Ashes to Ashes...

Time is flying. It feels like time is being pulled out from underneath my feet. It is here, and then it is gone. It makes my anxiety and myself look like a fool… I worry over things that are here and then gone. My anxiety attacks me in the moment over the moments to come, and once they do, they are here so quickly, and then they are behind me.

S.W. was a man that Stephen met on the internet. They chatted many times. Stephen thought he was hot, and once I saw his pictures, and so did I. He came to New York maybe six months back. Maybe eight, I don’t know. Stephen ran into him out and about on a Friday night, and S.W. was apparently trying to get into Stephen’s pants to the point of being obnoxious. But who doesn’t after a few drinks? ☺ The following Sunday at the Eagle Beer Blast, S.W. came up to me. He behaved the same. I tried to speak with him, but he was very much focused on the one thing. I declined his advances for spending more time with my friends, but i thought good for him. After all life, is short, and he knew what he wanted and didn’t mind putting himself out there to get it. It's a lesson a lot of people could stand to learn. He was handsome, and you could tell there was a kindness in his eyes, but there was also hurt. He wanted desperately for someone to love him for who he was. I hope he found that.

Stephen got a call from his S.W.’s brother yesterday. S.W. passed away from spinal meningitis. When my boyfriend called me on the phone to tell me, all of my memories mentioned above came flooding back to me clear as day as if they were happening simultaneously. To think that this person, this stranger who I spoke with was here, and is now gone. Somehow it’s more bearable to deal with celebrities and rock stars and former president’s wives…but when it is a stranger that I spoke with…it is somehow more real. Those in the news media are like Greek gods to most people. I feel like I live in Olympus living here in Manhattan. I am not one of the gods, but I see them on the streets and in stores and in restaurants. But still, S.W. is someone who I actually spoke with, who I gave a hug to as I left. He was someone real to me, who I embraced, if only for a moment. And now his body is in the ground.

It seems like such a foreign concept. This morning I woke up and all I could think about was him. What was he like? Had he been a happy child? What things went through his mind as he was about to take his last breath?

It is a slippery slope for me to even think on it. I have never been good with death, having lost so many as a child and then later as a teenager. I have never feared rejection, for at least that person lives on. It is abandonment that devours my core at time. The fear of my friends and loved ones leaving me. And yet my greater fear is what comes next, for it is so uncertain. I don’t fear hell, because at least there would be an awareness. But what if there is no awareness. What if Rex is no longer Rex. Then Stephen and all that we had is gone. Carsin and Caleb, my niece and my nephew, their laughter is gone. My friends vanish. All of this, all of these beautiful and terrible things that we live through and cry over and squander and embrace and fight for … it is all gone.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

It is hard to even try and wrap your head around. So I won’t.. I will try to go about my day, breathing in the world around me, and trying to smile despite the tears that hide just behind my eyes.

I didn’t know you S.W. , and for that, I apologize. But I hope that your life was good.