I Still Grieve the Loss of Being Known From Inside My Own Ordinary Day

Dear Delyara, It is not the anniversary version of love. Not the dramatic scenes. Not even physical closeness in the simplest sense. It is witness. The person who already knew what kind of day I’d had from the first look at my face. The person who understood the difference between my quiet and my hurt. The person inside the details of my life enough that I did not have to start from the beginning every single evening before I could place the emotional weight of the day somewhere. Divorce took that from me in a way I still feel. Not because the marriage was perfect. Because ordinary witness is harder to replace than people think. And loneliness becomes sharper when there used to be someone standing inside the weather system of your days, even if they no longer belong there safely or properly now. That grief still shows up in small places. At the end of workdays. In cars. In supermarkets. At night. It is not loud. It is constant.