14 weeks

My love,
It’s been fourteen weeks since you left me….fourteen weeks. It’s such a ridiculous number. I want to keep time in weeks as it seems that less time has elapsed. I’ve always thought that those who kept track of their children’s ages in smaller increments were slightly unhinged. “Oh! Bobby-Jo is 137 weeks old! Lisa-beth is 92 months.” I can’t believe how time has passed. Now I wonder if I, too, must now mark time in months rather than weeks.
I still feel that you will walk through the door. The dog is going to announce your arrival with happy barking. The kids will squeal when you open the screen door and jump at you yelling, “Uppy! Uppy!” Does this feeling ever go away? In some ways, I hope so. The expectation and the following crash that happens with every hopeful thought is devastating. Conversely, not expecting you to come back to me fills me with sadness and dread. It will mean that I know that you’re gone. I’m not ready to know that yet. I’m not ready to let go. I’m not ready to have you be part of the past. To me, you are still part of the present. I don’t want that shift. But it hurts to feel that somewhere deep in my heart, you are coming back to me. That you’ll return. Having my mind dispute this makes my heart want to stage a mutiny.
My thoughts and feelings are becoming a terrifying roller-coaster ride as I begin to emerge from the numbing fog. I try to hold myself together. I’ll think I’m doing okay. And then I crash. I lose it and cry. I can’t keep on top of anything. I feel disappointed in myself and I know that I am disappointing others. This breaks me, Jeff. I don’t want to affect anyone else with this grief and fucked up mental state. I want to be able to walk upright, be self-sufficient and strong. This sadness and exhaustion is grossly inconvenient and….embarrassing. It makes me feel weak and impotent. A waste. A letdown.
I am trying to feel brief moments of happiness without guilt. I don’t know if guilt is actually the correct word. It just doesn’t feel ….natural to genuinely smile and laugh without you to share these things with. It’s forced and awkward. I am constantly analyzing my thoughts and actions. Am I okay? Am I behaving normally? Am I making people uncomfortable?
I’ve learned so much in the last fourteen weeks. About myself. About society. About other people’s reactions to pain. This learning process has made me stronger as all the people who don’t actually ‘know’ have said. But not because I am learning how to heal. Only because I have learned to carry it with everything else. Like an overstuffed, over-sized backpack. My muscles grow stronger but the load isn’t any lighter.
I just wish that I could find some peace. A solid answer to why and where you went. A knowledge that I would ‘see’ you again wouldn’t be unwelcome! But even if I knew, I was alone. That I have to face this future without your whisper in my ear or your kisses in my dreams, that I would have an answer. I’d know if it was worth searching for the possibility of you.
I miss you. I want you back. I want you to grow old with me like you were supposed to. I want you to sing songs to me in the answering machine for me to find when I wake in the morning while you’re fishing. I want to find the post-it notes around the house that you’d hide on me only to find at unexpected moments. I want to hear your cough and laugh through the kitchen wall as you watch your favourite shows while fixing something in the garage. This is just not fucking fair. I DO NOT want to be without you. Alone.
Why did this happen?!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????
Damn it.

I love you, the whole pie. Even though right now, I’m pissed off. See? Now, I’m learning. I am really fucking angry, but I am saying, “I LOVE YOU”. And I do, Jeffrey. I do.