It started with a million papercuts
The problem with paper cuts is that you might not notice them.
When you do, you soon forget about them.
They may make you wince when they happen.
When you drag your finger across the envelope at the wrong angle on the wrong day.
When you open the Amazon packaging in a rush.
When your wife starts to retreat inside her mask.
One day at a time.
But the paper cuts are there.
Not seeing them or not noticing them doesn’t get rid of them.
And if there are too many to ignore, eventually you become aware of them.
Of the stinging. Of the low-level pain.
Of the scale and the scope of the dark cloud that’s been hiding behind the sunshine for years.
If you’re lucky, you may be able to do something about it.
Before it gets out of hand.
While you can still prevent the cuts from infection.
To stop the issues before they become problems. Before they spiral out of control.
I wasn’t lucky.
I’d been with my wife forever.
Not quite high school sweethearts, but not far from it.
We met when we were young.
When we thought our differences were still interesting, even charming.
When we had our lives ahead of us.
She came from a religious background. Me, not so much.
She lived down South. Hemmed in by self-imposed conformity.
I was a spontaneous traveller. In my mind at least.
But we worked out how to keep what we had alive. How to keep it going.
It took a lot of planning, travelling, and a whole lot of compromises.
Over time, as can happen, the magic slowly became something familiar. Comfortable.
We smiled a lot, and spoke a lot. And barely noticed the fading intimacy.
The sex became an occasional itch to scratch.
We weren’t unhappy. We just weren’t happy.
Then she met him. In him, she saw a ticket home.
A ticket to a future where she could be herself.
Or become what she wanted herself to be.
At that point, without realising it, we were screwed.
There was a deadly, silent cancer eating away at our future, and what was left of our relationship.
She fed it and helped it grow.
I nurtured it with oblivious ignorance.
I don’t know when she decided that the relationship was done.
Long before I even realised how much trouble we were in. I was in.
She strung me along in the final months. Not out of malice, but cowardice.
She casually ate away my spirit, my self-worth, my confidence, and my trust.
When she went, she left everything behind.
Except for our children.
This was all that mattered to her.
Before she left, I lived for my children. They were my everything. They were my world.
On the day that left, she barely glanced back at me.
Gone.
Leaving me with a house full of possessions for a life that barely happened, a large loan on the house, an assortment of pets and animals, and the tattered debris of a future ripped apart.
That was in 2020, before the pandemic kicked in.
She did leave me one thing.
But there I go, getting ahead of myself again.
Let’s wait for the next post.
The ride into the abyss has barely begun.