An Hour's Notice

He's gone. 5 days ago (that long? where have I been...?). Saturday, we go for breakfast, the usual stop at Home Depot for yet another thing to fix the aging house. Back home, me with some energy, get things sorted. I ask him in passing, "Do you want to talk?" He says with a sheepish smile, my flight leaves from Vancouver tonight. TONIGHT!! But you haven't packed or made plans or said goodbye or anything..... I have all I need. What do I do with everything. Whatever you want. What about money. Taken care of. Staying with friends. What's her name? Is it her? He doesn't answer, just berates me for asking questions. I find an envelope in his computer bag, stack of hundred dollar bills, over 7 K in all. I tell him, he tells me being so clever is sometimes not such a good thing. And I know he hates me, hates his mother, who he has turned me into. And I cry. I howl like an animal. I apologize, tell him I love him, beg him to remember this. Beg him to call me if he is ever alone, in trouble. Hug and kiss him and love him as much as I can as he goes to the door. The cab is here. Your time is up he says. I stand at the window with my hand over my mouth, howling like an animal. Buckle at the knees, crawl around the empty house. He's gone. For good. I still love him, more than I love myself.

First try

This is me. Over-forty, overweight, underheight, overwhelmed and outdone. This is me. Five years married to a man who does not love me. Undersexed, overlooked, outsourced. Me.

It seems incredibly self-important to start this blog. What do others care about my psychic pain, which in the grand scale of life is nothing more than a hangnail. I live in a free country, I am well-educated, I have a nice house, food, family, friends, a career. So why so glum, Toots? Well, this thing called love keeps eluding me, has done for a long, long time. Do I really need it? Does it exist? Is it that important? Sadly, in an effort to keep the black dog, and the bottle of wine, and the ice-cream and the sleeping pills a little further out of reach, I am attempting this blog. Perhaps the mechanical act of fingers on keys, black letters on screen will serve to exorcise this sense of empty. Maybe the letters will all arrange themselves magically into some ancient wisdom. Maybe I will read the posts and realize just how pathetic I have become.

Me. Overwrought, undermined, outsmarted. Today is my fifth anniversary. Nothing, not even a hug.

Over and out,
Q