"Perhaps the hardest thing about losing a lover is   

to watch the year repeat its days.   

It is as if I could dip my hand down

into time and scoop up

blue and green lozenges of April heat   

a year ago in another country.

I can feel that other day running underneath this one

like an old videotape."                        
-The Glass Essay 
by Anne Carson

I remember where I was a year ago, standing in my bedroom of a house I'll never live in again. A house you stood in, breathed in, and slept in a few times. I haven't worn that shirt since, or any of the ones I wore with you. I listened to what Kayla said but didn't understand. Car accident. Were you okay?

I went under water. I stayed there for a long time, maybe months. The girls dragged me on the vacation we were leaving for that day. I wanted the world to stop spinning. Time kept moving and I was still, just waiting, convinced if I kept waiting you'd make it out alive.

I needed a way to cope. Mom, when is the wake? Have you heard? Should we come home early? No. Nothing. Days went on. It felt like years. I shut my head in a window under the sea.

Your memorial was beautiful. The picture of us, from my birthday, flashed across the screen. It had been more than two days, you weren't two days older anymore. I wished you were. I talked to Sam. I closed the window tighter.

You came to me in a dream, and then another. I was over the moon. I bought a journal to remember them. I counted them as memories in a life we couldn't keep living. I loosened the window.

I couldn't work at Del's. I knew you wouldn't walk in the door. I changed locations. I missed you all summer. The video tape kept spinning and I was standing on glass looking down.

September 22, 2010. I saw your family. I saw our friends. I met the people you told me stories about, and I shared what I had of my own. We laughed so much. I made it to my car and cried as hard as I could for as long as I could. I screamed. I closed the window as tight as it would go and told myself to stop crying. I talked to Kayla, she said this was normal. It's part of grieving.

I had my own birthday, I didn't want one. I wanted it to be the year before. I wanted another picture, one that wouldn't be in a slide show. It was no use.

I stopped being able to remember where we were a year before at that exact moment. I started only existing within the day I was living. I opened the window and told myself I could stay under water.

The weather was cold. You weren't around anymore, but there were impostors everywhere. The boy at the grocery store, the one at the party. I thought I saw you in the Rockettes Ensemble and realized that was ridiculous. I knew I had to come up for air.

I woke up one morning and made it through my day. It was late afternoon before I thought of you for the first time. I felt guilty. I couldn't believe it. I counted the days, how many had it been? What month was it? Am I breathing? I was but I didn't want to be.

February came. On the 19th I didn't count the months. I knew there was only one left. I missed you but I was awake. I breached the surface, I saw the sun.

I crawled on land and I opened all my windows. It's been a year. And just like that, the tape sputtered out.