We are Christian Emo Adults

A Journal entry (my birthday weekend)

Today Eric died all over again. The weekend went well. Patricia gave me such thoughtful things for my birthday. I went to the movies and watched I saw the TV Glow. How dare they take my diary and make it into a vapor wave movie. I really liked it. Chase, Maggie and I loved it. Patricia, Ibbi, and Kat didn’t know what the fuck they just watched. I was like, it’s about being trans and gay and having no refuge except for this show (which is IRL Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and being so lost that you would rather escape into the television than exist in the reality they’ve made for you. The straights always come after you build it. You know? Society won’t have us, but when we make something really cool that is for us, they want it too. Little culture vultures, fucking colonizers. It’s one thing to come as an orphan to the scene, and another thing altogether to try to take it over. So the movie felt close. Like someone I loved had written it. And for all the dramatic angst they showed, the most powerful parts were subtle. Like his corner smile when he saw himself in a dress. Or how back then being supine in the back of the car was not as big of a deal. But there is this conversation they have, the one where he knows she is sick and not coming back from the delusions, and he is not going with her. We’ve all had those goodbyes. I had that goodbye with Eric, with Ayanna, and Amanda who still lives. I’ve had that goodbye with Jackson, and I’ve had it with my father. It is the goodbye before death. The last conversation before we fold ourselves inward and say I can’t follow you where you are.

Today I went back to Eric’s house, his parent’s house. I went there because they are moving to Washington, and it was my last chance to get some of his ashes, and some belongings Renie wanted me to have. I started heaving on the way. I told myself it is not appropriate to cry when they are leaving behind their last home with their sons. I cannot let my grief be something they have to take care of. But it was inevitable, and I felt overwhelmed, and a wave of love crashed upon me, and the tears flowed, and the breathing took its own speed. Between sobs I let her know I am overwhelmed, and she said it’s ok, we will cry together. And we hugged, and it felt like I was hugging him inside her cells. Lucy, her dog, came to my knees to wiggle and kiss and greet. She knew I needed a hand into the vortex of memories so deeply bandaged, so newly healed, because the scab would open, and she had the band aids. Fluffy tigress Lucy, what a class act.

We caught up on the family’s ongoings. The girls are both married now, I did not realize Katheryn had married. Except I did know that, just forgot. I couldn’t figure out how to end this, because there is an ellipses on the subject of Eric. An eternal what if. I am not happy about decisions taken out of my hands, by his absence. But the universe chooses your battles for you sometimes. Eric kept my baby blue canvas platform sneakers that I wore to New Orleans on our nightmare trip. I stepped on dog shit immediately upon arrival. A small omen of what was to come. He bagged the shoes and kept them until I came to gather them posthumously. Renie let me pick through his belongings. I took one of his old shirts, a captain America shirt he wore all the time. Not because he gave a shit about Marvel, but because he wore whatever was available. I was able to keep a stone where he wrote the things he knew God thought about him. It’s the kind of thing you do at a christian retreat. Eric and I loved worship music and the hoopla of being beloved. One of my last moments with him were in his car during the pandemic in apocalyptic tent city Denver, showing each other worship songs. We would often joke we’re christian emo adults. The day I was told he died I wrote to Youtube begging them to give me my full music history from months back so I could find that song he showed me. It was old school. It was 90s evangelical old school. I couldn’t tell you the name. In New Orleans we had a really bad time. He was having strong delusions that I had cheated and was cheating even still with his best friend. Not one of the people we stayed with helped the situation. I almost took a plane home. That’s a story for another time. But we did have this one good moment on the strip. We were sitting on swivel chairs at a hot pub with an open cool breeze. I was wearing a sunflower dress the girl living at the shotgun house gave me. Wonderwall played, like it often does. And with heavy hearts we sang like that song was about us, smiling, knowing there was never going to be a different outcome. There were no what ifs. We would never cross the threshold of our separate understandings. I never heard back from YouTube.