Happy Birthday, evermore

Today is your day, kiddo. 52 and counting, but still just 48. It will never be OK that you are not here, Ingrid.

When I think back on all the years and all the months and all the days we knew each other, I can't help but think I'll never meet anyone as important to me as you were. As you are.

Maybe that's the nature of things when you meet young, go through the big milestones together, mark the years together. I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm angry as hell you aren't here, pal. I never stop wishing you could just... come back.

I love you, old girl. Happy birthday.

And Another Gay Year Ends and Starts

Hi Ingrid,

It's the 34th anniversary of the day we came out. I look forward to this day every year, grateful that I know the date, that I can pin down when my adult future really started. And yours.

Thirty-four years and one day ago you and I did the March of Dimes Walk-a-thon and spent 20 miles talking around and around our feelings. Then the next day, we couldn't hold back any longer and finally became the lesbians we were always destined to be.

How thankful I am for you, Ingrid. So thankful. Not only did we get to come out in a fairly painless manner, but even better, we got to come out into love.

I hope you can feel how much I love you still, friend. That will never change.

Trail's End

For more than a while now I have been struggling to put into words the keen sense of loss I still feel over Ingrid's death. Just now I was reading the comments on a story about whether it's selfish to have a second child so your first child will have a pal, and I came across this phrase: "someone to walk through the world sharing a common history with."

Now aside from how weird it is that I was reading anything about having children, that is a version of what Ingrid meant to me. Because we knew each other so young, and for so long, it felt as though we had an almost-common history and that we'd been walking through the world, indelibly connected, for a long time. I took it for granted that we'd be old ladies together. We talked about it, joked about it, described it to each other.

And now my old-lady walking pal is gone. And nobody else gets to walk through the world with her either. I think it sucks for all of us.

That about sums it up.

One Sad Day

It's that worst day again, Ingrid. Three years since you died. I've been avoiding writing this all day.

Even this long out, it's hard to accept that you're gone. I still think, "Oh, I'll just ask Ingrid." And then snap back to reality and remember that I can't do that.

I think acceptance is a very slow process, Ingrid, that happens to a lot of small corners and nooks in the mind. And since you occupy a lot of those spaces I'm not exactly aching for acceptance, I guess.

I still just miss you.