Life

A man struggling to come to terms with his new life, moving on, and understanding himself better.

He woke up like he always did. Alone, in his bed, to no sound. Nothing was on. That was his personal rule, no wasted energies. He'd flip the circuit to his whole place every night, and kept it off until he returned from work the following day. If he wasn't going to be there, there was no reason for his apartment to draw power. He could hear his daughter asleep in the other room, and he wondered what it was that woke him. He'd been having a dream, some convoluted imagery mixing his past with his present. As he sat in bed he tried to recall more details, but they evaded his attempts. That was fine. Something told him he didn't want to remember every aspect of the dream. He rolled over and checked his phone. A text from his best friend about a story they were working on, a few bs emails, nothing major. Nothing entirely pressing that needed his answer or attention right away. That was fine.

He got up and went to his daughter's room. She was sleeping soundly, peacefully, strewn across her bed laying horizontally. He would have to work to correct that. She needed to learn to sleep in a bed properly before she got too much bigger. She wasn't quite two yet, but still, she needed to learn. He backed away and closed her door. He moved first to the kitchen, then to the living room, and finally back to his own bedroom. Turning on his laptop, he waited for its startup sequence to finish before pulling up the email he'd been working on for the past few days.  He'd deleted and started over half a dozen times over the past few days, but now he was more sure of what he wanted to say.

Hello....

Honestly, I thought I knew what I wanted to say when I first started writing this. I sat down with your name on my mind and I wanted to talk to you. Lately I have been having feelings like that a lot, for a lot of people, but for the most part I just push it aside. But you....I  felt I should at least try with you. Send you a message, a letter, an email....something that was a new open line of communication between us.  I found myself thinking back on all the times we use to talk, the things we shared, and I think it was just this moment of nostalgia that made me miss the friend I had in you. Long before we were anything else, we were friends.

As I said, I had been thinking about you. Your voice, your smile, the smell of your skin, just random thoughts that crept up from time to time. But with each also came the thoughts of our fights. From the lies and accusations, to the discovery of your harboring feelings for your boss. I think my mind pulls those thoughts up just as often as a way to remind me why we couldn't work out.  Why I left. I remember how devastated I was over you, how broken I felt. I remember pleading with you to come back home, nearly losing my job because I choose to argue and plead with you on the phone rather than work. I remember returning home to the apartment we once shared and finding it devoid of you, of the life we had been building together, and wondering if I would make it.

I remember the many nights I just laid in bed. A bed you'd picked out, unable to afford anything new for myself. I remember just laying and never sleeping, going up to four days without sleep before finally collapsing.  Then I could sleep for at least five hours before I was back up and starting the horrendous cycle all over again.

Yet here I sit nearly four years later and you still pop up in my mind. You know I googled you the other day? Crazy weird. I stopped myself from clicking on anything that was you, of traveling down that rabbit hole and finding myself lamenting over your pics or something. I'd already put a toe over the stalker line just by typing your name into my search bar. I couldn't go any further.

For a long time I hated you. I hated how easily you left me, how much you ruined, how you took everything I was and walked away. My joy for the things I loved, things I shared with you, was now gone. I couldn't work. I couldn't write, I couldn't create. Every time I stared at my blank monitor my hatred for you spilled over. Trying to type words only ended in a massive fight with writers block, a high thick wall in my brain that was covered with pictures of you. Every time I looked at a blank page, I just saw your gleeful face. The more I saw it, saw you, I hated you. I thought I would never write again, and that thought made me hate you even more.

I never thought I would get over it. Remembering it made moving on impossible, because if I didn't have my words I was nothing. You'd made me nothing. And I hated, loathed you for that. I was so lost in my emotions. Like, to the point that I felt I was consumed by them. I was angry, hurt, depressed, and feeling this supreme sense of loss that I couldn't get passed. I tried everything: drinking, workouts, running....but in the end, when the activity was over, I was still left alone and with my thoughts.

I blamed myself. I had failed. It is the man's responsibility to devote himself, give all of himself, to the woman he desires and the relationship he wants. A man sacrifices, gives more of himself than he ever takes, holds his woman on high and does whatever he must to keep her. That's what I thought a relationship was back then. And I had failed. And I felt so sorry.

In time, I have come to understand that relationships are more than that. There is give and take in any relationship, a mutual desire to do more for your partner, to be better for them, to elevate our lives through working and sharing together. As I look back on that entire experience with you and the ones that came after, I realize I awoke to a more clear realization of what I wanted out of a relationship. 

Here is what I learned:

1. I want commitment

2. I want to love and be in love with my partner

3. I want to be worthy of her love.

4. I want equality in the relationship.

5. I want trust

6. I want loyalty

7. I want the relationship to enhance my life, not detract from it.
8. I want a partner willing to work with me to strengthen our love, our bond.

9. I want a wife.

10. I want a family.

I never would have realized I wanted those things had it not been for you. When we finally parted and I moved away I felt so powerless. I felt I was now drifting and it is only now, four years later, that I feel like I am back on a good path. I am older, wiser, far more introspective and most importantly, I am aware of my desires. Now, I don't tell you this because as a way of saving that I want you back. Hell, I don't even know if I will send this. I am definitely writing this for me, not at all or in any way for you. There were so many times in that first year I wondered if I could craft the perfect message to you, something that would rekindle the love I choose to believe you must have felt for me, anything to bring you back, but now I know that trying to drag you forward into my life would be a mistake. You were a vital part of my past, of my path to who I am now. And with that acknowledgement comes the realization that what is past, must remain so.

I suppose at this point I could end this by saying something like, "I still love you" or "I wish you the best" or, as you put it when you ended our last conversation, "May the odds be ever in your favor."  But the truth is, I don't. I don't wish you the best or still love you or care about your odds. I feel nothing but disappointment when I think about you. But rather than push that away, I embrace it. I look at the emotion and see it for what it is, understand where it comes from, and draw strength from it. Then it passes and I am back to being a better me. A me born from what you did to me, a me you will never get to experience. I do want to point out one thing: I don't hate you. Don't think that. Some days I wish we could be friends, other days, I wish I had never met you. But I see those emotions for what they are, process, and move on. I have nothing for nor against you.

Bye.

He stood up from his desk and stretched. a dull ache had crept into the muscles of his neck as he'd hunched over his laptop and typed out his message. Putting his hands down, he stared at the email address, the one with her name in it. he wasn't even sure it would reach her, if she had closed that account. He could push send and it end up sending his message to oblivion. Perhaps that was where it belonged. But then, why write it? Why take the time to compose the message if it was never to be seen?

"Because I needed to," he said aloud, answering the internal question in his head. Standing in the middle of his bedroom, he looked around at all he'd gained since that awful breakup four years ago. He was single, but now he was a father living alone at a place of his choosing. He had a better, stable job. He was working to repair relationships with family and friends. Despite other struggles, he was slowly but surely flourishing. He wasn't quite where he wanted to be, nor where he'd expected to be at 30 years of age, but he wasn't quitting. He hadn't given up or given in to the depression that threatened to consume him on a daily basis.  He was working through it all on his own.

He walked into his bathroom, turned on the faucet, and waited for the water to get warmer.

"One day at a time, Ben," he told himself as he gazed at his reflection in the mirror. "One day at a time...." He looked at the small digital clock he kept in the bathroom and saw that it was time to start his day; get his daughter to day care. Sighing, he splashed the water on his face and then pulled his shaving cream and razor from the cabinet. The lather was cool and pleasant against his skin, the rough bristles of his day of growth on his face rasped his hand as he ran it across his face. Soon the razor removed any trace of it. Quick shower, dress himself and his child, fix a bold blue tie to his neck, and the small family was out the door.

Author's Note

This is biographical fiction. Inspired by true events, so when offering critique please take that into consideration. More to follow, most likely on a daily basis! I'd love to hear what people think of the beginnings of this new series! Also, I wrote this in one sitting, no breaks or stops, so I apologize for any spelling errors!

Reviews

[Sam Ammons]

excellent. closure is so important.

[alanwgraham]

Well written. It has the ring of truth and perhaps personal experience about it. One thing does puzzle me - it is four years since this relationship, he has a two year old daughter but there is no mention of her mother. I also find the man's obsession with his daughter sleeping habits a bit uncomfortable.
Well done
Alan

[Tate Viviano]

Love regret and sorrow. The main staples of art. The loss of love a gut wrenching feeling and I say you caprured it well. Good job keep it up.