"i have been driven like the snow"
"I suddenly realized how much being a husband was about fear: fear of not being able to keep somebody safe, of not being able to protect somebody from all the bad stuff you want to protect them from. Knowing they have more tears in them than you will be able to keep them from crying. I realized that Renee had seen me fail, and that she was the person I was going to be failing in front of for the rest of my life. It was just a little failure, but it promised bigger failures to come. Additional ones, anyway. But that's who your wife is, the person you fail in front of. Love is so confusing; there's no peace of mind."
-- Love is a Mix Tape, Rob Sheffield
I think that's where I went wrong.
Obviously there were other huge, pressing things forcing my marriage to a close: Having nothing in common, the general repulsion I felt in response to some of his habits, the lack of interest in each other, the way we'd get back at each other, money handling. Etc, etc. But I can't sit back and say Abe was the full reason for our fragmented life. I'm sure I did things wrong and I'm sure those things contributed to our inevitable incompatibility. It takes two. Yadda, yadda.
So, tonight I'm sitting on my love seat, switching between reading Sheffield's heartfelt lines and watching the moon crawl lazily across the sky, when I come across the passage at the top. The bold line is where I got stuck for ages. I don't handle failure well. I'd hide my mistakes at school from Abe by continuing to go out every Wednesday night and pretend I was still attending a class I'd dropped early in the semester. Everything at work was always perfect as far as he was concerned. Nothing was wrong with his wife. Ever. But I don't know how much of that was knowing that talking to him would do little to comfort me or if I even had to put on these airs in front of the man I'd chosen to be my other half.. 'till death would us part.
I have trouble with this with other people. I probably would have gotten that divorce a lot earlier if it hadn't meant admitting I wasn't perfect. There are some things I can't hide: my less than perfect body, a bad hair day, or a blemish or two. But growing up and never knowing any real physical perfection made me feel that I'd need to make up for that two-fold in every other part of my life.
"She isn't very pretty, but she's kinda smart."
So if I didn't do well in the brains department, what would that leave me?
That's my big step, then. The moment I'm able to admit that I've attempted to do something and failed miserably at it to someone. Not these little day-to-day mistakes or bloopers that happen along the way. I'm good at making myself the butt of jokes. Doesn't bother me much. It's the big things, the things I really want and fall short of, that I find myself hiding.
-- Love is a Mix Tape, Rob Sheffield
I think that's where I went wrong.
Obviously there were other huge, pressing things forcing my marriage to a close: Having nothing in common, the general repulsion I felt in response to some of his habits, the lack of interest in each other, the way we'd get back at each other, money handling. Etc, etc. But I can't sit back and say Abe was the full reason for our fragmented life. I'm sure I did things wrong and I'm sure those things contributed to our inevitable incompatibility. It takes two. Yadda, yadda.
So, tonight I'm sitting on my love seat, switching between reading Sheffield's heartfelt lines and watching the moon crawl lazily across the sky, when I come across the passage at the top. The bold line is where I got stuck for ages. I don't handle failure well. I'd hide my mistakes at school from Abe by continuing to go out every Wednesday night and pretend I was still attending a class I'd dropped early in the semester. Everything at work was always perfect as far as he was concerned. Nothing was wrong with his wife. Ever. But I don't know how much of that was knowing that talking to him would do little to comfort me or if I even had to put on these airs in front of the man I'd chosen to be my other half.. 'till death would us part.
I have trouble with this with other people. I probably would have gotten that divorce a lot earlier if it hadn't meant admitting I wasn't perfect. There are some things I can't hide: my less than perfect body, a bad hair day, or a blemish or two. But growing up and never knowing any real physical perfection made me feel that I'd need to make up for that two-fold in every other part of my life.
"She isn't very pretty, but she's kinda smart."
So if I didn't do well in the brains department, what would that leave me?
That's my big step, then. The moment I'm able to admit that I've attempted to do something and failed miserably at it to someone. Not these little day-to-day mistakes or bloopers that happen along the way. I'm good at making myself the butt of jokes. Doesn't bother me much. It's the big things, the things I really want and fall short of, that I find myself hiding.