I stepped outside this morning into the Vermont spring. Clear air filled with bright sunshine, a few wispy clouds over the top of the hills surrounding my cousins’ house. I lifted my suitcase into the back of the car. I felt a pinch in my ovary.
Hm. Tonight when he picks me up we should drop everything and have sex. Maybe I can get him to be a bit rough with me. Maybe he’ll have cleaned himself up a bit when I see him – showered after putting together the basement shelves yesterday, maybe even some cologne. Maybe coming with my husband will put a dent in this attraction I feel for someone else.
The sun, the cool, morning, spring air. It is a day to be reborn: A day to return to my life, my husband, my house, my dog. A day to give up my affair of the last 9 months. I breathe in my new beginning. My resolve is as constant as the New England weather.
God this hurts.
I’m flying home and you’ll be there but I’m not flying home for you.
I’m flying home and I’ll see you, but at work.
I’m flying home and I’ll be so close to you but I won’t have any reason to see you before Tuesday.
I’m tired of lying. I’m tired of lying to my best friend about being in love with someone. I’m tired of being so very excited about my experiences with someone and not being able to talk about it. I’m in love. I’m in love and it happens to me so very rarely. And I can’t celebrate it. I’m in love and I can’t tuck you in at night I can’t wake up with you in the morning I can’t cook you breakfast or do the walk of shame at work the next day after scrounging through your closet for a button down shirt to tie at the waist.
The truth is though – it doesn’t matter. I’m in love and you’re with someone else too.
You haven’t been married to her for 7 years, dating her for 6 more. You haven’t even been with her a year. But she’s somehow important enough to hang onto instead of hanging on to me. She’s somehow important enough that she makes it not worth it to reach out and grab me.
I guess I have to stop and force myself to imagine what it is you’re going through that makes it so important to hang onto her. Because it really must be worth it to you – and I know you wouldn’t hurt me intentionally. You talk to me in your head. You call me Petal.
Don’t let me go. Please don’t let me go. I want you so damn badly. Please don’t let me go.
Give me time to be brave. I need time to be brave.
It wouldn’t work anyway. Right?
You don’t talk – when you do talk you don’t talk enough. My friends ask what you do for a living and you say “I go to meetings” – not recognizing your own gifts. Not taking part in your own abilities. (Probably because you hate what you do.) You send me a hot, articulate proposal for controlling me, being my Sir, taking charge of my body and my intimacy – and then you never send anything again. You retreat back to your safe zone. You’d never work anyway.
You’re going to have to teach me how to do this. Wil, I don’t know how to be friends with you. My heart aches for you, my body pulses for you. I don’t know how to turn this off and simply be normal. I don’t know how to NOT try and make you pay for NOT wanting me. I’ll want to, I’ll need to, make it your fault. Your fault that you don’t me and I’ll want to make you pay. But these are my choices.
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~
Is there any reality in which I choose you and that works out ok? What about that approach? What if I told you
Undiagnosed bi-polar
Delusion
With mood swings
Weird thinking brought on by severe stress