I failed. I had wanted to write this post on the actual day of, instead I got distracted with other things to where I eventually found myself drunk and just couldn’t bring myself to write. How the greats could drink and clack out some narrative is astounding to me. It takes an act of god for me to put “pen to paper” when I’m under the influence.

Yesterday, the 12th, marked six months since Charlie passed. Tony, the brother husband who I now repeatedly refer to as my brother, asked me why I wanted to commemorate the occasion when I had never been one to do that sort of stuff before. It’s true. I’m not one for half anniversaries or similar milestones. I told him that I wanted to, in this instance, because I had to remind myself. Most of the time, it doesn’t feel real.

All in one moment it does and doesn’t feel like that much time has passed. My brain is under the impression that it happened just last week or, worst of all, that Charlie is just on a trip somewhere. He’ll be back any moment. Why are you worried? Yet in these very moments, it feels like it’s been years. As if things have always been this way.

That feeling I truly despise. I hate how it could feel “easy” for him to not be here, to not be a huge part of my life like he had been.

The further I drift away the more it hurts. My crying episodes used to be small fits of tears, and now the waves come like the growing hurricanes. More than once this past week I’ve had to pull my car over because I was losing my mind. (I can and only cry alone in my car.) In whatever corner I can tuck myself away, I sob until the storm passes. and then continue on as though I hadn’t just broken down because of some song. I wish I could remember which ones struck the most sensitive nerve but, even if you held a gun to my head, I can’t. Maybe I don’t want to remember. I do have a sick tendency to lean into these songs, hard, forcing the extraction of these emotions.

One of the things I do, that borders on psychosis, is that I turn and talk to him. In my mind he’s still sitting in the passenger seat, judging me with his sarcastic observations. I can hear them loud and clear in my mind. Sometimes they even feel like he is genuinely speaking to me, and it’s not my mind creating them. And maybe he is… it’s in that possibility that brings me a strange peace. If our existence carries on after our mortal demise, Charlie would absolutely be the kind to stick around to make sure everyone was “okay” before he moved on to the next life. If such choice exists.

What I am certain of is that as we head into the coming months things are going to become increasingly difficult. Here is where I meet the biggest “firsts.” My first wedding anniversary without him, my first birthday (in 20 years) without him, the first time we don’t celebrate his birthday, the first Christmas, the first new year… all of the fucking holidays.

I’m sure you’ll all get a chance to read all about them. I would like to lean more into my writing, like I had, instead of just experiencing these thoughts quietly, alone. What stops me is sometimes I feel like people think I’m making up all of this, as a way to chase “clout” (as the kids say.)