I may have to change my route to work, as I cycle past his place, zigzagging through the village. Not a big thing, and won’t change the time it takes, but something. Something I have to avoid for a bit, I think, until the rawness subsides. It’s a trigger. Definitely a BIG trigger.

I honestly didn’t know. I mean, saying it now it seems ridiculous, almost, but I really didn’t know I’d feel this great big space inside when he left. I knew I would miss him, but not like this. I suppose what I’m finding it hard to say, is that I love him.

I mean, I knew I really liked him, I knew I cared, and I knew I loved him…but not that I love love him. Or not like this, if that makes any sense, cause I’m not certain I even know, but there you go.

Met Sue over at his apartment yesterday to do some clean-up, as D3 was not exactly the neat and tidy sort. Not by a mile, and his place was not something his landlord needed to have to deal with, as he’s been more than fair, allowing him to stay there till spring, and probably knowing full well he would never see the back rent. So we dusted, swept, scrubbed, wiped down, and washed as much as we could. Emptied the remaining stuff D3 couldn’t take, splitting it among our selves, with a couple of friends coming over around 7PM who are going to take some of his remaining shop stuff.

It was cleansing, healing, necessary, and really hard. To be back there in that kitchen where so many things were said, done, laughed at, cried at, to. Empty.

Afterwards, her boyfriend brought us some more beer and then left us to wile some time away by the bonfire he’d started for us. And we sat and talked, and told stories, and both burned something of his in the fire, a Beltane like ritual, each saying thank you spirit’s of white light and goodness tossing our piece of clothing into the fire, silently sitting back and watching it burn, in silence.

Mine was a t-shirt he’d left God knows when, after some drunken night, and it smelled still of him. That BO, woodchips and something else. I wanted to keep it, but I knew in my heart I shouldn’t, and that it was the perfect sacrifice to… I don’t know…why do we ritualize our griefs, our losses, or wins, our important times? Well, that is why, to mark I guess the passage of time, honouring that friendship, thanking the universe for it, acknowledging that we love him, miss him, but are blessed to have him.

I got up way early, 5:30am, after my java fix, and headed back over to grab some of the stuff I was keeping of his. Took two trips, and then sat on my stoop and cried a bit, and that rotten hollow feeling returned. The sense of having had something taken from me, that is going to take some time to heal, to shrink a little down, be less … I don’t know. Anyways, I know it takes time…god do I know.

As we were sitting there, quietly watching the sweater she had chosen from the floor of the workshop burn, probably strewn in a ball in the corner some cold winter day and forgotten, I told her how I believe all of us are going to shine. This best friend, confidant, whom we both loved and depended on, whose having to move so far away has hurt so deeply. Maybe too much, and at the cost of other things, dependant.

I told her how I believe that these things happen, not necessarily fated, but they do happen, we lose things, people, storage lockers, and in time they make room for better things or different things at least, and we decide their value.

It is an opportunity to do new things, make changes in our routine, and in time this sense of loss becomes a time maybe you look back to fondly, as a turning point, a new cycle that brings with it new things, out of the ashes rises the Phoenix sort of soul moving stuff.

Thanking the universe, the divine, or whatever you believe, thankful for the memories, the good times, the shoulder, all of it, you know? Each bonfire, each laughs, new songs and old played and conversations they sparked, all the walks down memory lane, and historical dialogues, and being blessed to have known someone like him that makes us feel so at a loss with him gone.

That is precious.