Two and a half

It was two years ago today that I started feeling like I might survive. I’d been waiting for 26 weeks – 26 weeks seemed like a lot – and now it’s been 130.  And I’m still here.

It's surviving something that I wasn't supposed to experience, wasn't prepared for, had no clue how to handle, and flat out didn't want to do.  It's surviving coming home every night to an empty house, cooking for one with no one else to enjoy it, finding a new job to replace his income, taking roadtrips by myself, and making over the house in the way we wanted to do the new house.

I still miss him.  I'll always miss him.  I miss the spice he added to my life, support when I had a bad day, the person I thought of before anything.  I still visit the cemetery, wear his hoodie on the deck, smoke his brand just to smell the familiar scent and drink his beer.  We chat all the time (and I swear he talks back) and in many ways, it feels more to me like a new stage in our relationship rather than no relationship at all.

I still can’t explain how much he gave to me or what he meant to me.  He was my everything, and in so many ways still is.

I wonder where my strength comes from, and I think it comes from him.  It comes from the love we had together, and the faith we had in each other. It comes from steadfastly believing this was not something he chose, this is not how he wanted to leave me, and he always wanted a better life for me than this.  I know what he wanted for us, and for reasons beyond his control, he became unable to provide that.  So now it’s just me and it's up to me to provide it for myself.  I owe it to him to do so.

You don’t think at 30 that you have to recreate your life, that in a blink of an eye all your plans for the future will just be gone.  You don’t think that you might be spending the next 70 years living without him.  But that’s exactly what I’m doing.

He wouldn't want me to roll over and stop living my life.  So my life... this weird combination of with him and without him... I'm living.