1 Year, 3 Months - Getting through the days, emptiness

Another day …
I take off my pants and drop them in the hamper. I pull the t-shirt over my head and let it fall on top of the pants. When I am sitting peeing I see the antenna of a small roach. It is time for me to buy more roach hotels.
I crawl in bed in old panties with a maxi overnight pad and a tank top. I lay on top of the Pemberton wool blanket. I believe the clean sheets are wedged between the headboard and mattress. The other side of the bed is tangled with clean laundry. I have not made my bed in months. I arrange the pile of pillows and lay my feet near the window. For unknown reasons, I sleep with my head at the footboard now.
I hear the crickets and think of you sweating in the sun. You uncovered a large cricket mound digging a ditch by the driveway. I never knew they nested underground like ants. A swarm of crickets flew and swirled around us. I did not hear them in the garage afterwards. However, they crickets are back now. I hear them in the patio.
We wanted a driveway that would park two cars. You wanted to cement the strip of flower beds that separated our driveway from the neighbors grass. I wanted the flower bed as an area to plant tall bushes that would block the view of the neighbors and close off our home. I wanted to cement over the grass. However, the grass was the only part of the yard you liked. We compromised half the flower bed strip and half the grass for the driveway extension. You dug down three feet to get rid of the weeds and poor dirt so I could plant the bushes. We purchased the plants in Cambria on our anniversary get-away and carried them home in the backseat. The trunk was filled with cases of wine you bought while wine tasting. The smell of dirt and Mexican sage enveloped us on our drive home. Two plants died after awhile. The other three grow and spread. The sound of crickets reminds me of you.
My life is led by others now. I don’t do what I want. The phone pages me all day. I work for others. My weekends are planned for me. I have no joy. I must hide to be left alone. I wake when others tell me, I follow their dictates by day, and I eat a little when I remember. I mostly smoke and drink Diet Cokes. I resign to sleep some nights. I protest other nights and stay up so I am free to do what I want, free from phone calls, rebelling against the drudgery of my afternoons. I think of you. Did you send me those birds, those signs? Is the song on the radio your words to me?
I am not as sad anymore. I never cry. I only wail occasionally. The pain is buried too deep for tears and requires an emptying, releasing, a minimum of wailing and moaning. I do not cry. I do not care.
Slowly I resign myself to the drudgery, the emptiness, the loneliness. I accustom myself to daily dreariness and to walking with a hollow feeling. The hollowness is like hunger without satisfaction. It is more of a mild hunger, rather than starvation, as in waiting a long time for dinner after forgetting to eat breakfast and lunch. Maybe this is why I eat less. Why I forget to eat. I am getting used to the emptiness and forget sometimes it is only a hunger for food, which I can meet. I am so used to a longing, the forsaking, the loss of love returned, of love satisfied, of love seen and felt. I must forget that some of the ache is merely hunger for food.