Endings

Tim’s buying tickets to fly to NY. We have just a few days left together.

Tonight we watched the Blackhawks lose to the Blues. We were prepared for the loss, since the Hawks didn’t play as well as the Blues did early in the series, and the Blues had dominated the season match up. It was disappointing, but no tears were shed. Maybe the Hawks players can get some rest this summer. Take a well-earned break. But this is the end of my hockey-watching for the season, since there isn’t another team I’m interested in supporting. Maybe the Stars. We’ll see.

Hockey has always been a connection point with Tim and me. I learned to love hockey in high school, watching him play on the high school team. When we got together as adults, it became part of my life again, a part I am just as passionate about as he is. Easily 30 percent of our conversations year round are about hockey; stats, standings, coaches, trades, draft, pre-season, college players, referees, rule changes.

So while I wasn’t disappointed about the Hawks’ loss per se, I realized that the one sure-fire conversation topic that could keep us on the phone or video chat while he’s in NY is now gone.

For the next few days, we’ll be putting together some tomato supports, going to visit Sophia at university, and packing his bag and some advance care packages. And then he’ll get on a plane in the middle of the night and start living on the other side of the country.

And I’ll get up the next morning and go to work and come home to my new life. It will look a lot like the old life, just with 100 percent less Tim. I’ll have quiet, time to focus, space to spread out my projects. That life will look a lot different from this one. There will be changes, because change happens. It just does.

But this life, the one we’ve had, this one’s just ending. Right now.