So I’m working on some accounting (this has to be the lamest blog intro ever), and I had reason to go back and look at how we, specifically I, accounted for a sale transaction that took place in October 2015, because I’m accounting for a new sale, and I don’t seem to know what the hell I’m looking at, so I need an example…

The answer? I didn’t account for it. At all.

The property is sold and gone, and some balances (balances other than those we have on record) were audited via communication with someone other than me (even though I’m our primary audit contact). So some balances in the millions remain on our books, and at some point a final audit report was issued, even though, again, this property is no longer owned by us.

And somewhere down the line I learned that this property had been sold, which I know that I know because if someone were to mention it in my presence I’d be like, “Oh, we sold XYZ property,” and also because I account for it no more. But I have zero recollection of when it was that I gained this knowledge – obviously it wasn’t any time in 2015 or even shortly thereafter seeing how I never bothered to account for the sale, which so isn’t like me. (I don’t leave balances from old entities on our books – GROSS.)

So here these balances sit, frozen in time. They have snapped me back into October 2015. I was back to work then, but obviously not performing many of my basic job functions… This is proof. And my being in a zombie-like grief fog can more than explain this.

“I’d like to see evidence that you’re still committed to this job,” someone said to me then.

“I think the fact that I even show up should be all the evidence you need,” I responded, “Because every morning when I awaken, I wish myself dead.”

And I meant every word… I can’t even begin to describe the pain of those first few months – sometimes the echo of the deep, guttural cries, the distant howling of a devastated mother missing her baby reverberate through my head serving as my only remaining memories. As such, these days are difficult for me to revisit. But sometimes I’m forced to revisit them unexpectedly, especially working in this date-driven field…

An email, a comment – “It was that project we closed in 2015,” a file with a last modified date that falls into a certain timeframe, next year’s three year rolling budget – 2018-2020… In 2018 he’d be three, 2019 he’d be four, 2020 he’d be five. FIVE. I started this job in 2011. 2014 was our farthest projection that year. And 2014 is so far in the past now. And this year we’re getting ready to project 2020 – the year he’d be five. And very soon, 2020 will be so far in the past. Five will be so far gone.

I’m getting farther and farther away from him, and though time can soften the pain (it has to, biologically, physiologically, as it’s impossible to live in the state of the “early days” forever, because it’s this type of pain that can, and sometimes does, kill), it’s in these moments when it has an opposite effect. It intensifies it, twists the knife. Because although the early days were damn near impossible, part of me wants to stay there forever, because it was during this time that I was closest to him. And sometimes any day farther, any additional time and space, hurts worse, feels like a betrayal. So sometimes I scratch and claw against the passage of time…

I can stare at a date, mouth agape in disbelief. Disbelief at him being gone and at me being here and at all that has happened in between, and at what we’ve missed with him and at what he’s missed with us.

And it’s in these moments when it hurts just as bad, and I cry just as hard now as I did then.