Member-only story
I know I shouldn’t be writing about this
The power of anonymity in dealing with death
Close the curtains. Deadbolt the doors. Dim the lights.
And then, I tell myself, stop being so dramatic.
It’s an unconscious behavior — hiding myself like this — when I’m about to “go there,” though by this point I’ve usually found a more comforting distraction to avoid the thing altogether. I don’t know why tonight is different. Maybe it won’t be. Maybe I won’t finish this. Maybe these words will face the same demise as hundreds of others in half-written Word documents with titles like “rambling3.docx” that I save in some folder within a folder hidden with the name “boring docs” where all my writing goes to die.
Still, nothing seems to prevent the urge to go back to it, to finish it somehow, express it perhaps in a different way. For whatever reason, I’m going to write about the thing. That’s all.
Relax. It’s not like someone died or something. Or, as my ex would often say in response to my worrying, “Just relax: Nobody’s dead, nobody’s sick, nobody’s upset.”
But four years ago, he did die. And, well, that’s the thing.
It’s only when I write the word that I freeze and let the implications of it truly sink in: dead.
