GLAMOUR GRIEF

My plan with this project was never to begin with such a heavy post. Honestly, I've been intentionally working on a lot of cute, lighthearted craftwork that I wanted to discuss first- but let's just say I've been inspired to get personal a little quicker. TW for death, Sui.

Let's get to the hard part quick. My last boyfriend killed himself in 2020 and I haven't been the same since.

He was the nicest boy I've ever dated.

And in 2020, everyone was losing loved ones in horrifying new ways. This wasn't the first time death has taken a loved one from me, but it's one of the stranger ways I have had to learn to grieve.

At the time, I did tell a few people around me what happened... but to most people in my life, I was the expert on trauma, grief, comfort. I had spoken to so many of these people about their grief that it seemed they weren't sure how to be there for me while I grieved in such a big way. When I talked about the incident, friends got quiet and offered half-hearted words of comfort for a situation which cannot be soothed. I accepted that they just didn't have the capacity to be there for me with this situation because no one wants to think about losing your lover in your 20s. After a while, I started to feel like I as a person should come with my own trigger warning, watching the way they would react listening to me talk about my life. So I started talking about it less, and having nightmares about it more.

In 2023, I finally got in a position to start therapy... and I should have started earlier. (That's a post for another day.)

By the time I got in therapy, there was a bunch of immediately pressing shit that I had to work on before I could get around to talking about my boyfriend. There's still a lot more for me to work through as far as the loss goes, but I started talking about it briefly in session for the first time recently. This is a grief I've held alone for a long time, so naturally, when I finally had a safe place to talk about it I started crying. A lot.

Sometimes I don't start to feel less sad so much as I decide that I'm bored of being sad and miserable and aggressively search for a way to make something better happen. I had to make something look less boring or I was going to fucking die, I was certain I would panic myself to death.

So I pulled a project out of the pile and got to work. I placed down a rhinestone for every tear that I wept for him. It's risky business to rhinestone and cry at the same time, so I had to stick to rhinestoning until the tears stopped, blinking them away so I can see exactly where I'm placing the gems because I have priorities.

This dress cannot hold every teardrop that knows him, but I plan to only continue adding to this dress (and the other pieces that belong to the outfit) when I need to hold my grief for him.

Beautiful things have always been ready to seduce me into wondering what else I haven't seen yet; keep me curious and hungry. I forgot how to feel hungry a long time ago when this started, but at least I'm a little more shiny while I grieve.

September 9, 2020 in my Oakland apartment, the day the sky turned red

Anyway, this morning I saw an art piece I liked so much that I had a panic attack before 7:00 AM, and that's why I knew today was the day to share about this.

He was my first (only) boyfriend who would dress up with me! We loved Adventure Time and watched scary movies as Finn and Princess Bubblegum for Halloween. We called our dates Adventure Time, partly because we watched it the first time I seduced him. I haven't been able to watch it in years because I'm still mad about the different costumes we had planned.

So when I heard Fionna and Cake was making a comeback, I started actively avoiding information about it. I like, JUST started processing this shit, I don't need to go LOOKING for ways to trigger myself. But sometimes triggers find you and maybe they had a reason.

From here, I'll just leave these photos and links so that you can see what I'm seeing.

He'll be getting a larger project for me to discuss him further when I'm ready. Grief is such a weird journey.

Until then, I'll just keep watching this clip on repeat, a cartoon of a goodbye that I can only pretend was mine.

September 2023 self-portrait

Clip includes spoilers for Fionna and Cake-- you don't need to follow Adventure Time to understand this clip, but you do need to watch this clip to understand the point of this blog post. If you read this, watch it!