27 April 04: Short Story, Big Insight

I was sitting on my red leather sofa; it was well after midnight. I was re-reading Catch-22 as if that would give me some sort of insight into life I had forgotten about.

The rattle of the garage door startled me. My eyes looked away from the letters on the page for a fleeting moment. I did not want him to see me looking at him. Returning to my book, I stared at the page but could no longer make sense of the words. My pulse had started racing and my head hurt (worse) something awful. Who would walk through the garage door? The man that left twelve hours ago to get an oil change? A belligerent idiot? A raging asshole? Or perhaps the man I married only a few years ago?

That was the problem. I was constantly fooling myself into believing that the man I loved was in there somewhere. And not only would I wake up with him in the morning, he would remain beside me throughout the day and night. We would not bicker or battle or say words we would later regret. Or at least, words I would later regret.

As I pondered these fleeing thoughts, the rattle of the door to the house shook me back to reality. He walked in. His eyes were too glassy to be sober.

I hated it. I hated what my life had become. No longer did I want to mistrust this person I once thought was my soul mate. Was I even still in love? When you are in love do you sneak a smell at your loved one’s breath?

He was loud as he banged around in the kitchen not caring that our daughter, only a little over two years old, had finally fallen asleep. She sometimes cried out at night for her dad to comfort her. Mostly, he was not there. Not lately. As he grabbed the gallon of purple Gatorade and took a swig out of the container, I felt his eyes on me. My pulse quickened. Would he say something to me? Would it be nice? Would I be able to be nice back? Or would I flip out like the crazy woman I had become.

Okay, well perhaps I was always a little on the insane side. But never like this. No longer did I recognize myself. Or the words that seemed to spew out of my mouth as a result of the hurt I felt; the anger that brewed inside of me. The resentment towards him for changing my live in a negative way changed who I was. It enveloped my entire being.

“Sup?” he slurred to me.

I shrugged my shoulders as if to say not much. I was afraid if I opened my mouth ugly words would come out that could not be taken back. He started rambling about bacon and politics and the future of our life together. I truly believe he felt that somehow all those things blended together like peas and carrots. Like we used to blend together. But to me they made no sense.

Just like the words on the pages of my book still could not make sense. I could only concentrate on him, his smell, his voice, and his eyes. When would he start to pick on me? When would our fight begin? Where was the person I fell in love with? What happened to us?

I remembered those early days were drinking together was a social thing. I was truly blind to any sort of problem. He always offered to be the designated driver- and really would be. Social events were not an embarrassment. Well, rarely. I guess as time went by the signs were all there. The depression, the decrease in self-confidence all were clues.

He feared marriage, but wanted it more than anything in the entire world. I began to want it more than I wanted anything in the entire world. We got married. We had a baby. Things were okay. But suddenly, everything changed.

Well, if I think about it they did not change over night. The change was gradual and purposeful. I became a “nag” and a “ball-and-chain” because I wanted us to eat dinner together on a Friday night. I “made” him drink to the point of annihilation because I was such a bitch.

I did become a bitch.

There was no other way I knew how to respond to behaviors that made no sense to me. Why would you stay out all night on someone’s couch when you had a warm bed at home? Since when did Sundays on the couch getting wasted become better than Sundays barbecuing with the family? I don’t remember when exactly I realized something was really wrong.

The fighting got worse. The words became uglier. Our daughter never knew what to expect. She never knew which parents she would have on a given night. She has been suffering immensely most of her life, and does not realize it yet. Or does she?

I still did not want to look up from my book. But suddenly everything that was wrong with our marriage and my life came flooding into my head. All the nights I went to bed alone. All the cleaning up after him I had done. The names I had been called, that we had called each other. The fact that I was living the life of a single parent but had the anxiety of someone in a very problematic marriage suddenly became very real to me.

My book flung itself from my hands and missed his head by mere inches. I jumped off the couch and started screaming like a maniac. I screamed about the pain that I had been feeling. Cursing about my fears, my nightmares, my anger, and my anxiety. I am unsure if I made any sense. I do not even remember what I said exactly.

“You are the problem. I would rather be at a bar drunk than be around you.”

That was his words to me. They still ring in my head. He is gone now. Off somewhere hitting rock bottom or putting his life back together now that I, the problem, am not around. I cry a lot. I cry for our daughter, I cry for me. Sobbing I think about what could have been and what should be. I debate how I could have handled the situation differently, earlier. If somehow I could have fixed things and made them better. Changed them. People tell me otherwise. But still, to this day, I do not really believe them.

I think it is my fault. Never would I admit that to anyone. I talk big and say all the right words. That is my way. But at night, late, when I am alone and it is quiet- I hate where I am. What things have become instead of could have been. I will always wonder if I made the right choice. I will always regret my decision. But, you only get to travel down one road at a time.