Waiting…..

“In the roaring traffic’s boom
In the silence of my lonely room
I think of you…Night and day” _{Cole Porter}

There’s a huge void in my life and I feel like I’m existing on the periphery. I visualise it as a huge round black depthless hole with a narrow pathway around the perimeter.  I inhabit this space tentatively. Negotiating my way on the path that seems to only go around. I’m not going anywhere, I’m just circumnavigating the same spaces.

Going through the motions, waiting, waiting. I think I’m waiting for M. I find myself waiting for him all the time – lying on the sofa, lying in bed. When I realise he’s not going to arrive I feel disappointed. He will never come back. I miss him. I think about him all the time. It’s not conscious. He just comes into my thoughts. When I’m driving, when I’m shopping, when I’m out walking Mia. Putting out the rubbish, hanging out the clothes, cooking. Each time I put things away in the fridge (because this is something I never used to do and it would drive him crazy). So many moments of absence. So many things cause me to think about him. So many triggers. The other day a smell brought me straight back to Vietnam; stepping out of the shopping centre into the humidity of the car park reminded me of the heat in KL. I remember how we strolled about in various exotic locations on holidays. Makes me sad when I realise I will never have moments like that again. I will never experience being with him in KL or Vietnam or Thailand or any of the other places we went to. I will never holiday like that again. We always travelled so well together. We were great holiday companions, comfortable and relaxed. Happy.

And that is just one tiny part of this void. Sometimes it feels huge and all-consuming. Like I don’t know where to put myself or what to do with myself. I exist but without any sense of purpose or meaning.

I miss him so much. Sometimes I find myself driving and gripping the steering wheel pleadingly wondering “Michael where are you?”   I still can’t believe he is no longer in my life. No longer in this world. His absence is huge. And sometimes it makes me want to weep or let out a scream of anguish. It makes me feel infinitely lonely. A loneliness that is linear and ongoing without abatement. It’s there beneath the surface. Reappearing after moments of being absorbed or engaged or involved in something else. Moments of having some good times or just enjoying things.  They tell me it will pass. They tell me this grief will lessen… and so I wait.