my careless contagion

About a week ago, my dear Inky left us. She was the only pet I called my own except for a turtle (Scooter) I had when I was growing up. He disappeared under mysterious circumstances. One of my brothers later admitted he dispatched poor Scooter. I never understood his cruelty, and I feel there is a family-line curse of cruelty. All the men in my family and even some of the women have that trait, though it manifests often when they don't realize it. Which is worse, when you think of it. I tried to expunge myself of that trait over the years. Only God knows if I was successful.  Haven't had good luck with pets. And it's always sad when they leave. So, that explains my reluctance to get a dog or something. A dog would be the best bet, as I hear they are man's best friend. And I could sure use a friend.  Back to Inky. There were a few things I wanted to talk about regarding her passing. I felt God answered my prayers about the timing of her passing. I left it in His hands in...

Twenty-two notebooks. These are they. Twenty-two notebooks of my writings going back to 1995 or 1996 (I started writing on yellow legal paper) up until 2017 or 2018. Why am I bringing this up? I'm glad you asked, faithful reader. Because those notebooks I just threw out. Herein is another prayer, full of hope and expectancy.  I asked God about what might be tying me to sad emotions, unhappiness, etc. Whatever was stealing my joy, I wanted to get rid of. If you leaf through those notebooks, you'll see why I got rid of them. It was full of trauma, pain, and endless emoting over past hurt. I was attempting to grapple with the sad state of my life, my childhood, etc. There is even a note in there about how my brother grabbed my hand so hard it bled. This was after I left home, mind you. I don't need those things anymore. Is this symbolic? Perhaps. And it might mean something more to throw them out. If there is anything connected with those notebooks that is pulling me in a sad ...

Let's start with a joke! Was it funny? I guess that depends on your sense of humor. Many will laugh because the punchline is unexpected. Unexpected things make us laugh for some reason. It made me laugh, and perhaps because the girl appears Slavic, and they are known for having a rather severe take on reality (no BS). So, here I am in a tank top, dude .  Two things have been tangled in my thoughts for some time. The first is what I feel God answered about the girl and my missed opportunity. I feel He told me to move to where she lives last summer, but I did not. I was disobedient because I was scared of a non-existent pandemic. I didn't know how that would play out, but all things are in God's hands. I believe if I had been obedient, it is possible we would have eventually been together and He would have blessed us. Maybe I'm just hanging onto my delusion, but that's what I feel in my spirit. (She probably disagrees, but all I know is what I feel God said.) It doesn...

The night before kindergarten started, you fell asleep with your hand in mine, beneath your baby blanket that didn't cover your legs, and your head on your "Go," the stuffed helicopter you had since you were a toddler. It felt too much, too soon. Weren't you still my baby boy? It's clear we have you only for a time. You are borrowed. You belong to God, but this time with you is a gift He wants us to have.

I know I'm posting this on Oct. 27, but what happened last night is the crux of the matter. The problem is, I don't know how to talk about things properly because there is something that needs to be explained first. And I will. In a future post.  Cindy messaged me and wished my son a happy birthday in advance. Somehow it ended up being a texting match followed by a half-hour phone call and her frustrated in tears and me feeling like I'd been hit by a bus. None of that was planned, and that's probably why she doesn't want to reach out to me anymore. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the straw that broke the camel's back. This summer, when I tried to "break off" any chance of a future relationship with her, I felt she said she didn't accept that. Well, what she was telling me was there was nothing to break off because there was no relationship. What I was trying to break off was the chance of something — someday. I thought sh...

If I let go of something that never belonged to me in the first place, is anything actually lost? If the woman I loved spread herself among the stars — big men, small men, and men in between — have I lost anything?  I loved her undeniably through my best years and through the worst of times. She was like a metronome in my heart, but one day that metronome stopped. That day was the end of forever.  I don't know when it happened, but it happened as sure as the sun and moon. She died in my heart, and at her own hand. She pierced me through so many times, all the blood ran out, and I was left standing but with the wind whistling through my veins. She kept me on like a sharecropper to work her fields as my mind escaped over the hills and into the woods a thousand times. And, one day, it became a reality. I was gone, and she was left holding my broken chains.  She always said she was afraid of "forever." Somehow, I got her to believe. When I put the ring (titanium, be...

I have lost. I've lost her. I've lost many things. I don't know what else to say, but I'll probably say a bunch of stuff anyway.  The thought came crashing in on me one night: "All is lost." That thought has remained with me. I know that truly not all is lost. Still, of all the feelings that have coursed through my veins in the last year-plus, this one is preeminent. Here's the thing. I'm very practiced in letting go. My whole life I've had to let go of places, people, things, parts of myself, things precious, and things mundane. This world is ultimately temporary, and we with it.  It should not have surprised me that I had to let her — the woman of my dreams — go. It should not have surprised me that I took it so hard, either. Precious things are hard to let go. The last time I saw her, she felt she had to give her marriage another shot. I sat and prayed with her, but she seemed so far away. She had already pulled away. Before we met tha...

The voice of reason always has the last word. My heart says what it wants to say, and then the voice of reason quashes all dissent.  The voice of reason says her heart belongs to another, and it always has. It's a deep, abiding love I've only seen the surface of. Yes, she loves him with all she has, even though he hurt and humiliated her for years. It's a love as strong as any bond or trauma-bond I've seen. She cannot walk away. She cannot crawl away. She's fused to him forever because this was her promise to him. She's the most loyal person I know. She has proven over and over she belongs to him. It's beautiful and tragic at the same time. There is no competing with a love like that. I can't think of her without being awestruck. The voice of reason tells me she'll never be mine. It tells my heart to pack it in, go on, at least try to move on. I have tried, of course, but every time I try my heart cries out like it will die. I love her with ...

I've said so much. Too much, really. You know things about me no one else knows. I wonder if I know you even half as well as you know me. As the evening wanes into night, I miss you even more than usual. I wish I had your strength to sit in silence. I cannot but tell the trees and the wind of how much I love you and miss you, how much I wish you were near. I love hard. I don't know any other way. I guess it turns women off, as I've had nothing but failure in love. I wanted too much, said too much, felt too much. And then I hurt too much. Now I sit still and wonder at what tore through me. Missing you used to make me ache. Sometimes it still does. There are the sharp pains and the dull aches that tell me you're nowhere to be found. There are moments I have to hold myself still and hold a hand over my mouth, as it feels I'm falling to pieces and nothing can hold me together any longer. Then the convulsions come, and my whole body shudders in pain. If you wer...

With any great hurt or disappointment, there are a number of stages one walks through in the aftermath. There is usually some anger, wildly fluctuating feelings of betrayal, etc. The range of emotions can take your breath away. Somewhere in there, you will probably do a "what happened" sort of retrospective. I've been writing these pages in the effort to gain perspective on what the hell went wrong in my life. For all practical purposes, I'm nearing the end of this process, and, I believe for me, the next stage is acceptance.  I have to accept things about my life I'd rather not. But, there is no way to move on until I do. I've accepted the fact that I couldn't save my marriage. There were things in both of us that conspired to destroy it, things I didn't even see until years after the damage was done and all the goodness leaked out. Likewise, I couldn't save any other relationship I've been in, however strong it may have seemed in the ...

It's possible to relive your life in your head so many times you forget how things actually happened. It's possible to imagine so many scenarios that fix things you actually start to believe they would have made a difference. You know, we all have that fork-in-the-road moment we look back on. Do we really believe things would have turned out differently if we had gone the other route? Is life really just a choose-your-own-adventure book?  Right now, I'm imagining that I'm actually at that fork in the road, but I can take many different paths this time. I must choose wisely because the rest of my life depends on this moment.  My heart will always choose her. My body is old and tired, sometimes recalcitrant, and in many ways not what it used to be. Not even close. But, I imagine my body will follow my heart. My brain is on board, though it does not understand the unseen hand among us.  As much as my own journey was inevitable, do I believe that yours was a...

I've let you go, but the memories remain like the smell after the rain. In every bad thing, there's something good to be found.  I remember the first time you met my parents, when I drove that angry old Jeep out to South Dakota and we drove through the Badlands. It was so hot my rearview mirror melted right off the windshield. We didn't have any reason to look back, though, did we?  You would sneak into my room and sleep on the floor next to me just to be close. We weren't married so we couldn't sleep together, but you couldn't help yourself.  There are so many memories; I'm sorting them now. Some are good and some are bad, but they're all us. We made them, for better or for worse.  How about the night I rolled up to your mom's house for the first time. It was December, but it wasn't cold. I saw you in the flesh for the first time. We talked until the wee hours of the morning. And the next day was Christmas Eve Day. I said I d...

It's time to say goodbye to what I thought we had. I don't know if I was realistic in believing it was truly how I saw it, but it doesn't matter now. There's nothing left to do but say goodbye. I don't think I'm strong enough to do this. I don't feel strong enough to hold myself up in a chair right now. It has to be done, and I'm never going to be okay some distant someday until I let it go completely. The pain is mostly over. Now it's just me holding on to sadness, and sadness does what sadness does. We've parted ways. We've walked our separate paths now. We've seen that neither of us had what the other needed. It's so hard to miss her sometimes. And, it's the only thing I can actually feel most days. If I say goodbye to this, then I will have nothing — just a big, black hole in my chest. Still, I know this is all I will ever have if I don't let go. Letting go means I can have something someday...

Living alone again has taught me a few things. It's helped me to remember some things, too, like I'm not bad at taking care of myself, especially when I have enough time. I can make food. I can clean. I can shop for things. Most of my married existence was spent alone anyway, so my skills are not too rusty. Doing laundry is much simpler. It's only a load or two a week.  I can watch whatever I want to watch on TV. I've noticed that I have a hard time watching anything bloody or with a lot of swearing, though. Something in me is bothered by that. I don't know when that started. I enjoy psychological thrillers more than anything else.  Sometimes I sit in my recliner and watch Netflix in my underwear and eat my Haagen Dazs strawberry ice cream (which I think is my new favorite, supplanting pistachio gelato), and it's hard for me to think about the future. I'm simultaneously licking my spoon and licking my wounds.  Let's recount some of my rel...