Most of you who know me know I am big about keeping a journal. A couple years ago, my friend Alex had shown me a multi-year journal where you make notes of the day, and immediately above, that is the entry you wrote from one year ago on that day. It’s super easy because it forces you to just list a few blurbs or notes from the day, so you don’t feel obligated to write a novel every day. Usually a few words are enough when you re-read to trigger the memory of the day.
I encourage everybody to keep a journal. There’s a couple reasons. First and foremost, when the going gets rough, writing is a good way to get what is on the inside, outside and vented. I particularly like this style of journal because when you are in a dark place, you are able to look back and realize, for the most part, how much a non-issue most of the things you usually stress about really were.
I bought David one, as well. He added a few lines. I haven’t looked at it in a while. It opens up some wounds that I am not really ready to address.
I was updating mine this morning. Sometimes life gets a little busy, so I’ll do a couple days at a time. Well, the thing about these last few weeks is that a year ago around this time, David was falling to pieces. Entries start changing from “Gym with David,” to “David not doing well.” It begins on about August 4th and just progressively gets worse and worse.
Last year, this coming weekend was the weekend of the hurricane. We hunkered down in my apt and cooked some soup. It was one of those bittersweet weekends. I was happy to have Erica and David with me, but there was just this specter of things to come looming about the entire time. Within a week, I would be checking David into the hospital for the first time.
How quickly this escalated from what looked like some mild depression and anxiety, to a suicide.
