Cause I Don't Want To Get Over Love, I Could Listen To My Therapist, Pretend You Don't Exist, And Not Have To Dream Of What I Dream Of

--"I Don't Want To Get Over You", Mary Lou Lord

The problem with me when I write is that if I don't keep it up I completely forget what I've written. I guess that's more of a problem with my short-term memory than my actual writing, but it definitely has an effect on my writing. Sometimes I'll look back here and ask myself when the hell I wrote something. Other times it'll be more a case of remembering writing a piece but truly wondering felt as adamantly as I claimed to have been during the writing. The depth of my feelings sometimes eludes me after the actual living through the feelings. In truth, my memory is a poor accountant.

That's how I felt when I was on the phone with Lucy tonight reading over the work I've done so far on The Carisa Meridian in preparation to continue my progress on it after a six year absence. It became readily apparent to both of us that there are a lot of threads left behind on this story that I don't quite know where to pick them up again. The biggest example of this is that I wrote myself a note for the next chapter, chapter fourteen, to "get back to the conversation with Mallory." First off, I told my friend, I don't remember what conversation I needed to reference. Secondly, and what's worse, I haven't the slightest clue who Mallory is, what her importance is to the story, and what her arc is supposed to be. That's pretty awful when one of your secondary characters has simply fallen off the face of your recollection. Plus, it makes me feel like I've been feloniously negligent in my hoarding my story ideas. I should've kept a better handle on everything have to do with this story because it simply is the best thing I've ever written. It would make me very sad to see it turn out less than stellar simply because I lacked the conviction to store every important detail or relevant plot point.

However, there are some feelings I'll never forget. There are some key ideas and themes that all it takes is a few pages to remember why I even bothered attempting writing a novel in the first place.

There are some passages that still have the power to literally make me cry on the phone, even after six years.

----

twelve - because he's leaving

About a year ago, while we were driving our son to a play date with one of his friends from preschool, Tierney asked me how come I never remembered Carisa’s death. She remarked that I had never taken any time off, never gone back to Kilburn, never even mentioned on which day exactly she died. Back then I had come up with some glib answer about how an eleven-year-old mind doesn’t process information in quite the same manner as an adult. I told her that to me it was more important to celebrate her life rather than her death. Then I turned the conversation back on her and asked her if she didn’t agree. We ended up talking about her father’s death more than about Carisa’s, which was a good thing because I don’t know how well I would have handled a full-blown discussion on that topic.

The truth is and shall forever be that I always remember the exact day in October she died—October 13th. Every year on that date instead of going to work I sneak off, without Tierney and without my son, back to where she is buried. Sometimes Emily comes, most times she doesn’t. I have asked her not to tell my wife I visit there. I don’t think Tierney would understand. Emily is the only one close enough to me to understand why exactly I handle my grief in such terms. It’s not that I don’t believe my wife would care. I know she would. The trouble is that she would only care about me; she wouldn’t honor Carisa. The day would stop being about the flaxen-haired love of my youth and more about how it affected to me. And, quite frankly, Carisa, and especially her death, deserves more respect than that. I love Tierney to bits and pieces, but she would miss the point.

The point is that Carisa never had the attention in her life. She was always so busy making sure people got along, people were happy, and that she could in some way be the catalyst for that. She was always so busy shining the spotlight on other people, making them into the superstar, that she never quite kept enough for herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t deserve it—she was outspoken and pretty, direct and honest. There were more than enough occasions where people couldn’t help but notice her. Yet she never called for attention and most of the attention she received was very negative. She was always being labeled as weird and crazy by people that did not know her, by people she so desperately wanted to be her friends. The truth was she was always a giver even to the last day she lived. She gave, and gave, and gave, and she didn’t stop giving until she saw that you were happy or, at the very least, some version of it. She lived to see others happy.

The point is that it would make a mockery of her life that she couldn’t get some of that attention spilled upon her now that she was dead. I made sure every time I came to visit her on October 13th that I made it all about her. I never have a prepared speech; I mostly wing it. But it has always ran along the same lines.

“Carisa, you were the one good thing in my life that I have no regrets about. About the only thing I regret is that I lost you so young before I could see you grow up into the absolute perfect, charming, and beautiful woman I knew you could have been. I miss you every day—sometimes more than I think is healthy for me. I miss you every day I see Emily with little Craig and even littler Heather. I think to myself that could have been us, that should have been us. You would have made the greatest mother and I think you should have been given that chance if there were any justice in the world."

And then I usually cry and I usually don’t stop until it’s evening. If Emily is there she knows well enough to leave me alone. I don’t want to be comforted. I don’t want to be told I’ll be okay. I want to be sad. I want to hurt. Hurting is how I know it’s real, hurting is how I know the feelings I had for Carisa were actually genuine, are actually sincere. My pain on those days cannot be talked away, cannot be hugged from existence. They exist because she existed and because we existed together for awhile.

Tierney would not understand this.

If I ever let her come the minute she saw me crying it would be the end of honoring Carisa. After that point she’d try to make it all about me. She wouldn’t understand making it about me would be akin to an unforgivable sin. Carisa deserves a day all to herself. After all, Tierney has me the other 364 days of the year. More to the point, my wife has had me ongoing for twelve years now. What did Carisa get with me? A lousy stinking four months, that’s what. I know everyone always says that you should be able to share in all things with your spouse and all that. And in most things I would agree. Even during our troubles right now there still isn’t another individual alive today I’d rather have accompany me to the movies, to surprise me at work, to generally flash me that bright smile of hers and just brighten my day. We may have our problems—none bigger than the we find ourselves currently in—but not wanting her around has never been one of them. I think it’s like one of those days where you cannot decide for the life of you where you want to eat. You narrow it down to two choices and both of them sound fantastic. That was my dilemma with Tierney and Carisa. It isn’t one of wanting one over the other; it is one of wanting them both and not being able to have both.

On that particular day, with our son in the backseat, I was able to deflect the question away from having to explain to her why I do not ask her to accompany me to my memorials. It is a question I don’t think I can sidetrack her from for very long. She is eventually going to figure out where I disappear once every October. Then she will want to come. Then she will feel hurt when I tell her she cannot. Then she may, or should I say probably will, get me to change my mind. I do not want to change my mind. I do not want somebody making me feel better.

Carisa made me feel better once upon time. Then she died. No one should be allowed to make me feel good again. That’s how I feel sometimes.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers