i could walk away

today, right now, i think i could walk away.

i was watching the Season 1 & 2 recap of Transparent (which made me like & appreciate the show a lot more than when i watched it in "real time" -- the children all seem so whiny and entitled). the characters are all lost, grasping at relationships that aren't quite right, trying to find themselves, there was a scene between Maura and his former wife, and it hit me: they still cared about each other, they were still friends, and that was OK.

maybe Andy & I could do that?
or:
it's OK to have loved someone, to care for them, to be their friend, but no longer their spouse (for whatever reason(s))

alone

i have never felt more alone*. how else can you feel when someone you thought you'd known for 7 years turned out to be unrecognizable to you, almost overnight? and you feel that you have no choice but to walk away? because staying was eating away at your sense of self?

so alone, because who you thought you were, was tied up in him. in the two of you. in the past 7 years. and now he's telling you it was a lie. he was unhappy. you were a bad partner. awful. uncaring. cold. yet he bought a house with you, proposed to you, married you, cried at your wedding. so alone, because you are confused.

so alone, because your lives are intertwined. that house. the cats. the friends. but things can't keep you together when the emotions are driving you apart. emotions embroiled in the past, a past he is re-writing to suit his needs, to assuage his guilt. the past that he can't let go of. he claims he's been giving you second chances "for years". you don't remember these ultimatums, these "second chances" being given. again, you are confused.

so alone, yet so supported. you know you have friends who care, who are ready to take you in, offer a shoulder to cry on, open up the gym early, feed you, listen to you, distract you. but they aren't here now. they can't be. you have to do this part alone.

maybe that's where you are most comfortable, alone. that's what he wants you to believe, anyway. that you are incapable of not-alone, of intimacy. maybe this is just a sad story of your respective not-alones not being compatible, and you never figured out a way to discuss it, to find an acceptable middle-ground. to find a way to be alone and not-alone together.

*see previous post: standing at the bank of a stream...

my broken leg

one of the first stories he told me was of his broken leg. how the play transpired, the ambulance trip to the hospital, his family rushing there, his reaction (or lack thereof) to pain meds, the surgery to insert a metal rod, the recuperation, walking with a cane, the long road to recovery, the lingering pain at the screws in his knee. but the first time he told the story, it was an abbreviated version -- i broke my leg, i have a rod in my leg, i recovered -- with a endearing conclusion: "i imagined someday i'd get to tell someone this story."

that made me feel close to him, special. he struggled, he doesn't share this story with just anyone. and in that moment, on the sideline of an ultimate field, feeling the screw in his knee, i felt a connection.

*****

i had just asked for a divorce. he didn't accept my request outright and pushed back. the fight continued until he came back around to expecting me to accept some blame for the affair -- not just the lousy state of our relationship when it began, but for the actual lying and sneaking and cheating and betrayal itself. 

i stormed out. and soon found myself, introspectively, standing at the bank of the stream in downtown Sandy Hook. recapturing that space for myself, for that moment. staring out into the babbling water, in the weak winter sun, cold to the bone but refusing to shiver, i thought "this is my broken leg." this is the moment, the place, the event, the feeling, that i will one day get to tell someone. i believe that. i will one day connect with someone, find someone special, someone who considers me special, who is worthy of sharing my broken leg story.