I wake up each morning wondering where he is. Not understanding why he is not there next to me. Thinking that yesterday he was there, curled up beside me.

I come home from a run, get in the shower, get ready for work, and eat some breakfast. I think to go kiss him goodbye while he’s still in bed sleeping, to give him a squeeze and be on my way. But he’s not there.

Then, I’m at work. We text on WhatsApp like we normally would. About work, food, life, apartment, friends, family, feelings. I feel he is there, in the phone. Strangely connected.

Being in India, he’s asleep around 3pm EST, and I still have much of the day left in New York. I stare out the window at Central Park, wondering what his views look like, what he eats for lunch, and what he talks to people about.

I think about dinner, what I will eat. Going home alone to an empty apartment. Just me and the mice that have decided to keep me company in his absence.

I head home. I turn on some Edith Piaf and dream about Paris. I write some on this blog. I read a chapter or two in a book. I think about graduate school. I read the news. I paint my nails. All the time wondering when he will be home.

But he isn’t coming home. Not this home. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not anytime soon.

It still doesn’t make much sense to me. That he is on the other side of the world, and I am here in New York.

I keep thinking that as time passed it would get easier. That I would get into a new routine. That I wouldn’t wake up and think he were there. That I would forget about saying goodbye each morning. That I would stop thinking about what we would cook for dinner together. That I would stop dreaming of things I want to do together in New York.

But I haven’t. Everyday is the same routine. My routine of missing him.

I’m trying so hard to stay strong. To be a “strong, independent women”. To be me. To live my own life.

But, the truth of the matter is that I just long to be with him, and it doesn’t seem like that feeling will ever change.