Pain. Pain. Go Away.

So, I had planned on working out today, but instead, I'm sitting here smoking a cigarette. These past couple of days have been hard days. I still think about Duane every day, but usually with less sadness than I've been experiencing. I don't cry every day any more, or even every other day, unless you count the past few.

My sister just started volunteering at a hospice and during her training they told her to write 4 people who were really important to her, and she'd go by and take your list, saying a name from the list signifying that they were "dead". She grabbed Bobbie's list and said, "Brandie" and she started bawling uncontrollably, which is rare for her. At the end of the class she said she picks one family member of the deceased person and gives them a "pocket angel" to remind that person of the loved one they lost. She then gave everyone in the class a "pocket angel". Bobbie called me right after the class to tell me how much she loves me and that she wanted to give me her pocket angel for Duane.

At that point, I started crying, which is also unusual, but hasn't really been for the past month and a half. I don't think I'd cried for about 4 days at that point. But even when I did cry, I was only down for an hour or so. But now it's been 4 days of depression. And to feed my depression, I'm sitting here listening to a song by the late Rocky Carlton. Rocky killed himself in June of this last year. My friend Ross that I met in late October was his best friend, and he's been very instrumental in my grief process. When he'd told me about Rocky when we first met, I didn't really care too much. I just thought, "Well, it happens. Get over it." Really cold. But since Duane has passed, I've talked a lot about Rocky with Ross. He used to play a lot of music. He never had a girlfriend and was a virgin. I feel a little sad now for not knowing him, but I guess that's life too.

Sargent First Class Smith, who called me with the news, had been making a lot of stops by my apartment for all the paperwork I had to sign concerning Duane's death. I'd been trying to break into Duane's email for about a month at that point, but none of the methods I found online had worked. So I went to the "forgotten password" page to see about answering the security question. To my chagrin, the answer was his social security number, but the only paperwork I'd gotten only had the last four digits.

The last time SFC Smith came by, I was determined to try to sneak a glance at HIS paperwork. And when I sat next to him, I looked over and saw..."444-88" That was it! I was so nervous about forgetting it. The numbers were easy enough, but if I forgot them, I'd never forgive myself. But then, he gave me 10 forms with his social on all of them. It was the paperwork that a wife normally gets to get death benefits from the state. But Duane wasn't married. I was the closest thing to a wife designated as his beneficiary, so I got the paperwork instead, and I was burning a hole in that man waiting for him to leave so I could get on Duane's email.

When he finally left, I got on gmail instantly and typed in the code. Then it asked to change the password, instead of sending the old one like I hoped would happen. I felt bad for changing the password, but I figured no one else would care. When I did that and it logged me on, I signed Duane out of his chat so I didn't disturb his friends by them seeing his name light up on their chat boxes, and then I went through his email.

It was awful. I saw journal entries about his sadness, which broke my heart. But the hardest one to read was written on October 5th, 2010. He said, "Every time I talk to Brandie, it just makes me feel worse. Whether I'm talking to or about her. I still feel like I owe her, but I wish I'd never met her. Even if I was a worse person, I wouldn't feel like this."

It was the first time in a while that I just stayed in my apartment all day with the lights off. Just thinking. I was miserable. Two months before he died, he'd wished he'd never met me. When I talked about it with my guy friends, they explained that guys go through that with their first love. I don't think I've mentioned yet that I was the closest thing that Duane ever had to a girlfriend and I took his virginity when we went to Europe in February of 2008 almost 2 years ago. But he was in the military. Always in Iraq, or Germany, or Florida, or Alabama, or Kansas. When we started being good friends, he hadn't lived here since that time and I had to grow to be good friends with him over the course of two years through online conversations. I knew him and had a crush on him and lived with his family in high school, but when he started opening up to me was 4 years after we graduated, and two years before his death.

I guess I don't have much to say about this. I hope I start feeling better.