Space and Time

//Ed. This is an old post I wrote on 11 July 2013. Found it in the archives, decided to run it now instead of spike it. //

Lately I've been thinking a lot about space. Physical space, as when you physically move stuff around to make room in your house / car / yacht / dirigible / whatever. Temporal space, as when you make time for someone or something. And emotional space, as when I carve out room in my cold, dead heart to make an investment in someone or something.

We lost Reese six months ago today. My relationship officially ended at the same time, but really it disintegrated in conjunction with Reese's health. It's hard to feel love when your heart is broken, and my then-girlfriends heart was (and probably is) broken.

So what about space? I did what I could to fill the physical space that Reese and her mom used to take in my life. I made an effort to do the same with my time, and that has been moderately successful. The emotional space is something else.

When you make room for someone in your emotional life it's not so easy to fill it up when they leave. Any efforts to quickly replace the joy you once felt will surely fail. Instead the rest of your emotional life fills in slowly from the edges, bit by bit. The new normal is you, but with some emotional holes to fill. Not like potholes, more like open pit mines.

I gather that eventually it doesn't hurt as much, and you don't feel the absence so severely. I will revisit the topic again in January and let you know. For now I'll say I still miss them, every day.