A month

Its been a month since Rob died. And it is getting harder.  When I wake up I miss him so and cry. I cry while I'll going about my morning routines. I cry when I get into bed alone at night. I cry while I’m driving the car.

Music reminds me of him. I hear lyrics I never heard before in songs I've listened to thousands of times. And I cry. I'm running out of kleenex. All the boxes that were full and all over the house are disappearing.

I thought it might, just might, get easier. Maybe at first it was too easy. And now its catching up with me. Maybe its just the way it is for me. Maybe.

Last weekend a friend called and asked me if I was getting out of the house much. I said when and where?  Last night - dinner and then a production of Oklahoma. Arranged to meet at a restaurant in town. It was all straight forward. A nice way to deal with an "anniversary". I seem to walk around with my eyes wide open and my mind on pause.

I parked in the garage that was one block for our very first apartment. We had dinner right across the street from the theater school Rob attended. We walked right past our old street, on streets whose names are achingly familiar.

My mind was offering all sorts of memories of the neighborhood as I knew it. Of antique shops, laundromats, a place where I bought my first floor easel, a great old hardware store with walls of drawers, the market where I bought "cracks" (cheap eggs).

I was walking two paths simultaneously. I was walking with my friend and walking with Rob. If only I could make it a three way conversation. I was young and excited and living in the city for the first time. I was older and visiting the city I know so well. That it was nighttime with street lights created the perfect milieu for the collision of my two worlds. Living and grieving.