It’s my favorite time of the year and I can’t get into it. Football is in the third week of regular season play and it’s just not happening for me. The weather is beautiful, my team is playing well (or will be once the kicker and defense get their acts together), my fantasy teams are good and all I can think about is what’s not here. I have loved football my entire life, but it just doesn’t feel the same without the husband. Sometimes things become so associated with a specific person that when that person is gone, so is the enjoyment.
Jeff is football to me. The excitement of gearing up for the season, scouting out which bar we’ll watch in, doing fantasy research together, football is our thing. True, football, Jeff and our marriage all still exist, but the fact that I cannot enjoy them together ruins it. A piece of my life is missing and I don’t think I can separate which piece. Missing Jeff is nothing new, I have missed him for going on 11 months. The surprise is that I cannot seem to enjoy our favorite sport without him here.
It’s funny to me that the things most people would struggle with do not phase me, but things conventional wisdom holds as less important leave me with an almost physical emptiness. I don’t need the day to day presence, nor do I need elaborately planned evenings out. I need the love of my life to watch a fucking football game with me. I need him to kiss the back of my neck. I need him to open a bottle wine with me. I can, and have, gotten through the rest. In fact, when he comes home we will still be living two hours apart, commuting on weekends to see one another. This is a foreign concept to my friends, they cannot fathom this being acceptable or normal. For the husband and I, this is merely a blip, the real factor is that we will have weekends together for brunch, for errands, and yes for football.
Sometimes the things you think you need in your life aren’t really the big ticket items. I don’t need my love to be here 24/7 or even for the holidays. I need him here for neck rubs, and wine tastings and football. It doesn’t mean we don’t love one another as much as other couples, it just means that we’ve had to separate out what it is that makes us a couple. It’s not the time spent together, it’s how we spend that time.
I just read this and I completely agree. I am the same way. I really enjoyed how you put this together, well written.
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