Last night I finally did it. I went to a bereavement support group. Everyone’s badgered me to go since A died, and I just got tired of hearing it. I went mostly just so they would get off my back. I didn’t have any particular hope that it would help or reveal some great ray of light I’ve been missing for the last year.

So, I go. It looked like AA meeting on TV, where everyone is in this dank little side room of a church, drinking coffee from paper cups. There were a lot of people there, and the group leader introduced herself. Thank the fucking gods she didn’t make all of us do that. I would have left right then. But then she made us split into pairs to talk one-on-one, and that was even worse. The guy she paired me with seemed nice enough, really good looking (I know, I’m bad) but he didn’t want to talk. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t either. But I would have. If he hadn’t taken one look at me and bolted as soon as I told him my name.

He left. Granted, like a deer in headlights, but still. I told him my name, and he left.

I choose not to personalize it and to think that it was because he probably had a bunch of people forcing him to go to that craphole fellowship hall to talk about shit that’s nobody else’s business, but I thought I would die. For the quadruple-billionth time in the last year, I thought I would just lie down on the floor and just freaking die.

I didn’t have to go. I mean, even though a lot of people pressured me to, I didn’t have to. But I thought if there was a minute chance that someone who isn’t a doctor, or therapist, or concerned friend or doting family might be able to understand where I’m coming from because s/he’d actually been there (fat chance), well. Maybe it would be worth the shot. I psyched myself up to go. I rehearsed in my head how I’d explain what happened, and who I am, and who we were, and what I am since. I thought maybe I could talk without worrying that I was pushing the buttons of someone else who loved A. I mean, they all want me to talk, but they don’t really. They don’t want me to tell them anything that would upset them about how we lived, or how A was my world, or how the way I want to live is diminished by A’s absence.

The guy didn’t just leave, he bolted. And I stared at the door after he left like some dumbass, thinking maybe he’d be right back, like I stared at the door thinking A would come in wondering what’s for supper after the police told me they’d found a body.

Well, A didn’t come back. And neither did this guy. So I took my cup of cheap ass coffee and left. I’m not going back. I can emotionally isolate myself, thanks. I sat by the bay watching the moonlight on the water, crying. Then I went home and answered all the concerned text messages and went to bed.

I told them that the group was very helpful and thanked them for suggesting that I go.

So I’m starting this blog, because it turns out I do have some things to say that don’t involve crying or eating or sex or fiction or shit head editors, and if some of the people who can’t handle what i have to say read this, oh well. I’ll write down whatever comes up, and maybe eventually that will be about A, and us, and who we were, and somehow in all of that I’ll figure out who I am now.

Thanks for reading, whoever you are. And bear with me while I figure out how to work this thing. Crap. Here goes.