You never cried for us. Not a tear that I saw. Maybe if you had, I might not have made the choice I did.
When I told you I was done with us and I didn’t know what to do and I needed some time to figure out things, you just looked at me blankly and said, for the first time in our marriage, “if that’s what you want.”
In the year of counseling, you never shed a tear. I cried oceans and screamed and let out everything and you sat there like Mr. Spock, staring, fighting, not willing to cry for us. Not a single tear.
When we packed up our home of nine years, the place I wanted to love so much but that you had made your own, not a tear. You coldly packed. I know you were hurt but you never asked why, you never said that simple, single word that might have stopped it all - “stay”. Okay, two words - “stay, please.”
When we stood outside our place for the last time and I couldn’t stop weeping, you just said good-bye, no tears, no questions. Just walked away.
In the time since, not a tear, not a sign that our marriage meant anything.
I realize I cut you off because I think I was afraid if I saw you, I might not have the strength to walk away from you. I might end up like Carrie in “Sex and the City” and just throw myself at you if I saw you and put everything behind us -- all the pain, all the abuse, all the shit you put me through. And then I might have another 15 years of the same thing. I could not do that.
But if you had just showed me that you valued our life, that you valued me, by letting yourself go enough to cry with me or in front of me, it might all have been different. But you coldly walked away, ending our relationship because you “didn’t want to be fiscally responsible” for me anymore. Not because you were hurt or you didn’t love me anymore or because you wanted to end things and move on, because you didn’t want to be “fiscally responsible”. Wow, that’s love.
Maybe movies have corrupted us into wanting, needing, expecting that moment when we open to the door to find the one we love standing on the other side of it, begging us to come back to them, that they don’t care what happened, they can’t live without us. Sorry, doesn’t happen in real life.
In real life, you end up with resentment and distance and anger and pain. And that’s it. No glorious romantic comedy moment where everything you want comes true. Just the struggle to get through the day, even now, almost four years later.
I know you shed your tears to your friends and your family. I know you shed your tears into your pillow.
But what might have saved us is if you had just shed a single tear around me.
3 comments:
wow! powerful piece of writing. I can definitely relate...
Susan, I've been reading your stuff for a while now and find that it pushes a multitude of buttons. I must say I envy the fact that you can paint. This is something that I've always wanted to do. I am also struck with how good you look these day, almost like a whole new person.
Can I say something, though? I wish you would stop using your directorial work as a weapon against your insecurities. I used to think you were more interested in being recognized as a director than in the actual directing work itself. I think your tenacity blows that theory out of the water, though.
I can definitely relate to much of what you write. I think you're gifted, by the way. Give yourself a break. Really.
HI
S
Post a Comment