Despite writing my essential guide to going out and having fun, by Friday afternoon at around 3pm I had run my well dry of good mood and good times. In my 4pm meeting at work, I told two of my co-workers that I hated them simply because they were giddy from a few cups of ridiculously strong coffee. They thought I was joking, but you know what they say about jokes… they’re always built of at least 75% truth.

It wasn’t so much that I was upset, but mostly drained. The previous week I had been counting down the hours to a glass of wine and happy times with friends, but as I sat at my desk Friday afternoon I thought about what snacks I would buy at the grocery store and what movies I would watch at home while my dogs contently chewed their bones in the background.

Some days I shuffle around in a dark, depressed space. Nothing in the world makes sense, and it’s hard for me to keep my head above water. Other days I can accept my tao, and I almost blissfully embrace this new life of mine and its possibilities. The in-between, like Friday, leaves me reaching for something. I run down a list of things that could make me happy like flipping through a Rolodex in my mind.

I can walk to Starbucks with a co-worker? No, that didn’t make anything better. I could go out with friends? No, I’m tired. I could write an email to get things off my chest? No, I don’t know what to say. I could eat my feelings? Well, now my stomach hurts.

Slowly, I start to realize that I can’t find anything to make me happy because this situation is terrible and sometimes I just am really fucking sad. This sadness is deep and purposeful, because it was created by the loss of a great love. When my spirit settles into the bottom of the hole that Tim’s loss has left in me, I know that all these little happy quick fixes are like throwing handfuls of sand into a crater and expecting it to fill up immediately.

On Friday night, what I did end up doing was watching movies on my couch while the dogs chewed their bones. I laid on my side, and drifted in and out of sleep during “Her”. Towards the end of the movie, I opened my eyes with a quick alertness that comes from cat napping. I listened to the dialogue, where (spoiler alert) the OS tells the main character that she has to leave.

“It’s like I’m reading a book… and it’s a book I deeply love. But I’m reading it slowly now. So the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you… and the words of our story… but it’s in this endless space between the words that I’m finding myself now. It’s a place that’s not of the physical world. It’s where everything else is that I didn’t even know existed. I love you so much. But this is where I am now. And this is who I am now. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can’t live in your book any more.”

“Where are you going?”

“It’ll be hard to explain, but if you ever get there – come find me. Nothing would ever pull us apart.”

“I never loved someone like I loved you.”

“Me too. Now we know how.”

I laid there and watched this scene, and watched tears stream down the main character’s face. My own emptiness surrounded my body on the couch. I blinked my dry eyes, too tired to reach for anything.

As the main character in the movie laid in bed, depressed about his lost love, my phone rang. I let the unknown 512 number go to voicemail. When the caller left a message, I hit the speaker to hear who it was.

I was calling in regards to your husband, and just to let you know that the doctor has made a final determination in his cause and manner of death. His cause of death was due to mixed drug toxicity and the manner was an accident.

On my tv screen, the main character stood next to a window and looked out the dark city skyline. On my couch, I clutched my phone in my hand and sobbed.

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