Five years gone, & he still has the ability to break my heart.

I'm going to be brutally honest here. I know I shit talk, & stir the pot. I antagonise people, & have a a habit of stepping just a little too close to the line.

But this weekend can honestly go fuck right the fuck off.

I have nothing against the military, & this isn't about them, so calm your tits. This is about someone who captured a piece of my soul back in 2013, & then took it with him in 2016.

His name was Alex. We met in a video game. Started talking in text, then switched over to Skype (bc this was before safe options were available). I found out he was from Sweden, so it played hell with both of our sleep schedules, getting a chance to talk to each other.

In 2014, when I got divorced from my ex-husband, he flew across the Atlantic to spend a month w/ me, to celebrate my newfound freedom. The next trip was planned in the spring of 2016, when I would fly to see him.

To this day, I don't know what happened. His ex-wife refuses to tell me, & Swedish laws are set so they won't release any details. But I woke up to an email... a suicide note from him. It had been sent to a email that i only checked once a week. Word was sent it to our gaming crew, to figure out who was close enough to his flat. Ended up having someone in the EU call the cops, to do a welfare check on him.

And then everyone waited. And waited. And waited.

It wasn't until I got another email, sent to my main email in early July, from an address I didn't recognise, telling me "cancel your trip. He's dead. There's nothing for you here."

Three short sentences, & my world hasn't been the same since.

It's been 5 years, & I have gotten to the point here I can mostly function, for the rest of the year. But this weekend... Every time this weekend rolls around, I want to do nothing but curl into a ball & scream.

I had so many things I wanted to say to him, when I went to see him. We had made plans to go onto the beach & share a bottle of wine from a winery near me, then a bottle of mead that one of his buddies made.

So many plans left un-done, things left un-said, questions left un-answered. And I just want this cursed weekend over with.

Go hug a vet. The living need your love, bc the dead can't give it back.

No matter how many times we beg & plead for them to.

Cat tax. Ivan is being comforting, bc he knows it's not going to be a good night.