The Wall

I’m getting used to her being gone, and I hate myself for it. Nobody talks enough about that part. Everyone talks about surviving, healing, moving forward, whatever inspirational bullshit they print on mugs for people who haven’t lived through this. But adaptation feels disgusting. It feels like betrayal. I know I don’t have a choice. The kids still need breakfast. Bills still show up. Laundry still reproduces in the dark like some kind of domestic fungus. Life keeps demanding things. So I do them. I adjust. I figure shit out. And every time I get slightly better at functioning without her, some part of me recoils. Because what does it say about me that I can survive the thing I swore I couldn’t survive? What does it say about love if the body and brain eventually learn the shape of the absence? I know that’s not rational. I know continuing isn’t disloyalty. Still feels gross. Still feels like I’m slowly becoming someone who can live in a world where she doesn’t.