Thirteen Years Began at Starbucks

There was no warning, no dramatic soundtrack, just gay coffee night, a missing website photo and the man who would become my husband.

I woke up this morning and the world had the nerve to look completely normal. The sky was blue. There were no rain clouds gathering ominously over my Rainbow Sanctuary. My annoying boyfriend was not bothering me at 5:00 a.m. like he usually does. Bestie had not yet informed me that my life choices needed to be reevaluated. Even my commute was boring. No questionable drivers. No emotional breakdown set to a perfectly timed song. No unexpected plot development.

Honestly, Readers, I thought it was going to be a good day.

Then I got to work, looked at the date and remembered. It is July 15.

There are two dates in my life that carry more weight than all the others. Two dates that divided my life into a before and an after. Two dates that changed the direction of everything that followed, even though I had absolutely no idea at the time.

March 23 and July 15.

July 15, 2010, is the day I met my husband.

Well, my ex-husband.

He is dead now.

I still do not know how to write that sentence without pausing afterward. I am not used to saying it. I am not used to typing it. I am not used to the fact that a person who occupied thirteen years of my life can now be reduced to a sentence in the past tense.

But here we are.

I suppose I will eventually become accustomed to saying the words, although I am not sure anyone ever becomes accustomed to what they actually mean. There is something deeply unnatural about referring to someone who was once woven into nearly every part of your life as someone who no longer exists. The world keeps moving, people continue making dinner and complaining about traffic, and you are expected to casually understand that someone who once knew the sound of your footsteps is simply gone.