Flowers for a grave

I was inspired last night to leave you roses.... I had dismissed this before, as in the past when such actions were done you did not seem impressed... bad habit I have assuming this type of thing.

But as I traveled to your car, roses in hand, I felt connected to my past and future. I felt so good when I realized what I had been missing in our relationship, and hoped you would see that as well in my leaving them for you.

You did not.


"I know that you don't like the email, but it's late and I am not going to call you now. I am not sure how to take the roses, I would love to take them as a very sweet gesture and reminder of what we had, who we are, who we were, and a promise of our future, no matter what it is, but I fear that this is was attempt to "win" me back. That makes me angry. I would have loved those flowers after I confronted you with the emails to Katie, but you did not see them necessary then-I don't want you to be sad, but I don't know what to do. You cry to my mother-she makes me feel guilty-I resent living so close-it doesn't go well.

C****, I love you and always will. I will never keep you away from our house and our girls, I don't want that, and I will work very hard to make it this way. I simply do not love you the same way that I did-I see things differently, and I feel working on things will bring us right back to where we are, and I cannot do this twice. I hurt, just like you and I just want it to stop. I am sorry if it feels rushed to you-the clarity I have now comes from many nights alone, seeing our relationship from beginning to end, and I like you, still love the beginning, long for the beginning, you were the first person, the only person, I loved as a whole person, completely aware of myself and confident and self-reliant, and not totally dependent on another person. You will always be that person, that love. I don't want to take any of that away.

We have a life together always because of our girls-no one can take that away and who would want to? I just think we need to start to think about our future, maybe not being quite so together.

"How shall I go in peace without sorrow?......And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."

-the prophet

-a****"

That's that about that?

You are being so sweet and understanding with my inability to accept the divorce. I can't say it's for the best, but I guess it's the best for you.

I will not accept it... you are inside me so profoundly that I refuse to let go.

Listing

I never considered the happiest days of my life, not to any great length; I have never listed them, just knew as I was in them that they were beyond special.

The birth of L***, the birth of C****** and our wedding day are my top three. Number four is playing live with the Tripod Cats in June 1997. Number five is the day you left me a message on my answering machine asking me out. Not sure about any others... pretty sure my last day of student teaching is in the top ten.

And while I have held these moments closely, why weren't they enough to stop our deterioration, my trespass?

Again, no answer, just a memory: you walking towards the church, your dress and hair and flowers moving down the green way, and for the hundredth time I thanked God for sending you to me.

Divorce is just a word until it happens to you

I guess it's official.

I thought that I had more time... you had implied that the separation would be so we can figure out what we both wanted. And you asked me to wait until the play was over. Patiently I waited, wanting to talk with you at length about it, but didn't. You had "too much on your plate."

There never was enough room on that plate for me, so why did I think there would be now?

So, now we unleash the lawyers to dismantle the love story.

a perfect honeymoon

You have had to bear with me over the years as I expressed regret for various aspects of how I acted in our 11 years: being a little too eager on our first date, not using better words when I asked you to marry me, the first night of our honeymoon in that awful Woods Hole hotel.

But... the rest of it was exactly what I wanted. Rainy days on Martha's Vineyard, talking and sleepily enjoying each other after the madness of planning a wedding.

If I had a way to take back what I did, I wouldn't waste it on that, and instead I'd go back to that week when my future was secure, my old age spent on sleepy days with you.

i can't make you love me

This should be my mantra, whenever our past closes in on me and envelops me.

Photographs not for viewing

I have noted the photos around our house I cannot look at anymore.

1. Both us in the gazebo in Houston, your head resting on my shoulder, a few hours after I proposed to you.
2. Me holding a newborn Lucy and kissing the top of her head
3. The two sepia portraits of you holding the girls that hang in the living room.

Actually, I want to look at them but know that i shouldn't, like the temptation of falling for a woman who flatters you.

Things Mean A Lot at the Time

I am concerned about how easy it is most days. Both of us seem to have fit into new routines very comfortably, as though the strands that once tethered us were never there.

I cannot stop wishing, several times a day, that you had cared about me, made room in your life for me, because in spite of that I am losing an amazing person in my life.

goodnight nobody

Reading this book was more difficult than ever before; it's maudlin tone became my soundtrack as i read the words aloud to Chelsea.

i miss the breathing of our house at night. Where i am now is a breathing that is unfamiliar to me, not nearly as reassuring as our house is.

Unfreezing

Not that I ever thought this would be easy, but today was particularly emotional. And each time my eyes fill and my cheeks become wet within seconds, I ask, "Does this mean I regret ending the marriage?"

The answer is never "yes" or "no".

It's a memory of you holding Lucy as a baby those first days after her birth, and we looked upon ourselves as a true family, as though the three of us could take on the world because of our love for one another.

It's a memory of you dressing in the morning, smiling at me across the bedroom.

It's a memory of a dance class, in spite of my lack of rhythm and two left feet.

There are just so many I feel like my heart will burst.

Rearview Mirroring

My favorite times were when you did not know I was watching, as you knitted, watched television, spoke on the phone. I marveled at your profile, memorizing how your hair fell on your shoulders, and would test myself in recalling.

It was too late then, just like it's too late now.

Anne Sexton

Going into our bedroom is the worst, and I avoid it for as long as I can put it off. Not because of memories of lovemaking, but because of sleeping beside one another, which I have known for some time, is the ultimate pleasure of being committed to another human being.

Waking throughout the night and watching you sleep, feeling you stir as morning approaches, meeting in bed to read over one another's shoulder.

With apologies to Anne Sexton: "The bed is an operating table where my dreams slice me to pieces."

Going North then South

By the time i reached the Massachusetts and Vermont border, it came to me that we would no longer be husband and wife again. The feeling was so clear I was taken aback by it; i had to question whether or not it came from me or to me, as it was so uncomfortable.

Then a memory, a small one. I have had hundreds of them over the last few weeks, some purposely summoned as a way to check myself. None of them made me regret what i did, but this one caused me to remember in a way I hadn't before.

That jaded story about my encounter while away at a conference where I decided to not stay overnight with a woman who had had a boyfriend, in spite of tremendous symbiosis between us. For this, I spent months feeling like an idiot, the last ethical being on earth.

Then you came to me, and it was so clear that you were my gift from the universe, the ultimate karmic reward. Why else would a woman so intelligent, creative and overwhelmingly lovely want to be with me?

The Hard Part

You almost always have the best phrased responses.

I found this out as we sat on the wall that ran along your neighborhood beach. We were kissing, talking, just enjoying being with one another. I said that I thought I was falling in love with you, and you said, "That was the hard part. The easy part was falling in love with you."

Any remaining doubt about loving you fell away.

an eleven year walk

My mind wanders, purposely or not, to our first walk on Narragansett beach. I hesitate to call it our first date, as it seemed more than that: immediately I was comfortable with you, and loved how you talked incessantly, unselfconsciously.

It was the third time in my life I was so excited to be with a woman, but the first time I felt as though i was with the sweet angel from intermittent dreams I had had since a child.