6 years

Well the verdict is in. 6 years after the fact everything hurts. Life without her in it doesnt seem to have a point. It's just one dreary day after the other with pseudo friends who betray and disappoint the moment it is convenient. God may not be to blame, but he sure hasnt been any help, either. It seems there is truly nothing left for me here, after all. Who knew this was the destination i would arrive at when i embarked on this journey by enlisting 11 years ago?
 I have only one recourse left, and that is to leave. I've got to get out of here. All my opportunities have dried up. Even if there's never going to be another one like her, i must find a place where i can thrive. I need some sort of fulfillment in my day, not the emptiness, loneliness, and lack of purpose that have been the hallmark of my return to civilian life. There are those who tolerate me, but i am not essential. Circles and processes that were complete without me will go on like i was never here. I am packing up. Time to find the place where i belong.

The dream

They say dreams are one way the mind problem solves the things we never settled during the day. I've always believed it, but last night I had the most interesting experience imaginable. While circumstances come and go, there is one gnawing issue that has never left me, not in 6 years or more. Of course I'm talking about her. Why didnt we work out? Where did I go wrong? What should I have done differently? Like most people, I get visited by this type of dilemma on a regular basis in my dreams. But usually these fall into two categories: the very stressful "just out of reach" dream, where my waking life efforts to reach her are dramatized, exaggerated, and nocturnally relived; and the blissful fantasy type where are together and everything is perfect. You know the kind, the dream you hate to wake from. Well for the first time, my dream of her last night was neither of these. Instead what I got was what I can only refer to as a simulation. There was no fantasy, only a real, gritty, alternative version of real life. I retell it now to ensure it is not forgotten, because dreams have a way of fading from the waking mind.
 Where to begin?
 In this dream-reality it is still 2016. We have been married for years. She has really "let herself go" because she married me out of a sense of obligation, not out of any real passion. She is not careful in her self presentation, makeup application, or weight. She still likes me, but recognizes the lack of passion. I still love her. I'm content. We still attend church with her family, but not the one from real life. She walks with a limp now. One of her legs was disfigured at the ankle, although the dream did not bother to explain why. She was visiting a mutual friend who just got out of the hospital. I remember she tells me she has always regretted not travelling in her younger days. For that reason, she is taking a trip to china. She tells me that when she returns we will work on us. At this point i realize she has always been unhappy, being with me. While our deep emotional ties were real, it was always in such a way that i could make her cry. He could always make her laugh. In this alternate reality where she chose me, she chose sadness over happiness.
 I compare this sad, breaking woman who i loved in my dream to the happy, beautiful one in reality. I am ... Really glad she is the happy, beautiful person of today, not the sad one from my dream. It took 6 years for my subconscious to process this version of the way things could have gone and present it to me in visual dream form. Either that or there is something to the "alternate reality" science fiction after all, and i was just granted a rare glimpse at an alternate timeline. I dont know. All i can say is it was unlike any dream ive ever had. It confirmed my conviction that i would be much happier with her. However, it seems to have conceded that she wouldnt have been happy with me. Up until this point i had never, consciously or unconsciously, considered this possibility. I always thought with enough love and trying i could have made her the happiest woman in the world. But who knows... Maybe i was wrong after all.

walking dead

Can they smell the rot that lies beneath my mask? I'm going through the motions, acting out what I remember. The truth is I can't feel a thing, and haven't for a long time. I've fallen to a million sins nobody would believe, I want to fight but I've already lost. I died the day she said "I do" to him instead. The world moves on and I'm the walking dead.

I met a surfer dude today. I could tell from the minute he opened his mouth he had little to offer the world. A quick query into his story confirmed this. Purposeless. Jobless. Careless. But a trust fund baby, so well off and well fit regardless.
  Then I compared him to me-- intelligent. Passionate. Driven. And for all that, nothing to show for my efforts except disappointment.
  Then his girlfriend walked in. The two of them kissed and held each other, causing a deep unsettling in my unconscious mind.
  Herein lies the rub: as he drifts through life without direction he is happy. Happy with her, happy with their companionship, and warm in ways I have never been.
  What has ambition ever gotten me? What has the word "try" or "duty" ever laid on me except hardship and heartache? For 10 years I have been so obsessed with doing what I must, I haven't ever considered the possibility of doing what I want. In the final reckoning neither of us has made an impact. The difference is he is happy and I am not. Instead I am inconsolably lonely.

I never liked the water. So I guess it's ironic that looking back after all this time my fondest memories involve a beach. She was there, of course, but back then she wasn't "the one". She was that girl I'm too good of friends with to love, because back then I still believed there should be a difference. No, back then there was an entirely different " one", for me and every other heterosexual male in senior high. Her name doesn't matter, only the feeling young men got when they saw her. You know the kind...tennis player. Proper, lively, beautiful, put together in all the right ways... She was the kind of girl they write songs about. The year was 2004, the trip was to Florida, and literally everyone was there. For some reason life has to get more complicated than that.

I'm thinking of her again tonight. I hope she's OK. I once had a sixth sense about when something was going wrong for her, even at great distance. This feels similar to that. Maybe something terrible has happened, or maybe I just miss her. Who really knows? I do know she is close to my heart during times of change or big decisions, maybe because I always thought she'd be with me for all them. Maybe that's why my thoughts are with her tonight... I can't say for sure.
 Really I think maybe her absence affects me so because it is anathema to who I am at the core. I am so infuriatingly loyal, the thought of splitting away from someone I'm close to doesn't enter my mind as a potential option. Maybe that's why even after all this time I can't understand or forget

number one

Never let it be said that I ever did things to look out for number one. There is much I could have done that I did not, punches I pulled. Sometimes in the name of sportsmanship, or chivalry, or honor, or righteousness, or duty. I have omitted many justifiable actions, and committed many altruistic ones, in servitude to these values. I have always believed that God defends the just. We don't need to worry about clawing our way to the top. We put our shoulders to the wheel and let God sort out who gets the credit, that's what I've always said and how I've always tried to live. This, to me, is the truest picture of what 'living by faith' looks like.
 But what can I say now? There is only emptiness. God, it seems, looked out for me not at all. I never wanted to arrive at this place--broken, alone, dejected. My desires are spat upon by heaven itself. Everything I work towards comes to ruin.
 Those who walked, not by self-sacrifice, but in self-fulfillment--they have triumphed over me. Daily I watch them stroll away with the positions, people, and things I myself wanted, but did not sieze. What lesson can be learned from this? How can the sum of life be only "look out for number one"?