The first weirdest part about Ethan moving out was grocery shopping. I know, that threw me off too. It was because I was the only adult to shop for. So many of my choices revolved around what he would want. I think I was a good wife.
Now my grocery shopping feels indulgent. Sort of like when I was young and I would go shopping with my Mom, and I would think to myself, "When I grow up, I am going to buy tubes of cookie dough and just eat it raw! And then I'll eat a whole package of Oreos!!!" I had it all figured out, obviously. And it's sort of the same. If I see something I like, I buy it. It doesn't matter if he would like it, because, well, he isn't here.
It took weeks before I didn't feel like crying in the grocery store.
Mostly it's the vacant space where he once was. It's the complete silence after the girls are asleep. The frightening thought that if I don't have music on or talk to the dog, that the silence will chase me into my own head and I will be bombarded with debilitating thoughts of how I could have done something different. It's dark in there. So very dark and, so far, there is no bottom. I've spent hours rolling around in my bed, kicking blankets, throwing pillows and sobbing until I could hardly breathe. Then thinking, "If I weren't able to breathe, and I died, no one would know for hours because my kids are asleep and no one is here to know if I am still alive." Which sends me further down the wretched rabbit hole. At some point I am calm again, and still there is no man here to hold me and kiss my forehead. There used to be one here every single night for nearly ten years.
I adored him. He has a warmness about him, he would always be touching my knee or my back. When I'd make dinner he'd come in and kiss the back of my neck as a thank you as I fixed up four plates. I'd rarely get to pass him by with out a pat on the butt or a grazing of his fingers. We share things that no one in this world can ever share with me: things our children say and do that are only funny to us since we have known them the best. Or inside jokes that have existed for so long and are so deep and layered that referencing them takes on a subtlety no one else notices, but we do.
Don't think that I am delusional. I get that we were thirteen years in and less than sparkly anymore. For me, there was never any other option. I have suffered through spans of our marriage, but I survived knowing that it was just my expectations that were causing me grief. Losing this man is the deepest kind of pain I've felt. It's the most violently I've reeled against an action in my life. I can actually feel my insides trying to get outside, like my blood cells are vibrating and expanding every time I feel him move further from me.
And what about my kids? My most perfect, beloved beatings of my heart, out walking around outside my body- a judge is going to order that it will not be my time to see them during certain days of the week. These two amazing people, who I am infatuated with, who (with his help) I freaking MADE with my BODY, are going to be taken away from me certain days of the week. For his disgusting behavior, now I am forced to miss out on pieces of their lives. It's so maddening that I want to disappear with them forever.
I am suffering.
