December 11th

Tuesday was December 11th, Jeremy's birthday. He would have been 37 years old, which is hard to imagine since I was only 36 when we started living together in 1994. I always wondered what he would be like at 35 or 40 but now, of course, he's forever 30.

Unlike previous years, I didn't mope on Tuesday. It occurred to me that his birthday was coming up but when Tuesday rolled around it took me a bit to realize, "oh, yeah, it's December 11th." I think not moping (for the first time in six years) is probably a good sign. I don't miss him any less than I ever did (and I still dream about him on a regular basis) but I've obviously become accustomed to his absence in my life.

When I saw Becky (Jeremy's mom) back in September, she said that this had been a particularly hard year for her, for no apparent reason. I'm inclined to think that it will be that way for me next year, when the amount of time he's been gone will equal the amount of time we had to together. But we'll see.