Every day I change and warp myself to fit around the space you left behind. The space that was left because whatever was a part of me that I saved just for you – that was ripped out of me and you took it with you. The part of me that only you seemed to hold the key to. Where I got to be vulnerable and never wonder if I was too much. If my feelings were too much. If my anger was too much. I never had to worry about the moment I could feel you stop loving me because of something I said or did. Even now, in death, I feel the echo of it. The faintest trace of you forever a voice in the back of my mind every moment. I wake up every day, and every single time I lose you just a little bit.
Mourning isn’t just the wallop of a goddamn freight train to your entire life the day you lose someone. At first it is the freight train. You know your entire life was just blown up in the worst way possible. It doesn’t surprise you that your heart feels like it’s been shredded. The emptiness. The loneliness. The phone that doesn’t ring. The knock on the door that will never come. What does surprise you is that every single day you wake up you lose them all over again. Your soul cracks, just slightly, as you go on with your day. Just enough to feel like something inside of you might be repaired if you can just hang on until your eyes close. You go to sleep. If you’re lucky you don’t dream of them. Or if you’re lucky you do dream of them. Eyes open. They shut tightly. I fucking lost you again. What do you mean I haven’t heard your laugh in 7 years? I haven’t hugged you in 7 fucking years? I only get to hear you tell me you love me in a voicemail? What part of that is fair? What part of any of this was fair?
I only remember small moments of that first year. I remember feeling like my body would never be warm again. I remember wearing a hoodie when it was 90 degrees out and it felt like the heat didn’t even touch me. I remember feeling like if I let myself rest I was going to disintegrate until nothing was left except the horror of realizing I had to live the rest of my life without you, starting now. I remember trying to keep myself held together for other people. I remember thinking I wasn’t strong enough for this. And how much it sucked when I realized I was.
I have lost you 2,556 times in 7 years. I will have lost him 1,415 times when that anniversary hits next month. I have lost you both for a combined 3,971 times. It will be 3,971 times I have woken up just to remember you’re gone. Almost that many nights I have dreamt of you. Only to remember, sometimes before I wake up, that you’re not here. And I don’t just lose you once a day. I lose you in pockets of these micro-moments over and over and over. I lose you every time my brain is done being distracted by something else. Because my default state is missing you. I get to go on tiny visits outside of my default state, but when I return I am walloped with a one-two punch. One: you’re gone. Two: and I can’t tell you about where I went to when I come back.