Dr. Pepper Ribs..

Tonight at Chili's I saw on their menu that they now serve Dr.Pepper ribs, Ugh I know that was Joey. Joey made a year ago Dr.Pepper ribs for JNO, Paul and I. He knew how much I loved Dr.Pepper and he looked up a recipe  on pinterest. They were so amazing, I mean super spicy but oh so good...just like all of Joeys food that he made. I started making a list on my phone of all the little signs that I believe is Joey telling me he's with me. I'm sure I look like a crazy person when I realize that something might be a sign from Joey. 

I am missing Joey so much, I don't expect anyone to walk this journey with me every day. I'm strong enough to say that I am sad, I'm not ashamed of saying that I miss Joey, or that I cry any chance I get or sometimes that it hurts so much that I just want to scream. I'm learning that everyone feels loss differently, whether it be losing a child or best friend or partner, loss hurts..  I wake up every day and I just think to myself 'wow, this is really life.'  

I'm not only dealing with the loss of my life but I am dealing with the grief and realizing that I have to figure out what I'm suppose to do with my life. Joey and I had a life planned, and obviously in life things happen but I sorta planned on having Joey with me to deal with those random things that happen in life. Sometimes I feel like I sound like 'Oh what am I gonna do without Joey, now...' but that's not how I feel.. I know that I'm going to do everything that I said that I would, I know that I'm going to have a life and I'm going to smile and I'm going to laugh and that's the saddest part. Everything now is without Joey. It makes me sick to think that Joey isn't here anymore, I'm never going to come home to him ever again, never going to hear his voice, never going to eat the food he always cooked me, never going to stay awake all night and listen to his obnoxious snoring. 

My grieving is going to last for the rest of my life, and for anyone to say that it isn't is crazy. I remember when people told me that moving to Tampa with Joey was a stupid decision on my part but did I listen to anyone. Hell No. Moving to Tampa was the best decision I ever made, I learned so much about myself moving down here, and I fell more in love with Joey. I loved waking up every day to Joey, I loved knowing that this was our home and every night I was falling asleep in the arms of Joey. 

It's a weird feeling how everyones lives go on, everyone has their wife/husband girlfriend/boyfriend, they have the person they love to cry to, they still have that chance of marriage or having a family, I guess I'm really trying to accept that I don't have Joey anymore, and I have to start from the bottom and figure out what I'm suppose to do. I've always been that girl that knows exactly what she wants but for the first time in my life, I have no idea. It's such a scary feeling, I'm not going to lie but I feel so alone and so scared of what is to come. I don't want any of this, I didn't ask for any of this, this wasn't part of my dreams of Joey and I. One day I'll accept it, maybe. 

Let my tears be still.

No one really knows how someone is suppose to grieve. Everyone has their own opinion. Especially when they aren't entirely in your shoes. At the same time, it is a feeling of loss. No ones grief hurts more or even less than someone else's. Everyone feels a loss and how ever that person deals with it is okay. 

I'm learning that there are some people who just say sly remarks not realizing that it hurts the person. 

Grieving for me, in this journey is talking about Joey. That's the only time I have a smile on my face and tears running from my eyes. Joey was the best part of my life so far. I wish some times people would just close their eyes for one minute and imagine the feeling of loss that I am feeling. Imagine, holding the hand of the love of your life and knowing it's the last time you will ever get to hold their hand, now while your holding on to that persons hand, put your forehead up against their forehead, obviously not caring that tears are falling on their face. Now kiss them goodbye and know that it's the last time. It's the last time you'll get to smell them, last time to feel their skin against yours, last time to feel and hear their heartbeat. I'm sure if you imagined that with the person you loved, you probably would feel sick to your stomach. I long to just be held by Joey again and hear his voice, to taste his kiss.  

I'm mature enough to know that I'm not the only one that has ever experienced a tragic loss of that special someone, and obviously friends experience the grief and mourn the loss also.  

Joey met so many people in his life, and he had a lot of close friends, well best friends actually. I can't even imagine the pain that they feel every day or that the pain his family feels. Most of joeys best friends obviously knew him longer than I knew him, but how ever long you know someone does not make the grief any less painful. 

Joey and I knew each other for 2 years, we were together for a year and half.. And those 2 years are enough to last for a lifetime and forever. My heart will never be the same and I will never be the same person I was before all of this. 

I get up everyday, and I do our routine. I wish I could just lay in bed all day and never get up. I know though, that there are things to be done. Joey might not be with me physically, but every morning he is the one pulling me out of bed. 

I don't feel anything, I'm still numb to it all. I cry any chance I get, for some reason I want to cry all the time in my classes. Today for some reason, I was in math class and I just couldn't figure out a stupid problem and at that moment I wanted to punch something and cry, not because I was frustrated with math, but because I'm frustrated and mentally exhausted with life. I'm so mad at life right now, I'm so mad that Joey is gone. My best friend, partner, love of my life is GONE. It's a tough pill to swallow. 

I'm trying really hard, I put on a smile for people, I'll laugh but I am seriously dying inside. I don't need people lecturing me on their opinion on grief, or that other people are grieving. I know all of it, I don't need other people telling that I need to stop being sad.

Put yourself in my shoes, imagine losing the love of your life. Don't look at it as mourning a loss of a friend or parent or child, look at it through my eyes and my heart... I am trying, and I'm trying to do the best I can do. So let me cry, let me talk about Joey. 

Joey is gone, but no one can ever take away the love that him and I had, no one can ever take away the feeling of that love and no one can ever take away the fact that he chose me out of all the wonderful people he met. I am so blessed to say that I was loved by Joseph Jude Fischetti. 

So just let me be sad and miss him. 

Wherever love goes..

Sure feels like forever since my world went tumbling down, and yet it feels like it was yesterday. It's weird how I wasn't looking for you when I fell in love with you and now I search for you everywhere. You are in my dreams every time I close my eyes, but the one dream that occurs the most is that I am in a field of purple wild flowers and it's the evening time...I unlock a rusty gate and run up a hill and run...run trying to find you. Right before I wake up I get to a farm house...almost looks like a farm house that I could see us spending the rest of our lives in...I walk in the house and you're there, and I wake up. I miss you Joey so much, and I know you are here with me. I know you are there lying next to me when I'm trying to sleep but can't because I need your embrace and need to feel your skin. Who knew I could miss the sound of your snoring SO freaking much. What I miss most is having you snuggling and having your face in my neck, sleeping.  I know you are here when I feel so alone or when I'm in my car, crying my eyes out because that's the only time that people can't seem me crying. You will forever be my shotgun rider, changing the songs and belting out the song lyrics with me.
You were/are the love of my life, best friend, partner. I hope you are with me and get to see all the good and love that God still has planned for the rest of the journey... There aren't any words to express all of the emotions that I feel.

There are so many things that I miss about Joey, I could write a novel about all the things I miss.
I miss something new every day, lately I just miss the feeling I would get when I knew he was in the room. He had such a great energy, and the moment he left the room, I found myself following him like a puppy dog! hahaha, maybe thats just love. We were attached to the hip.
The only time I'm really in the house is when I'm sleeping or studying, I find myself having to not be in the house so I do more exploring in Tampa. The other day I found a Golden Corral and almost balled my eyes out, just because I wish I would of known we lived 5 minutes from one. Joey and I loved food, haha and we always talked about the buffet and Golden Corral...and I find one 5 minutes from us..when he's gone.
Joey and I know each other SO well, I know that Joey is in Heaven cooking up a storm, golfing... but most of all I know he is here with me. I wish he was physically here so we could do all the things that we said we were going to do. I can't help but be bitter when I see my friends getting engaged and married and having babies and I can and probably will say that forever.

It's crazy how alone I feel, I can be in a room full of people and feel like I'm the only one in there.  When Joey passed away, I kept telling my mom how I couldn't wait until people left me alone and now I'm lucky if I get one or two text a day. Don't get me wrong it's nice to not have a bunch of people texting me but it just adds to the amount of loneliness I feel. When people do text me or talk to me they ask me how I'm doing, what's the point of asking if everyone is going to lecture me on how I need to stop being sad. You asked how I'm doing, and I'm miserable...and I'm dying inside each and every day without Joey in my life. Take a walk in my shoes and I bet most of you wouldn't even be able to walk  12 feet in them. It sucks being 21 and knowing that you have your whole life to live without someone that you love more than anything. I find strength in talking to Joey in my head, if you think you're crazy for doing certain things, just imagine talking to someone that isn't even here anymore. I feel like a crazy person, talking to someone in my head but not talking at all in person to anyone, crying any chance I get, forcing myself to go back to sleep. I thought I was exhausted working 40 hours a week and going to school full time but this beats any feeling of being exhausted. I'm so exhausted that I can't even concentrate, if I had it my way I'd lay in bed and never get out of it but the funny thing is I can't even lay in bed all day and cry. Thats the one thing that I want to do, but I can't do it.

5 weeks since Joey left this world, how have I even gone 5 weeks without him. I look at all of Joeys stuff in our place and I wonder when I'll ever be ready to box it up, if I'll ever be ready. Who knows.
Going on is so hard...I don't want to do it anymore, but sadly I have too.

You and I, Joey <3

4 weeks.

It's amazing how I can feel so much hurt and pain from Joey passing away. I never knew that any human could feel this way, the human body is strange thing. Today, February 17th is 4 weeks and Friday February 20th will be ONE MONTH. How is it even possible, that he's been gone this long.
One month isn't that long, but it's been the longest month without him. You get in a routine and that routine becomes your life and the person who you share that routine with becomes your life. I sit and think about how I'm having to start from the bottom, I have a new routine and it's me just going through the motions and feeling numb. I find myself talking about Joey more and more, there are so many things that remind me of him and for me, that's okay because it makes me think of him.

The other night I was trying to use my Uber app on my phone to get a ride home, well it wasn't working, kept saying network error...as if. Using that Uber app makes me think of Joey and I because we loved using Uber. I didn't know about Uber until I moved to Tampa with Joey and at first I looked at him crazy, wondering why  he thought it was okay to get in a car with a complete stranger. I knew if we were going to use Uber, Joey was not going to shut up in the car. Sometimes I would be embarrassed but I realized that, was just who Joey was. I have so many Uber stories and I could tell you the lives of maybe 15 uber drivers because of Joey. My favorite Uber ride was with Joey and my best friend Janna. It was a couple weeks before Thanksgiving and Janna had come down from NYC. It was Jannas first time meeting Joey and at first I was so scared for them to meet because I really wanted Janna to like Joey. Well, the three of us got in that Uber car and headed to South Howard and I felt like the 4th wheel. Our Uber driver could not speak any english and of course Joey and Janna both knew how to speak spanish, so as the three of them are laughing there butts off and having a heart to heart in spanish, I was sitting silently in disbelief. After the Uber car ride, Joey and Janna were BFF's, I almost felt as if they needed to be together! HAHA. Joey always felt the need to get to know someone and why they were where they were in life. I loved that about Joey, he had a heart of gold and he really loved meeting people.
Brings me back to another memory of Joey and I, it was the first day we moved to Tampa!
August 9th 2014, we just dropped the Uhaul off and started unpacking, and he was just so eager to go watch the sunset, I had never seen him so excited to go see a stupid sunset! We started walking around our complex and found the trail by the water and sat on a swing...turns out that a huge group hung out at the spot and I just knew at that moment that we were going to be sitting there for a very long time. Joey instantly made 8 new friends that night, which is no surprise. There was always someone for Joey to meet and get to know.
I'm sure he's made a billion new friends up there in Heaven. I can't wait for the day where I am with him again, it's a sickening feeling. I miss him so much, I don't know how I'm even going on... because I have the urge to cry at any moment of the day. You know that feeling in your throat when you're just about to cry but force yourself not too...that's how I feel ALL the time! I wake up, and force myself to go back to sleep because I don't want to be awake without him. I wish I would know the reason why God took away Joey at such a young age, we had too many things to do and that's the hardest part to get over.

Just let me cry..

Three weeks today, how is it that it's gone by so fast. It feels like yesterday when I was holding Joeys hand saying goodbye to him. It still doesn't seem real, it's not something I'm going to accept. I know I have to understand that he passed away and that he's gone but there are somethings in life that you don't have to accept. This isn't something that's going to get better over time...I don't have the flu...I've lost the love of my life and I'm sad.  This is going to be such a long road ahead of me, I'm grieving over Joey passing away, I'm grieving over the fact that him and I will never get married or have a family of our own. I'm not just grieving over his death but also the person I was when I was with him, the life we shared and the plans we had. When people tell me I need to get on with my life now, what am I suppose to say to that?  My life is going on, it's going on with out Joey. I have to force myself to get up out of bed and go through my days and go through the motions. My sadness hits me like a earthquake, always unexpected.  Don't get me wrong, I am my own person, I am my own woman and a very independent one at that, but that doesn't mean that I can't grieve over my boyfriend passing away so unexpectedly. I know I have a bright future, I'm twenty-one and I get to spend every day of the rest of my life missing Joey....Let that sink in...the rest of my life.. I hate it. 

 

17 days

It amazes me how it's been 17 days since you've passed away. I've gone 17 days without hearing your voice or laughter. I've gone without your kisses and your warm embrace. I've gone 17 days without smelling that aftershave on your face when you kiss me. I've gone 17 days without your name popping up on my phone. I've gone 17 days without your foot massages. The list goes on and on and on. 

Everyone said it would get easier and honestly it just gets harder. I can't sleep at night and when I finally do, I dream of you. Just let me sleep if that's the only time I can see you and I together. 

I'm pretty sure I'm killing our plants that we bought a week before you passed away, but hey... What am I gonna do with all that cilantro, mint and basil. That was all for you. All your clothes are still hanging up, everything is still the way it would be, as if you were here. I probably won't box anything up until I decide when I'm going to move.  I find myself waking up every morning, more sad then the day before. I find myself crying more, any chance I get, I cry. I'm missing you so much, I never knew missing someone could be so painful. Everyone says you're always watching over me and with me.. But I don't feel you... In my mind everything is a blur from the last several weeks. 

Honestly the one thing that keeps me going is the love that we shared and the fact that you chose me to love. Out of everyone you met in your lifetime (which was a lot) you chose me! When we first started working out together after the late nights at work I never thought we would be anything. There was one night that changed my mind though, I was doing some stupid weight machine for my legs and you put it on like 300 pounds and told me to do it. Lmao. You were just standing there next to me cheering me on as I was struggling, and at that point for some reason I remember thinking to myself at that moment, you were going to be the man I married and have children with. I don't know why at that moment at the gym I decided that. 

I'm missing your positivity, always just cheering me on and making me a better person. When I was down or frustrated you always knew what to say or do to bring that smile back to my face. 

I'm trying to focus on school because I know that, that's what you want for me. It's what we both wanted, but it's hard. 

It's hard sitting in class and listening to the lecture because I'm thinking of you. I don't have you texting me through out the day, and when I leave my classes, I know you aren't going to be home.

I go through a roller coaster of emotions 24/7, it's like I shouldn't be around happy people honestly. You are my forever love Joseph Fischetti, and love never dies.