Emotionally Hungover

Days Apart: One

The day after my birthday and before my first day of work, I lay in bed sobbing.

My body hurts.

My brain is on fire. This is the worst hangover I had ever felt.

I’m alone in this kingsize bed, absent of my soon-to-be-husband. I had just left him on the other side of the country.

The insanity and crazed realization of our decisions began to dawn on me.

Pinterest: Zin May Oo

I had hopscotched across the country, from Phoenix to Chicago then Chicago to New York. Erasing the night and chasing the sun, I woke up in Laguardia unclear how I had gotten there at all.

On autopilot, I took the F to the G and then the 15-minute walk home.

I arrived in my apartment before 7:15am, threw my backpack down on the ground and fell face first into our bed. I lied there for hours- half sleeping, half whimpering, never fully recharging after what I had just put my body through and was about to put my heart through.

I occasionally reached my right arm over to the other side of the bed, only to grasp at air and feel the coolness of the sheets. I love waking up and swimming over to Sam in our big bed after a nice night of sleep. I breast stroke my way through the bed, cuddle up and rest my head in the crook of his left shoulder. We just lock in. I swing my left leg up onto his torso, and he pulls me in with his left arm. My blood pressure has never been lower than in his arms. It’s the same satisfaction as putting two puzzle pieces together--- we just fit perfectly. I have never felt that way with anyone else.

As I felt that side of the bed cold and still, the idea of Sam curled up all alone on the other side of the country, not in our bed, but in a new bed, kept splintering my heart into smaller and smaller pieces.

You see, no one looks as peaceful and as handsome as Sam does when he is sleeping. I love when I wake up before him and get to stare at him and his handsome face at ease in dreamland ( even though he has told me he only had nightmares). He just looks so handsome. DID I TELL YOU HE IS SO HANDSOME!?

I’ve even snapped a handful of photos as he sleeps, which I know sounds creepy, but I ended up marrying the guy so relax.

I roll over.

Empty bed.

I whimper again. My face tightens. Sad muscles contracted. I rock myself side to side and wail. We got what we wanted, didn’t we? We both wanted big job prospects, big level ups, why did it have to come at SUCH a steep cost?

At a certain point, I give up on the idea of sleep and go to make coffee.

Pinterest

Our apartment is still. Something I was unaccustomed to and, unfortunately, will get very used to.

Coffee...I should make coffee…

…how do I make coffee?

Sam was the one who always made coffee. I hadn’t touched a grinder in nearly four years. In the mornings, when I was done with my workout and shower and making breakfast, there was always a cravat of hot dark roast ready for me.

Sam cares so much about coffee. He is a beverage boy. He buys mugs based on if he believes coffee will taste better in that mug. This also means we have an inordinate amount of mismatched mugs in our apartment and our cabinets have reached capacity.

There are certain metrics that meet Sam’s mug standard. Can’t be too small or too thick, the handle needs to have a good feel. With a Goldilocks sensibility, Sam finds the coziest mugs. That’s just the mug. That’s before getting into his costly monthly coffee subscription, which sends us bags upon bags of fair trade, ethically sourced, perfect blend of beans.

This is the longest way of saying, since we started living together, Sam has always made me coffee. It’s always been there for me.

In a small way, I wasn’t ready to make it on my own.

I am also not in any state to interact with people. I doubt I could form a clear enough sentence to order a black coffee at one of the many coffee shops around the block from me.

So, I fumble through our cabinets and look for our pour over. I think about the last morning that he made coffee for me in this apartment.

A week and a day ago….when would he be making coffee for me here again?

After grinding the coffee in a Vitamix (so wrong) and then realizing we had no filters left and poured hot water through a fine mesh strainer (good lord what is happening?), I somehow managed to get a little caffeine in my system.

I head to Prospect Park and go for a long and low walk. I have returned to the slow spring drizzle of mid-March.

Last night I was in the desert...?

As I make my way around the loop, I move more like a zombie than a healthy, newly minted 33-year old.

My eyes are bloodshot, and I’m dehydrated from crying so much.

Signs of spring popping up. Yellow and purple crocuses, the early fuzzy buds on trees.

I take a bath when I get home and am so tired that I accidentally fall asleep in the bath for a few minutes.

I try to go to bed early to prepare for the big day.

Slowly the withdrawal begins to take hold.