The Good, The Bad, and the Just Plain Weird

It's not all so bad. I mean, who wants to marry a person who isn't 100% sure they want to marry you? I learned that lesson in love a long time ago. If there is even a 2% doubt that you aren't sure about me, don't let the door hit you on your way out. I have no qualms about that at all. Because the 2% can become 20% in no time at all in some people.

Most of the time, when people are unsure, they are unsure about themselves. There is a line in East of Eden where John Steinbeck writes one of love's most evident truths: "Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure -- never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself?"

Love can save you. It can save you from drowning in the darkest part of yourself. But the masquerade is that love only leads you there and from there you must help yourself. You must love yourself enough to want to believe that you are destined for something more, that you deserve the light that it brings... or else the darkness will slowly creep back in. And the 2% will become 20% in no time at all.

There was something in his eyes that night that told me he had no answers. That he would say and do whatever he could just to achieve the desired result -- space, separation, relief -- a life, without me. Up until that point, there were no signs. We were blissfully happy. Sure we had our arguments, our spats about our wedding, our future -- but we were happy. Really, really happy. The kind that only comes with comfort, security, a knowing that you have found a best friend to share in life's adventures. I knew that when he just gave that all up, he was thinking of no one but himself. He was running on auto-pilot. And rather than beg for a chance, to wait around our small town for some sign, I moved all of my stuff out two days later. There was no chance for him to waffle here. No in between time where he could help me put stuff in storage, move me into a new place -- make himself rationalize this decision or to know where I was to keep himself with some link to me. I moved out, and I left town some 800 miles away.

It is hard to imagine a life without him. Not that it's impossible, not that I don't think that I could move on, but it's hard to believe this was really meant for us. But I can't do anything. It's up to him to fix this mess, it's up to him to say he made the biggest mistake of his life. That he wants to try again and he wants to go to counseling.

I am thankful this happened before we were legally bound together. Long before I picked up my life, married the military, and moved to Alaska or Guam. Then it would really be a nightmare. But how does one heal something that is as big as this? This hopeful future, broken before it even bent.

Leo Buscaglia said, "The heart... is frail and easily broken, but wonderfully resilient." But that doesn't take the weirdness of this period away. People don't know what to say or are scared they will say the wrong thing, so they don't talk. It's lonely out here. But I am the only person who knows what I feel when I do something as simple as put my hand in my pocket -- and my ring doesn't catch. Even something as simple as making a fried egg white turns twilight zone-ish when I realize I registered for the pan I am using and that I will never get. Or even more somber than our favorite Sunday morning ritual was making a big breakfast together. We shared one plate, always one plate and two forks.

It's those rituals that were love, that were the togetherness, the foundation and hope of all things to come. And now I am here, caught in the inbetween. On auto-pilot.