Everything is so different

It's just become the proof to me that you can't keep change from happening. Trust me, I've tried. There are things I've tried to freeze in time because Mike was the last one to do them, or touch them, or see them that way. That's the way it was when he was here. And slowly, as I have a good day and remember he would be behind me 100%, I change something. Or grab the courage to do something differently. And now when I think about it, so much is different. There are so many things I have to tell him. I used to make videos when he was deployed to "show" him stuff I did around here. Some of them are so ridiculous- there is literally one of me opening the mail and showing him each letter. There is one of me making dinner, one with a green face mask and one of me practicing all the stuff I had studied about Allegra-D. I was thinking about these videos and I start to think of all the ones that there would have been.

I'm so tired of doing the things that I do as part of my routine. I'm tired of sleeping with the bathroom light on. I'm tired of freaking out when I wake up in the middle of the night and then doing my mental check of "Bob, check. JR, check. Picture, check. Sweatpants, check... go back to sleep, Stacey." (Bob and JR are my bears). I'm tired of pulling in the garage and seeing that big green box that I can't bear to open or move. I'm tired of looking in the bathroom mirror after I shower and reminding myself not to wipe it. Those wipe marks are from him. I want to throw the bottle of empty mouth wash into the trash because it's huge and empty and it drains me to look at it. I feel like every picture up in our house is new and I've developed and framed all our memories. Our whole dinning room feels different because of that damn flag. I think about all the plants, and the crap I've bought, and my dog and I realize how different everything is. Different from what he would have known, different from what he would have seen, different from what we would have thought.

And that's just me. Me and him. Outside of me, so much has changed. Marriage, engagement, babies, houses, dogs, fights, changes in relationships, and election, changes in the world, changes in the economy, changes in jobs. And it's only been a year. I just wasn't aware before that you could be so removed, but you can't stop it. It breaks my heart that he hasn't been here to enjoy all of these changes but I do know he has his own way of "being here" for everyone now.