Chapter 12: Where Am I?

Near Lake Huron now. I am breaking down, really. My spare tire got me here, it's really what I'm running on in life at this point. Here's where you find the ruins of my education, my sense, my understanding of the world. Here's where we can talk in the middle of the night about my failure to be the husband I was supposed to be. Here's where I let people down. Here I have a great friend, but no one can help me but the one I left. No one has that kind of position. So, I keep wondering why it is that I'm here and not there. That ambivalence is still there, I've crossed the point of no return and returned, I have no idea where I am or where that point is now. If I don't come home at the end of the week though, she will know, she will probably do what she has done before and try and save us.

We were married six years ago under a tree by the mother of a friend of my wife, a pastor, for $12. We met serving the most vulnerable. I was a seasoned heartbreaker, she had never had her heart broken.

I am heartsick, sad and exhausted. Worn down you know, and finding solace in country music. I really want to describe how hard is to break up a relationship, that's a lyric I can only write when its done. I am wishing I could speak the lyrics of Easy by the Commodores (Lionel Richie), that they were true and not just a yearning in me. 'I know it sounds crazy but I just can't stand the pain, girl I'm leaving you tomorrow, you know I done all I can, I beg, stole and I borrowed'.

We are different though, me and her. I am one to look down the road at what it is, pain, death, loss and to go there and walk with others. She is one to make a better road for others. These are two shades of our good nature, our beneficience, and we understand that life is nothing without the ability to give of ourselves. I can only say that nonetheless two good people can be bad for each other, or bad for one, and if bad for one, ultimately it cannot be good for either. She doesn't see it that way. I am her Al Green, perfect lover, idealist husband - 'let's stay together' decent guy. Al Green celebrates marriage in his music, but Al Green has been twice divorced in real life. She doesn't want to see the real me, ultimately something more than a role model, a comfort zone, a strong pillar in the marriage, in the community and so on.

So this way, though, it seems it might be lonely. Enough time with friends can show you the limits of what anyone can do for you. Those limits are widest in marriage, that's a lot to give up. New mysterious women seem so unpredictable, and one doesn't figure out how walk with one foot out the door, one stumbles, one falls. This is a time where I'm totally alone.

'Why would anyone put chains on me, I've paid my dues to make it. Everybody wants me to be what they want me to be, I'm not happy when I try to fake it.' - from Easy by the Commoders.

good night.