May 13th
“I tried to dye my hair tonight.
Well, I say that I tried. I actually did succeed, it just was much more awkward than I ever thought it would be.
I never thought I'd feel like such a fugitive buying hair dye, carrying it out to my small camper, and then driving on to my campground destination for the night and using their communal bathroom to apply the stinky stuff.
I felt like one of those women in the movies running from something. Dying my hair and buying a hoodie.
Well, minus the hoodie.
I was listening to the weather report on the radio this morning and heard there was going to be a big rainstorm in the Albuquerque area, so I took off and headed south. It wasn't a long drive, hence the hair dye.
Sadly, it's continued to rain till long past dark, and there are no rainbows to be seen.
I'll just have to look again tomorrow.
I have the map here in the camper, but I've found it's not as detailed as would be nice. Remember we used to plan the specific places we wanted to go and which historical landmarks we absolutely had to visit?
I forgot to check out Four Corners, and I was so disappointed in myself I started crying. I feel like if you were with me you'd have made sure this didn't happen.
I can't believe you're not with me.
Whatever you're doing, it better be worthwhile.
The rain is drumming on the roof of my camper, not far from the top of my head, and I'm grateful it's leak proof.
I used to love the sound of rain, but now the water leaving its tracks down the small window makes me feel depressed.
Alone.
It might have been stupid to come on this trip without telling anyone, completely on my own.
Okay, it was definitely stupid. But the mad dash of desperation has propelled me this far, and I refuse to let it lag now, five hundred miles from home.
I have two rainbow pictures in my phone gallery so far, and I can't send them to you. It would be far weirder than writing you letters.
I had dinner at a little local cafe tonight and a very nice man bought me a drink. We sat at the bar and he regaled me with stories in an accent I couldn't quite place. Maybe eastern European? He told me about the girl he left back home and how she got married a few months ago. He somehow didn't make it a depressing story about what he'd lost, and I can't remember how.
I didn't tell him about you. I don't think I could have succeeded in keeping a smile on my face while I connected the dots of my loss.
Maybe I'll tell the next person about you. Open my mouth and let the rush of emptiness leave my chest. The air that sits there and never fully leaves no matter how hard I breathe out. Next time.
After all, it's the third week. Maybe at the third month I will finally feel myself coming slowly back to life.
I doubt it.
I miss you.
I love you.
Bo”
This letter actually made it into my glove box, nestled next to the first one, both resting in the shredded remains of the second.
I can't imagine telling anyone about my mother without tears leaking down my face. Even writing this my eyes are welling up and I don't want to cry anymore.
I've cried so much I've lost the ability most days.
She was supposed to be here. Supposed to be on this trip, making sarcastic observations about people and signs, making me laugh, and helping me to stay awake on the long stretches of road.
We could have been annoyed by the lack of space in the tear drop. Especially here with the heat of the desert surrounding us.
She would have fought me over control of the music, trying to convince me that twenties jazz was the way to go instead of my typical seventies and eighties rock.
She and I. We.
It was always us. How am I supposed to go on now that I'm just a me?
Regardless of the rain tracking down the windows, the thunder rumbling in the distance, and the bright flashes of lighting. Regardless of everything I used to love about all of that, the hollow inside me is gnawing me apart, leaving only empty space where she should be.
I'm so tired of this. Tired of feeling sad and lonely. Tired of mourning for her, and yet I can't stop. The pain is eating me up, along with the endless numbness. I don't understand how they coexist. The pain right behind my collarbone.
I keep finding myself reaching up and pressing my sternum like that might relieve the pressure.
But it doesn't.
I actually searched on my phone what chest pain might mean, and then quickly added the word grief when all that came up was heart attack symptoms. I know this isn't a heart attack.
This is just the lack of the person who gave me life. My one constant leaving me.