The Wall

I think one reason this messes with identity so hard is that marriage over years creates a kind of distributed self. Not in a codependent self-help-book way. In a literal practical way. You become partly externalized into someone else’s memory, expectations, rhythms, and reactions. They carry pieces of who you are. They mirror you back to yourself. They help stabilize your continuity. Then they die. And suddenly you’re left trying to reconstruct a whole out of the piece that remained. That’s a hell of a project to do while raising kids and trying not to drown.