What I Now Know
I miss the connection most in ordinary moments.
Not even the romance, necessarily.
The conversations.
The effortless depth.
The feeling of being fully met by someone intellectually, emotionally, creatively.
The way we could move from literature to longing to absurd humor to existential questions without ever forcing it.
The ease of it.
The aliveness.
The more I interact with other people, the more I realize how rare that kind of connection really is.
Most conversations feel thin now. Transactional. Performative. Some, especially, are so needy (such a turn off to me).
So much noise and so little depth.
And maybe that’s part of why this grief has been so difficult.
Not because my life is empty without him. It isn’t.
I have a really good life.
A loving husband whom I love dearly.
A beautiful dog.
Friends.
Family.
Work I enjoy.
Trips and laughter and real moments that matter.
And still…
I miss him.
Or maybe more honestly:
I miss the way we met each other.
I miss feeling emotionally awake in that particular way.
Especially after almost 14 years.
Even when we were absent from each other we were connected.
That’s not something that dissipates quickly nor easily.
For a long time, I kept hoping we could somehow find a path forward. Some compromise between his need for containment and my need for embodiment. Some way for the connection to exist honestly in the real world instead of only inside hidden spaces.
Because I do not want to spend my life being someone’s beautifully contained fantasy.
I’m worth more than that.
I want reality. Presence. Openness. A life where intimacy can breathe in daylight.
And yet I also know what we shared was real in its own way. Rare. Transformative. Beautiful.
Maybe that’s the hardest part:
accepting that something can be emotionally extraordinary and still not fully sustainable in the form it exists.
I don’t know yet what happens with all this longing.
I only know I cannot unknow now how deeply I need:
depth,
aliveness,
intellectual companionship,
emotional honesty,
and a friendship that exists not only in imagination,
but in the real world too.
And maybe someday, somehow, I’ll find that kind of connection again.
Not the same.
Not him.
But something alive and honest and fully lived.
Not even the romance, necessarily.
The conversations.
The effortless depth.
The feeling of being fully met by someone intellectually, emotionally, creatively.
The way we could move from literature to longing to absurd humor to existential questions without ever forcing it.
The ease of it.
The aliveness.
The more I interact with other people, the more I realize how rare that kind of connection really is.
Most conversations feel thin now. Transactional. Performative. Some, especially, are so needy (such a turn off to me).
So much noise and so little depth.
And maybe that’s part of why this grief has been so difficult.
Not because my life is empty without him. It isn’t.
I have a really good life.
A loving husband whom I love dearly.
A beautiful dog.
Friends.
Family.
Work I enjoy.
Trips and laughter and real moments that matter.
And still…
I miss him.
Or maybe more honestly:
I miss the way we met each other.
I miss feeling emotionally awake in that particular way.
Especially after almost 14 years.
Even when we were absent from each other we were connected.
That’s not something that dissipates quickly nor easily.
For a long time, I kept hoping we could somehow find a path forward. Some compromise between his need for containment and my need for embodiment. Some way for the connection to exist honestly in the real world instead of only inside hidden spaces.
Because I do not want to spend my life being someone’s beautifully contained fantasy.
I’m worth more than that.
I want reality. Presence. Openness. A life where intimacy can breathe in daylight.
And yet I also know what we shared was real in its own way. Rare. Transformative. Beautiful.
Maybe that’s the hardest part:
accepting that something can be emotionally extraordinary and still not fully sustainable in the form it exists.
I don’t know yet what happens with all this longing.
I only know I cannot unknow now how deeply I need:
depth,
aliveness,
intellectual companionship,
emotional honesty,
and a friendship that exists not only in imagination,
but in the real world too.
And maybe someday, somehow, I’ll find that kind of connection again.
Not the same.
Not him.
But something alive and honest and fully lived.
51-55, F
