U Ok

According to what everyone says ---and, truly, everyone says so---, loss is supposed to get easier with time. Wounds are sewn up, tears dry, people heal. But the more I think about the future (my future), the more difficult it becomes to do so.

My dad has been gone for just more than a month, and with time, my sadness has only changed, not lessened. A month ago, I was in shock and denial, mixed, I suppose, with anger and frustration. But now, I have truly begun to understand just was loss is.

My dad is never going to see me graduate from Marquette. He's not going to be there when I buy a house, and he won't be able to live in the basement with Thunder 3 like we always joked about. I'm never going to be able to give him another useless, crappy Father's Day gift that he would inevitably bitch about. He's never going to call me at 9:00am on my birthday again. I'll never receive another birthday check or another Christmas present, and we won't be able to go out to eat and complain about my grandmother's potatoes on Thanksgiving. And sometimes I just don't know how I can face all of these holidays, and all of these important life events, without him there. (Right now is one of those times.) I already post pictures to facebook with a certain twinge of sadness and regret because he won't be able to make a snarky comment about them; how can I ever possibly graduate without him there?!

I wish I could say it makes me angry that he won't be there. Anger is easy; anger takes no effort. Sadness is draining. Sorrow makes me want to stay in bed all day and makes me not care about my schoolwork or my teaching; makes me not care about, well, anything. Days like today take a Herculean effort; an amount of effort that is both draining and exhausting. And days like today come out of nowhere, and are prompted by the smallest of instances.

I just can't recover from this intense feeling of loneliness. My mom hasn't contacted me since her immature scene at the wake, and obviously my dad is no longer there to send me a worried, drunken instant message: "u ok," he would say. No, I'm just not okay. Not today.