I tried to go to work — I failed. I knew I shouldn't have but I did it anyways. I thought for sure I would be able to get through an entire day, sending emails and meeting with staff — but 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave or maybe around 7:30 AM — I started walking around my house aimlessly crying and repeating to myself: "Okay, okay, okay." But I wasn't okay.

I don't even know why I'm crying. Oftentimes, I'm just crying and my mind is blank or I'm blabbering nonsense like "Okay." I didn't even care for this man — he was my father but we had no relationship at all. Perhaps, I'm mourning the relationship that we didn't have. I don't know — I just know that I've never cried this much in my entire life.

I drank my coffee and cried. I checked the time and cried. It was 7:51 AM by the time I left work. It takes me 12-15 minutes to get to work — I was cutting it close. For the first time in forever I didn't listen to one of my French podcast or my French audiobook in the car. I've taken an unexpected but much needed break from French — I'm not sure how much I would even be able to absorb right now. A part of me is telling myself to push through this damn bullshit and get back on my schedule.

10 minutes of French audiobook, 50 minutes of podcast and possibly an episode of TV or YouTube in French (but that's optional). Yesterday I didn't finish my podcast, and today I haven't done anything at all. I did wake up this morning and tried to read fan fiction (English), but I couldn't focus. Strangely enough I was able to read 10% of The Deal in French. Bizarre.

I got to work and cried in the car and then while I was walking into work. I decided on my way up to my office, that it would be near impossible to work an entire day but surely I could do a half day, right? I talked to my director, Susan about it. She thought I should go home and grieve, but I told her that I had things to handle. She still thought I should return home. I didn't. I went to my office and spent an hour alternating between crying, sending emails, crying, and staring aimlessly at things. Sometimes I would pace and cry, or pace and quietly. I did get work done, but when I heard my bosses voice outside my door and it was like I woke up and looked around and I had all of these used tissues on my desk.

I snatched them up and threw them away, but she never came by.

My mom called me 4 times within my first hour at work. I cried each time I spoke with her. But I don't think she noticed. She was doing most of the talking. The crying didn't change the sound of my voice. My crying isn't sobbing or loud at all — it's just tears strolling down my face. My mom called me 4 times within my first hour at work. I cried each time I spoke with her. But I don't think she noticed. She was doing most of the talking. The crying didn't change the sound of my voice. My crying isn't sobbing or loud at all — it's just tears strolling down my face.

I decided that I should leave. I took two pain pills to kill my headache. I made arrangements with another supervisor to be the Point of Contact for my team as Susan and my Chief Administrator were leaving at 12 PM. I sent an email to my team and cancelled my individual sessions.

Once I made the decision to leave — I told Susan and then asked her to not tell anyone about my loss. I don't want a card or flowers or anything. I don't want anyone to know. Tahira, the point of contact, asked me if I was okay — I said I was fine.

I left work in a hurry. I found myself thinking in the parking lot that perhaps it was a good thing that I didn't find out about his loss until the end of the month. I wouldn't have gone to the funeral even if I wasn't in France. I could see myself 10 years later, feeling guilty about paying my respect and laying him to rest, if I had known beforehand...

But then again, I can see myself now or sometime in the future, upset, because my choice was stolen from me. That I didn't have a say in whether I wanted to pay respect or not.

I don't know if I told you but I work in the death field. I work with clients who have recently lost someone to violence. We have books, resources and different little items right at our finger tips. I found a collection of grief rocks with motivation words. I sneered at every single one of them: Hope, what do I have to hope for? Wisdom? I'm not stupid, I've only lost my dad. But when I saw the Breathe one, I tucked it away in my pocket.

Sometimes it feels hard to breathe.

I drove straight to my mom's house. I woke her up. She had been sleeping on the couch. I had her get out her pictures, and I helped her sort through them. I was short with her. She wanted to reminisce and I wanted to find my picture. She found it actually. It was a mess — stains, missing corners — discoloured. I was devastated but I didn't let it show at all.

I wanted to get this off my chest, because I'm going to work and I don't want to cry or hold things in. Luckily, if I cry — I can just close the door and cry quietly there.

Clean, clear and perfect! The woman in the picture is my nana. I'm 8 in the picture. I had to do some investigating but I'm pretty sure this is 2000 — I was in second grade. The only year I had bags as a child was in second grade. I found my school pictures.

Afterwards, I helped my mom sort through the rest of the pictures. She had a bunch of pictures of younger brother, Makhi. We share a father. I feel bad for him. All of the pictures that my mom had of him was when he was a baby and in up to middle school. She didn't have any pictures of him as a teenager, or with his father. There's a 15 year age difference between myself and my youngest brother. I sometimes feel so sad for him. He grew up as an only child, lonely, and not having the same opportunities as us.

Even now, his grief probably looks so much different than my own. Because although I made the decision to limit my contact with my father once I became an adult, my brother didn't have that choice — it was made for him. And then on top of that — I was my father's only daughter growing up. I have tons of memories of him, as I was the only child that would visit him while he was in prison. He wasn't close to my oldest brother Justin, who lived in Lima. And the twins came a decade later.

He called me "Missy" back then. I used to think that he was so intelligent. He would pose all these logic questions to me, and I always felt like I three steps behind him. He was clever and funny — although at the time I didn't always get his humour.

Shortly after this picture, my mom told me, I voiced that I no longer wanted to visit him at the prison. It made me uncomfortable. I didn't like it at all. The car ride there was long and I always got car sick because they would feed me McDonalds before the trip and it nearly settled well in my stomach. And I hated being at the prison — it was cold, gray and dirty. I didn't like how that place made me feel. The food was gross. They had vending machines there and meals that you could buy and heat up in the microwave. My nana and papa would buy him a bunch of food and he would devour it like he was starving.

Mom said that they blamed her — they accused her of wanting to keep me away, but really it was me. I still continued to see my nana and papa but I didn't want to visit him. I would take his phone calls though. But it was like as soon as he was released when I was 12, our relationship changed. We actually had less contact once he was released. When I was child, he held onto me tightly, cherishing our visits and talks — I also felt so awkward with his attachment to me. I didn't understand our relationship and his placement in my life. He had been in prison since I was a baby.

But without prison — there was nothing to hold us together. One of the earliest memories I have of him, besides him being released and us going to pick him up, was when he decided to introduce me to his girlfriend. He brought me over to her house. I think they fed me and left me in front of the tv in the living room — and then they went in her bedroom and had sex. I know this, because I heard it. My father and I had picked up Brokeback Mountain from Block Buster. Neither of us knew what it was about. I had saw cowboys on the cover and it made me think of my grandmother who loves westerns — So I thought it would be fun to watch. My father thought so too. He had no complaints.

But I was left to watch that damn movie as a 12 year old by myself. They were in there for hours. And here I was — in some strange woman's apartment, sitting in her living room, watching Brokeback Mountain.

OMG — Wednesday I had listened to a podcast episode where they were talking about their first introduction to queer relationships in media — and I thought my first introduction was Queer as Folk when I was 14/15. But now that I think about it, no, it was Brokeback Mountain when I was 12. Wow. and do you know that I read the book for the first time this year in March? How weird. How fucking weird.

Ok, I'm going to take a break, maybe lay down or not. I've been thinking about playing the sims. Maybe I'll do that. I just need to stop thinking about this for a moment.

Olivia