Wolf Logan Grey

Moving Through

The one year mark for Matthew’s death has come and quietly gone.  Matthew died on March 1, 2025 just as Winter turned into Spring.  Then Spring morphed into Summer, then fall, and finally winter. Somehow, the seasons just repeated and kept marching on.

I did box up Matthew’s clothes.  I did donate almost everything.  It was horribly hard.

Margarete, one of Matthew’s sisters, who he was very, very close to, asked me for some of her artwork back (she’s a well-known painter).  I haven’t had the energy to take those drawings, paintings and sketches off the wall and box them up.  I’ll get to it.  She wants to be closer to the art she shared with Matthew.  I get it.  I don’t blame her.  I need to get those pieces to her.  I just can’t seem to do it.

I did change our bedroom into a guest room.  I got rid of our big, ugly pine dresser.  It had been with us since I met Matthew.  We purchased it for $100 from an unfinished furniture store.  It remained unfinished until I had it carted out of the bedroom about a month ago.  It’ll probably remain unfinished until it’s kindling, which, hopefully, will be soon.

This story, though, isn’t about Matthew and how he lived for 7 years with his cancer.  This story isn’t about his fight, his struggle, and his grappling with what it meant to be dying.   

It’s not about how he’d look at me and simply say:  I feel awful.

Instead, this post is about me.

Something happened.

I’m not me anymore.

I mean, I am me.  But I feel like I was put in a blender and spit out.  When I look in the mirror, I don’t see the old me.  I see an entirely new me. 

I don’t hate what I see.  On the contrary.  I see strength.  I see muscle.  I see sadness.  I see hope.  All those things.  I feel like a wolf.  A hunter, an apex, undefeatable beast ready to defend his home and fight for life. 

I know that sounds horribly pretentious.  But I can’t help it.  I’ve thought extensively about my profound grief and sadness both before Matthew passed, and after. Now it’s time to think about, and to tell you about, something I didn’t expect.  That, in this process, I was chewed up, spit out, and reconstituted into someone new. 

And that new person I’ve given a new name: Logan.

He’s a dancer.

He’s all muscle and sex.

He’s a hunter.

He’s a “top.

But the process of being chewed up and spit out isn’t as neat as “top” or “bottom”, of “Alpha” and “Beta”. That blender managed to leave pieces of my gentle, soft, almost feminine side. That blender left me wanting to make life better for those around me. To help them. And, yes, to make their lives better.

That makes me a top, but it also, somehow, keeps me seeking approval from those around me. It’s weird. I always thought “top” meant “alpha”. For me, it doesn’t. I’ll never be an alpha. Which is good, because I’m a happy beta. To complicate matters, I have some Alpha qualities. At times, I simply can’t help but take charge. I’m always surprised when someone says I “intimidate” them. I sure as hell don’t mean too. In fact, when I lead it’s usually because I’m in my comfort zone.

But the bottom line is this: when your world is better, so is mine.