as we lay dying
stage 1: shock & numbness
WILL YOU MISS me? I found it continually perched upon my lips as I packed for a week away, waiting for that deep intake of breath that would push it out, cause it to stumble, fall, and then flip into the air toward your ears.
Will you miss me?
It’s the kind of question I tend to sort of toss off, casually, teasingly, like I already know the answer but just want to hear it said out loud. But this time, there was this tiny terror that hustled in, this niggling little fear that you might not say what I wanted you to. Maybe you won’t miss me, I thought suddenly. Or maybe you will say that you will, but your words will be weighted with heavy anticipation. You want me to go so you can miss me...or worse, so you can find out whether or not you really will.
So I stopped myself every time the query crawled out onto the tip of my tongue. Told myself that I wasn’t going to ask because I wasn’t sixteen anymore and I didn’t need to ply those empty assurances out of a tired mouth. And why do we want so badly for people to miss us, anyway? I wondered, the way a Cool Girl would. Wouldn’t the right thing be to hope that they have an amazing time, all the time, whether or not we’re around? “I need you to be miserable while we're apart so I feel better about my influence on your life.” Sounds weird, right? I’m waaay too independent for that kind of bullshit! It’s enough that I’m gone and doing my own thing. Who cares if he misses me or not? I’ll be too busy to notice, anyway...
But it felt lonely, the travel; and the photos I took of new sights were good, but felt empty somehow, until I realized it was because it was just me in them. And then there were the texts we traded back and forth that felt like both of us trying to shoot at a target from opposite sides. You are overwhelmed at work, and feel stressed from all the other things in life you feel you have to manage. I wish that you were here, because everything is always better when you are.
And so as I stand here now, I miss you even though I am the one who is gone, and you don't miss me even though you are home alone, and that’s not how this is supposed to work, I think, as I tuck my phone into my pocket and raise my eyes back up to the mountains. The Mountains of Missing. I can still enjoy the sun, I remind myself. I can still enjoy the sea. Even alone, even when it’s only just me, all by myself.
◾️
Later that night, a huddle of friends and I gather around an old piano in the lodge where we are staying. We suck down beers as we sing and laugh and dance our way into the early hours of the morning, and I can’t imagine this being better, with him here, I tell myself. Because you might not like this and I might feel like I have to entertain you and keep you company instead of really joining in. Halve my experience to make yours fuller. Drag you along, like a parent with a crabby kid after a long day at the fair. See, look! This is so fun! Isn’t this FUN?!
I am still thinking about this when a song by the Avett Brothers is taken up. “No, nothing in this world could ever hold me back from you...” It hits me wrong, and I tuck myself into the deep corner of the couch and listen quietly as the mixed voices and lilting harmonies float up to the high ceiling beams of the lodge. This song just makes me miss him, I tell myself, attempting to wave away any threatening sadness with a dismissive swipe of my mental hand. But then it occurs to me that it isn’t the right kind of missing: not the kind that comes with wistful sighs and sweet longings and the slight swooning over what will happen when we are together again. This kind felt permanent, final. A dying. This is the song you sing when you're just starting to grow your love for one another, I found myself thinking. Committing to living your lives with each other. And this song used to be for us, but maybe it isn’t anymore. And maybe we could get that back, but how? Because you don’t actually miss me, and if I am brave enough to face the truth about why this song could make me cry, it’s because I know without even having to think about it that there are plenty of things that could hold me back from you.
And suddenly I remember another late summer night with friends, another Avett Brothers song. Of driving a friend home after her boyfriend had taken off without a word from the bar we had all been at, leaving Erica and I to take care of her, even though neither Erica or I knew quite how to do that. So we got her into Erica’s car, and I sat in the backseat and Erica drove while our friend sat doubled over in the passenger seat, her pain-filled sobs layered over the song coming out of Erica's car stereo: ‘Black, Blue.’ And as Erica and I listened to her cry, to her asking why he didn’t love her, how he could just leave her, why would he do this to her, tears began streaming down both our faces...because we knew there was nothing we could say, nothing we could do to make it better. Especially since both of us knew – but knew better than to say out loud – that this same thing had happened to all of us before, and it could happen again without any of us wanting it to. No matter how much love you give to someone, they could still abandon you. Could still want to. Leave you weeping along to the soundtrack of a sad song, wondering why they don’t miss you. Won’t.
stage 2: yearning & searching
On the journey homeward, I recline back in my seat, close my eyes, and think about how it used to be, when we would see each other again after even a brief separation...smiles and exclamations and long hugs and your mouth on mine. I arrive home to find you already asleep, and in the morning I wake to an empty bed.
I know that you are busy and must have things to do, so I don’t know why this hurts me so much. Maybe because it’s the first morning we’ve had in a long time that is just us. Maybe because, more than anything, I miss the mornings when we would lie in bed together for hours, curled up as we drifted in and out of sleep. And maybe it’s because it feels, lately, as if you can’t wait to get out of bed, which I take personally, even when I know it’s not, which just makes me feel even worse. Why do I have to take everything so personally all the goddamn time?
I lie in bed for a moment, staring up at the ceiling, and I repeat the promise I made to myself the night before: I’ll pretend to be happy and charming and upbeat, all the time, even when I don’t feel like it (especially when I don’t feel like it). I’ll concentrate on being easy to be around, remind myself that I’ve never gotten love when I complained for more. The Relationship Lessons of Oliver Twist. And if I feel like crying, I’ll only do it quickly, and privately - a sharp swift burst of it to get it all out, and then I’ll just stand back up again, swipe the proof away from my cheeks, and get on with it.
So I jump out of bed, call out a breezy hello to you as I stroll into the kitchen and set about making myself a cup of coffee. Try not to think about the way you used to always bring me coffee in bed, and how, one morning not long ago, out of an effort to be more reinforcing of the things I did want instead of nagging about the things I didn’t, I told you how much I loved it when you brought me coffee in bed, how it made me feel so loved by you... And how it seemed that after I told you that, you just didn’t do it anymore. It probably wasn’t on purpose, I swiftly correct myself, as I grab a mug from the cupboard. He’s been really busy, remember? He probably doesn’t even have time to make himself coffee.
“Do you want some coffee?” I ask you.
“No, thank you. I already made myself some.”
Nodding, I take my hot mug full of coffee and carry it back to our bedroom. Placing it on the sink in the adjoining bathroom, I set about getting ready for the day. You follow me in, plop down on the bed, and play with your phone as I put on my makeup. I ask how your day was yesterday. You mention that your original plans were canceled, so instead you circled back and had coffee with Sarah. Sarah, I repeat silently to myself. I have never heard you mention her before. Who. THE FUCK. Is Sarah?!
“Have I met Sarah?” I ask casually, as I swipe blush onto the apples of my cheeks.
“No,” you reply. “I don't think so? She’s a girl from work.”
“Ah.” I catch my own eyes in the mirror for just a beat. Just a split second. Don’t, I warn myself. “Tell me about her.”
I listen as you ramble off her duties at work: she works in PR, she went to a big annual gala with all the other PR girls this past weekend, etc. And the whole time I am dying to ask if she’s pretty. I am dying to ask if you think she’s funny. Dying to ask why you are so busy that you can’t even find time to send a meaningful text to your girlfriend when she’s away for a week, but you have plenty of time to meet up with a girl from work on a Saturday afternoon for fucking coffee.
But I don’t, because I know I am just being irrational and that you are often friends with the girls you work with and that you would never, ever cheat.
I don’t, because maybe I don’t want an answer to that certain kind of fatal wonder: would it be better to know you are interested in someone else and so that’s why things are so hard and strange between us now, or to know that you are not and to have to still be mystified as to how we got so far from where we used to be?
I don’t, because I'm supposed to be easy, breezy, and light.
I swallow the hope that has been sitting, perched, at the back of my throat – the kind I have every weekend morning now, when I wake up and wonder if, today, maybe todaaay! you'll want to spend the day together - and ask what you want to do today. You put your phone in your pocket and tell me you're meeting a friend this morning. I smile again, dig my own phone out of my pocket, and tell you that I’m meeting a friend for breakfast. It’s a lie, and I feel awful for telling it, but in the split second between hoping that you’ll answer that you want to spend the day with me and hearing you say that you already made plans, I know that I simply cannot stand one more morning of watching you leave while I wait here for you to come back.
You ask if I want to walk out together. I smile as I swallow down the last of my coffee and then say, “Sure.” My walk is purposefully jaunty, and I call back a goodbye as we arrive at our cars. No kiss, no hug. Just a “See ya” as we both unlock our cars and get in. I allow myself one great gulping cry - a swift sharp burst of it, hard and guttural - as I pull out of the parking lot and onto the main road. It occurs to me as I make my turn to nowhere that it is exactly the way I’ve always cried when it came to death.
stage 3: disorientation & disorganization
Maybe this is just a phase. A rough patch. Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe I should try harder. Maybe I could be more supportive, less demanding. Maybe he’s fallen out of love with me. Maybe I should stop comparing us to the way we used to be. Maybe it will always be like this.
Later that night, as I’m finally unpacking my suitcase from my trip, I draw a deep breath in and let the words tumble out. Do you still want us to be together? Because I’ve decided that I do need those assurances that you still want me around. I stand and wait and watch you, trying hard not to think about what someone said once, about how the saddest thing is watching someone fall out of love with you. I think about the way we used to trade enthusiastic texts and emails almost hourly. The way we would plan our days around the simple delight of just being able to be around each other. The glee of being together. It was the reason why the idea of living together even came up in the first place: so that we wouldn’t have to miss out on any more of each other’s lives.
You sigh and tell me that you just wish to be invisible. I close my eyes and breathe out and wish to not do this again. Stay, only to catch you wishing that I wouldn’t. Leave, only to later wish that I hadn’t.
We talk and cry and talk some more, and in the end I simply zip my suitcase back up with my clothes still in it and place it against the wall.
◾️
Later that night I slip my fingers under the waistband of your underwear, resting them on the soft strip of skin that covers your hip. It is as much as I dare to touch you. I find myself thinking about how, months before, it would be a signal that I wanted more...and even though it isn't that, right now – it’s late, you are sleeping, we don’t really do that anymore – I think about how I still want you, and will always want you, no matter what. No matter how tight that waistband might get or how high the years may climb, I will still want you because it’s you, it’s you, and I will just always want you. You. All the time, no matter what. Because you are you, and you are all I want.
Drawing my hand away, I turn and fold in on myself on the edge of the bed. On the edge of your bed. Not my bed anymore, I think, not ours. Because I don’t think you want me there any longer. Because it doesn’t make a difference to you whether I lie right next to you or on the edge of it, anymore. Because the tightness of my waistband does matter to you, and not what's underneath that strip of skin, under the layers that hold me in. It might even be the very reason that it is just me, underneath there. You don’t want me, all the time, no matter what. And you will never want me wholly, as me, for all that I am, and just because I am. You want the me that’s easy, that’s vacation, that’s the picture of what you thought this would be like when we first started out. And more than that, now, you don’t want me...you just want you.
I slide out of bed and grab the pillow and sheet I have placed on my side of the room for this very purpose. Careful to be quiet as I open and close our bedroom door, I pad out to the living room and lay down on the couch. I’ve taken to doing this more than you know. I don’t want to wake you with my crying, and sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe when I’m lying in bed next to you. Out here, on this leather couch, it's easier to think. To feel more of myself again.
I think about what I will do, when we finally have the conversation that every interaction is now on the verge of setting off. When a talk like the one we had earlier doesn’t turn out to be less than I feared. I will pack my things quickly and disappear. Go away, flee towards the horizon, to places where I can’t get the aftermath texts asking me to meet, so you can better explain why you don’t love me anymore. Where I don’t have to see my friends and tell them what happened. “Hey guys, guess I lost another one.” Where I don’t have to go back to the same old life of pep talks and Try Agains. Of waking up and going to work and attending happy hours and trying to ignore that old familiar hole in my heart as I laugh and smile and nod at suggestions of getting back out there and…
Oh my god, what am I going to do… I pull the sheet up to my chin as the tears start sliding down. I go through the options: Maybe I’ll go out west to Washington to see my old friend Scott, like I’ve been telling him and myself that I would do, and soon. Or maybe I’ll fly to L.A. to stay with Erica for a while...sit on the beach and figure out how to be a new person. Or maybe it’s finally time to go to Africa, like I always said I would if everything fell apart. Closing my eyes and blowing a shaky breath out, I try hard not to burst into tears as I think about that. This would be the time...
stage 4: resolution & reorganization
The sun is at stake, and I’m at your door. The line of lyric keeps weaving through my mind at I place my hand on the knob and try to decide what I’m going to do.
Do I leave you?
Do I love you?
Or are those two maybe one and the same...
I already left you once. A few days ago, after the night out on the couch, when our silences began to define our misery. You came home from work and I carefully asked you if you would stay. If you were me, I mean. And if I were you, and I did or did not do all the things that were important to you for me to do or not do. Would you stay?
You were silent for a long time. “Probably not,” you finally replied.
“You realize that makes it impossible for me to stay, now.”
“I know.”
So I left. I took my still-packed bag and told you I would be back in a few days for the rest of my things. And it didn’t feel right. Every single mile I put between myself and you seemed to scream out to me to turn back, what are you doing, you love him.
But it was the distance that gave me perspective... Perspective, but no answers. I still don’t know how this happened. Why. I don’t know how the distance between two people gets pushed so far and grows so high that when we finally take a step back, we realize a massive mountain is now standing in between the two of us. On one side there is me, who still cannot imagine life without you. On the other side is you, who can no longer imagine a future with me in it.
So I may have left you. But the truth is, you left me first.
I stand in the doorway, close my eyes, and fight once again against the only question that's left. Will you miss me? I want to shout it, cry it out, let it crawl, whimpering, from the place in my chest it’s been banging around in for so long. Too long. Finally let loose, set free. Will you miss me? But I already know the answer. And I guess I always have. I just wasn’t ready to hear it, until now.
So instead I tell you that while I know you love me, feeling loved by you is now a very different thing. You nod your head and tell me that you don’t know how to make me happy. And I just want to scream at you, I want to clench my fists and explode into a tiny million pieces, because it is just you, just having you, that makes me happy, and you know it, but you are trying to make it seem as if I want too much, as if I’m asking for the impossible. But there it is, and here we are again, shooting at the same target from opposite sides. While I have been telling you with words all the things you could do to make me stay, you have been saying, with the things you do not do, why you don't want me to.
We all make mistakes.
And this is the other thing I learn, after the sun finally sets and we say our last words: when it comes to dying, there is always a last-breath choice between lying down and being laid down. And you have already chosen one, forcing me into the other.
So with my one last dying breath, I tell you I love you, and I tell you goodbye.
◾️
And so this is the end of the story...
Everything we had, everything we did, everything we were...has been taken down, replaced, like the framed pictures on what used to be our walls, but are now just yours. I lie in my best friend Katy’s guest bed late that night and cry those facts out, grieve for everything all at once, all that we were and all that we now will never be. And all the things I wrote about this being true love...of long sunny strolls with my head resting on your shoulder, wrapped up in your heavy black sweater, my arm slung around your body... How everyone, now, will think a little triumphantly that I was foolish, that I was wrong, that I was a bit too quick to call it that. But it was, when we first started. You used to love me. You used to love me a lot. You used to love me more than I loved you. But now the only part of us left standing, the only thing I still know for sure, is that while that may have changed for you, it’s the one thing that didn’t, for me. I love you, I love you, I love you. Fast and true.
Staring up at the ceiling, a fresh wave of tears rolls forth, washing over my cheeks. And not because of the truth that I love you...but because now what do I do with all of it?
◾️
In the morning I go in to burn my own house down. I sell everything I don’t want to save, and what I can’t sell, I give away. All the things that remind me of you, of the life I had with you, and the one I had right before you and then right after. I throw them all away, the way I would and have done with someone who was gone, who wasn't ever coming back. And it occurs to me that I pack up and send off all these things because I can, because I cannot do so with my own heart. I want so badly to just pull the burning chunk of it away from my chest and throw it into the sea, see it smolder and turn into rock as the water seeps in and carries it to the sandy bottom. Because why can’t it protect me, instead of always the other way around?
◾️
I decide that if I am going to go somewhere new, then I want more sea than mountains. So as the Saturday morning sun burns away the dawn, I board a plane for California. Where I can sit on the beach and figure out how to become a new person, I remind to myself, as I shrug my cardigan off and toss my bag under my seat. I lean my head back and close my eyes as the plane takes off, opening them only to look out just as the shadow of your town – not ours anymore, not mine - begins to fade away, the landscape changing below my feet. I can still enjoy the sun, I remind myself. I can still enjoy the sea.
Even alone. Even when it's only just me, all by myself.