Time did not slow to match the size of my grief.

There are days the body mistakes contact for rescue.

Not consciously. Not romantically. Something older than that.

A voice. A familiar warmth. A moment where the distance briefly collapses and the nervous system, traitorous fucking thing that it is, starts building a future before the mind can stop it. I felt it happen in real time. My chest loosened. My thoughts quieted. For a little while I could see us again—not as memory, but as something living. Something reachable.

It was comfortable. That’s what undid me.

Not passion. Not drama. Comfort.

The kind that settles into the body before I notice it. The kind that makes some ancient part of me unclench and whisper there you are.

Then the moment ended and the uncertainty rushed back in all at once.

Today my body felt like an alarm no one could turn off. I couldn’t hold onto a thought for more than a few minutes before another one broke through it. I moved from task to task like I was trying to outrun a fire only I could smell. I answered emails. Solved problems. Handled loose ends I’d neglected. The strange thing is I was productive. Maybe more productive than usual. Anxiety has a way of turning attention into shrapnel. I couldn’t stay anywhere long enough to think deeply, so I cleaned up all the small unfinished things instead.

Part of me still believes if I think hard enough I can solve this.

I know better.

My body doesn’t care.

The world still requires of me.

The boys still needed fed.

Time keeps moving anyway.

That’s the part I keep crashing into lately. The world does not pause for heartbreak. The clock does not grow sentimental because my chest hurts. Yesterday can feel enormous, sacred even, and today still arrives exactly on schedule. Morning becomes afternoon becomes evening whether I am ready or not.

The future does not love me.

It does not hate me either.

It simply unfolds.

And I think that’s what exhausts me most. Not grief itself, but the unbearable ordinariness surrounding it. Having to carry private devastation through fluorescent-lit rooms and grocery stores and conversations about paperwork. Standing in line while my nervous system behaves like the world is ending. Smiling politely while some older part of me sits inside my chest trying to understand why it was abandoned again.

By evening I drank.

I always hate saying that. It feels weak. So predictable.

But my body had been sounding alarms since morning and I just wanted quiet.

The bourbon worked.

I resent that the most.

It didn’t work spiritually. It worked chemically. The volume lowered enough for me to breathe.

Then midnight came anyway.

That’s the thing no one tells you about heartbreak. The moments feel eternal. Absolute. They seem large enough to alter reality itself. But the days still end. The Earth still turns. Tomorrow still arrives carrying its own demands. I still have to get up and carry my share of the weight.

Not healing. Not moving on. Not becoming wise.

Just learning how to remain whole while time passes through me.

And somehow continuing anyway.