I disappeared. And I’m not sure if I’m coming back but for some reason three months on, I feel I can finally write about that fateful night October 14th 2012. That night when the love of my life asked me to be his wife. That night when he got down on one knee and ask me to spend the rest of my life with him. That night when I said yes at the top of my lungs only to have the air ripped out from inside me ten minutes later when my father died. Yup. That’s right. You read that correctly. There are times I can’t think about the two together because it’s too painful, too much sting. Most of the time I don’t mention the two together, unless you’re one of the 60 people who was waiting to surprise me at my engagement party only to have my future husband walk in by himself, still in shock trying to explain what had just unfolded. It’s not painful because we were super close. If you read this blog you would know that’s not true. It’s painful because we once were. He once was my knight in shining armor. And now he was dead at the bottom of the stairs, soaked in his own urine and shit. You know that’s what happens? When you die, you lose all control and any dignity you may have once had disappears out the window before you’ve even hit the bottom step. I went through the grieving process so much differently than everyone else. For reasons not worth explaining I took care of the cremation arrangements, the bills, the transfer of accounts into different names. For a week I begged Jake to re-propose to choose a different day, a different time, I cried for selfish reasons, laughed at the thought that he one upped me yet again. And then I sat in a church listening to The Smiths as strangers tried to find nice things to say. After one week I went back to LA and tried to find joy about that day but the nightmares came and the sweats and the terrors that someone else would die on my wedding day. It’s been three months. I’m having a hard time planning this wedding. Sometimes I think it’s because it brings up issues that never got resolved, sometimes it’s because the little things like who’s going to take me up the aisle, or have a father daughter dance with me are suddenly not so simple anymore. 

Anyway I am tired and suffering from a severe case of vertigo so enough is enough. But that’s where I’ve been the last three months - somewhere between ecstatic and just trying to hold it together.