The Thing About That Is, Is That You're Wrong

I accept that my marriage is over.

I was always a very supportive spouse, and that has not changed. That will not change until the day I get my name back, because I am very serious about the vows I took. I will honor my husband, even during the dissolution of our marriage. This is not easy, but it is very important to me.

I asked him to leave, because seeing him in our place and hearing him leave for work without kissing me goodbye was incredibly painful. It was very difficult not to kiss him, hold his hand, make sure everything was okay with him. So, I asked him to leave. And he did. Begrudgingly and with a really shitty look on his face, but he did.

I collect his mail. I make sure he gets his paycheck. I have not destroyed any of his belongings, even the $50 Eels LP that I bought for him. I fantasize about running a lighter down just one side of the record, rendering it COMPLETELY FUCKING USELESS. But I'm not going to do that, because our marriage meant more to me than that and I am a lady.

I encourage him to see his therapist, his doctor. Ask if he needs gas money. I help him pick out a new cellphone.

All of this to say: why do you have to be such a dick when I am giving you what you want? You want a fucking divorce, you are getting one. I have given you everything you ever wanted and I hate to say this, but you're acting a little ungrateful. Just leave me alone and divorce me. I don't want to fight with you. I know that you hate me, because you keep saying I HATE YOU and trust me, I got it. You fucking hate me. You tell me you hate me, you tell our friends you hate me. It's beginning to get awkward, and here's why: You keep telling everyone I'm a monster, but you are looking more and more like a monster everyday. So people are confused, you know? What are they to think?

You have chosen to share the intimate details of our marriage with your friends and family. I have chosen to, um, not do that. I'm not trying to hide any of my transgressions or make myself seem any better than I am. I'm fantastic. I'm also a very private person and I don't think it's anyone's business what our marriage was, or wasn't. In fact, no one will ever know what we had except for you and me. And that's the name of that tune.

Just remember this, darling husband of mine. You broke your last promise to me. And that is shameful.

And In The End, We Were Taken By Surprise

One time you punched me in the face once as I was driving down the highway because you didn't like what I had said to you, or what you thought I was about to say.

You called me fat, told me I looked like a man, made me ashamed of my hunger and my body. I brought out a dress I wore one of those days and it was impossibly tiny. So small compared to the body I live in now. I cried and cried, and spent so much time apologizing to you for being something I wasn't. And now I am, and you are gone.

You made fun of me for idolizing my father, for always calling him first when I was in trouble. But I never could count on you to be there, answer your phone, be sober, care enough, know what to do.

The night I got in that car accident coming to see you, I was scared and drugged, and I begged you to stay with me. As soon as I feel asleep, you crept out and I woke up alone and disoriented.

You never cared enough.

Today Is A Good Day

Today, I don't mind so much that you are divorcing me. That you cut me out of your life after I built you and bought you socks and got you that fucking amp and went to every single one of your shows even when the band was shitty. I don't mind so much.

Yesterday? I minded a lot. I cried and cried, probably more in those 24 salty hours than I have in the 16 days since you told me you were leaving me because I'm mean and you just can't do it any more.

If you called me today and told me it was all a mistake, I would take you back in a heartbeat and the moment your skin touched mine, I would know it was a mistake and there I would be again. In that fucking marriage with you.

I have talked to you every day for the last six years and now you are so gone, so so so gone. And I just miss you so much. I miss you being there and hearing you and yeah even yelling at you. I miss that. I miss knowing that someone loved me, except let's face it. I never really knew that. I knew you loved music and I knew that you loved me taking care of you, taking care of things. You loved smoking pot, I know that. But me? I'm not sure how you ever really felt about me.

Those rings I took off and still look at everyday, well they protected me. They were a wall, bands of safety. They told the world someone loved me, it didn't matter how bad my hair looked or how much weight I gained, or the fact that basically I was going insane. It didn't matter because I had those rings and that meant I had you.

I still have the rings, yeah, but you are so so so gone. I wish you had let me have my fancy anniversary dinner. I wish I could have kissed you one more time. I wish that I hadn't been wrong.

Just So You Know

I will never be there again to see you play guitar.

Everything you are wearing, I bought for you.

I am still feeling for my rings and crying myself to sleep.

This is not as hard as I thought it would be.

This is harder than I thought it would be.

I will let you go. It is not what I want. It's what you want. And I have always given you what you want.

It's Your LIttle Red Wagon

My husband is divorcing me. My husband is divorcing me. My husband is divorcing me.

I have to keep telling myself this so I don't call him by a pet name or buy him something at the grocery store or put on my wedding rings.

My husband is divorcing me. It's a done deal, my friends.

I have loved him for so long.

And now? It's just details. Debt. My name. His things, my things. Even though we have no children, I always thought of us a family and he thought of our marriage as a millstone, some kind of obstacle to his becoming.

There was nothing I wouldn't do. No lengths I wouldn't go to.

As bad as it was at times, as empty and scarred as I felt, I never would have walked away from him. I would continue to try, every day, to unlock him. To make him into a real live boy. To light a fire in him, to inspire him to reciprocate.

Someone I love is dying, and I can't save them. That's what my heart is telling me. Someone is dying.

I thought I had been heartbroken before, but those in retrospect were just bruises. I am heartbroken. I am out of my mind.