Six months have passed since I found you on our dining room floor. Six months without you. Six months of waking up at 2am to lay awake for a while, to eventually turn on Friends when I cannot fall asleep, to eventually switch it to How I Met Your Mother when I catch the episode of Friends I have not seen a while. I cannot believe it has only been six months and that it is already six months. It is six months since I found you on our floor, and so much of my life still does not feel real.

I cannot believe you are not here. Everything I do, every single thing, reminds me that you are missing. I walk Dottie on roads you have never been on. I eat at restaurants you will never try the food at. I have days I cannot come to the living room and vent about. I go on walks through the canyon with my dad and I cannot show you the flowers or how picturesque Dottie looks in contrast to the scenery. I look for accessible entrances and parking spaces you do not need access to. I find books I want you to read. You are everywhere, a suffocating experience I cannot fathom when juxtaposed to what is the reality is: you are nowhere at all. I do not understand how you went from physical space to omnipresent, as ubiquitous as the air touching my skin.

Last week, I ordered a coffee at Daycamp and your name popped up when my payment approved. Apparently, your name, not mine, is on the loyalty account attached to the particular card I use for treats. Thank you, Jeffrey. The words appeared on the screen. The Grief Goblin grabbed my stomach while punching me in the sternum. I lost my breath. Thank you, Jeffrey. I remember when I took you to DayCamp during your inaugural visit to Chico so we could celebrate your birthday. I wanted you to see where I grew up, to meet my family, and to get a sense of whether relocating here was a possibility for us. We needed a coffee to fuel. I told you that you would like the avocado toast. You did. I told you I could see us moving here. You responded with letting me know all the education programs you had found to potentially enroll in, the doctors that could support your care, and the neighborhood in which you would not mind living. You were excited. I have not been back to Daycamp since your name appeared on the screen. I cannot unsee your name at the place I treat myself to overpriced Chai Lattes made with delicious Chico chai in a perfectly balanced spice-to-oat milk ratio.  Thank you, Jeffrey.

I talked about feeling you in the last post, that I felt the warmth and adoration of you, but then the feeling disappeared. I have not been the same since. I sense a vortex opening around me and I can feel that I am on the precipice of a new phase of this journey. Since I felt you, I feel a loneliness that was not palpable before, a new wing of the Grief Palace. I feel beholden to it, vigilantly examining the invader of my body. I also feel longing. Longing for joy, for reprieve, for anything to distract me from this. I do not remember the last time I laughed without abandon in the intimate companionship of the friends who really know me. I miss the intimacy of existing without explanation, of being in physical space with someone and not having to talk about anything intelligent while also being able to discuss everything important. Missing you reminds me of how much I miss my friends, of how much I miss my life, of how much I miss not feeling like this. And I never get a break from it.

I even miss you in my dreams. Never during. Only when I wake up and I realize you were not in them. The elaborate world built by my brain during sleep did not include you in it. Another reminder you are not here. I do not get you in my dream life or my real life. Only in this mental prison while I am awake and aware and present in the suffering of it. I imagine I am a set of Matryoshka dolls attempting to organize themselves but continuously knocked onto the floor. I just want to put them in order again so I can see them all at once, but alas, this next wave is toppling me over. I am no stronger than untethered seaweed on the shore looking for anchor.

I am going to sleep now. Six months without you and I want to wake up when this is over. Joke is on me. You’re not here tomorrow either.

Dottie with her toungue out because the world needs more of Dottie: