When a heart breaks no it don't break even

Tomorrow, it will be 10 years since Jeremy passed away.

I didn't find out until August (the day before Daffodil Day actually - which always tends to be my 'Jeremy' day - also previously known as the day I used to go and get ridiculously drunk, for a few years in a row....). We had a very on-off kind of 'thing' (not technically a relationship, but an exclusive casual situation) for just over a year. At the time, we were off. In fact, I would've just seen him a few weeks before the accident (motorbike crash), but we had a habit of not being in touch for a month or two - it worked for us. Being what we were, we hadn't met each other's families, or a wide range of each others friends. So it wasn't until August when his Mum went through his phone and contacted everyone on it that I found out. And then, it was through a mutual friend. Can't blame her for not wanting to ring someone named Candi I suppose (plus I could've still been in his phone as Candi-ass, in which case, probably not a call you want to make...). Luckily when his Mum asked said friend if he knew anyone named Candi, he said yes and that he would let me know.

I still remember that phone call as if it was yesterday.

The next day, I met up with that friend, and another mutual friend, for a drink and our own chance to process what had happened. And then I went off to a Shihad concert with a group of other friends. I didn't tell them what had happened, because I knew I would lose it, and I was finding it hard to keep a grip as it was. I sat in tears through the opening acts (admittedly, it was Fur Patrol which is not a favourite anyway), and then managed to get up and enjoy the mighty Shihad. It wasn't until I was dropped off home that I finally texted my bestie to tell her what had happened. I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud. I actually could not get the words out of my mouth.

The next few days were a blur. I think I existed on a moro bar and a small bottle of coke each day and that was it. I don't remember much else. And then I went down to Dad's for the semester break because I couldn't sleep in my bed, and when I did, I woke with horrible nightmares.

Some would look on it and wonder why it affected me so badly, when we weren't a full on relationship. We were never madly in love or committed to each other. We knew each other less than a year. And you know what, I couldn't tell you for sure.

He was my first "love", or something similar. Hell, he was my first everything. At times he drove me mental, including wanting to suffocate him in his sleep when he was snoring loudly (best friend kindly offering to help get rid of the body if required). On the outside he could be a macho little shit, but he was also kind, funny, sweet and generous. He told me I was beautiful, and made me feel like it could be true. He used to tell me that when I moved back to Palmy he'd come and visit. I remember feeling ridiculously giddy the day he told he how much he liked me, because it was such a big declaration for us. He was great for me, and even now it helps me realise what I need in a future partner. He didn't tolerate my shit. If I hit him, he hit me back, and properly. He was assertive, but not aggressive (and I need someone like that to stop me from being a brat I guess).

It could be that what I grieve for most is the "what-ifs". What would've happened if we had sorted our shit out, or if he had stuck around.

Despite searching for his death notice in the paper that year, and multiple times over the years, it wasn't until last year that I finally found an article regarding in the accident. Perhaps I wasn't supposed to find it until then. It was when I had moved back up to Auckland, which already brought the memories flooding back. I couldn't go and visit him, as he was cremated, but I still went to where the service and the ceremony had been held to try and get some kind of connection. It hit me hard, and maybe because it was finally real. It wasn't some Shortland Street plot where he could come back, or that maybe it had all been faked or some horrible mistake and that I'd get to see him again. He was really truly gone, and I would never see him again.

Since he has been gone, I have become much more accepting (sometimes even welcoming) of spiders. I no longer scream and kill them on site (unless it's a whitetail of course). Jeremy had this tattoo on his left thigh, that took up the whole front of his upper leg, of a spider (similar to a grey house spider). The first time I saw it, I almost cried. It gave me such a fright, especially considering how arachnophobic I was. Poor guy - not really the best reaction to have when you see a guy in his underwear for the first time..... But since then, there have been spider visits. The first was when I moved back to Dad's, and a fairly large grey house spider moved into the bathroom. Dad didn't see it for ages. It lived in the window surround, and seemed to appear only when I was in the shower. I had to get out mid-shower and find Dad one time just so he knew I wasn't making up this 'phantom spider' that no one else ever saw. At the point, it occurred to me that if Jeremy was to come back as anything, it would be as some sort of pervert spider that spied on me in the shower. I named him Bob, and he remained living in the bathroom window until Dad moved out of the house a year later.
The next spider was in Wellington. When I moved into my first flat, a grey house spider moved into the bathroom window there. My flatmate assured me she hadn't seen it until then, and he was large enough that you couldn't really have missed him. I managed to convince her (I think?) to leave him there, and nicknamed him Van (part Outrageous Fortune, part name of our street). Another day, I was in the shower in that same house when a spider fell out of nowhere onto my arm. It gave me a fright and I shook him off. And then turned off the shower and tried to rescue him.
And then when my ex moved out of our flat at the end of 2011, another of the same spiders moved in outside my bedroom window, visible when I closed the curtains each night before going to bed.

I plan to commemorate the 10 year anniversary this Daffodil day by getting a spider tattoo on my thigh (on a much smaller scale!). And tomorrow I am going to a comedy show with some family so that will help me get through the day. Perhaps with a drink or two as well.