My head is so full of conflicting thoughts I don’t know where to start.

I guess I’ll start by saying — again, repeatedly, forever — I miss you.  Because I do.  I miss you to the very core of my being, and the feeling envelopes me, it hangs in the air of our home, it blankets us as we sleep.  The missing you, the emptiness, it never stops, it never ends.  It is real, and complete and unimpeachable.  It is life when you are not here.

I began today by making brownies.  I don’t know why.  I don’t need brownies. I wasn’t even really craving brownies.  I think I just wanted something to do that had nothing to do with work.  So now I have a pan of brownies, and they will either be completely here by the time you get home, or they will be completely gone. I cannot guarantee either outcome.  It depends how the next few days go.

Next up — this afternoon I head into the city for a tasting — it’s a crudo tasting (please don’t be jealous — and I say that so you are just a little bit, just a smidgen jealous, which eases the ache of your absence just a bit, for a moment).

Lucy has been a pro — I know she knows you aren’t here, and because of that, she’s so gentle with me (99% of the time — she really loves the snow!! — until it freezes in her feet) and at the same time, utterly forlorn.  Her eyes are filled with confusion mixed with sadness.  Where is daddy?  And ps.  She still doesn’t tolerate any version of anything related to LoTR.  Even when you aren’t home to completely capitulate to her big, brown eyes.

Right now, my obsessive checking of the weather tells me that Monday could be dicey.  I hope it is not — that’s just something I don’t want to deal with while you are away.  But if it is, I’ll do a short day in the city and make sure I’m home with Miss Lucy.  For her benefit, as well as my safety (who wants to drive during rush hour when freezing rain could be involved?).

I’m hoping to spend all of tomorrow in my pajamas on the couch.  I know it sounds like the epitome of laziness, but this week has nearly beaten me, and I’m tired and palpably sad. It is during this time that I cannot predict the fate of the brownies. I’m looking forward to Wednesday for many reasons — you will be home, and our little family will be whole again, but also I have my next infusion.  And I am very much looking forward to that.

January seems to be slipping through my fingers faster than I can keep up —

I hope you are enjoying sunshine and warmth.  Please know that I love you, am enormously proud of all you do and your success, but mostly I’m hella grateful that we somehow found each other and despite everything (bad timing, weird circumstances, vast disapproval) we stuck with each other — we knew it was bigger than all that bulls*t.

You are my everything.  And I am utterly and completely humbled by that and by your partnership.  Thank you.

I love you.  Be safe.