Time keeps moving..

Yesterday was a good day. Work was awesome at keeping my mind off of things and I was able to laugh and smile and just have a general good time. 

Last night Phil's gf reached out to me on Facebook. I saw her at the memorial service and we spoke a little bit. We spoke a bit through messages and later we spoke on the phone. It was actually really nice to finally really talk to her. She explained exactly what happened, which was hard to hear but I'm glad I know the truth as oppose to what the newspapers were saying. 

We swapped stories, we laughed, we cried, we cursed that he was stupid for what he did.. Nearly every single story I told her she already knew because apparently he talked a lot about me. Something that blew me away and made me feel kind of bad.. because all that time he was saying good things about me, I was saying negative things about him to Jeff.

I feel so badly for just saying all the bad things about him to Jeff.. because when this happened, he couldn't understand why I just about dropped everything to fly up to CT for the funeral in NYC.. and I don't blame him for being a bit upset about it.. I should of been more open about it and made him understand just how important Phil was in my life and how much of an impact he had on me, despite the crap that had happened.

Sigh..

Mourning

It's been a little bit over a week since Phil passed away and I'm still finding it hard to believe that he's gone. I managed to find the pictures I've hidden away of him, as well as some old hi-8's that I watched last night. Just to watch those videos of him running around and just being generally silly or being a wonderful teacher when it comes to shooting just made it so much harder to accept that he did what he did.

I was given a business card for grief counseling.. and now I'm faced with the struggle to call or not to call. A part of me thinks, "Why should I call? They'll just tell me the same thing everybody else tells me." which is the whole "It's not your fault." "There isn't anything you could of done to stop this." and regarding to me feeling completely guilty for the things that were said the last time we spoke, "He was the one that ended things before you had a chance to reconcile, he didn't give you that opportunity." and in some ways it helps but in other ways it hurts.

Sometimes I feel like I don't have a right to mourn the way I am only because we haven't been on very good terms the last year or so...

It's been two days since I've been back to work. Yesterday was a bit rough, and today was a bit easier, but there were moments that just hit me out of nowhere and blind side me and took everything I had to not break down and cry.

Honestly, not a day has gone by where I hadn't shed a tear. I don't think I've ever mourned like this before and it scares me.

Guess I should call that number at some point...

I've barely eaten anything since 5am Thursday...something that's I know isn't good, but I've just hadn't been hungry.

I want to scream, I want to cry, I want to curse, I want to punch a wall... anything... I want to yell at him for doing this, for leaving us so tragically, I want to ask him why.. why did he have to do that? Why couldn't he just stop and realize that in the end, we're the victims, in the end, we're left with no answers as to why...

damnit I have no idea what I'm doing, I don't know how to handle this, I want to stop crying, I want to stop hurting...especially since I don't want Jeff to feel bad..

If he was killed in the line of action, or in a car accident, old age or cancer, it would be different...I've dealt with those kinds of deaths.. (except in the line of duty)....those leaves holes in your heart...

but this... this is a whole new ball game....

suicide tears out everything

I keep imagining what happened on that night....and no matter how hard I try to just occupy myself with something else, it just keeps popping up and it scares me and it hurts... I had a nightmare about it last night that was so bad, Craig told me I shot straight up in bed in a panic.

damnit....i need to know when this starts getting easier..

Fire and Rain

Today was Phil's funeral... There's so many things that I want to say, but I just can't put them into words right now. All I know is that I hope he knows that even though after all the crap that's happened.. he'll always have a special place in my heart.

I was listening to Sirius Radio earlier and Fire and Rain popped on.... it fits..

All my love to Phil's family, his NYPD 1st Precinct fellow officers and to his many friends. <3

One of the things this experience has taught me is to never take the ones you have for granted...cause you never know when they'll be taken from you so suddenly.. :'(

tragic

This morning was the usual routine. Wake up, shower, get dressed, grab breakfast and putter around online till it's time to go to work.

This morning that routine came to a stop when I checked my email.

It was from my ex-boyfriend, Phil's sister in law, Dasha, who wrote to me telling me that Phil passed away early Tuesday morning. I was shocked. I was scared. I had no idea how to take the news. She didn't give me any more information than that, but I quickly went to google to find out why..

...and it just hurt even more.

Philip Chlanda took his life on Tuesday, in front of his girlfriend, over the prospect her leaving him... I can't even begin to wrap my head around that... I can't begin to imagine what his girlfriend is going through right now.. I just can't..

I've known Phil for almost 10 years now. He and I dated from Sept 01 to August of 05. We were close and it was almost to the point where we were practically engaged, but sadly over time, my feelings changed and I was faced with the hard decision of breaking up with him. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

Though for those nearly 4 years I've been with him, they were some of the best years of my life. Yes, he and I had our arguments, but he had a huge impact with how I am today.

Sadly, during these last few months, Phil tried to contact me. I was bitter about some of the things he had said to me in the past the last time we spoke, so I refused to talk to him.... and now.. now I'm regretting that. I wish I could take back everything... but I can't...

Phil.. I'm so sorry for everything that's happened... I hope you're in a better place now..

Taken in summer of 2005 on our trip to Stowe, VT

zomg

Today I went out and saw Thor and wow, was I taken by surprise. I suggested to go see it with Jeff since I knew he was interested and I was slightly interested, but c'mon, Marvel movies are awesome so far, I should of given them more faith. Anyway! I was pleasantly surprised. The graphics were very well done, the "rainbow road" wasn't crazy rainbowy -I know, not a word, hush-, the humor was very well placed and not over done, but all in all. I liked it. Really not going to go into a lot of detail about it, but if you haven't seen it, go see it and stay till the end of the credits.

Before the movie though, I saw the trailer for X-Men: First Class and zomg, James MacAvoy..oiii...

Here's the thing, I don't really have celebrity crushes. I feel it's a waste of time and effort and well.. can become incredibly unhealthy.

But James MacAvoy? I want his babies. Yet I have a realistic outlook of knowing that chances of meeting him are slim, and chances of getting him bed are even slimmer. So. Yep.

Yeaaah.. I dunno where else I was going with this. Thor, awesome, X-Men: First Class, can't wait.. yep.

Fail sauce

Hi, I'm Erica, I'm 28 years old and I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation of the joints, tissue around the joints as well as the organs. Fun!
The last month or so I've been dealing with some chest pain. I was diagnosed with Costochondritis, which is inflammation of the chest wall. I was put on prednisone and a muscle relaxer and after a week, I was still having some issues. I called and was sent for blood work, an echocardiogram and a chest x-ray.

I got a call a few days ago, saying that the blood work came back normal and everything was fine. I was happy to hear that, but also slightly frustrated because I wanted to know what was wrong with me.

Well, apparently the nurse jumped the gun because there were still results that were pending.

Today I went in for a follow-up appointment to re-do a test that came back abnormal last November, and while there, I was told that that I had tested positive for Rheumatoid Arthritis. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed, but it does explain a lot. I've been having joint pain in my knees and elbows from time to time, but I've always just brushed it off because of past injuries that were flaring up every once in a while. Add on top of that low-grade fevers that I would have from time to time for no real reason.

It's just frustrating, because I want to be healthy, and to have just one thing added onto another.. I just really hope the test I was in for today comes back normal, because I honestly don't think I can deal with anything else.

But the good news about this is at least I have an answer of what's causing this and now I can start testing to further figure out the severity and then get on a treatment plan to prevent it from getting out of control. Cause fuck if I'm going to let this rule my life.