yes absolutely i do know - we were very much like that as well - in 2009/10 the village road was cut off with snow and ice for 7 weeks which meant i had a 4 mile hike in bad weather in the dark across fields -carrying food supplies -and he was always there, fire lit tea on the go and i would be really struggling sometimes crying with the cold and wet etc but then i would see his torch coming along the lane to meet me and suddenly everything was ok - like you say, your heart still speeds up like teenagers with a crush - and i would be in the garden and he would appear with a cup of tea - he had a habit of leaving bits of vehicle around the house - one was a brocken heater matrix from the camper van left on the kitchen windowsill - i did one of those things we sometimes do not a row but a petty argument -about how i,m not moving everything all the time ( like the socks in the linen basket scenario which also didnt work if i didnt pick them up he just left them on the floor knowing i would cave in before he did because it would be my nerves they were getting on.)
I put a post it note on the heater matrix saying "move me" - came home and he had put a rose in the tube bit and a post it saying love you - so of course the thing stayed there and became a bit if a joke leaving notes or things in the tube bit -me dusting it and putting it back - its those little things that really get to you - and i,m sorry but if thats self centred then i am self centred too - but i dont think it is, even when we believe they are somewhere pain free their loss means we are not, our world has become pain filled - its a different type of pain but it is still pain.
The thing is over time though of course we still miss them but those memorys of the little things also become the things that we smile over probably much more than the big things - digging a pond at the new house i knew he wasnt going to appear with a cup of tea and burst into fits of laughter like he did with the old one -because his idea of a pond wasnt quite the massive lake i had dug out and was now standing in up to my waist looking like swampy - but even though i knew that it wasnt going to happen again the memory of that moment made me smile as i was digging the new one - and i was kind of doing it for him because he used to love sitting by the pond despite complaining about its eventual size - in my head as i made the new garden into a mini replica of the old one i think i was thinking because i have created the pond it will be a way he can find me.
So thats the point of buying nice clothes - if you believe he can pop in and see the the people he loves then buy them for you but buy them for him to see as well,and for those reading this who dont believe that is a possability look at it another way - doing something for yourself doesnt make you a bad person - we think life cant get worse than it is and we know nothing will bring them back and we then punish ourselves even more by not doing anything for ourselves - whether thats nice clothes -going to the hairdresers,eating properly or going and doing something we used to love to do.
I started the dolphin watching -he went along with the idea and came to love doing it as well it was very much something we did together, but him not being there didnt mean i couldnt still love the dolphins or that i stopped caring about them enough to volunteer any more,- its the same with clothes or anything else that you used to love, its ok to still love that, in fact it might be your salvation a first step on a very long and bumpy road.