It’s easy, as I stare at a blank screen, to think I have writer’s block. But upon further examination, the case is usually more mundane. Generally, it boils down to this. Whatever is occupying my mind at the time is not something I want to write about. This means I have to look over, under and around it to find something else and hope that it’s interesting, at least to me, because if it is, then it might stand a chance of being interesting to a reader.

Of course, sometimes I just give in and let the elephant in the room have access to the keyboard. That’s what’s happening now. Because these days, the object most on my mind is this brave new spouseless world I find myself occupying, and I don’t really want to write about it, but the elephant insists. He says, why not? Your flowers aren’t going anywhere and so what if you have a deer in your yard now and again. This. This is life. And it’s harder than it looks and why pretend otherwise? So, what’s up?

And this is beginning to sound a little psychotic, but I think everyone has conversations with themselves. You should hear me in the car. And what’s difficult right now is interpersonal relationships, an area of great expertise to my wife, who could read people like open books, while I think they’re mostly speaking Sanskrit. She was my interpreter. With her out of the picture, my world is mostly white noise. My default response is solitude, but it’s a lousy long game move. Thus, my turmoil as I try to reconstruct her playbook from memory. It’s hard, but in the end, I believe it will be for the best. It won’t be perfect, but something good will come of it, more likely than not.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale