Dear Johnny,

It’s funny the things that make me think of you, like today, on a Year of Monkey card someone gave me, your year.

This was suppose to be your year, and then again tonight, while I was bowling for the first time since we took our kids years ago, I thought of you and how we scored our game, the jokes we told, and how you won. I’m pretty sure you won, I’ve never been much good at bowling, and you could always pick up anything you put your mind to. That used to  make me crazy you know. I had to work hard to be good at anything, and all you had to do was incline your mind in whatever direction you wanted and then master whatever it was.

It was a staff party, tonight, with bowling, arcade games,  bocce ball and all sorts of great food. I even wore a dress, a short one, with my tall boots. I put a bit of effort into the whole outfit, hair and makeup thing, Lizz gave it a resounding ‘meh’ when asked what she thought, still, I thought I looked nice, maybe even slightly better than my average (which is no makeup, no boots, no dress, and yoga clothes).  And then I got stood up, dress, boots, makeup, hair and all. Stood up, without even an insincere “sorry, I’m not going to make it” text, an ‘all my messages completely ignored’ kind of stood up. Party full of people who have someone to share  their nachos with, someone to ask them what they wanted to drink, someone to sit with, but hey, I manage. I even put away my phone so I wouldn’t make a pathetic show of constantly checking it (not that there were any messages). I managed, put on my party face, and mingled. You were always better at that sort of thing than me, and you would have made fun of my little pity party tonight. You were the life of the party kind of guy. We would all bask in your wit, charm and banter and laugh and be thoroughly entertained. It’s been awhile since you made anyone laugh, and now I just have a recording of your voice.

I’ve been left enough, been left, or told I wasn’t wanted enough, that I think I should be better at it, but it still stings. Maybe this is good? I don’t know. I do maintain an intact game face throughout, one must keep up appearances after all. I don’t feel surprise, or anger, or much more than resignation anymore. It’s relief really, the other shoe finally falling kind of feeling. So, tonight, being stood up, not a surprise, no anger, just resignation.

Even so, I remain ill equipped to cope with your leaving. It took so long, and was so awful for so long before, you’d think I would have been better prepared, that all that pain for all those years would have counted as credit against the pain of finally completely losing you. Maybe it is, or was.

I don’t mean this to sound morose  Johnny, but I do miss you. I miss us. I miss what we once were, at our best, the times that we could have ruled the world. I miss those times.

I still wear your pj bottoms, and your blue vest when it’s cold. Graham wears your work boots every day. And I still talk to you most days, especially today.

And I miss you Johnny.

Goodnight.