Posted on by Liz

Lonely Wishes

For the past two days, I was alone in my house. My mother-in-law has moved in with us you see, so she and my husband went back to get the rest of her stuff. It was strange. Since we moved in, I had not had the house to myself. It was nice. Sure, I missed my husband, but I didn’t miss him as much as I thought. And I think that’s okay.

I’ve always liked being alone. It gives me time to recharge, to think, get things done. My sister is the complete opposite. She always like someone around, to be entertained, to be taken care of. I guess that’s the difference between older and younger siblings. My sister, from the time she entered this world, has never been alone. She always had me. I came into the world alone and got used to it before my sister was born. Psychology: nothing special, nothing new.

Did you like to be alone? You had a step-brother. Whenever I was over growing up, he was never home. Or if he was, he was in his room with the door closed. I don’t think I even saw his face. Just in pictures, in frames, around your parents’ house. Did that make you an only child? I know you loved attention. I know you liked talking to friends at all hours of the night. I wasn’t the only one who would message you at 1:00 am on a school night to share secrets and mundane details of our silly lives. Were you lonely? I wish I had asked these questions.

I wish a lot of things. So many things. We all do.

Posted on by Liz

Strangers

One of your self professed favorite pastimes was stalking yourself on social media. Like most people, I think. I know that when I get bored of scrolling through my timeline on Facebook of my usual suspects’ pictures and memes and links, I go to my own page and look at my own pictures and memes and links. It’s very nostalgic and sometimes a little cringey, but I do it all the time. I’m assuming you found the same.

Now that you’re gone, I’ve taken on the task for you, stalking you on social media. Can you stalk someone after they’re gone? I don’t know. I looked at your Instagram for the thousandth time today. This time, I looked at the comments. So many business pages reaching out for brand deals and modeling opportunities. You are so beautiful. You were so beautiful. And your Instagram served as a resume for your appearance. A lot of thirsty individuals were there as well, quenching your desire for flattery but also unsettling at the same time. So many strangers.

But everyone who commented on your posts are strangers to me. What struck me most is how little I knew you at the end. The people you spoke to, the places you went, the job you worked – who was I to you anymore? Nothing. I was nothing. Seeing the people you called friends comment on your pictures, expressing sorrow at your loss and gratitude for having known you made me feel so tiny and insignificant.

It’s weird to be mourning the loss of a friendship that died so long ago, but also mourning the person who that friendship was with who left so recently. And mourning the loss of any reason for the death of that friendship. I can speculate forever and still never know for sure, but I do know that I wish that I could fix it.

I’ll never be able to fix it. And that’s the real tragedy of your loss.

Posted on by Liz

I keep rereading our old conversations. Over and over and over again. I get something new out of it each time. Today, I noticed you asked me six years ago if I ever watched Game of Thrones. I said no. You asked me a few times later too and I conveyed that I had no intention of watching it either.

My husband made me watch the entire series beginning this past March. I didn’t like it. I don’t know if it was because the hype surrounding the television show made my expectations higher than they would have been if I had just started watching the show from the beginning, but nevertheless, I was not impressed. From what you said me to me in that conversation though, you were.

It surprised me actually. While the show does have its fair share of violence and sex and beautiful men and women, which are things you lived for, it seems like it would have been below you in terms of the quality of writing and the amount of intelligence it requires for viewers to understand. I always assumed a show like Games of Thrones wouldn’t really pique your interest and would only be something you watched to please a boyfriend or lover. Maybe that’s how it started. Maybe he asked you to watch and then you got hooked. Maybe it became your guilty pleasure. I wonder if that’s how it was with the heroin too.

The series’s last episode airs tonight. I’ll be thinking of you. I’m always thinking of you.

Posted on by Liz

Outside

The weather is so nice today. The bluest sky, the eighty degree temperature… It reminds me of you. Your Instagram is full of poses outside, in a bikini, at the beach or by the pool. You sought it out above anything else. The attention you got was all you ever talked about. This obsession with attention was what drove you and in some way, it took away your mystery.

But in the end, looking at pictures of you makes me realize that I didn’t know you anymore. I’m not sure what you became in the last years. I know it wasn’t who I was friends with. I’m curious and afraid of what I found while searching for you online. So many nude photos, your long brown hair covering your chest. You looked so vulnerable, so desperate, like you finally let your addiction to attention take over. I guess that’s what it was. Vanity mixed with low self worth and confidence took over who you were and the friend I knew, the one who fought so hard against who she was, was gone.

And then you were gone too.