The alarm goes off and I hit snooze. In the five minutes before it starts again, I dream about my my friend Jaimee and my brother, all in the same room. Some social event, someone's house. I don't know. We're holding big cups of beer. He's sort of ignoring me, I can't get his attention. Jaimee stands next to me like she's my spirit animal or something, protective and guarding. When the rooster in my alarm starts crowing I jerk awake so quickly the cat jumps off my pillow. I'm disoriented and I hit the snooze again. I don't remember what I dreamed - if I dreamed anything - in the next five-minute increment. Finally I have to get moving or I'll be even later than normal.
As is usual lately, I don't remember at first when I wake up that you're not here. Not like I did the first week. Its not until I push the button on the coffee grinder and it grinds out enough for twelve cups of coffee and I think to myself "I should reset that thing."
I eat, I surf the web, I wake the kids and the chaos distracts me for a while.
And then I go into the bathroom to shower and after I stand at the mirror with my wet hair and I look at the counter where the can of your shaving cream sits and then I look at my reflection and the tears come.
I'm here.
You're not.
It feels like I've done something wrong, somehow, like punishment. Except I don't know what it was that I did and I know there's nothing I can undo. I just have to outlast the slow tick of the clock.
Its not personal, of course its not. We have to do what we have to do. But the awful loneliness in me, it feels intensely personal. How could it not?
