I lost a very dear friend last week. She was more than a friend though – she was family. I suspect the people who know me expect me to write about her and I will, somehow and some way. I’m not ready for that yet.

I haven’t felt a profound loss that knocked me on my ass since my Nana passed away. What’s more – I, like so many in Dianna’s circle, did not see it coming. I truly believed I’d one day be visiting her vertically challenged 90-something self in some retired folks’ home, where she’d be living next door to my mom. Okay, not really. She would never have agreed to that, unless there were really hot male nurses who came to assist her with bathing.

Todd is in Scranton at a bowling tournament and I just could not go. I considered it when he “remembered” it last week but after Thursday’s bombshell I decided I just wanted to be home. To do what, I have absolutely no idea.

I’ve also got some sinus pressure and a headache that is not from crying, in spite of it. Those symptoms are the usual this-time-of-year scorge, this year also delivering an endless runny nose AND nose bleeds. Mucus is the gift that keeps on giving.

My father’s birthday was yesterday and I had invited us to his birthday dinner in my hometown but by late afternoon the sinus bus had knocked me down on the couch and there was no help for it. It was and is important for me to see him so I feel like I’ve let him down too. Usually I post something on Facebook, change my profile picture, and share all the love I have for him. I didn’t do it this year. Maybe he won’t care. He says he really doesn’t use FB all that much anymore.

Is it really that important to post shit on FB about how much we love the people in our lives? Those people, if you’ve done your job right, already know how important they are to you. No need to broadcast it to the world. But I also understand the desperate need to share with everyone else how heartbroken and lost you feel. It’s the human condition we all share – the hunger for understanding, for support, for sharing the mutual loss.

I didn’t want to post anything. I knew what would follow and, while I appreciate the sentiments I received, I also feel shallow. Others have posted about her and I’ve been on FB multiple times a day searching and feeding off of their memories. I feel like I have no right to post anything because someone else is feeling it harder than me. Who am I to say there’s a tremendous hole in my life that can never be filled when there are so many others who are experiencing it too?

She was my mom’s person. And I was the one who got to deliver the news to her from 500 miles away, frantically trying to reach her before she saw some rando’s post about it before it was publicly announced. Really, I was angry at this person I don’t even know. How DARE he post his loss and tag Dianna before there was even an announcement?

Mom, so used to my indignance about things, simply said, sometimes some people just want to be first. That made me more indignant. I can hear Dianna laughing at me about this, because she knew. Or, more likely, she’d have said, ah, fuck that asswipe.

Mom has only posted a string of photos and videos. She has said nothing. The next few weeks are going to be very hard for her. I will be there for her as much as I can, but I will be sending out my plea for others to please step up if they can.

As for me, I went to work an hour and half after I’d heard the news. My first thought, after I’d picked myself up off the floor, was – I have to go. I also had an eye doctor appointment mid-morning, so it seemed apropos that I didn’t put on eye makeup. I spent the day feeling and looking peaked. The doctor said nothing about my watery and pink-tinged eyes and, frankly, I’m a little concerned about that. What kind of eye doctor doesn’t notice this?

Friday was my day off and I had a mammogram scheduled. I was also scheduled for an ABUS – an automated breast ultrasound – and the entire time I was thinking about her. I would’ve told her about it later – you have to lie on your stomach and place your nipple on this spinning disk that the technician spreads some kind of lotion on with a rubber spatula that you’d find in my kitchen drawer. I had a very legitimate concern about that nipple and I tried to imagine what hilarious thing she would’ve said about it.

Side note: she once said, about breast reduction, that she would never do such a thing. It freaked her out that they remove your nipple and place it on a dish and then sew it back on. There wasn’t much that you could say to her, to make her squeamish. She rather enjoyed making others squeamish.

I am both unable to decide what to do with myself – unwilling to focus on anything and feeling unmotivated – and picking a thing I can focus on. I am finding mundane things, like sorting through all the papers I’ve stashed on top of the cabinet to be filed away. What’s the point of that?

Cleaning something. Like picking one room and going nuclear. Reorganizing my closet. Again. Matching ties to every shirt in Todd’s closet. Anything, but writing.

She was my most ardent supporter [of my writing]. I will admit that I looked forward to her feedback, though I was sometimes suspicious that she was just blowing smoke up my ass. She’d told me privately many times that she loved the way my writing was evolving. What she felt meant more to me than I ever imagined, until there was empty silence.

Who will understand the motivations and the source of my creativity now? Who will blow smoke up my ass so I keep writing, for no one but myself?

I have said over so many years that there’s this “book” I am working on. A book that is more a concept in my mind, not a tangible thing in black and white. Sure, there have been attempts, and I have the saved pieces to show for it.

My direction for such a project has changed so many times. This last time, I told her that I was working on something new, something very personal, and that I wasn’t sure where it was going but for once I was just going to vomit it all out and then go back and see where it leads.

She said she was here for it. But now she is not. I’ve written some silly short stories that I’ve never shared – one of them I thought she would love – but now she will never read that either. This is the stupid, selfish reality that’s been passing over me every day.

This morning I sat down just to break the silence, and I’ve realized that the silence isn’t as loud as I thought it was, because I can hear her laughing. That beautiful and contagious laugh, every day. I can call it up at any minute. I hear her voice every day, though she’s not talking to me.

What will I do today? That I was able to write this much is a surprise to me. I have a whole day in front of me and I’m likely to wander around the house from project to project until the day disintegrates into darkness and I will want nothing more than to surrender to sleep again.