5 o'clock on a Friday Night

Babes, Missing you. I miss you in a way that physically hurts me. It hurts so bad there are no words. My body can't take it so it tries to convince me I'm tired. So exhausted maybe I should just call it a night.

O the countless times I have called it a night in the middle of the day. The few times I took painkillers in excess to force sleep when I would just lay there tormented by pain. I've come a long way from there. But then there are weekends.

Fucking weekends. Weekends are happy times, time off, family dinners, friends and BBQ's. Weekends are times with your lover and 5 o'clock on a Friday used to make my heart sing. I'd call you and see when you'd be home. I'd be making us dinner and we'd be making plans.

But no more. And it's been 19 months, that's a long time to get over the ritual but it had been a decade in the making and I can’t shake it. It's 5 o'clock and I want to go to bed. To turn off my phone and force myself to sleep, praying that in the morning I won't miss you this bad. That just maybe by morning my body would adjust to the empty space you used to fill beside me in bed. To be honest Ollie has claimed it as her own. I tell her ‘ go to your side’ and she snuggles in; head on the pillow right where yours would have been.

I used to just let myself sleep when I was like this but it's only 5:00, going to bed seems unproductive and the idea makes me feel pathetic. I find myself wondering if it is really that bad or if I am just being lame. I could clean the house, or call a friend to go for dinner, make plans to watch the game, or to see the dueling pianos at Live, I usually love that. But I can't, I literally could not fake fine for anyone tonight. So I go to the grocery store, it is a battle to force myself to go but the least I could do is make dinner. Only there in the parking lot I can feel it coming. It hurts so bad, my chest gets tight, my hand starts to shake, and I become all too aware of my throat and saliva. It is only seconds until tears stream from my eyes and drip off my face. It is as though that can't all happen with out me screaming for you, screaming your name and some sequence of profanity all mashed together as I bury my face in my hands. 

Fuck babe, it's 5 o'clock on a Friday night and I am grocery shopping for one. No call to you asking what you're feeling for snacks, just me. 

It's sadly selfish. I love some parts of living alone but mostly I find my life to be too small, so self centered. I loved loving you. Having something bigger than myself to think about, having us. You plus me, somehow grander than either of us as separates.

Now I am alone. So bloody alone, because grief is a deeply isolating experience. A hurt that forces me to retreat, to hide away. A kind of experience that I can't even put into words, that I feel like I no one can survive. But here I am. As I have been for too many Friday nights before. I feel this and wonder why people don't die of broken hearts. It feels like it should kill me, but nope.  All seems well, to the world I look fine.  Only the incessant tears pouring down my face would give me away. But with my eyes glued to the floor, my hair down and a baseball hat on, no one even notices. Only the girl at checkout, she is a little extra kind to me as I pay.

I hope you are happy my love. I hope whatever is after this life  is a clean slate. That you are not tethered to what used to be on Fridays at 5 o'clock. My hope for you is life with our love imprinted on your soul, but not in your memories.

Babes, I'm missing you.

With all my love.