PB&J

I like to eat late at night. My cravings are fairly specific. Ice cream is pretty popular, as is dark chocolate. But last night I developed an unusual hankering for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I haven't really kept bread in my house for the past decade or so. I found a long time ago that I either eat it all at once or let it go bad. But Dear Husband loved a good PB&J, and always kept a couple of loaves of bread in the freezer. Because I've pretty much left the kitchen intact like a demented shrine to my departed chef, I knew it was still there.

But I was unprepared for the amount of bread I would find. Six loaves, four of them opened and with little beards of ice sprouting from each slice, were hidden under my spinach ravioli and precious stash of ice cream.

I tossed the frozen relics and microwaved a couple of slices from one of the unopened loaves. When he left, DH apparently stuffed his three jars of peanut butter into his duffel bag like a little kid running away from home, so I made a sunflower-butter-and-jelly sandwich instead.

I was surprised at how nostalgic for DH that sandwich made me. He always made himself two sandwiches, and after insisting I didn't want one, I always begged half. He shared his sandwiches willingingly, cheerfully, never reminding me that I had said five minutes earlier that I didn't want one.

It was the first time since we separated that I had tender thoughts about DH without automatically thinking, or forcing myself to think, about his betrayal. These thoughts came with a hefty pricetag - I had the saddest, most mournful dream about him last night that I've ever had about anyone. Thinking about it even now makes me cry.

In case anyone is wondering, this isn't a prelude to reconciliation. I don't think it's even possible for either of us, and in any case it's not what I want. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record - I miss DH, but I won't take him back, but I miss him, but I won't take him back. Ack. But that seems to be the particular cycle of grief I'm stuck in right now.

Grief is a funny thing. Things that probably should make me cry leave me stony and dry-eyed. Things that shouldn't - like a particularly bad episode of Desperate Housewives - make me choke with sorrow. And something as simple as a PB&J can take me back to a time when spending a quiet evening at home with my new husband made me happier than anything else ever has.