Wallowing.

The end of a relationship. The stages of grief set in. Denial. Anger. Blah blah blah. Acceptance, eventually, although you think you've gotten there but then revert. Progress, then a step backward, move half a step forward.

I just read The Year of Magical Thinking, in which Joan Didion recalls the year following her husband's sudden death while her daughter lies in a coma. Didion's writing is lyrical, sparse, and intentional. Every word, she chooses for a reason. And each thought, systematically repeated, is compounded with revisitation--
Life changes fast.
Life changes in an instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
The question of self-pity.

Didion makes many astute observations, passages that I re-read, seeing grief I found familiar, not because of death, but because of that finality of the end of a relationship. I have spent the past two months alone, lonely, trying to figure out how to move on with my life. Her words resonated, made me sad, then made me sad more because she was talking about death, and I was just sad because of me.
The question of self-pity.

And so it goes. Each day becomes a little easier, but sometimes I cry.

Didion explains that she can't possibly finish the year, because as the days pass, she's afraid her husband will "become more remote...softened, transmuted into whatever best serves my life without him."
And I just wonder...
Does he lose a little bit of me every day, too?