well, it's been a million years since i posted anything here and it is honestly strange to be back but i'm bursting with words & emotions so i finally dug up the password. this poor old blog is still linked on my twitter and heaven knows where else. it's a shame it fell out of favor. 2014 was a long time ago and at this point, certainly a lifetime now.
i don't know if i am the claytripper anymore. despite the social media, the cleverness, and that i do still play with clay. i am simply not the same person. i have walked through a fucking volcano and you better believe that shit changes every bit of you. grief is unbelievably unpredictable. grief and mourning and bereavement and grappling against any iota of survival instinct have warped me into the beast you see before you. the tricky thing here is that i might look just the way you expect. but every cell and atom that comprised me has been altered. marked by trauma. the reality of the loss still eludes me. it's not allowed to be a static fact. it ebbs and flows and that has been the truth for the last 3 years, 2 months and 12 days.
i am not the same. i lost a fair amount of weight just from forgetting to eat. i never stopped eating but i did eat much less when i did. i lived on those protein shakes from costco. none of my clothes fit and neither did my rings. i have gained some of the weight back but my body has changed, and my rings still don't fit. i eat ok and was always good with keeping hydrated. crying for hours on end, day and night like a ghost made of flesh will deplete you of salt, water and energy. the shock your body sustains in the wake of losing your best friend and loving spouse is indescribable. you truly feel hit by a truck, and if you're anything like me, you both fear and pray for it to hit you. the physicality of the grieving process really surprised me. its fucking exhausting. my body chemistry was so changed that i couldn't even smoke my beloved weed for comfort or peace. it just made me feel sick and anxious which goes against the nature of the agreement we'd always had. weed was medicine. weed was home. weed was philly. and nothing was the same now that he's gone.
even after i was able to make attempts at restarting the habit, the comfort in the cushion of cannabis was short-lived. it felt so good and so normal to be feeling tickly and giggly but usually that equated to a world where philly existed. so, to live in the reality was to torment oneself. the peace was an illusion. the safety, also an illusion.
so, the welcome back to the blog is basically me just imparting the various levels of pain one suffers at the sudden loss of a spouse. i haven't even scratched the surface. but its late and the dog is sighing with impatience.
