D-E-N-I-A-L

T minus 41 days

Candy Apple Red Nail Polish
15 lbs.
An aversion to serious music…or at least a lack of real connection to it.

These are things that have changed about me since Olive died. Not much. But the bigger things that have changed are too difficult to articulate, not because they’re too difficult for me to talk about but because the change was too gradual and too difficult to pinpoint.

Sometimes I wonder why nobody ever talks to me about her. Does nobody know? My other half disappeared from the earth almost a year ago. Does it seem like I’m perfectly all right? And even more than that, is no one at all curious what it’s like to lose the person you are closest to in the whole world?

I wish someone would ask. Because it’s odd. It’s not as sad or as lonely as I thought it would be. It is literally like she just vanished, and now I use memories to remind myself that she once existed. This girl who I spent all my time with. Whose name became synonymous with mine to the ears of nearly everybody we knew. We had the same tendencies and reactions. We were both shy, but exuberant. We liked Savage Garden and being introspective. We liked acting. We were extremely silly. We hated being taken for granted. We always felt the same things at the same time. We never ever liked the same boys. We were both warm people, but whenever we hugged each other it was sort of awkward. The kind of awkward hug where both the people are really skinny, instead of one of the people being relatively cuddly. It’s hard to explain, but though we never talked about it, I am sure she would have known exactly what I mean, and we would have laughed at the fact that we both recognized it separately and someone finally brought it up.

We were also different. She was flexible. I was most definitely not. Physically, that is. She also had a more flexible demeanor and was more conscientious. Whenever there was any tension between us—and mind you, this would always be unspoken, and never developed into an actual fight…there were NEVER any fights between us, which I have never experienced with any other friend—she would attempt to resolve it and could not rest until everything was perfect again, and she had restored our emotional chi.

How odd it is, that the person my life was based solidly around for years, is gone and I am still emotionally intact. I don’t feel sad on a day-to-day basis. And I don’t constantly think of her. What should I do, though? How are you supposed to act? You move on. Because you can’t go back. Not to be all metaphorical, but it is literally like that chapter of my life is closed for good. And so I am living in a completely new book. Maybe when more time passes I’ll be able to look back at the Life With Olive book, and slip into memories without apprehension. But for now, the extent of my reminiscing about that time is restricted to what I write in here.