Getting over someone THREE times!

Usually, "getting over someone," if you really loved them, is a very painful psychological and physiological process (it really does hurt your stomach and heart and every part of your body as much as it hurts your thought processes) that only happens ONCE!

Dear god---I've had to get over Sandra twice before, and now again... At least she's dead now, and it won't happen a fourth time!

First time: She was my first crush after Ginny, in '86 and '87. Last time I saw her at that time was at Austin's Barton Springs pool, when she told me she was getting married ("He loves me..." That marriage lasted a mere 5 years, but bore two children...)

Second time: In 2008, when I'd written on this blog about my crush on her and about our poetry class at UT, and she contacted me while I was living in NYC... That led to over a decade of thousands of phone-calls and e-mails, and maybe four meetings. This second phase either ended in 2015, after we spent the night together and didn't get along, or it ended in 2018, when---after months of her complaining about nowhere to stay, I offered her a room in my apartment and she accepted...and then didn't show up when she said she was on her way. I realized then, in 2018, that she never meant anything that she said. I pretty much shut her off at that point.

After that, I only heard sporadically from her until she told me she'd had her stroke in 2020. I received a few e-mails and calls from her until early 2021. After 2021, there was no more contact between us, though I sent an occasionally e-mail that was returned as "undelivered." I'd assumed that she was just focused on healing from her stroke...

After 2018 'til the present, I'd come to terms with us: Incapable of communication. Was at peace with it, and going about my own business.

But when I just found out last week that she'd DIED...
My god, don't be DEAD, Sandra! You can't be DEAD! Be angry and not speaking to me, but don't be DEAD!

I am still in shock. I thought that when we argued, we were just arguing. I thought that when she had a stroke, she'd recuperate, not DIE...

5 Steps of Grief:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining---After I knew she was dead, I said to myself that I would trade all of my 5 cats' lives for hers.
Depression
Acceptance