2003

I'm pulling things together, hoping to start compiling a memoir - or perhaps it will be two memoirs: the two closest people in my life thus far whom I've lost. Jonathan, and my mom. It's strange. I hadn't gone back and visited that insane year of 2003 in a long time, in my livejournal, in my journals, all the e-mails, the IM conversations. I have so much of it saved. And I hadn't looked at it in a long time. I finally came across the last "chapter" to the memoir, about Jonathan, that I had been writing for my individualized writing class. Ha, he had even written a letter to the other students in the class, thanking them for being interested in what I had to say. He was a wonderful friend.

In 2003, in the span of nine months, I both met and lost a very close friend of mine, whose face I never saw, whom I never met, even though so many nights he would be sitting in the next room, just out of reach. It's the craziest story I've ever heard, and I'm even in it. That's why it needs to go on paper. When, when will I have the courage to pull it all together? The fear, the mysterious letters, the late night conversations, the games, the hiding, his agoraphobia, our loyalty (the "posse," he called us), his and Bonny's tumultuous affair and marriage, the brain tumor, the blackouts, the tranquilizers. That Josh Groban song that still makes Megan and I cry our eyes out. That memorial service, when hardly anyone came, but we didn't care. We had his violin on display and a million words on our hearts. So let the world not believe that he existed. We knew he did.

And now? Now, who remembers? Bonny, Megan, me. Who else? Who else remembers our affair with the agoraphobic, the technical genius, the phantom of Judd Theatre, the Black Rose?

Today was the first day I've cried over his memory in many months. It's hard to face death, and realize you'll never stop missing them, when they're gone.