Before or After?

Did Art die before or after Pallas hit five feet?

Did he die before I bought the new underwear or after?

Was he alive when Google offered that new earth maps feature?

Was I friends with her before or after Art died?

Was he alive when Langton said __________ or Ezra did ______?

Before or after?

This is the new question I’ve been asking lately.

And most of the time I can’t remember. And it surprises me.

Not so much in the asking of it but in my inability to answer it and in the fact that not being clear is so much a part of moving on. The little details of our life together is losing its color.Not being clear is also disheartening.

And with my inability to answer the questions, he fades into the background just a little bit more. I lose him every time I can’t remember if it was before or after he died.

He gets fuzzy like I’ve had too much to drink.

In that fuzziness, I grow anxious and scared and sad and disappointed that my life is this one. A life that is trying to wrap itself around the fact that he is never, ever coming back.

In that fuzziness I become exhilarated and joyful and find strength as I claim this new life that is opening up before me and is filled with a more dynamic, wiser, YAHOOY me.

My life:
…clear and fuzzy.
…with Art, without him.

April 16, 2009 was the last day he made an impression and its’ starting to fade.

There is ease in that knowledge.
There is sadness in that knowledge.

And I again re-learn, remember and prove to myself that opposite emotions can exist in the same thought.

Did I learn that before or after he died?

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