THE END

Dear Lorenzo,

It's 8:49 p.m. and I'm sitting in the kitchen, listening, but not really paying attention to Pardon the Interruption on ESPN. I should be asleep right now, or at the very least, lying in bed watching The Goldbergs. Instead, I'm wide awake with a batch of beans in the crockpot, a load of darks in the washer, and a ten year old watching Youtube in my bedroom. Unless she isn't feeling well, the days of Amira and I cuddling up on the futon and watching Raven's Home or Scooby Doo are long behind me. Seemingly overnight she went from begging me to play just one more round of Yahtzee to begging me to leave my own room so that she can watch her videos in peace and quiet (i.e, without my snarky two cents). Sadly, I don't even argue with her anymore. Instead, the minute she asks me to leave, I'm out the door before Brent Rivera can finish telling me to "hit that like button" to subscribe to his channel.

Amira's in fifth grade this year, can you believe it? Our baby girl is one year away from middle school. She loves math and science and dance and gym, and she takes both fifth grade and her after school theater classes very seriously.

Lorenzo, we may not have been the perfect couple, but Amira is one thing we got right.

But I spend a lot of time thinking about our mistakes. The petty arguments, the hours we spent not speaking to each other. The disagreements over money, household matters, and how to raise our child.

And it all seems so fucking stupid now.

I wish I'd known then what I know now. I wish I'd understood that our time together was finite and that it would end far sooner than either of us ever expected. Maybe we would have cherished each other more. Maybe we wouldn't have taken each other for granted as much as we did.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Hell, maybe you would have come home from that rehab facility and we both would have been the same stubborn assholes we've always been. Maybe we would have made the same dumb ass mistakes we'd always made.

Who knows?

And the thing that sucks the most is that there's no use even wondering what could have been.

You're gone and as we both know, what's done is done.

I'm Coming Back

"I can feel you in the air I breathe.

You're the center of each thought I think."

Lalah Hathaway

Dear Lorenzo,

I miss being loved.

I miss having someone call me every hour on the hour, to tell me all the details of their day.

I miss your laugh and your bad jokes.

I miss your horrible taste in music.

I miss fighting with you and making up with you and making love to you.

I miss your overwhelming presence in my life.

I've recently reconnected with an old friend and while it's nice to have a man to care about again...

He's not you.

He doesn't watch Golic & Wingo, First Take, and NFL Live on his days off from work. 

He doesn't play Madden or study the draft, and he damn sure doesn't sing football carols when the season's about to start.

He's a wonderful person and a dear friend but...

He isn't you.

No one else is going to be you.

So...what am I supposed to do with all of the loneliness?

I literally have no idea what comes next.