Thoughts From Month Seven

Dear Jeff,

You've been gone for seven months now, Jeff. Seven. It is never going to be easier to accept that.

It's odd that sometimes I can feel okay... I move along through the day, I feel all right. I try to interact with people, I catch up with friends and get things done. Sometimes I feel good, sometimes I'm even really happy. Most of the time I'm all right, at least. Then evening rolls around and the last thing I want to do is go to bed.

Now part of this is my night owl tendencies... I never wanted to go to bed. But a bigger part is that going to bed just reminds me that you aren't there. Sometimes I try to pretend you've already gone up and you're sleeping, sometimes I hear the house creak, as it does, and for a moment I can imagine that it's you, walking to the bathroom. You're here, you're alive, and everything is okay.

Sometimes I never do go up to bed. Sometimes I sit up watching TV and surfing the internet until I'm so tired I feel like I might pass out, and I just sleep on the couch. Not because it's comfortable to sleep on, because it's not. No, I stay on the couch because then, for at least one night, I don't have to go upstairs and face the empty bed, and know once again that you are not here. It's easier to sleep on an uncomfortable couch than to be in a big bed, where I still reach out and hope that I'll feel you laying next to me.

Sometimes I think of the times you'd call when you were on the way home from work, and you'd tell me to meet you out front and we'd go out to eat, or to the store, or somewhere. You knew I had a tendency to take three times as long as I'd estimate, so you'd always remind me of the time, and tell me to be outside and ready. And I'd try to be, I'd try to be there waiting when you pulled up. Now, when I come up to bed, I can't help but whisper to you, that I'm ready. I'm ready whenever you want to come by and pick me up. I won't make you wait. But the universe must not be quite ready to send me on my way yet, because I wake up each day and start the cycle over again.

Sometimes I feel like our entire life together was really just a dream I had, one that was beautiful and wonderful, but that it wasn't real. Sometimes you are so present in my life that I know if I turned my head fast enough I'd see you there beside me. Sometimes you feel as far away as that dream... wispy, ethereal, too good to be true. Sometimes I'm certain I just spun you out of my fantasies.

Sometimes I can't even process the reality that even one day has passed. Seven months? Ha. Not real. I knew without a doubt on that first night that I'd never make it through one month. Seven is out of the question.

But I'm still here, and I'm still moving forward, even if it's just by a fraction of an inch with each step. I guess that's something.

Seven months, Jeff.

I miss you.