Category: My story

Turnpike

Turnpike

by queenofwrecks ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I was halfway through my day on Monday when I realized I hadn’t thought about Michael at all. Then, of course, I could only think of him.

April, 2014: He drove me to the airport in New Jersey. His hand was on my thigh with my fingers woven between his. The weekend we’d spent together in Atlantic City had brought us closer, a notion I’d thought impossible before. I hated leaving him, but we had plans to see each other on his return trip home from his conference. He handed me a twenty dollar bill, knowing that I rarely carry cash, for tipping the airport staff. I objected, saying that I would stop at an ATM.

“We’re in this together. This is what couples do,” he said as he folded the twenty in my hand.

I remember the warmth in those words. I remember feeling whole.

It’s been three months since his lies caught up with him — and with me. At the time I didn’t realize the significance of, “I need to go and manage this.” I didn’t know that ‘managing this’ meant deleting all of our emails, texts, shared pictures and placing all of my gifts to him in a garbage bag.

I didn’t know that he had already chosen; I was still dumbfounded that he had a choice to make at all.

He’d chosen, even in the car on the way to the airport that April day on the Jersey turnpike. He’d chosen every time he said, “I will love you forever.” He knew his words would stay longer than he could. He knew the whole time. From the moment we met, to our last lunch, he knew we would end this way.

Monday, at 2:47 PM, I remembered to think of him. My thoughts were as kind as he deserved.

My last email to Michael

My last email to Michael

by queenofwrecks ♥ 0 Leave a Comment
And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can’t ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young. It never fails to surprise you as you grow older and you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it’s already happened.

It happened. I don’t need to wonder when my turn will be. I know the exact moment when you finally broke me.

Nothing for me was fake. It was all achingly real.  The love I had for you was real. The struggle was real. The passion was real. The betrayal was real. My desire to move on, to love myself more than I have for the last three years, to build a life of compassion and kindness despite my new pessimism — those are all real.

Sometimes you don’t feel the weight of what you’ve been carrying until you feel the weight of its release.  The years of compromise and secrets weighed heavily, and I am grateful to no longer be carrying those burdens. Why I allowed and encouraged you to marginalize my needs & importance, all while claiming you loved me, is something that requires deep perspective and soul-searching to guard myself from a repeat experience.

You cannot reach me anymore. You cannot hurt me ever again. There is no space in my life for you, not in 10 years, not in 30. You are gone and one day I will be far better for your absence than I ever was for your presence.

Michael, I don’t wish you ill but I don’t wish you well, either.  You showed no care for me and, consequently, you deserve no care from me. You are a void space of wasted years, my cautionary tale, my most painful regret. That is all you are to me. And that, Michael, is for the best and, frankly, better than you deserve.
Forgiveness is my gift to me. I deserve to forgive you; I deserve to let you go forever. I forgive you.
We began & ended with a lie

We began & ended with a lie

by queenofwrecks ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The first time he lied to me was on our second date in September, 2012.

“We were never married and we separated 8 years ago.”

His eyes welled when I asked him what had gone wrong. His ex was a depressive; she offered no support; she would come home and sleep on the couch; they hadn’t been physical in nearly a decade. He told me that he was living near her and her extended family for his kids’ sake.

The last time he lied to me was on February 13th, three years later.

“I will love you forever,” he said in what would be the last phone call I’d ever accept from him. “This is not your fault,” he said.  “I did this to you.”

And then there was silence between us. Because he was married all along. Because she found out. Because he lied to her to save the marriage, reducing our loving, long-term relationship to a tawdry, emotionless affair.