A stranger

I went to dinner with Chris’s folks tonight.  It is always nice to see them and catch up, but it can also be hard.  I don’t know how to explain it other than being with them reminds me of a life I will never have.

They talk about Chris and he sounds so real. They knew him for longer for his entire 30 years. 

I feel like Chris is so unreal to me.  He is a figment of my imagination as if I made him up to hurt myself.  Like we were never together, never married.

Chris to me was the daily things.  The phone calls, the tv shows, the books, brushing teeth together, talking on our porch.  Without those daily connections, I don’t know who he is.  I don’t know who I was with him. Our relationship is gone, it is over.

For me, the moments of peace, of heaven on earth were just being with him.  Just sitting or laying next to him, feeling him close.  Without that, I don’t have him.

I have spent the last 13 months without Chris. It is still painful to talk about him.  The happy memories are still drowning in pain.  I can survive the day.  I am function.  Walking, with no direction, but walking.  In many ways I don’t want to dredge up the memories, I don’t want to remember my old life, the life I always wanted.  The pain is too much.  I have finally carved enough space to get through the day.  The wound has a slight healing and I don’t want to open it up.  The pain is too great. 

It is like my heart has put up a walls between Chris and I so that I can keep going.  It makes me sad. It makes me ache, but I learned over the last year to trust my heart and my brain.  They know what I need to do to heal.