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I had a rough time of it yesterday.
By different people and in different ways, I was asked the same essential question: Are you sure you want to do this? Are you really, really sure?
Each time, from me: Yes. Yes, I am absolutely certain that I need to leave the marriage.
Even in my dreams (it’s popped back into my mind even as I write this), my friend asked me the question and I answered it, once again.
Although the answer was the same each time, it cost me a pint of blood or some other small reduction in my life force (10 hit points?) each time I replied. Yes. Yes, I am absolutely certain.
So today am I depleted, exhausted, wrecked.
This was the worst of it:
“I’m not trying to be mean, but you realize that you are being extremely selfish? You are putting your own needs above those of the children. They are going to have behavior disorders, abandonment issues…they won’t have a model of what a good relationship looks like!”
“Surely you don’t believe that they saw a model of a good relationship from us, do you?” I asked him, incredulous.
“We had our moments,” he answered, “but for the most part we did really well. If you are going to be this selfish, you should just go all the way. Just leave! Leave me, leave the kids. Just disappear completely out of our lives and go away.”
This completely exhausts me.
Babies play on the floor at my feet as I type this, one engrossed in Sesame Street and the other screwing up his courage to take his first steps (any day now!); tiny flakes of diamond-like snow eddy and swirl outside the door. It’s absolutely lovely, but if I could, I’d crawl back into my bed and sleep for the next couple hours (or the next couple years?) until all this ugliness passes.
You seem in such a hurry
to live this kind of life.
You’ve caused so many tears and misery.Look around you, take a good look,
And tell me what you see.
Are you sure
that this is where you want to be?
–Willie Nelson
Yes. Yes, I am absolutely sure.
