Goundhog day in 2023

It’s been a while. You’re still dead. It’s been 270 days … each one of them the same as the one before.

I haven’t left the apartment in months. I managed a few hours with your family on Thanksgiving and again on your birthday, I cried both times, sitting at the restaurant table.

There was no Christmas tree this year. No gifts. No baking. No decorating. No festivities. I stopped listening to the radio every morning to avoid the Christmas music. I just couldn’t deal with the entire world being joyful and happy. I couldn’t pretend to be those things, no matter how hard I tried.

I couldn’t pull myself together for dinner with your everyone like we usually did .. I stayed home. Your Dad called me and tried to coax me to come but I ended up sobbing on the phone, saying I just couldn’t this year and I was so sorry. Your Mom texted that she missed seeing me but … what am I to them? Your widow. A reminder that you’re gone. None of us need that reminder. Not even me.

Every day is the same. Waking up alone. Spending the day waiting to go to bed alone. There is nothing in between.

They said it would get easier. They said I would learn to live without you. They said the grief would ease a little each day .. that I wouldn’t cry every single day anymore.

They were wrong.

I’m so tired of being here without you.