9 months without her.

Ive been filling this book with letters since March 9, 2009, the day she got lowered into the ground.



I miss you Monique.

8 months and 27 days.

I fear my need to make something of my life, will in some ways do me harm.

I have never dealt with death in a healthy manor, I just turn myself off, push my pain and grief way down, and pour beer, whiskey and wine on it to keep it in it's place. The only person who understood this was Monique, I'm afraid I will do it to her, push it down, in order to keep going, turn myself off to the loss of her, and go about my life, choking on the emotions I don't know what to do with. Because when this time of night hits, and everyone is asleep, I'm here awake, fighting it, trying to keep the pain at bay, pleading for it to not overcome me, and I sleep, and wake up and keep livin, keep lovin, keep breathin, But there are moments (usually filled with amount of that beer, whiskey and wine) were it turns on me, and I can't keep it down, I end up drowning myself in it. I break down, get messy and cry myself to sleep. (repeat)

I don't want to push her away, in order to keep livin.

and I'm scared.

whiskey.

somewhere it all went wrong, I should have stayed home....

I should have never even tried to be apart of his life. She's dead, I'm alive.


what's the point now, it's to late.



I have bottomed out and my future doesn't fit into my schedule.
I'm all booked up on depression and self-loathing.

8 months and 18 days

Sometimes it feels just like yesterday.


sometimes it feels like years.


sometimes I hide under the covers and pretend it never happened.

Ive lost my voice trying to be heard over this noise.

Thinking about how much everything is/has changed, is still overwhelming. Today I met a friends grandmother, who had only seen me in a photo and heard the kind things Brittany has said about me, and she was so sweet and loving, After one hug and greeting I realized how much that woman reminded me of my Grandmother, that brought peace to my heart, because it has been a year since Ive been in the presence of my grandmother, I got a little emotional on the way home. I miss that woman very much, and I can't help but feel, that if Leukemia had not ended her life, she would still be going strong, cooking, sewing and teaching me the meaning of unconditional love.

I like to think I'm doing my best at life, but after a conversation with my cousin I'm doubting myself, it only took one question, what happened to all your close friends, what changed? my response...... Monique died.

constantly I find my self wondering what I should do more of, I always feel like I'm coming up short.

"you wont find Monique at the bottom of a whiskey bottle"

My moms right, but I'm sad, lonely, depressed and angry, and the two people I really want to spend time with well, one is dead and the other decided to moved 8 hours away from me.


and I know I wont find the company I want, in a whiskey bottle or jug of wine, But right now, they are more accessible.

and I know that bottle of whiskey or jug of wine wont take away my depression, or my anger.


But, I just don't wanna feel anything for a little while, I just wanna break from all this pain I'm feeling

so I at some point in the next few days, I will find me that bottle of whiskey or jug of wine, and I will take a break from it.

sinking.

The holidays are as dead as the people I want to spend them with, But as much as I wish I could just hide under the covers and wait for them to pass, I have my mother, and we will do our best to make it through this first holiday season without Monique.

I find myself just wanting to stay in my hole, the one I dug 8 months ago, i find nights to be the worst, alone in my empty room, It's when I face everything all over again, alone with my tears and my notebook full of letters, full of words I want to say to her, the stuff I never got a chance to say, it's like a song stuck on repeat. Other times I write all the things I can't say to anyone else, and then the anger rises and I can taste the bitterness, because that notebook fails to give me the comfort of the sisterly advise I long for. We never seriously ever really talked about what we would do if one of us lost each other, It's a miracle Ive made it this far, without my other half.

My true story about recliners,

It started about 9 years ago, My grandfather took his last breath sitting in his favorite recliner chair. Soon after my Grandmother donates it to the goodwill, it being to painful to keep.


My father got in a horrible car accident a few months before my 18th birthday, he comes home unable to walk, wheel chair bound, My aunt buys him a recliner chair to make him comfortable, he died 3 weeks after I turned 18.

My grandmother got Leukemia, she is to weak to walk up her stairs to her house so she moves in with my aunt pat, she receives a gift one day,a brand new recliner, soon after we find out her Leukemia is terminal, and she is brought home to spend her final days with her family.


My sister, she spent some time battling an addiction, she goes to rehab, and comes home 30 days clean of pills and still very weak and tired, I get a phone call one night, she tells me my brother dragged in an old recliner my moms boyfriend left in the garage, because she wanted to sit in it, she tells me to hurry home, she doesn't want to be alone. About a week or two into being home, her health gets horrible, because she goes off pills with no medicine, her chemical imbalance sent her brain into overdrive and she has to spend a night in mental health (I thought then, that this is as bad as life can get, I was wrong) while there they find she has a high fever and rush her to the hospital, after what feels like forever we find out that she has a urinary tract infection that went septic, almost killer her. we bring her home and nothing gets better, I make her a foot stool for her recliner that won't recline, and she spent the rest of what time she was awake sitting in that chair. laughing some days, crying others and some days just spent in silence, she ends up back in the Hospital, were she was pronounced dead February 28, 2009 5:01pm

Alicia is my only friend that has never made me feel crazy about my Recliner storys, she brought me home from the hospital that day, we walked in the house and took one look at that chair and lost it, we went crazy, we dragged it out crying and left it for the trash.

I never want to own another recliner.

bitter.

Everything that I am misses my sister so much, that sometimes I wake up not really comprehending that she is gone, all I know is that I need to find her and hug and tell her I love her, then reality sets in, and I remember she is gone.


I went to the cemetery today for the first time in a long time and I shoved pretty new flowers into the ground, becasue now the only thing I can buy for her, are fake plastic flowers.

and that makes me bitter and angry.


and I will never be ok with any of it.

these days, and those days too.

why can't I just relax, leave the past behind?

The pages on the calendar keep turning, the sun keeps rising, and setting. My heart keeps beating and I'm still breathing. I can still throw party's, go to concerts, dance, draw on my eyebrows, get tattooed, be there for a friend, lend a shoulder to cry on, and listen to boy troubles, life troubles, good times and fears.
I will still be understanding when someone disappears from my life for months at at time, and welcome them back with open arms. So why do I feel so afriad to live, when I'm already living, I can still do all the things I did with Monique, even when she is not here doing them with me, even though these days I get anxiety so bad I feel like my heart will rip out of my chest. My problem is doing more, I feel I will never amount to anything else, that this is it, a once a month house cleaning job, a few kick backs, drunken nights, concerts, dinner dates and maybe a movie night or two. A year since Monique has died is fast approaching, the only good I have done since is apply for one job and stop abusing pills.

I feel like a prisoner to my grief, to this life. I fear anything new.


I know I'm alive, but I don't feel like I'm living.