playing house

It gets confusing. We have a simple phone conversation and all of a sudden i am transported to a time when we were still married. When you say "Have a good day," it comes across as an insult rather than well-wishing.

i know that you feel these exchanges will lead to friendship. You, like everyone, believes in the power of time wearing away passion. i want to combat it, but am about to renege as long as you will leave me, and take this pain with you.

captain of my dreams

i find myself fantasizing about a day where you come to me, missing me, wanting to be with me, realizing that your current boyfriend (soon to be husband) isn't as good. i am embarrassed by these, because i may as well wish for all war to end or to be transported to the moon.

i suppose fantasies are therapeutic because they serve some sort of healing process, but these only keep hope afloat, and i should just let the bow tip forward and drop to the bottom of the cold, dark ocean depths.

Moving on, as everyone else tells me.

reversal

Tomorrow is the day: whatever words that were spoken on May 22, 1999 will be forever reversed.

This process is so hateful, i want to forever give up on love. i go back and forth about abandoning this asinine belief that love can be all powerful, can hold broken seams together, can warm you on the coldest of days. It's just not the case... it's convenient, fleeting and random, and dies at the slightest threat.

But leaving it behind leaves me without my heart and soul... what do you do when that which you believed in turns out to be a shadow?

Potential Unrealized

My youngest daughter asked it again, as we drove home from having dinner with some family.

"But WHY did you move out?"

It sends me into turmoil, trying to explain that A and I will always be their parents, just not each other's husband and wife. My answer is rote, i answer it the way the experts say i should answer it.

Problem is, my heart still cannot catch up. If i don't believe it, will they?

In counseling this week, he suggested that i see my marriage with A as one that had potential but potential that was never going to be realized. This comforted me somehow, but after the fact, i dissected it too far.

i realized that it was the potential that kept me motivated in my love for A:

Just one more soul baring and she'll love me.

Just one more card and she'll finally see what she means to me.

One more play and she'll miss me and want to spend time with me.

It was a losing battle that i refused to see until i decided to fight selfishness with selfishness. Now i hope that i can find a woman just like her but who wants to be with me.

Hot Buttered Soul Master, RIP

i had no idea that Isaac Hayes was only 65 years old.... very young age to die. Even more impressive, was that he wrote many of his masterpieces while in his late 20's! i should be so creative at 41.

My favorite IH memory: a good friend, P***, who collects all kinds of music, played me a live version of Shaft from the mid 70's when Hayes played Lake Tahoe. Except, the announcer pronounced it "Lake Tay-ho." Never heard it said that way before.

Damn good version, though. Dammmmmmn right.

mirages

i visited a good friend this past week, and we spent almost the entire 29 hours talking: his marital issues, my divorce, and music. We both love music, in an unhealthy way.

At one point he expressed admiration for my recent trysts. i told him not to see them as a good life, because they are not. i wanted to make sure he knew that being able to see the same lovely woman everyday, waking with her, sitting beside her as you watch your children play, talking with her is so much more profound than having multiple sex partners. No matter how much sex there is, it is not nearly enough to replace the love and friendship you can have with one person.

Some say that monogamy is unnatural for humans. Perhaps it is, but the more i explore life the more convinced i am that it fits with me as naturally as breathing.

ghost passengers

Once in awhile, friends ask, "How are the girls doing?" With the divorce, of course. And that is a difficult question to answer.

i do not think their difficulties with it will be overt. A and i think we're doing a good job being respectful of one another so as to minimize damage, but who can tell what lay ahead for them. Yesterday, a co-worker implied that our 4 year old would do the best because she would have little memory of A and i together. That in itself is sad.

Last weekend, when we were away in Vermont, i was telling C****** that we need to go pick up a friend who would accompany us for dinner. She then asked, "Where will she sit?"

"In the front with me," i replied.

Her reply blindsided me, as we were no where near the car.

"But that's where mommy sits!" she answered. And i had to remind her that mommy doesn't sit there anymore.

identity + crisis

Today's question: why do i keep kissing women that i do not want to date?

i met up with a friend for drinks last night, which turned into dinner and eventually ended up at her house drinking wine. When we kissed, it was felt very good, so i let it go... i have been told that i should stop thinking so much and just "go with it." While that advice might be good in some situations, it has lead me to two relationships that i truly do not want to continue in a romantic manner.

i have known this woman for many years, but have not spent time with her alone. She's attractive, intelligent and funny, but so is K**** and the other woman i am currently seeing. those traits are lost on me at this time; it's like i cannot appreciate them because of this layer of A.

And the ultimate joke on me from the universe: i am having more physical intimacy in these last four months than in the last year of my marriage, and i could care less. It doesn't amount to what i thought it would.

i am going to end up being this mess of neuroses if i cannot take time to mourn the divorce and get it out of my system. This needs to come to me as lips meet, not the day after.