I want to scream your name so that you can hear me wherever you are and return. I want to go back in time and live every moment again with you. I want to change your story. Our story. I want to see you old, us, old. A month ago in Paris, as I wandered in the streets, I caught myself always searching for the elderly women, charming, beautiful, stylish, and I imagined you, at their age, how you would look, what you would wear, where you would travel? How many books would you have written? I will never know all of that; I can only imagine, and it tears me apart.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Yes, I just Googled the five stages of grief, and immediately I knew you’d laugh at my silly habit of Googling everything. I Googled Lampedusa this morning, and from what I’ve read and seen, it seems stunning, much like the entire island of Sicily. But rather than going to Sicily, I would travel somewhere very far away. Alaska, winter, dog-sledding, and Jack London influences come to mind, and I know you’d laugh again because, as much as I love winter, being alone in Alaska sounds too extreme. Visiting a ranch somewhere in Montana, perhaps John Dutton’s Yellowstone? I think I’m falling for Kevin Costner again. And I want to talk to you about how good he is in that show. I’m remembering the huge poster our mutual friend had in her bedroom from one of his much earlier movies, and how we both wanted to steal it from her.
I just want to run, hide, disappear, vanish. I wonder what stage of grief that is? What stage of grief makes you almost burst in envy, witnessing lifelong friendships around you and wondering why you’ve been ripped off that possibility? Or what stage of grief makes you want to travel year-round? Maybe it’s the sixth one?
I would love to know what you think of AI and my audiobooks, with an AI narration. Do you like the voices I’ve chosen? Or would you say you prefer to read them instead of listening? AI is everywhere since you’re gone, even in my nerve-wracking language app, and it’s a huge debate on AI and intellectual property, and all the hazards it implies. Yes, I’m re-learning French, and today’s lesson started with a phrase, “Je Mange trop de biscuit.” What a coincidence, I am eating a lot of biscuits, ice cream, and chocolate, followed by coffee, but I’m assuring myself that I want to get slim and wear bikinis, either in Montana, Alaska, or Sicily.
As Nora Ephron said, “Oh, how I regret not having worn a bikini for the entire year I was twenty-six. If anyone young is reading this, go, right this minute, put on a bikini, and don't take it off until you're thirty-four.” I’m going to be fifty-one, but who cares?
Remember our white jeans and striped sandals project after you lost weight, and you said you needed a tiny bit more, and then you’d buy them for summer? I wrote about myself fantasizing about white jeans, but deep inside, I know that without you by my side, I don’t care.
I want to write a new book of essays, but what’s the point if you’re never going to read it? Entering my kitchen with a bottle of champagne, beaming, happy, ready to celebrate?
I want to...
The entire piece is beautiful and heartbreaking. Goosebumps from this part: I want to scream your name so that you can hear me wherever you are and return. I want to go back in time and live every moment again with you. I want to change your story. Our story. I want to see you old, us, old.