I think I’ve been in “strong widow” mode for A’s birthday and now for this benefit concert coming up…and starting to wonder when I’ll fall apart and how badly.

I feel the pain constantly, but sometimes if i’m busy- I forget the permanence for a bit.

I want to ask someone again, “Did this really, truly happen?”  I am still waiting to wake up- it all feels that surreal and dream-like to me still.

I went to a friend’s recording studio to record a song for you tonight Dan- hopefully it can be played during a slideshow at the benefit.  It was my first time in the studio for eight or nine years- since we made that CD all those years ago.  I was so overly sensitive then- presenting my songs in the studio and for the CD made me feel so vulnerable.  That made it so hard to make something good – I was just wounded too easily.  Too prideful really but it masked itself as insecurity or self-deprecation.  I was satisfied in those days to do one or two takes of a vocal track just so I didn’t have to keep trying.  If it was “good enough,” i was done even though it could’ve been so much better.  That bothered you very much.  “I know you can sing that better,” you’d say.

Tonight I recorded the song I wrote for you for your 30th birthday.  It’s one of the last songs I’ve written and you liked it very much.  You wanted me to record it.  So now I did.

Being in the studio was a bit scary.  It was hot and holy in the box and I felt very unprofessional in such a professional setting.  But I saw your notes there on the music stand- from the last session you did in this same studio- and I thought of you- I thought of your confidence and I tried to be that way tonight.  I wanted to ask the engineer- “It’s horrible right? I never should’ve done this,” but then I thought about you- your certainty about yourself and your playing- and I was silent- giving it my best.

I was willing to sing it as many times as necessary and tried to be uninhibited but that was still hard for me.  We recorded in chunks- verse, chorus, last chorus.  Paul said he has enough to work with after an hour or so.  I came out of the booth and listened in the full speakers.

And now that my busy day is done, it is extremely quiet here.  I almost felt at the session that I’d be coming home to tell you about it.  But I hope you know.

This is all I can do now…reinvest you through my life in the world.  It will be interesting to see what that looks like and sad too.  So far I’ve been writing every day and have recorded your favorite song of mine.  I can’t live out your dreams necessarily, but I can live out all of the dreams you had for me that I just wasn’t doing before.

This life is unrecognizable still.  I am still very much outside of myself watching.  Audrey has something kind of odd she does.  She sometimes talks about herself in the third person and says this particular phrase, “little girl named Audrey,” just while she’s playing or going for a walk.  My mom suggested maybe she’s making up a story.  That is what all of this feels like.  It’s a story- not about me, but about a “woman named Julia.”