months later

It's been almost two years now. It seems impossible that in the span of two years (out of 22, really, not much) – impossible that in the short span of 24 months, I should forget his laugh. But I cannot quite grasp it anymore. It's become this shadow of a memory that I once clung to. After he died, I felt so sure that if I could just remember a few specific essential things – his laugh, the crinkle of his eyes, the sweaters – that I would be able to keep him with me. Instead I feel bits and pieces of him slipping away. At first, I thought of him so many times a day that it would have been impossible to count the instances. Now, I think of him much less often – perhaps about once a day.

The forgetting terrifies me on some level – if I forget things, does it mean I don't care or that the experience is somehow less a part of me than it used to be? If we stop spending time thinking about all the things that go wrong, does it mean we do a disservice to those who left us behind, or does it mean we're finally getting on with our lives and that we're healthier and happier than we used to be? The realization of the forgetting makes me unspeakably shaken. I realize, with a jolt, that I've been happier these days. That realization is what worries me – should I feel that way? Is forgetting, allowing memories to dim, wounds to close, flames to fade to embers and then to merely shimmering, dimly glowering ashes, a way that we try to get rid of the pain? Or is it merely the natural progression of a pain diminished?

After he died, I wrote. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, page after page of every memory I could muster. I was so afraid of forgetting that I wrote down every detail I could think of. What I didn't realize is that no matter how many words you use to try to explain to yourself the ways in which he mattered to you, the details of them will slip away, curling up at the edges like a photograph. The edges of the memories blur, as though you're watching them like a movie in your head through a soft-focus lens, and regardless of how hard you try to focus and squint to see more clearly, the crystal sharpness with which the memories once stabbed you turns soft, slippery, elusive. And you find pieces of them missing. The puzzle, once whole, is suddenly missing a piece around the edge – it's fallen off the table, into the crack between the wall and the carpet, and you just can't quite reach it.

I haven't written much lately. It has to do with that happier feeling I've been having. There's a wonderful boy/man (which I don't mean condescendingly - I still think of myself as a girl and almost never a woman), and I love him. What a strange thing to say. He never gets upset (which sounds like a good thing, but trust me, isn't always), he is impossibly stubborn, and he has the bizarre concepts of what is right and fair sometimes. But he cares about me and treats me with more respect and love than almost anyone else I've known, and for once I'm not in a relationship wondering what on earth I'm doing in the relationship – it's a safe place I've landed. Comfortable, happy, calm.

I'm afraid of the comfortableness ending with graduation. We've talked about post-graduation, and we have both made it quite clear that we'd like to stay together – but there is so much uncertainty about where we'll both be. We could wind up on different sides of the country. And I have no experience with long-distance relationships, and I'm afraid of it all falling apart. Afraid that he'll move to Seattle or Portland and meet some cool, laid-back west coast girl who's much better suited to his easygoing temperament, and that things with me will just become too difficult, and that I won't be worth it anymore.

Which is, I suppose, what's at the bottom of my fears – the fear of not being good enough, or not being worth it, is at the heart of most of my relationship worries, and often it turns out to be the correct one. I know, logically, that such is not the case here – for whatever absurd reason, he seems to think I'm pretty great. But there is this nagging worry, I think, that eventually he will realize I'm not, and that will be the end of things. And staying here is out of the question. Despite my happiness, and despite the wonderful friends I have here, lately it is impossible for me to escape the conviction that I'll suffocate if I don't leave soon. Maybe the fear is a good thing - it shows how much I value what I have right now.

In my Women's Writing of WWI class, the reading we've been doing has been quite sobering for me. Especially what we're reading right now – Testament of Youth – is absolutely wrenching. It seems so impossible for such awful things to be true. It seems so utterly unthinkable to me that such a life could happen – that everyone dear to me could die in one inglorious sweep of nationalism. It breaks my heart. And I know that much of the same thing is happening still today in the world – I know it to be true, but I cannot quite believe it.