The blog posts below are the very first blog entries I posted on my site. I go into detail about:
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I’ve never had good luck in dating. My first relationship was abusive mentally and physically, and my second relationship, that lasted four years, just did not work out because I simply was not happy anymore. After I called off the four year relationship, it was a lot of trial and error dating. Mainly errors. I went on a lot of dates with different guys and even dated some guys for a couple of months, but none of them truly interested me or made me want to pursue them long term. I was honestly on the brink of just giving up and staying single. I felt as if I just was not meant to be in love or with somebody. All of that changed on March 7, 2016 though. Get ready for some cheesy shit.
Ulysses and I met online (romantic, I know), but automatically, he was different than any other guy I had talked to online. Most guys when approaching me, would start off with some stupid pick up line or some inquiry about how I’m beautiful and then try and get into my pants. However, with Ulysses, he was genuinely interested in knowing who I was as a person. He didn’t start off with some stupid pick up line. He didn’t call me beautiful and then prompt to have sex. He simply just messaged me and he asked me questions. Where I lived, what I enjoyed doing, where all I have traveled too, my favorite animals, stuff like that. He actually caught my eye and drew me in automatically. Of course, my first thought was, “This guy is super handsome and bad ass looking, why is he talking to me?”, but I went with it and I am so happy I did. For the next couple of days, we talked about anything and everything. He was a total gentleman and within four days, I had already fallen hard for him. Ulysses lived in Dodge City, Kansas at the time and I am all the way in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so it wasn’t like we could just meet up and hang out. So until we could actually meet in person, we Facetimed and talked on the phone. The first time we Facetimed, he was texting me beforehand saying how nervous he was and how he was scared that he would fuck something up. I was blown away that this guy who seems so confident was nervous to talk to me. So I called him, and him being the dork he is, he had a brown paper sac on his head so I couldn’t see his face. We both laughed for a good five minutes and then he took the bag off, and wow, he was even more handsome in person. We sat on FaceTime for about two hours just learning about each other. I remember falling in love with his laugh. It was loud and happy and I told him how much it made me smile. He told me that people used to make fun of his laugh. I don’t see why, because I automatically wanted to hear his laugh for the rest of my life. We both established we liked each other and wanted to meet ASAP, so at the end of March, I finally got to meet him in person. I wanted to take him to a coffee shop, so I had him meet me at The Gypsy Coffee House. Driving up to the coffee house, I was a nervous wreck. I was blaring Young the Giant trying to pump myself up, but I was sweating and freaking out inside. I pull up to the coffee house, and there he is just sitting on a bench outside. My heart started racing and my stomach felt like there were a lot more than butterflies in there. As I park and get out of my car, he starts walking towards me. As he’s walking, he throws up a peace sign (which he later tells me he did that so I would know that he’s not a pyscho, lol) and right as we meet up, he gives me the biggest bear hug ever. We sat there and hugged for what seemed like forever and he kept telling me how beautiful I was. We spent the day drinking ice chai tea lattes, walking around downtown Tulsa, eating at Fat Guys, and then just sitting and talking at a park. The whole day, I couldn’t believe that he was interested in me. He was far more interesting as a person than I am and I absolutely loved hearing all of his stories. I was so shy around him but for some reason, he didn’t mind. I thought I had completely messed things up because he did most of the talking all day, so when we said our goodbyes, I wasn’t expecting a text or anything else from him. But to my surprise, he texted me almost immediately telling me how beautiful I am and how he had a great time with me. After that first date, I already knew that I wanted this man to be a part of my life. Ulysses and I dated long distance for a short period of time. He would visit Tulsa here and there, but I never expected him to actually move to Tulsa. When he told me he was moving here, I was over the moon. I was head over heels for this boy and I couldn’t wait to spend more time with him. I have never been sure about anything in my life. I am the most indecisive person ever and am never positive about anything. However, I knew that I wanted to be with Ulysses. I knew that I wanted to fall in love with him. I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. They say you’ll know when you know, and it is true. I almost gave up on love and he showed me that it is possible again. He finally moved to Tulsa on May 8, 2016. After that, we spent almost everyday together. He was my summer romance and I loved every second of it. I could feel myself falling in love and I knew he was feeling the same way, we were both just too scared to say anything. I remember one night after we got done getting coffee, we were just sitting in his van talking. I don’t remember how it got brought up, but he told me he wanted to marry me. I was in shock he said this because we hadn’t even exchanged I love you’s yet, but he said that and I don’t think I’ve ever smiled so big. I wanted to marry him too. Then he started telling me he would love to start a family with me. Every girl loves hearing that, especially when a handsome boy that you’re totally crazy about is saying that.
About a week later, we were cuddling in his bed and he started breathing really heavy. I asked what was wrong and he said he was really nervous. I could literally feel his heart thumping against my back because we were spooning. After a couple of minutes, I heard in my ear, “I’m falling in love with you Natalie”. I turned over, and told him that I was falling in love with him too. He was still breathing really heavy and we just laid like that for a little bit. Then eventually, he built up the courage and said “I love you”. I gave him the biggest kiss and of course said it back. He sat there breathing heavy and just laughing because he was still SO nervous. Then the rest of the night, he just kept saying “I love you I love you I love you” while hugging and kissing me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy or so much love. Ulysses and I spent the summer head over heels for each other and in love completely. We did everything together and every moment I got with him, I was at my happiest.
On June 30, 2016, we found out that I was pregnant. Now before I had met Ulysses, I had my whole life planned out. I wasn’t going to get married until I was 23. I wasn’t going to have my first child until I was 25. I wasn’t going to do anything life changing until I finished my degree. However, meeting Ulysses changed all of this plan I had for myself. Were we trying to have a child? No. Were we preventing it though? Also no. I wasn’t worried if I got pregnant. I loved him and I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him and have his children. Of course after I took the pregnancy test, it was still a bit of a shock. I’ll admit, I spent about 3 and a half hours just crying and worrying. I wasn’t sad that there was a baby inside of me. I was mainly worried about finishing school and how my mom would react. But Ulysses just held me through all of it and talked me through it. I remember I was silently crying with my back turned against him and it was quiet for awhile. All of a sudden, I heard the song Yellow playing by Coldplay. He told me he wanted to play it for me since yellow is my favorite color and he thought it might soothe me. Which it did. Hearing that song and the reason he was playing it, oddly calmed me down and I started to be okay again. After the initial shock had passed, we were both so happy. I remember laying on his chest and he was already rubbing my belly saying how he was so happy that there is something growing in there. After we found out I was pregnant, Ulysses and I got so much closer. It truly is a bond you create with someone else and it is life changing. The next couple of months, I had never seen Ulysses so happy before. At our first ultrasound, it was amazing for both of us. Right as I heard the heartbeat and saw our baby moving, I started bawling. He squeezed my hand and we both just sat there and watched our baby wiggle around. We both instantly fell in love and seeing Ulysses get so excited made my heart soar. He was so proud that that was his child. He was so happy that we were creating a life together. At every ultrasound after that, he would always be so excited and talk about it all day. He would look at the ultrasound pictures we would get and you could just see the love in his eyes and the way he smiled. At 16 weeks pregnant, we finally found out the gender! I kept telling him that I just feel like we were having a boy. I don’t know why, but I just felt it. As I thought, I was right. We were having a boy! I had never seen Ulysses so excited before. Right after our appointment he just kept saying, “WE’RE HAVING A BOY!” He was so giddy. He started telling me how he can’t wait to take him to the barber shop and get his haircut, how he can’t wait to show him his chopper and have him ride on it, how he can't wait to teach him how to mosh, how he can't wait to teach him how to be a gentleman. We started to daydream constantly about our sons future. We both agreed that we wanted to name him Holden Alexander. We had loved that name since the beginning and we were so happy that his name was going to be that. The next few weeks, we were just in total bliss knowing our child’s gender and we were both so excited whenever we would look at the boy baby stuff. On October 14, 2016 I was exactly 19 weeks pregnant. I could finally feel Holden moving around! I was with Ulysses and I put his hand on my stomach and he started freaking out. He couldn’t believe it. He was so in love and so was I. I had never felt so much happiness. Two days later though, my whole world changed and crashed before my very eyes. On October 16, 2016, Ulysses was over at my sister and her husband’s house helping them with their truck. It was a nice day outside, so Ulysses rode his chopper out there. I was at my house just hanging out, and Ulysses stopped by around 8:00 pm. We had planned to go over to one of his friends house to hang out, but it just kept getting later and later and his friend wasn’t at their house yet and I had school in the morning, so I just told him that I was going to pass on hanging out. I was a little mad because I had gotten ready for no reason and Ulysses could tell, so he asked me if I wanted to drive out to Sonic to see some of his other friends. I passed because it was already so late and we kind of bickered for a bit. Eventually, we said our goodbyes and I told him to text me whenever he made it to his friends safely. I watched him ride away on his chopper. I had no idea that that would be the last time I would ever see him ride away.
He left my house at about 9:15 pm. I kept waiting and waiting for him to text me because he always does when he gets back safely. I even messaged some of his friends asking if they had heard from him and they all said no. 10:00 rolls around and I was starting to worry. I started blowing up his phone and I wasn’t getting anything back. I felt in my stomach that something bad had happened. I turned on the 10:00 o’clock news, and I saw a report that traffic was backed up on the highway because there had been a wreck. They didn’t specify anything, but I just had a feeling that it was Ulysses that was in the wreck. I automatically start freaking out and googling everything I could find to see if there was any news about the wreck online. Within minutes, I saw an article describing the crash and I saw a picture of his motorcycle laying on the side of the road. My heart dropped. I started screaming and crying immediately. And when I say screaming, I literally mean screaming. I kept screaming, “No no no, I can’t do this by myself” because I was automatically thinking about our child. My mom rushed to me and I explained what happened and I immediately messaged his friends freaking out and telling what happened. His friends were a blessing, because they drove to the scene of the crash and found out what hospital he was in. My mom and I rushed to the hospital and I cried the whole way. I kept pleading with God, asking him to please not take him. I had never begged and prayed so much in my life. When we arrived at the hospital, my mom said to me, “You might want to pay attention to where all we’re turning in case you have to come up here a lot to visit him” but in my heart, I knew that I wouldn’t be visiting him. We walked into the hospital and a nurse took us to a room where all of Ulysses’ friends sat waiting. After waiting for about 10 minutes, a nurse walked in. She told us that for some reason, Ulysses stopped on the side of the highway to fix something on his bike, and a car hit him. She told us that he had multiple injuries, his lungs collapsed, they did a blood transfusion, but they just couldn’t save him. After hearing that, I just sat there. I didn’t cry. I didn’t say a word. She then asked me if I would like to see his body. I said yes and she took me into the room he was in. I still wasn’t crying. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t real. Even as I stood over his dead body, my mind couldn’t comprehend it. I felt as if I was outside of my body. I stood there examining his body trying to memorize each part of it. Each part that I wouldn’t get to see anymore. Each part I wouldn’t get to touch anymore. I was trying to take all of him in for the last time. I wanted to touch him so badly. I wanted to tell him to wake up and to come back to me. But nothing came out. As soon as I got back into the room with all of his friends and my mom, I completely lost it. I started screaming and crying again. I kept repeating, “I can’t do this without him”, “I can’t do this”, “This can’t be happening”. Everything was so unreal. I screamed and cried while I watched all of his friends crying as well. All of my family kept telling me, “Don’t stress Natalie, it’s not good for the baby”. How the fuck was I not going to stress though? The love of my life just died. So not only was I stressing over that, i started to stress over the fact that I was harming my child. I went into the bathroom and just held my stomach because I was so scared that I was going to lose my baby as well. I was terrified that my body being in such stress and in fight or flight response, that my baby wasn't okay. I spent the rest of that night mourning the loss of my love and praying that my child was still okay in my belly. After about an hour, the nurse came back in and asked if we would like to see his body through a viewing room. We said yes and there was a window we could see him through. I kept trying to memorize him again. I didn’t want to forget how he looked. Even as he laid there all banged up and bruised, I kept saying in my head, “He’s so beautiful” because he was no matter what. I wanted to just stare at him all night because I knew once I left, that was the last of him. Eventually we had to leave and my heart was so broken. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to cry. Everything hurt. I had a lot of remorse and guilt for awhile. Why didn’t I just wait to hang out with his friends? Why didn’t I go with him? Why didn’t I keep him at my house longer? I blamed myself for his death and I absolutely hated myself. The first few weeks after his death, I thought about suicide more than a handful of times. I know that sounds selfish because I am pregnant, but it was only a thought. I would never actually kill myself, especially when I have a child inside of me. But death was a comforting thought. I thought that maybe if I died, we would be reunited in another life. I used to be terrified of dying, but it didn’t scare me anymore. I welcomed it. I spent a lot of time wishing that I had died instead of him. All of his life, he wanted to get married and have a family of his own so bad. I wanted that too, but definitely not as much as him. I wanted to trade places because even if I died, he could still meet someone else and have that dream of his. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be alive. He was a much better person than I was, so why did he die instead of me? I also spent a lot of time hating God and cursing him. Why didn’t he listen to me? Why didn’t he answer my prayers? Why did he have to let him die? Him and I still aren’t on good terms as of now, but I don’t curse him out anymore.
Leading up to his funeral, it felt like an out of body experience. I didn't feel real if that makes sense. I just felt numb. Nothing felt real anymore. I remember not being able to cry. It wasn't that I wasn't sad, it was that I just had no tears left. Like I mentioned, I felt numb so tears just couldn't come out. We had the family viewing of his body on Saturday, October 22, 2016. I was so fucking scared to see him even though I saw him right after he had passed away. I didn't want to see him honestly. Seeing him laying in a casket just made everything so much more real and I didn't want any of this to be real. Walking up the aisle to his casket, I could hear my heart through my ears, it was beating that hard and fast. Right as I saw him laying there, I absolutely lost it. It didn't even look like the Ulysses I knew. He had so much trauma from the crash, that his face was swollen and his eyes were drooping. He was so pale because the beautiful color he was had been drained out of him. I said to my mom who was beside me through it all, "That doesn't even look like him". She replied, "Because that isn't him anymore". Seeing his mother scream and cry over his casket broke my heart even more. I sat there and just talked to Ulysses. I don't know if there is an after life or if he could hear me, but I kept saying "Ulysses, if you can hear me, please make sure your mom is okay. Please calm her down. Please let her feel you so this won't be so hard on her". I sat there the whole viewing just talking to him in my head. Even though I don't know if he could hear me, it calmed me down talking to him. His funeral was on Monday, October 24, 2016. I saw his body in his casket on Saturday, Sunday, and then that Monday and seeing him never got easier. It was still a punch in the gut every single time. By Monday, I was so numb and raw that I barely had any tears left to shed. I remember thinking that I hope people didn't think I was heartless or didn't care because I wasn't crying. Because I cared a whole fucking lot. I just had nothing left inside of me. However, Monday was the hardest day. I knew that after the service was over, that was really the last time I was going to see him. As myself and his family carried his casket outside to be put in the hearse, I was trying to hold onto him more. I didn't want him to be cremated. I didn't fucking want him to be dead. I didn't want any of this. I noticed that after the funeral was all over, people stopped checking in. It’s as if they thought that since that part was over, that I had magically moved on and I was okay. But I wasn’t. I had panic attacks everyday. I would try and pretend that I was fine when I went out in public, but would scream and punch things whenever I got home. I would cry myself to sleep. But no one noticed. And it’s not that I think people didn’t care, it was just that they had moved on with their lives, so they forgot that I hadn’t yet. I felt stuck in time as I watched everyone move on and go on with life as if nothing happened. I had never felt so lonely in my life. I went from talking and hanging out with someone constantly to nothing in a matter of a day. I thought it was absolutely pointless that I had a phone, because no one was talking to me. I would spend every single day hoping someone would send me a message, just so I could talk to someone. But most days I was just disappointed, because I received nothing. Life felt so worthless to me now. The first month after his death is like a fog looking back on it. I don’t remember a whole lot. All I remember is not being able to sleep, eat, or drink. I was so worried about Holden because I knew that I was depriving him, but I lost my appetite. I was exhausted, yet I couldn’t sleep. Eventually, my mom started forcing me to eat and after my doctor lectured me about being dehydrated, I knew I needed to get my shit together. I forced myself to start eating and drinking again and I started taking sleeping pills so I could fall asleep. I felt like a zombie and I lost the connection I had with my child. I was happy that I had a piece of Ulysses inside of me, but it didn’t feel right not having him by my side. It felt weird not having someone to be excited with about how much he is growing each week and all the progress he was making. I started to resent my pregnancy. I loved my child, but I hated that I had to do this alone now. I never imagined myself being a single mom. Since I had planned my whole life, I always planned that whoever I had a child with, that they would be in my life forever. So having to accept that I was now on my own and that my child would never know his father, I had so much anger. I was pissed that this was my life now. Pissed that I had to accept this new life. Pissed that this happened to me. I went back and forth from sadness to anger each day.
The second month was a lot harder than the first surprisingly. The first month, I was still in shock. I was still numb. However, in the second month, it all started to become more real. I started to realize that he was never coming back. That I would never see him again. Never talk to him again. Never hear that laugh again. I would see something funny and think, “I need to show Ulysses this” but then automatically be crushed because I couldn’t. I did this a lot. Thinking that I could just call him up and he would be there, but then reality would hit, and I’d be hurt all over again. In the second month though, I started to really latch onto my pregnancy. I started to absolutely love being pregnant because I could feel Holden moving around constantly. He made me feel like I wasn’t so alone and that I had a purpose in this life. I changed his name to Holden Ulysses after his dad died and I’m really glad I did. Holden Alexander just doesn’t fit him anymore. I started nesting hardcore and I bought mostly everything he needs and I set up his nursery. I was happiest anytime I was doing something for him. I felt so much closer with him than before because I knew that I was all he had left. I have to be strong for him. I have to make sure I’m doing everything I can for him. He is my reason for living and he is alive because of me. These thoughts got me through my worst days and if it wasn’t for Holden, I don’t know if I’d be dead or alive right now. I am so grateful for my son and I am anticipating his arrival more than anything. I am terrified of raising him alone, but I am going to try my absolute best to be perfect for him. I want to be the best mother I can be. January 21, 2017:
I am now in my third month without Ulysses. I honestly don’t know how I’ve made it three months without him, but somehow, I am still breathing and I am still getting through the day. I still have bad days. Days where I cry and I’m pissed about everything, but I also have good days now. Days where I laugh and I am distracted by other things. At first I felt guilty if I had a good day or if I went a day without crying. I felt as if I wasn’t grieving enough if I wasn’t crying 24/7. But then I stopped feeling guilty and realized that I am still on this earth and deserve to have a laugh here and there. I will forever grieve Ulysses. I am never going to get over his death and I will never get over our love. He was a once in a lifetime person and I am so happy that I got to know him and love him, even though we didn’t get enough time together. He made me feel forever in such a short period of time. He showed me true love and we created the best thing of all: our son. |
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