this beauty, that I could make a memory and attribute it to someone as beautiful as Valentine. Maybe you won’t be able to make any more memories, Valentine, but I sure as hell will make enough for the both of us.

I share a lot about myself and my grief not because of an overwhelming desire to be vulnerable with anyone or any person, but because I recognize that the pain that I have gone through is a part of me that is worth sharing. I like my sadness; it’s part of me, and so is my pain.

I find sweetness in my solitude now. I recognize that I’m never quite alone — instead accompanied with the weight of memories, scars and the love of people who saw in me something worth staying for.