Snickollet

I miss John so much today.

It all started last night, the first night in over a week that I was able to take some time to just relax after the kids went to bed. The relaxing couldn't start, however, until I'd packed lunches and put away some groceries and taken out the trash. The damn trash pushed me over the edge. Every week is my week to take out the trash. It seemed emblematic of how I am responsible for everything at our house. I've farmed out some things—certain groceries get delivered, our wonderful nanny does the kids' laundry, Maddie and Riley do little "chores," and we have an every-other-week cleaning lady—but even with all that off my plate, much remains. Most days, it's just life and I'm used to it. Some days, particularly when I'm exhausted and worn down, I miss having a spouse for purely logistical reasons, such as trash duty. This type of spousal longing doesn't usually make me miss John all that much. It makes me miss being married in a generalized way.

But then I start to think about all the far less tangible benefits of having a spouse, the emotional benefits. The way your spouse knows you in a way that no one else does. When I miss that deep understanding and love, then I miss John. He and I struggled as I think most couples do with figuring out how to balance and share the logistics of life, but we had almost no trouble understanding how to love and support each other in ways large and small. It's hard for me to imagine getting that from anyone else.

Perhaps someday I will marry again, perhaps not. All I know for now is that I wish that John were here, for so many reasons. And while the intensity of that feeling will ebb and flow over time, it will never go away.