And then I met Nicole.
What an ending. What a
beginning. My life was spiraling
completely out of control emotionally and this near angel of mercy stepped in
and everything stopped spinning. The
pain of living stopped for a moment and I was able to transport myself back to
reality. Well reality in this case was
pretty subjective. I was a king with no
queen, my kingdom was dying, pestilence, rioting, strife, and unrest was a
typical day in my head. My mental wound languished
and I suffered greatly. My wife was
cheating on me and treating me like a battered child at home. I’d make it to work and Nicole would say the
kindest things to me. It was textbook
end game, end of days, death of one queen, and hail to the new one. This period in my life is pretty spotty and I
have to rely on rumors mostly to fill in the blanks.
My wife and I were trying to make a go of it but it all
depended on her decision. Hers. I was an afterthought. We made a commitment to see this specialist
therapist for six months to work it out between us. I was gung ho about it and she told me later
that she made the decision to do it by one millimeter. A nickel’s width is bigger than that. So for 5¢ my marriage had a chance. At that price every day was a struggle. In fact the commitment lasted only 2 months. I felt like I was being monitored and if I
said one thing wrong it would bring out a harangue that was far worse than the
crime I was accused of. I was
tired. I wanted my queen, my princess,
my lover back. I didn’t want my “mom”
cursing me because I didn’t meet some abstract standard constantly. There was no magic and I was in a place so
off planet that magic was truly the only thing that could save us.
During this fallow period I pondered everything about my
life. What happened? I had been in love with Nan for so long, 10
years or more. How could I have missed
so many red flags? I guess when I asked her to marry me and then when we talked
about setting a date she always hedged I should have seen that red flag. Her best friend finally talked her into
marrying me. In all the actual marriage
lasted 14 months. So much for soul mate
2. I didn’t understand at a very basic
level why she married me. Was is
pity? Was it duty? In a state of unbelievable agony I started to
understand that it couldn’t have been out of love. Because what is love at this point? I thought it was love for her that I wanted to
share the rest of my life with her. But
did I know any more about love than her?
Did I know anything about love at all?
My whole life as a lover of many stranded maidens, lonely princesses,
helpless women in need, love ballads, love poems, romantic tales of wonder and
awe, I didn’t know about love? I thought
I could ride in on my white horse and whisk them away from danger and by that
act alone I was due rightful love forever.
I guess I got hung up on the word as a grand noun only and not a true
feeling. I understand compromise,
surrender, settling, yeah I get all of that.
But it’s a two way street.
Right? What I didn’t understand
was where the borders for those actions stopped. How much of myself did I have to give
up? What was the payoff? Peace?
Her hole not making any negative noises about me was the reward? I felt like a puppy dog hovering for a crumb
of comfort.
One night, Nicole got into a terrible car accident and
nearly lost her life. I was stunned,
hurt and frightened but could not seek comfort from anyone because, hey, I’m
married. I merely told Nan that a good friend
of mine from work was injured in an accident and it was pretty heinous. I monitored her from work and was able to see
her in the hospital a couple to times.
She had suffered head and brain trauma and it’s all guess work how much
damage would eventually manifest. 10
days later she called me on my cell phone.
She remembered my number from memory!
I was at home with the wife and kids and took the call out in the back
yard. It was a chummy conversation as if
I was talking to a friend I cared about and nothing more than that. I was excited that her memory was intact and
felt like I was walking on air after the call.
It was the best I felt at home in a long time.
“I heard the whole conversation! Do you think I’m an idiot?” Nan shrieked when
I got in the house. She had stationed
herself by the back window to strain to hear who I was talking to and what I
was saying.
“I told you about Nicole’s accident and she called me from
the hospital! It’s great that she
remembered something, it means she won’t have permanent damage!” I missed the point of Nan’s stance. Probably purposefully as I didn’t want the
bitch to ruin what feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. “Stop Nan, I didn’t say anything bad.”
“No I heard you I know what’s going on.” She went on in this
conspiracy where there was a bit of truth but I didn’t care at this point. I was beat up and walked on eggshells in my
home for so long she could go fuck herself with her paranoid thoughts of my
romance of an almost vegetable in the hospital.
And in fact she did go on, another verbal taunting of my inadequacies,
my infidelity, my inattention, my breathing in her direction. I know there’s always 2 sides to every story
but my side is the true side. J During her tirade I
had an epiphany. My mind was quiet and strangely
everything coming out of her mouth was silent.
I didn’t hear a word she said.
Everything went faint and I knew an IMPORTANT EVENT was on the verge of
happening. I felt like I was in a fugue,
I looked down at my wedding ring, fingered it and twirled it slowly around my
finger. I looked back up at Nan and told
her a lie.
“Yes I’ve been having an affair with Nicole. It’s been going on for months and I was
deathly afraid I lost her. So you can understand
why I’m so happy that she’s okay Nan.
Can you understand that? I think
I’m in love with her and I don’t want to lose her now.” I spoke with someone else’s voice from a
place far away from the inside of my head.
It just seemed like the right thing to do.
Nan was bug-eyed, stunned, and tears started welling up in
her eyes. Ok, maybe it wasn’t the best
thing to have said but I was setting us both free. I was acting out of mercy for both of
us. I wasn’t having an affair with
Nicole but my heart was willing and that may be as bad as the real thing. Nan wrenched her ring off of her finger and
told me to shove it so far up my ass so that it never sees the light of day
again. I agreed like a dumb ass.
You see I was bitten by the hydra for so long and now I was
smitten by a princess outside of my castle that I had no grip on reality. It was like drinking a love potion. The world it opened was rare, precious,
wonderful and beautiful. It was a part
of myself that I have long needed to connect with. It was a part of my dreams as a kid
manifesting for the first time in my life.
I felt like I understood what love was.
I understood that it was something that I had never had. Ever.
It was my due as a child but was never the less withheld for no other
reason than being born in the wrong family.
I felt I deserved a special dispensation for my discovery. Don’t you understand Nan, I have found love
and it isn’t with you. I was drunk with
a new passion that I had not felt in ages.
It was a power that was so awesome I lost my bearing on the actual
planet Earth. But I was in the real
world and my consequences were being meted out.
I lost that marriage. I gave it
up for love, the other world of love that one can only dream about or that I
could only dream about. In fact it was
the world I’ve dreamt about since I was able to read, to listen to rock songs
to, to play air guitar to the blues as a pre-teenager. I was answering now to that world. I stepped over and embraced it. I gave into a passion that could alter the
course of solar systems.
In the real world, Nan was crying, sitting on the ground
with her arms around her daughter, Hannah.
Hannah looked frightened as she was seeing an IMPORTANT EVENT for the
first time. I saw this. I looked at this. I knew I should have felt pity or an
overwhelming sense of sadness but I would not.
I could not. Not anymore, I was
king again and I went into my room, gathered some items and deliberately walked
out of the house without saying another word.
I couldn’t. I had nowhere to go
and I didn’t let an earthly fact like that stop me. I drank the potion and now it was up to the
gods to determine my future. I let go of
reality that day and my mind became the playground for the gods, goddesses,
dragons and all the other little deities that demanded their time. Surprisingly they spent a lot of ungodly time
in there.
1.
I’m grateful that the playground is open to
mortals only today.
2.
I’m grateful that the marriage ended when it
did, it would have gotten worse.
3.
I’m grateful that I don’t belive in potions
anymore.
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