It is the simplest things, the ones others might see as insignificant, that I shall miss the most.

I will miss sitting in our living room with my wife, watching Whose Line Is It Anyway.

I will miss long car trips, driving along with her hand resting lightly in mine, reminding me that she’s there and we’re together.

I miss the phone calls during the day, not the usual ones about mundane things but the ones when she called just because she was thinking of me.

I will miss the feeling of coming to bed very late at night, trying to be quiet as I tiptoe through the dark room, and slipping in beside her, feeling her warmth and knowing that even though she’s not noticed me, that she’s there beside me.

I will miss having coffee together.

I will miss those quiet mornings when Tony, our big tomcat, would sneak into the bedroom and climb up between us in bed, and then purr and cuddle up as though he were the happiest cat that ever lived, because he loved being near both of us.

I will miss grocery shopping together.

I will miss singing to her.  In the last few weeks, she had complained that I never sang to her anymore, and she’s right, I hadn’t felt very musical for a long time.  The night that my life changed, the night it all ended, the irony is that I had been in my office until about 2 AM, with a makeshift recording rig connected to my Macintosh, recording two songs that were meant to be a late anniversary present.  I burned them to a CD, went home, and found no one there.  I woke the next morning and she was still gone … that was the last night I spent in our home.  It was that weekend that we parted.

How does anyone ever get through this?  I can’t walk down the street, get in my car, sit at my desk, eat lunch, sleep, or even breathe without being reminded of her, the way she smelled, her smile, her eyes, her touch, her voice.  I saw something in the window of a shop last night, thught, “Yvette would like that…” and then had to duck into the nearest rest room as I fell completely to pieces.  Today I had to fill out paperwork for a new insurance plan at work and just writing her name was enough to make me crumble.

We both did things to drive each other away.  I don’t think either of us is any more to blame than the other … what she did was what she felt forced to do, and what I did is what I felt forced to do, and we gradually put up walls that shut each other out. 

There was an old movie starring Natalie Wood called “Brainstorm”, about a machine that could record people’s thoughts and memories and experiences.  In it, the two lead characters are going through a divorce.  He puts on the helmet and records a tape of all his thoughts, and gives it to her, saying, “It’s me.”  She plays it, and instantly understands … understands everything … and they live happily ever after, eventually.

If only she could somehow see into my thoughts!  Words don’t work … every time we talk, the question is, “Well, if you love me as much as you say you do, then how could you <do one of a dozen things I’ve done that created distance between us>?”.  The answer is inevitably, “I felt pushed away because you did <one of a dozen things she did that created distance between us>.”  The problem is that none of those things was meant to distance us, they just … resulted, just as the ones she did resulted from mine.  In the end we were so far apart that we didn’t even remotely understand each other’s needs.  She says she opened up to me … I think I tried too … but here we are, and apparently we both failed to do enough.  If we could have somehow seen what each other needed, if we could somehow have experienced each other’s feelings, in a way that words and arguments and discussions can’t hope to provide, it might have resolved everything.

If we could see into each other’s minds and hearts, I’d be calling her right now to discuss dinner and tell her how much I love her, instead of sitting here at my desk wishing I could stop weeping.

My close and perhaps oldest friend, Kirk, who lives in Boston and has studied Psychology, feels I should stop sharing feelings like this publicly, that I should keep my verbal catharses private.  My friend Omally recommends continuing to share, calling it “Blog therapy”.  I’m not sure what to think, so if anyone has further advice I’m listening.