How different is it?

Looking from the outside, it would seem like my world is not that different than it was just three weeks ago. Three weeks ago today, I visited Barry in his hotel where he was working, We watched the NCAA tournament at one of our old favorite bars from law school, and watched more of it snuggled up in the bed in his hotel. It was swell. Just like it always is.

48 hours later, this nightmare started when he walked out.

It is so hard to wrap my mind around how fast things can change. And then again, wrap it around things that have NOT changed.

I still do all the same things I always did. I go to work. I go to the gym. I go to the farm to take care of the horses. I come home, where I sit alone, with the dogs. But that is nothing new, because he was always gone working anyway. I get texts from people checking on me, and the phone rings off the hook, which is new.

Last nite, I went to an open house party for my sister and her kids. I was nervous and not sure that I could get through it without getting upset. People are nice to me, and it makes me sad. These people have been in my life all of my life as my parents' friends, but as an adult, they became our friends too. This was the first real event where I would see them all, so the first time I would have to face them. Alone. That is different, and would not have bothered me in the least had he not been here just because he was working somewhere else.

But I handled it. I even had fun. I tried to avoid thinking about all this, but it was kind of impossible, and everyone was very comforting. I only cried a little bit, but no one cared. That was good. And I feel like I got something out of the way. The party ended up carrying on late with Liza and Kyle, Emily, Amie and Mandy. I actually had fun. Lots of it. It was good. It probably would have been more fun with him, but it is not like I cannot enjoy myself without him. I have always known that

Today, I have been very lazy and tried to catch up on sleep but it has been a bust. The storms have continued since yesterday so there was nothing I could do outside anyway. I had one brief stabbing pain when I saw a picture of Barry posted on Facebook, but I guess I better get used to that. It is not like he is totally gone from my life--he checked in on me to see if I had storm damage this morning, so we texted some. I wish that was not so comforting to me, but it really is.

I guess the only thing that is really that different is my feeling so empty. I have always been so content with my life, even when things were not easy like when he worked far away from home and I never saw him. I KNEW he was there though, and now he is not. Well he is, but not as the basis of everything in my life. And that feels so weird. I have to reconcile how blind I was to this whole thing with my idea of who I am, and what I want.

And I do not really even know where to start