The Aftermath

Monday's are great, right? I mean it's the start of the week. You wake up, say how amazing it's gonna be, have a mild panic attack and go about your merry way. Yay! And I know what you're gonna say. "Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays!"

Stop it.

I hate that phrase. With a passion. More than I Blue cheese, and I hate that shit.

Life's still moving forward. Crazy as fuck, but moving forward. The snow has melted outside. I've lived in Michigan for over 2 months now, and it never ceases to amaze me that snow comes and goes. Like it comes here, sits around, turns to jizz and then dissolves into the ether. It's really a weird phenomena. At least it's warm outside. And by warm, I mean 40 degrees (since I know some southerners die if it's below 60).

So let's pick up.

Hipnos left on the last day of May 2019. And although I had a lot of scary, emotional, and painful moments with him, there was still this hovering emptiness when I woke up the next morning. I had trouble sleeping that night. My usual white noise of the window unit couldn't drown out the noise of the emptiness of our room. I played music, browsed twitter, anything and everything. I did eventually sleep, but it took awhile.

Hipnos texted me to let me know he made it home safe. I know most wouldn't have even cared, but I did as weird as that sounds. I can't really remember what I did that weekend. I think there was a book release I attended which was a good distraction, but the rest of that weekend was a blur.

I pushed to do a few more poetry readings so I could promote my book which was coming out in July. There were definitely some weird ones of that bunch. I did a reading at the Americana which was filled with and older christian audience. My work isn't exactly meant for that demographic, but a stage is a stage. Video below.

Es and I talked every day. It probably took me a good full month or two to actually become comfortable with the absence of Hipnos. Es helped me through all of it. Staying focused on work, staying focused on community poetry projects, made it easier.

In July, Es and I went to Disney, which I'll talk about in my next post. A lot of good things happened that trip.

It was hard to stay distracted from Hipnos' absence. When you're with somebody for 7 years you just get used to them. You get used to everything about them. Every time I came home, I was reminded he was gone. And it was both relieving and yet saddening. On the one hand, I ended a relationship that was terrible and abusive for me. On the other hand, I was physically alone. I had family I was living with at the time, but we just weren't that close.

I went through these moments of hating him, yet wanting him back. I had these two clashing emotions, and it was wrenching at times to confront them. I had to stay focused on why I made the choices I made, yet yearning is not always a logical emotion.

But it went away after some time.