Quicksand.

Here’s where you get stuck.

So. Your life has changed completely and irrevocably. There’s no way of going back, no way of bringing back your person and having that life you had before. And you know that. Logically, you know that. But the problem is, that life was so good. It was so happy, and content, and comfortable. Everything was right. So of course, that’s your template for happiness. Everything about it is, as far as you’re concerned, an essential element to creating a happy life.

So what now? You’re looking at that life and desperately wanting to recreate it as soon as humanly possible because that’s happiness, right? And without all those elements you can’t be happy? So you just need to put all those elements back together and everything will be okay again, yeah?

Only – wait. Hang on. That big, central piece. The most important element of that life is gone and gone forever. And there isn’t another one.

I know. I know. I’m so, so sorry.

It sucks. It sucks beyond the telling of it. I know the pain it brings you. Because I’m there right now. As much as I wish it wasn’t true, it is. There was only one Michael Waring, and nobody – nobody – will ever be his particular combination of sweet, loving, funny, whimsical, silly, caring, generous, good, smart, and giving ever again. Nobody.

So here are your choices. Here are my choices.

Either we accept that nothing else could make us happy and therefore we’ll never be that happy again. Or we believe that we can find happiness in another way – not the same, but equally good – and we start making it happen.

This sounds like it’s leading to a positive, uplifting lesson but honestly? I’m not there yet.

My brain knows that’s the choice in front of me, and it knows which is the best path to take. But my heart hasn’t connected up with that yet. It’s still wavering between the “but-if-Mike-would-just-come-BACK” and “well that’s it, the happiest part of my life is over, I’ll just have to accept it”.

And it doesn’t really matter how much my head tells me that I need to try and find a new kind of happy – one that might feature another love one day, but equally might not, and might instead be filled with friends and passions and my beautiful little girl – I can’t make the rest of me get there any faster. In fact, trying to force it only makes it worse. Doing anything before you’re ready is excruciatingly painful and utterly pointless.

So for now, all I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope that eventually, I catch up with my brain.