You’re doing really well

People love to tell me this. I know they think it’s encouraging. Mostly I just say thank you because I know their intentions are pure. They believe they are fortifying me, building me up, giving me the strength to go on. But it’s hard to be told that I’m doing well because it just isn’t true.

I might be upright, but I haven’t been able to take out the trash in weeks. Someone always does it. I may be clothed, but I don’t know when I last changed the sheets, and I refuse to because they’re the last sheets you slept in with me.

Every single “you’re doing really well” is in competition with all the things I am not doing, cannot do, will not do. When someone says that to me, I think of the times I’ve cried so hard I cannot see, and how many of those times are when I’m driving. I’m reminded of how much money I’ve spent on having food delivered because going shopping, or even making a shopping list, is absolute agony; every single thing I buy or don’t buy is another painful reminder that you don’t need food or drinks anymore.

I leave the house to go to grief group, to go to the woods, to wander the neighborhood, to get food for me and for Bacon. I don’t even understand how this happens. I find myself doing some of these things even though I actively don’t want to. Sometimes I force myself to choke down some dinner because I don’t feel hungry every day.

Every night I feel guilty for staying up so late. I always wanted to be up late, and you humored me even though you loved mornings. People in widow spaces say things like “now you can do whatever you want” and I hate every single one of them. What I want to do is be with you and give you anything, everything. I stay up late now because I can’t bear to face another morning waking up without you.

I write and write and write. I write to you, I write about you, I write for you. I reread a fraction of it. I revisit bits and pieces of the memories I’ve jotted down. I create my own prompts and come back to them. I write poems. I have never written so much. I read about writing, and I write some more. I take days off, feel guilty, and come back and write, write, write. I don’t know if my brain realizes yet that I cannot write you back into existence, but at least I can try.