To Be Rid of You

For almost three days it was much better. I cried only once a day, rather than the usual four or five. Today it all came back to me, and i can't help wishing i had had made very different decisions.

Although you still would have no room for me, i am embarrassed to admit i crave even a small piece of you, because you were not just a name, but a way of life for me.

You may ask yourself, 'How did i get here?'

I signed the papers today, so let the divorce wheels grind forward. Such a simple act, and yet so much sadness that comes afterward.

Well, it's what you want, and i have hurt you enough, so i guess by starting the process i start releasing you.

i will never tell you this to your face, but i will always be madly in love with you, as i was for eleven years.

can i play the phoenix¿

k****, i know that i am being unfair to you. Changing my mind, then changing it back. i would love to be able to say that i can get past how our relationship started, but i am not sure. i need time, that's all, time to walk through my past and find out where i went wrong eleven years ago,
why i fell in love with someone who could never love me back, why i never trusted her or myself, why we thought it a good idea to vow that love to one another, why we ever took it past two dates.

Believe me, i do not mean to be hurtful you, but i always knew that this was not going to be a happy experience. Not without considerable pain.

blanks

i know that i am being an ass, just as you must know that all of this hate is love in disguise.

i will work harder, but you probably don't trust my ability to do it- i don't blame you, your faith in me has been forever damaged.

Still, i say these things because i am trying to fill in blanks. The biggest blank? Why you gave me only three weeks and then jumped into a serious committed relationship with someone else. Even your admission that you know it was a mistake doesn't make me feel better.

And because i am being unfair to you, the lawyers will do the talking. It will get ugly, just like i always knew it would.

Isn't amicable divorce an oxymoron?

anger as an energy II

i wish i could see you without having to be so angry. It is not my desire to carry this much animosity towards you, but will stay as long as you leave me to guess why i was so easily eradicated from your life.

i promise i will not always be so angry, but cannot promise if i will ever like you.

Thankful

i have amazing friends and family. They have gone out of their way to call me, spend time with me, be a companion during this horrible time. I cannot not do enough in return, and they have been so wonderful i am not sure i need to "pay" them back, which is often what i feel.

Thank you to everyone who has taken me for drinks, invited me to their homes for meals, gone to movies and just listened as i go on and on about my failed marriage.

Divorce unfortunately draws lines, and i am glad that i have these people willing to cross over to my side.

Yesterday, at work, a co-worker asked me what happened to my marriage. I have been asked this several times, never really knowing what to say.

I asked her, "Have you ever been madly in love with someone, cared for them deeply, and not had it returned?" She said yes. "Now imagine that you're married to that person."

"And then you make the mistake of seeking it elsewhere."

therapy?

I like my therapist okay. It's the first time i have worked with a male, and it took some getting used to, especially when he suggested we wrestle.

Not really. The one thing that bothers me about him is he keeps the top two buttons unbuttoned on his shirts. Really, the top one is enough, but i guess he likes that little extra sumthin sumthin to be seen.

i know it's elitist of me, but i am always surprised when i meet an educated, successful person and they have that one fashion flaw, too many buttons unbuttoned, a fanny pack or white nylons with brown shoes.

waking

The mornings always trick me.

i get past waking up and realizing i am not in my own bedroom, and then i get past the moment where i look to put my wedding ring back on after i shower.

It's the driving to work that does it. It affords me a metal cocoon where i keep screaming that i am sorry, but the anger turns to weeping. Then prayers to whomever will listen, asking them to take you out of me.

A pill for everything

You can tell that A is currently in counseling.

The first indicator was when she suddenly told me i have been depressed for years. Then i was "narcissistic", then "making myself the victim."

What does she think beyond what her counselors say? It's just more convenient for her to rationalize her actions by hiding behind these words.

i am not a victim, you are not a victim, the only victim is what we used to have.

i went to counseling to find out what is wrong with how i relate, and you went to counseling to find out what is wrong with how i relate. i am so tired of a politically correct world that diagnoses passion as a disorder, medicates and hospitalizes. Even you, A, don't understand how much you meant to me... that action was sickness, it was the culmination of loving too much.

Oops, you better adjust my meds.

simplifying

i thought that now since divorce is imminent that i could give myself to her freely. So, we planned another overnight, second one in a month, and enjoyed each other immensely.

When i left for my drive home, i was nagged by a feeling of needing to get away from there... maybe her. i was not even three minutes into the trip when sadness set in and tears came furiously.

Can i not spend time with her without remembering that I destroyed my marriage, and how everyday i wish i could take it back?

So, i ended it once again; it feels right. i still cannot reconcile the person i was who acted so carelessly with a married woman; i want to say it wasn't me, but my soul knows otherwise.

The remains of a romantic dinner

We all know how complex the brain is. One day you feel you're moving away from the person whose love plagues you, the next day you're crying uncontrollably as you pack up a box.

i cannot believe how fast it all went, how quickly you abandoned us. It makes sense on so many levels- you really weren't all that invested in us, just what i could do for you.

Looking around this house, i see everything i did for us, all of us, and feel that all you see what your last relationship gained for you.

hobbies

Why can i not explain myself, this sorrow within me, to people, most of all the professionals i now have to deal with because of "the incident"?

Instead, i find myself at the counselor's office, answering his banal questions and comments, said in some sort of Midwestern drawl combined with a grandfatherly tone.

"Do you feel like hurting yourself?" No (yes).

"Do you have a hobby? Some people find after a divorce that they have new interest in a hobby." Oh my fucking god, how can a collection of Hummels ever compete with an 11 year love? That just doesn't make sense: replace the object of your affection with a hobby.

You were my hobby, my passion, my life, and no amount of vinyl or guitar lessons will replace that.

Anger is an energy

i guess hating you is better therapy than i could have imagined. What used to be a belief that you did not understand me i now understand is willful disregard. It has always been about you, hasn't it?

Well, no more. i do not need you to make me happy, i do not need you as a friend, i do not need you at all. i wish we didn't have children connecting us, as i would love to never see you again.

Still, we are bound through them, their schooling, graduations, weddings, etc. so i will make do. People tell me i will soften and become friends with you again, and while anger can stay alive for only so long i can easily inspire it again when i think about how little you care for the time you spend with people. Or at least the time with me.

And it is only because i am still filled with so much love for you that i need to replace every molecule with anger.

i find your philosophies on love interesting- probably the most you ever shared in our 11 years together, and i had to read it on MySpace. And you're wrong about people using love to change; love changes all of us, for good and bad.

An unameable lust

Not quite a week ago i indulged a side of me that, in the past, i had only glimpsed.

i left A's house in so much despair after seeing her "friend" with an overnight bag, clearly intending to stay the night, i drove to my temporary home filled with nausea. Sleep wouldn't come, just thoughts of the stupid mistakes i had made,costing me my marriage, my family. Then, euphoria came with the realization that i had a choice, i didn't have to feel all of this anymore if i didn't want to.

i needed to leave before time moved me further away from what we used to be.

Reading Anne Sexton's "Wanting to Die", it finally made sense in a way it had never before, although i have read it over a hundred times. i was the happiest i had been in weeks, and clear. So, i composed an e-mail to A, cc'd it to family and friends, and drove to the J****town Bridge.

Surprisingly, the clarity stayed with me; i had expected doubt to set in on the drive. Not until i reached the top and stepped up to the railing did i look down and pause. What if i only break a few bones and then suffer until hypothermia set in?

I told myself that i could easily return and send out an e-mail taking it back, but that didn't feel honest.

So i bought a bottle of water, downed all of the Lexapro I had in the car and cut my wrists, very clear in my mind that these actions were honest. It took too long... even blocking my exhaust pipe didn't work. i figured that this was a sign that i wasn't supposed to die that night, so promptly took myself to a hospital.

Four days in a locked ward i met people who had lost their homes, had no friends or family, no job. Mental Health is not something easily fixed with medication and therapy. i have to say that A was amazing the first day, staying with me until i was admitted. At times i looked at her and she looked at me with such love i was confused, and momentarily believed we might have a chance.

It was short lived. Two days later she shared another side of her that I never thought her capable of: cruel. Turns out, her relationship with R started three weeks after she told me to leave the house. So, while she told me to be patient and wait until we could work it out, she began another relationship. i am so sick, like it's all starting over again.

i wish i had succeeded that night, but now that i have promised everyone never to do it again, it's an option that's been taken away from me.

fruitless searches

I just searched Google for information on time travel. Although ludicrous, I'd hoped that a link would come up for people who just want to travel a couple of months back... it's not that far way, is it?

But getting further and further....

Still Here

You called yesterday and invited me to dinner on Monday; you were clearly upset.

This single action lifted the paralyzing numbness I had had since leaving you a few hours earlier. I know that this means you care, even though we may never be together as husband and wife again.

It means so much to me that you want to spend time with me... I couldn't bear not having you in my life after ten and a half years of it.