my careless contagion

Today, Feb. 8, marks two years since I divorced the woman with whom I spent more than 20 years of my life. That's hard to fathom. I once read that most people who divorce remarry within two years. That's even harder to fathom, though I admit it probably would have been a healthier path for me. Two years ago, I got to find out what it was like to destroy the person who meant the most to me in my pitiful life. It was about as much fun as it sounds.  Clearly, I misjudged myself going into my divorce. Someone with my particular psychology and background should not move ahead with a divorce without more support than what I had. My baseline state is so much lower than most people, I simply could not bounce back from my divorce. I don't have the same chemicals in my brain that most people have. It's like I started 6 feet underground and then went further down, all the while trying to get back to the same level that most inhabit aboveground. My divorce was extraordinarily...

This week has been a struggle. It's hard when the blows just keep coming and I have to keep getting up every morning and slog through another miserable day. But, hey, this is the world I created. These are my decisions. I have to live with them. Pardon me while I vent, though. My ex-wife is currently enjoying a 10-day vacation with my parents. How many ex-daughters-in-law go on vacations with their ex-in-laws (who leave their sons behind)? I mean, I can't really take a vacation anyway since I'm taking classes and someone has to take the trash out at work. It reminds me of the scene in She's Out of My League where the main character's whole family goes to Branson (all wearing their Branson Bound sweatshirts), even taking along his shitty ex-girlfriend AND her new boyfriend. I mean, it's comical, yet it's my life. You can't make this shit up. I mean, how is one supposed to feel about this situation? What's the logic? Clearly, this broadcast...

Stop sounding so fucking sad.   This is a screenshot from American Psycho , a movie I've never seen. I've read the book, and that's enough, as I'm still disturbed by that book many years later. No work of fiction I've ever read has affected me like American Psycho . Bret Easton Ellis' characters are so devoid of humanity, it's unreal. Or perhaps too real. His books are about characters I don't care about, even hate. But they are compelling. It's amazing to read a book and not find a single character you enjoy or relate to. Sometimes my life has resembled his fiction, sadly.  There are a lot of reasons for me to feel sad. There are a lot of reasons for me to feel upset. Those reasons have always existed. Some will never go away. But, sadness is a choice. And, if sadness is a choice, then it follows that happiness is a choice. I've had enough sadness to last a lifetime. I choose happiness. I choose joy. I choose silliness and fun and all the...

I'm the biggest fucking loser on the planet at this moment. As I close the door and step inside, my guts are churning. Just stepping inside tears me up. What should be the easiest thing in the world has become like a knife in my guts. The goodbyes get harder every time.  Little boys shouldn't cry so much. Little boys should be happy-go-lucky, tough as spit, and ready to take on the world. Every car ride shouldn't be so sad. I shouldn't hear him wailing as his mom pulls away. Will this ever get easier? I don't know if I'm making it harder or easier by walking away, but it hurts like hell every time.  Give it time, I hear. Tell him it's okay to be sad. Tell him he can be happy for the time we had together. Call me tonight. We can talk about your day. Oh, hell.  I've lost all. I sit in solitude, and the tears won't even come anymore. I'll schedule my tears for tomorrow when I have tears to give. I'm all out today. I went to sleep cryin...

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...

If I never knew love before you, then I never knew sadness until you left me.  "What's wrong with me?" I whisper for the 100th time today.  There's never a good answer. Just the beating of my heart and the slow ache that tells me you're nowhere to be found. I've never felt this way about anything or anyone.  I didn't know I could love again. That was a wonderful discovery. You tapped into something so deep in me, I can't even explain. You required honesty. You wanted the truth. You made me love you when you asked those things of me. Love flowed from an undiscovered source. You found this in me, and I gave it to you.  When you left me in silence, no amount of words could bring you back. And I knew I was in trouble when I would wake in the night and the ache in my chest was more than just real. It was killing me. I expected you to fade, but you did not. You became stronger and more resilient in my heart. I couldn't silence y...

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...

*If there's a band that sums up the way I feel about my 20+ year relationship that ended this year, that band is The Handsome Family. I don't know that I've ever heard a collection of songs that can trigger so much unhappiness in me.  You could describe this band as alternative country, gothic country, or a number of other sub-genres. I remember the night I found this band. I was perusing music on the internet because we'd had a fight and she went to her mom's house for the night. It was like my heart went and found the soundtrack for how I was feeling.  I could have picked a hundred different songs for this post, but this one was one of her favorites. I can't even describe how I feel about this failed relationship. It is one of the most disappointing things I've ever tried and failed at, endured, pumped life into, whatever you want to say. The Handsome Family is a husband and wife core (Brett and Rennie Sparks) with other musicians coming...