The Firsts Nobody Warns You About

Everyone warns you about the big firsts.

The first birthday without them. The first anniversary that isn't an anniversary anymore. The first time someone asks if you're seeing anyone and you have to figure out how to answer without turning a perfectly normal conversation into something uncomfortable.

Nobody warns you about the small ones.

The first cold morning when you reach for the sweatshirt they used to steal.

The first time you hear a song you haven't heard since everything happened and suddenly you're standing somewhere you haven't been in months.

The first time you see Christmas lights and remember exactly how they used to complain about putting them up while somehow being the person who cared the most about whether they were straight.

Those are the ones that get me.

Not the dates circled on a calendar. The ordinary things I didn't realize belonged to us until there wasn't an us anymore.

I think that's one of the strangest parts of losing someone who was in your life for a long time. They don't just leave the relationship. They're tucked into everything around it.

Songs. Restaurants. Inside jokes. Traditions. Stupid arguments you would give anything to have again. A thousand tiny things you never thought to memorize because you assumed you'd get to keep making more of them.

And then December arrives.

Everything is decorated. Everyone is making plans. People keep asking what you're doing for the holidays like it's the easiest question in the world.

And maybe it should be.

But this year, every tradition feels like it's missing a person.

I've caught myself thinking more than once, He would love this.

Then I remember I'm not supposed to know what he would love anymore.

That's a strange thing to grieve—the right to know someone.

I knew what he ordered without asking. I knew when something was wrong before he said a word. I knew which version of his silence meant leave me alone and which one meant please don't go anywhere.

Now I don't know what he had for dinner last night.

There is an entire life happening somewhere that I used to know by heart.

And there's an entire life happening here that he knows nothing about either.

Maybe that's what moving on actually looks like in the beginning.

Not forgetting.

Not suddenly being okay.

Just accumulating days the other person wasn't part of.

One class. One dinner. One grocery run. One Tuesday at a time.

Until eventually you've built enough new memories that the old ones aren't the only place you know how to live.

I'm not there yet.

This month is already proving that.

But tonight I put up Christmas lights anyway.

They aren't straight.

And for once, I'm leaving them that way.

Maybe healing isn't the moment you stop missing someone.

Maybe it's the moment missing them stops deciding what you do next.

You don't have to erase someone to move forward without them. You just have to keep making memories they aren't part of until your life starts belonging to you again.

Until next Tuesday.

— S.