The Good Stuff

It wasn’t perfect. Not even close, but it was ours and I miss it everyday.  Especially the good stuff. 

I miss:

• The way he’d massage my back. Usually because he wanted sex, but sometimes just because he wanted to.
• Falling asleep with my leg touching his.
• His body heat, especially in the winter.
• The way he’d look at me and say, “You’re pretty,” particularly when I was without makeup, in pajamas and looking a mess.
• Our walks. We would walk and talk about anything and everything. We’d talk about what was bothering us. We would make plans for the future. We would talk about things we saw on the news. Sometimes, the walks were around our neighborhood, other times, they were trail walks. There were times we would run and not talk at all.
• His ability to talk to people. We could go out with my friends or around my group of friends and he would fit right in. I didn’t have to worry if he was bored or felt out of place. His extroversion was a complement to my introversion.
• Riding in the passenger seat of the car, reaching over and putting my hand on his leg while he drove, just because I wanted to touch him.
• Laying my head in his lap while we watched a movie. I’d usually fall asleep. 
• Waking up next to him and laying my head on his chest and rubbing my fingers down his abs. He had great abs. I usually ran my fingers past his abs, too.
• Our bike rides. We couldn’t really talk but it was just nice to do something together, especially when they were trail rides through the woods or when we rode 40 miles on the Capital Trail. 
• Tag-team parenting. It’s really hard doing this by myself. Like, so fucking hard. When, I’d had enough dealing with our youngest son’s emotional outbursts, I’d tell him, “You have to deal with him, I am about to lose my shit.”
• Going to concerts. We didn’t go to a ton, but we went to some great ones. The Offspring and Godsmack were two of our more recent favorites. We were going to take our kids to AJR but he died two weeks before the show. 
• Our couple’s trips. Just us. No kids. We never did get to go to Vegas thanks to the Pandemic. Curacao was our favorite. It was the one trip we flew together; out only out of the country. It’s still hard to believe the only time we flew on a plane together didn’t happen until 16 years after we were married. Most of our trips were drivable. Asheville, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Williamsburg, etc.
• The movies. We went to a lot of movies. I still go with our sons but it feels weird without him there. 
• Lunch dates. We didn’t go to dinner that much the last 10 years but we would go on lunch dates while the kids were at school. 
• Conversations in general. I hold so much inside because I don’t have him anymore. I feel incredibly alone. Especially, when I feel the need to talk to him about something but he’s not here. He was the only person I’ve been 100% myself and vulnerable with.
• The way he could read my facial expressions and knew if I didn’t like something. Like our hotel room on our last family vacation. He knew I was upset. He didn’t get mad at me when I said I wanted to switch hotels and we ended up in a nicer hotel with double the room rate. 
• The way he could deal with my emotional rollercoaster. I didn’t realize it at the time but the fact that he didn’t cut and run like most men would have. It took a loooooong time for him to learn to stop trying to “fix me.” Things improved a lot after that. 
• Sex. I miss the sex. He always provided at least one orgasm, but most of the time I had two. He was exceedingly talented in his oral skills. He knew exactly what I liked and he loved doing it. We had sex for the very last time two days before he died. I still think about it.

I am certain this list could be even longer. I may write a part 2 some day.