April Fool

Exactly one year ago, on April Fool’s Day, it felt like my life ended. It might as well have.

I couldn’t breathe anymore. I called anyone who would listen. Some did. Some didn’t. I panicked. I opened a bottle of rum and drank the whole thing that night. I did other things. I regret a few of them…

Full disclosure: My family put me on suicide watch for a few days (And that’s about as much detail as you get on that. Some things just can’t be said.). I packed up the charred remnants of my existence and tried to start over. Why?

Because 11 years of my life evaporated in one night and I became an April Fool.

It sounds melodramatic, I know, but 11 years counts for a third of my life. A full third of my life was rendered meaningless, overnight.

I get that things end. I really do. I understand that sometimes love makes no sense and sometimes it really ends terribly. It’s just that I never expected something like this to ever happen to me. I never saw it coming.

I was in love. She was not. And so she hurt me terribly. This is how things go.

It took a long time to even attempt to move on. I knew things were over. That wasn’t the issue. I had no intention or desire to try to fix what couldn’t be fixed. You can’t fix what’s no longer there.

My problem was that I didn’t know if I even wanted to start over. Most of the time, I didn’t.

It’s been a whole year. My attitudes have changed. But every once in awhile, it still gets to me. I hear a song on my iPod, or a stumble upon an old picture. And it hits me. Today is April Fool’s Day and thinking about it is unavoidable.

So, I’m gonna go to sleep in a little bit. And when I wake up, I’m hitting the bar. Am I celebrating? Commiserating? Wallowing? Time will tell. But I’ve got ten bucks to put in the jukebox in your honor. I’ve got a lot of drinking to do, all for you.

And then after all of that is done, your memory goes back into bank. I keep moving forward. And I’ll forget about you. Eventually.