So in some respects today was fun, but in most respects it was completely fucking awful. I woke up after too little sleep and made it into the gym to see Alyssa, who put me into a better mood while torturing me. Then I ran to the locker room to take a shower before my appointment with Art, checked my phone, and got a bit excited to see a missed call/voicemail (since I was hoping to hear from my agent). But it wasn't my agent -- it was Gyre, calling to tell me that my friend James had a heart attack and died last night. Observant readers will note that I just had dinner with James a week ago tonight; I'm good friends with his fiancee, Jenni, since she and I were on the same team multiple times, hung out in India and Dublin, went to South Africa together, etc. Obviously, this is a huge shock; he wasn't even thirty yet. He and Jenni were also getting married this fall, and I can't imagine how hard this will be for her.
So I went to my appointment with Art in a bit of shock, but I figured it was better to spend half an hour lying on a table being kneaded than it was to go home and stare at the wall. Eventually I did go home and stare at the wall, but I didn't stay there for long. I had planned all along to go into the office today for coffee with the big boss, but I went in a couple of hours early in hopes of seeing Gyre. I failed to rendezvous with him, but I did dragoon John into having coffee with me at the cucina-whatever cafe in my old corner of campus. It was good to see him; I didn't particularly feel like talking about James directly, so while I told John what was going on, we spent most of the time talking about linguistics and his birthday. Then, I had coffee with the big boss, but neither of us were really in the mood to discuss anything of note, so I'll have to catch up with her again in a few weeks.
After I left the big boss, I called up Heather (aka dear respected madam) and hung out with her for an hour. We went trolling the halls looking for Alaska Matt, which I promptly regretted when he pointed out that I'm a terrible friend for never telling him when I'm on campus or attempting to make plans with him. Sigh. Despite being castigated, I was glad to see him, and hopefully we'll do an Alaska/Iowa summit sometime soon.
But when I came home, I wasn't in the mood to write, or read, or watch tv, or anything. I talked to my mom for a bit, then finished the blog post I had to write for the group romance blog I'm part of, then went to Palo Alto Sol and ate delicious Mexican food. I had one margarita, and it was so good and I was feeling so numb that I considered getting smashed, abandoning my car, and walking home. That plan would have worked, but I was wearing the wrong shoes and a too-thin sweater, and the thought of walking a mile home tonight and then doing it again in the morning before going to the gym saved me from getting trashed alone. So instead, I came home, continually refreshed the Facebook group someone started for James, and mourned. My mourning was briefly interrupted by Adit, who called from Boston to tell me that Boston sucks and he can't wait to leave that hellhole; lucky for him, he's moving back here this weekend, so hopefully he'll be happy to come back to the land of friends and Amy's enchiladas.
There's not much else to say, really, and so I won't try. Whether I ever try remains to be seen; I don't grieve particularly well, which is probably why I'm a writer. It's a lot easier for me to sublimate my own emotions into my writing than it is to actually express them. If nothing else, though, it made me think about how much I leave unsaid in all of my relationships, and of how devastated I would be to lose those close to me without saying what I feel. I still may not say any of those things; it feels as though there's a wall between my heart and the world, that my heart is a secret garden whose door is locked, whose key is missing, whose flowers run amok and undisturbed. But while I may decide to keep that door locked, today gave me a glimpse of what that choice will cost me. I try so hard to protect it, to keep it from getting trampled on, to keep badly healed wounds from reopening, that I think I lose sight of what I'm missing out on by locking it away. And if I remember nothing else from today, I need to remember that life is too short and death is sometimes too swift to waste time with walls and scars.
I can't write anymore tonight -- there aren't any words left, and the ones I can scrape together don't mean what I want to say. Goodnight!
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