we are all moved in. and i am healing nicely.

but the real reason i came here is because today is the two year anniversary of my dad dying and i have tried to all day to pretend that's not true.

he haunts my dreams on a regular basis. always some variation of talking to him and being so amazingly happy to talk to him and feeling this wonderful overwhelming sense of love and appreciation for him and wondering why i'm so overcome with emotion and then realizing that oh yeah he's supposed to be dead and asking him why he's not dead and him telling me that as long as i keep talking to him and forgetting that he's dead, he won't really be dead at all. and then, inevitably, because i've remembered that he's dead, he starts to fade away and i am left screaming to please come back, please. no, i'm sorry, i will forget that you're dead, please daddy just don't leave!!!

he always leaves.

last night i was tormented by particularly vivid dreams of him. the one that stands out the most is the one where he said that it's been long enough and he will no longer be visiting me in my dreams anymore and he loves me but it's time to go.

i guess what scares me more than that being real is that being not real. because if it's real, and he's saying goodbye to me now, at least that means he exists outside of death and perhaps i will see him again some day. but if it's not real then he just isn't. and well. i don't know how to process that, even though it's kind of what i believe in my heart of hearts.

i think grief must be so much more complex and layered for atheists. the only things people can ever think of to comfort me about my dad are variations on the theme of he's in a better place or he's watching you, just talk to him..

the thing is, i would love that to be true. but i'm not suddenly going to believe it just because it would make me feel better. and not because i don't want to, but because i can't. i can't make myself believe something by sheer force of will.

i sure wish i could.

i have been walking around all day with a fake smile and a numb heart, just sort of hoping that someone would remember him to me. that someone would call or write or give me a hug and say hey i remember him too and i miss him too and you're not alone and he was important.

but that hasn't happened. it's just been me and this weird emptiness. this feeling like i'm removed from myself and just waiting for this all to pass. maybe no one else actually does remember. maybe no one else misses him.

it's like he never existed.

it's like he was always just a dream.