Aimée Ariel
John knows this one.
I'd been crying my brains out for days last week and made the ridiculous decision to shut down a few days later and pretend she wasn't gone for roughly a day. Tried. It was not meant to be.
I went out onto my balcony for the first time in awhile. When I first moved here, I used to lay out all the time, soak in sun. The balcony is really hard to view by others.
Within two weeks of moving here, a drone showed up and hovered in front of me which pissed me off. I told Tracy and she offered to send John over to make sure I was safe. I felt my place was already pretty secure. I also always had my trusty baseball bat. ;)
Tracy checked in and must've offered that John and/or she come over every day for over a week because of it, fiercely protective while still managing to laugh at the comedic stylings of Aimée Ariel's gracefulness. We'll get to that part in a sec.
Sure enough the other day, I was all shut down, numb and in denial, standing on the balcony. Suddenly, a drone flew up and hovered in front of me, a few feet from my face. It hadn't happened again until that day. I slowly grabbed my plastic chair just like before and tried to knock it down just like before...and almost went over the balcony... just like before.
I immediately wanted to tell her it happened again and grabbed my phone. Everything rushed back to me. The grief hit hard...but also the visceral memory of her fierce, protective nature. Most of all, how hard she laughed at me and with me, picturing a 45 year old woman swinging a cheap plastic chair at a drone and almost falling off the balcony 8 floors below. My version of, "Get off my lawn!".
It was a running joke for a long time. We theorized outlandish agencies and people who might've sent the drone and why, the theories getting bigger and sillier each time.
That damn drone made me laugh in the midst of all this. For a little while, the laughter overshadowed the sadness. Tracy always laughed at the consistency of the wackadoodle that wandered into my life and I've always been grateful for someone who could help me find the humor in it.
God, I miss you, your unconditional love, humor, fierceness, nurturing nature...and your ability to accept a weirdo like me into your life so completely. I love you like crazy, Trae. I miss you like crazy. I hope you saw that and laughed.
