journal-for-them

[journal-for-them]

11/27/21 - 11:03 am

hey zachary,

it’s been a minute since i wrote. i’ve been dating mikey happily for a while now. i went to their house for thanksgiving but missing you kept me upstairs and too scared to meet their family. i swore i could hear you trying to give me a pep talk.

you always spoke so matter of factly, because you usually knew what was the right thing to do. i could always trust your intuition. i miss looking to you for answers to silly random questions, and i miss laughing at how happy you would get when i asked a field specific question. i miss how much you loved your job. even at your first job when i met you; you hated your boss but you loved what you did. then your job at ECFiber was just such a good experience for you. you loved your co workers. you loved your boss. you loved your life.

i miss life with you. sometimes i let myself pretend you’re still alive and we just had a bad breakup. sometimes i’m convinced that’s the reality but unfortunately i couldn’t have been so lucky. i miss you a lot. i have fallen in love again, but you’re the headline of my heart forever.

i want to do things in your name. i want to donate money. i want to start a company. i want to start a revolution. i want your name to live forever and i just don’t know what to do. maybe i’ll start something and put in on a street called “zachary hill.” we passed zachary road in illinois and you wanted to steal the sign. you wanted to hunt for a “zachary hill.”

eating is hard again. i want to get back on weight watchers. i haven’t dared look at a scale since i’ve been in massachusetts. i’m trying to just be gentle with myself. i think i’m gonna try to do the “21 by 21” weight goal. that feels like it’s the easiest way to motivate myself.

i love you. i think about you every day.

i hope you’re watching me. i hope you’re proud of me.

love you

eyanna

[journal-for-them]

9/16/21 9:30 am

hello.

howdy there mr. zachary

i’ve been doing okay. i hung out with people in a very social setting for the first time and thoughts of you had come flowing as soon as possible. i wanted to be there. i wanted to tell you how much fun i was having. i could only hear our last fight. i yelled at you. you drove off for the first time without hugging me. you were in tears. i hurt you, then you died. i can’t believe that this is all still real.

i cry at least once a day just remembering that you’re gone. i feel like i didn’t love you like you deserved to have been loved. i was immature. childish. i let my mania lead me instead of my love and now you are gone. my permanent punishment for myself is to live with the guilt that i wasn’t able to give you the love you needed. i was fully capable to and now i can’t even message you to hear about stocks.

you made a promise to me when we were engaged. i said you weren’t allowed to die before i did because i didn’t want to live on a planet where you didn’t. you promised you wouldn’t. this is fucking ridiculous. why couldn’t the universe listen to our promise! my one plea to the goddamn universe our whole relationship and it doesn’t even matter???? my one held belief? it didn’t even fucking work? the universe had to take my father AND my boyfriend? i give up.

i have so many things that are starting for me but i feel so bitter trying to be happy about them all. i can’t even feel happy or excited about putting together an art exhibit or teaching another ukulele class. i’m not even excited to finish my ged. i just fucking miss you. i feel like there’s no point in any poof these victories if i can’t celebrate with you.

i’ve been extremely self centered lately. i keep thinking im telling everyone that does anything for me how much i appreciate them but i guess i’m not doing that well enough. everyone thinks i’m selfish and i truly believe everyone who i’m around hates spending time with me. i feel like such a burden to everyone. i’m hurting so deeply from losing you.

i really hope that butterfly that nearly landed on my finger was you. you flew all around me and all of my moms plants.

please, land on my shoulder sometime.

i miss you terribly.

love you forever

- eyanna

[journal-for-them]

9/3/21 - 6:21 am

i don’t know how to ever refer to zac

we weren’t dating when he died but we were just having a falling out. it would’ve been fixed with time and communication. he was my boyfriend for the first year of covid and we were also engaged for a while. i knew him for two weeks before we started dating, and he died a month after we split. we practically lived and raised his cats together, and i was his emergency contact after his dad and his best friend who lived closer to him. we were planning our future together. we named our first son. i usually call myself a widow just because mine and zac’s relationship was something much past any relationship i had ever had before. that man dedicated 6 hours of his weekend just sitting in his car for the sake of seeing me. every single weekend he would come get me and either stay in my town with me or take me to his place for the usually extended weekend.

i really miss him. i don’t like calling him my ex boyfriend. i didn’t even call him that when we were broken up. i usually call him my dead boyfriend. kinda implies that i have a zombie boyfriend. i think zac would absolutely get a kick out of me referring to him as my zombie boyfriend, but i don’t think that would be socially acceptable.

our relationship was my longest, and pretty much his first. to him; eyanna meant love. eyanna meant family. eyanna meant home. i liked being his future. he was the most driven person i’ve ever known. that man was going to have the most amazing future, he was so well versed in networking and he had his shit together. he was inspired by me losing weight and he was trying to bulk up. we were supposed to do something special once we reached the same weight. my heart breaks whenever i lose weight now. i used to tell zac every single time i lost a few pounds and every single time he would give me so much endless praise. he watched my relationship with food heal and he was my biggest supporter when i decided i wanted to lose so much weight.

i miss his voice. i miss his stupid beard that i never got to see him without. i miss the scars on his stomach from when he tried to cook bacon shirtless. i miss our matching knee scars from when we fell in illinois. i miss him.

i haven’t slept yet.

[journal-for-them]

9/1/21. 8:23 pm.

i can’t believe you.

you did it. you very obviously did this. the episode was called PB&J. i CRIED knowing that you weren’t ever going to see that episode name. Zac. jake peralta said your name. i’m absolutely digging at this point but it’s so clear to me. the sky was.. so, so pink. it was all pink. then this. the mention of the name that was once my every thought, after i drove, after i made a new friend, after i finally stood up for myself. you give me this.

thank you. i appreciate your little hints of existence left for me to view. it makes it easier.

love you forever

- yanna

[journal-for-them]

August 25th, 2021 - 7:24 pm

hey zac.

i am planning on getting off of the antidepressant i started when you first died. it’s been a really rough three months without you. i have been finally starting to reach out to people again and i’ve been making attempts to actually make friendships. i finally emailed the GED lady. i’ve traveled without family. i’ve been taking risks. i’ve been going inside of stores.

yesterday was the first time in a while that felt okay. today i’m doing pretty well. i am starting to accept that you are gone.

i have been having a hard time remembering who i was before you died. the last few days ive gotten the spark of myself back that i thought died with you. i have drive again. i feel like i could achieve all of the goals that you helped me set. i have been so deeply depressed the last three months. the last two weeks i spent laying on an air mattress in my living room because sleeping in air conditioning is essential when you need to curl up in a blanket cocoon.

i got really excited when i saw the ipad my mom got didnt have a lightning cord, but a USB-C. i have never, not once in the 19 years before i met you, EVER gotten excited over a charging port. ever. that was when the part of yourself that you patched onto my soul came out. i will never look at technology the same.

i think i’m going to be ready to open your boxes soon that your dad packed up for me. i have the frozen lou’s pizza still, we just gotta figure out how the four of us are going to celebrate you before eating.

i couldn’t make it to your celebration of life that your family put together. it broke my heart that i couldn’t go. but, in the pictures your dad sent me, i could see that so many people that love you were all smiling and celebrating in your memory. i hope none of your friends are holding it against me that we couldn’t make it to the wedding, we wouldn’t have gone anyways because Mittens was having complications with his health**. i’m sure the bride is really regretting that nasty message she sent you after. /j

anyways, i love you zachary. i think i am finally in a point in my grief where i am okay with referring to you in past tense. a song called “dancing with your ghost” came on in the car and it made me think of you.

when i dance by myself tonight, feel free to join me. i won’t see you, but at least you will know i am dancing with you in my heart.

love you forever

- eyanna

** (for anyone who doesn’t know: Zac had a cat that was 19 years old. i was also 19 years old. Mittens died a month after we visited Zac’s hometown.)

[journal-for-them]

1:27 am. 8/20/21

hey dude. what’s up?

i’m really missing you every day all day these days. day day day day day day day. i hate that you are gone. i hate it. i miss you so much. i don’t want to forget you. i’m scared if i try to progress in my life you will be just a memory. i can’t imagine my life without you even though i have to live it. it’s so unfair that you’re gone. you had so much ready for you. you were about to enter the most important part of your entire career just for it to be knabbed a weekend before it began. i’m still too nervous to find out the cause of your death. i think when i find out i feel like it’ll make it.. real. there will be a medical diagnosis in my brain as my greatest enemy for taking you away.

as i strain my head trying to deal with your passing, i find myself unable to process the fact that i am thinking about someone who is no longer in a body. i see your face every place i turn and quite frankly, its a little hard to process your death when you give me signs of yourself every damn place i have turned this whole summer. every time i stepped outside this whole summer of the deepest depression i’ve ever had, i saw a moth or a white butterfly. i saw you fly over mikey and i. i saw you every time i laid on the hammock. every time i gazed at the ocean, every time i made a new memory, you were there. you landed on my leg once. i was with mikey and budo in rockport. budo was barking at the water over and over, for no apparent reason. i knew it was you. a single moth flew around the three of us and landed on the top of my thigh high sock, exactly where you’d put your hand on every car ride we took. i knew it was you. i really hope that that was you telling me that i am okay for moving on. i really want to not feel guilty but i can’t help but feel like this isn’t what i should be doing. i really hope that you’ve been sending me the signs when i’m with them that i am okay and i am safe with them.

and as odd as it is to just talk about how my life after your death is, i need to actually tell you about mikey.

they have been absolutely the most incredible support. you would be so happy to know that i have really stepped out of my comfort zone because they push me when i need to be pushed. they are gentle and kind with me when i need them to be. they come from a family full of so much love. their family has all been so extremely supportive and i’m building a really great relationship with their sister. i talk about you most of the time. mikey is extremely patient and pretty much always willing to listen, and if they aren’t then they will still tell me that i am loved and i am okay. they keep me very grounded when we are together when i get too lost in my dreamland. they’re very creative, their notebooks are full of the coolest drawings. they have a thing for lists and they have a very particular way they consume media. i think you would’ve loved their thoughtfulness.

i wish so badly that there was a way to see if you’re doing okay wherever you are in this universe. i miss you so much.

i haven’t been sleeping well lately.

it’s almost 2 am.

goodnight.

love you forever

- eya

[journal-for-them]

8/16/21

my dearest zachary.

i don’t recall a day in the last almost three months that i did not hurt from losing you. i don’t like the fact that now you are just dust on the ground and the breeze of the wind. i miss your desires. i miss hearing about your stocks. i miss talking about our future together. we already named our son; joseph irvin. he was a mere figment of our imaginations but he was very important to the both of us. i think you would’ve liked me doing this. openly writing our love story for anyone to see. you would want it to come rawly, because that was one of your favorite parts of me. you loved the predictability of how excited i would get over everything. you loved knowing that you knew exactly what to say or do to get me happy. you knew what surprises meant the most to me. you made loving during a pandemic feel like a fairy tale; we were just trapped in our castle together. you were able to create a system, a guide, to put reality into my endless daydreams. you brought me back to reality when i needed to be pulled down from my dreaming. you kept me grounded and protected. you purely loved me.

this loss has truly been a bitch. i see you in everything i do. everything i see. i worry about what you were doing moments before you died. i worry that your last thoughts were fear. confusion. i often wonder what Nuts and Bolts were doing the few days it took for your body to be found. i wonder if they slept next to your lifeless body. i wonder if they knew that their person that carried them in a cage a thousand miles just to have their own little lives together in vermont was gone. i wonder how they felt when they went back to their kittenhood home. i wonder if they were confused that someone very important to them wasn’t there. i wonder if they act different now that they aren’t getting nearly as much love as you gave them, i think we spent more nights cuddling a respective cat than each other. i wonder your last everything. i wonder your last drink. your last meal. your last conversation and what it was about. the last time we talked was a few hours before you died. i was high and tipsy and i’ve regretted never calling back after every single day. i had the urge to tell you i love you but i didn’t have the strength. i wonder who the last person you said i love you to was.

i can’t think anymore. i’ll try to write a little more tomorrow.

love you forever,

eyanna