The Arrogance of Youth
The Arrogance of Youth
I sit alone. As I have after every workday for nearly three years now. No one to come home to. No pets. No plants. No spouse. No one to notice I have been gone. No one to notice I have returned.
I sit wondering what has become of my life. And what led me to this place.
And I think it comes down to arrogance.
I used to take pride in my arrogance. I used to be one who was proud of how strongly I felt about my own opinions, my own abilities, my own feelings. I used to force my arrogance upon others. Making it a litmus test for whether they were worthy of being my acquaintance. If you couldn’t deal with me being who I am, fuck you, move along.
Something changed. I don’t know when. And I don’t know why. But somehow, my arrogance became rooted in weakness rather than rooted in strength.
And now I sit alone.
I have my standard lies prepared. They are so easy to tell. They are almost easy for me to believe myself. But they are just that, lies. Lies to save face in some cases. Lies to protect myself from pain in others. But they are not the truth.
My divorce has been final for over 8 months now. And it’s been nearly three years since I moved away. I told myself at the time that it was necessary. That because of the mess I had made of my own life, I had no choice but to move in order to clean it up. I had no choice but to move 1,200 miles away from my best friend, my confidante, my better half, my wife. 1,200 miles away from the woman who spent two decades trying to make my life better. In that regard we had something in common. I was always trying to make my life better as well. Occasionally I suppose I was making hers better in the bargain, but it wasn’t the goal nearly as often as it should have been.
When I got here I told my coworkers that she was planning to follow me in a few months. It was so much easier than telling them I was willing to risk the death of a 20-year relationship because I was too much of a coward to face my problems in Texas. I made a colossal mess of my work situation in just three short months, and rather than face the consequences of those actions in Texas, I ran away. Rather than try to make amends with the boss I had angered, I ran. I was still cleaning up the financial messes of 2004-2005 and the IRS was beating on my door. I never told my wife that I had received a garnishment letter just weeks before I made the decision to move. I had successfully ducked them for over 8 years, but they finally caught up, and were planning to start grabbing all my assets. Rather than stay and face the music I ran.
I had been so arrogant about the IRS situation. She and I were in the same boat 8 years earlier. We both owed them quite a bit of money. She made payment plans and resolved her debts. That’s what adults do. Me, I tried to hide. The truly sad thing is that it worked. A year after I moved here, my clock had finally run out on their 10 years to collect and they gave up. I remember bragging to friends that I was one of the few to actually beat them. But at what cost?
After flushing two eBay accounts by procrastinating my way into negative feedback land, I had done the same again in 2007. I was so positive I knew what I was doing. I borrowed almost $8,000 at 28% interest because it was such a no-brainer that I could make money selling Magic cards on eBay. In spite of overwhelming evidence that I wasn’t reliable in getting shipments out on time, I did it again. So convinced I knew what I was doing. I didn’t make a dime on the deal. And then I blew a chunk of the money I got back on stupid crap instead of paying off the debt.
But I suppose the worst arrogance of all was my insistence that I would make a good father. Looking wistfully at young children in a restaurant does not a good father make. And I somehow insisted to myself, and to anyone else that would listen, that I would be a good parent. When my wife said she thought otherwise, I used it as an excuse to sabotage the relationship. The woman who spent twenty years supporting me in every endeavour, in every stupid scheme, in every selfish idea. The same woman who clearly knows me better than anyone on Earth. For some reason I was convinced that she didn’t know best when it came to whether I should be a parent.
I was humble when I first got to Oregon. And I was humble when I first got back to Texas. But as soon as any success came in, I assigned all the credit to myself, instead of recognizing that the woman behind the man was keeping me from falling on my ass. She was the one who lifted me up in Oregon. She was the one who lifted me up again in Texas. She never complained. She did it out of love. And I never said thank you. I never appreciated her efforts. Instead, once I felt strong once more I ran away seeking something better. I was never satisfied with having the love and support of the greatest woman I have ever known. I always wanted more. Because I arrogantly assumed I deserved better.
And now I am alone.
I guess I accomplished my goal. I moved here. I paid off that loan. I got the IRS off my back. I lived like a pauper again until I had the sound financial footing I could never achieve while we were together. The footing I could never achieve because it was always more important for me to be entertained than it was to carry my share of the load. The footing I could never achieve because it was always more important to both of us whether I was happy than whether our future looked bright.
And I now stand on stable footing. Alone. With nowhere to go. And no one to share it with. I crawled until I could stand, but now I stand alone and empty, with nothing around but the abyss of loneliness and a life wasted.
And perhaps cruelest of all, she is finally happy. She is doing things she never did while we were together. She is sucking the marrow out of life in a way I always claimed was important to me but I never allowed her to do. She has added by subtraction. The albatross around her neck flew away to California and now she is free to live her life. And she is doing just that.
Every contact I have with her shows me how great her life without me has become. And shows me that perhaps I finally gave her a worthwhile gift, by simply leaving. That after 20 years of making her life worse, I finally did something to make it better, by leaving. And it hurts.
I can’t listen to music anymore. I never realized just how many songs are about heartache, because it was something I had never known. But now I can’t get away from them. I have become a statistic. I don’t go to movies anymore. I can’t bear to get up from my seat alone, without her by my side to talk about the movie as we walk back to the car, sitting for a moment in the stifling heat without turning the AC on, letting our cold bones warm, while we race through our thoughts and feelings. Movies are empty for me now. I can’t watch TV. It seems like any time I surf through channels I see a program she liked and I wish I could talk with her about it. And instead I turn it off. I paid for 4 months of 450 channels of U-Verse before I gave up because it hurt too much. I would scroll through the 12 HBOs and see movie after movie that she and I had watched a dozen times, and all it brings back is pain.
I tried to date after the divorce. Well, I went on a couple dates anyway. But I tried to tell everyone I was dating. I wanted so bad to be ok. I wanted so badly to be the guy who moves on and is fine. And all it did is remind me how much I hurt. I wrote a Craigslist ad seeking a mate, and nearly every quality I listed was something she already had. I tried to tell myself it was about finding a mother for my future children. Because she had to be wrong. Of course I would make a good father. What was she thinking in telling me I wouldn’t? But what kind of father chooses the possibility of a future child over a woman who has spent 20 years faithfully loving and cherishing him, all because she was willing to tell him the truth? What kind of father does that? What kind of man does that?
An arrogant man.
I guess I am grown up now. Finally. I never did while I was married. I was married 18 years. I had my own business in two different states. I did all these great things. But I never really grew up. Not until I threw away the most important thing in my life, the greatest thing I have ever had, the greatest woman I have ever known. It was only after that that I grew up. It was only then that I started paying all my bills. Only then that I stopped wasting money on stupid crap. Only then that I started making the decisions that adults make.
Grown up. And alone.
And 1200 miles away, she is happy. She is vibrant. She is alive. I am no longer there to drain her energy. I am no longer there to keep her down.
And I can’t tell her any of this. Because when it comes down to it, it’s not her problem. It’s mine. She bears no responsibility here. Those ties were severed when the marriage ended. My pain is mine now. My loss is mine now. And to complain about how much it hurts would only serve to make her life worse. There is nothing to gain by it. All I would do is transfer pain from me to her. And where is the fairness in that?
I describe her as my best friend. And if I truly believe that, then I cannot share this with her. What kind of friend spreads pain and misery without cause? The noble thing for me to do is to suffer in silence. This isn’t her fault. This isn’t her burden. And no matter how jealous I may be of what her life is now, it isn’t fair for me to expect to be a part of it. I made my choices. I chose to be the arrogant asshole who puts himself above all others. For me to tell her how much I hurt and expect her to do something about it wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be what a grownup does. It wouldn’t be what a friend does.
How angry am I at my arrogant younger self who brought me to this place? More than I can ever express. I had 20 years with her, years full of joy and sadness and laughter and tears and comfort and fear and bliss and love. And I continued making choice after choice that slowly but surely led me to this place. Time and time again I chose my temporary happiness over the lifetime we shared together. Until too many temporaries piled together and became a permanent. What I wouldn’t give to undo the pain I have brought. What I wouldn’t give to have a second chance. What I wouldn’t give for the opportunity to do it all over again.
But instead I sit here alone. Knowing that I will spend the rest of my life this way. Knowing that she will be happy, that her life will go on. That she will do great things. That she will fill her history with memories. And that when the time comes for her life to end, she will greet that end without regret, knowing she has been true to herself and that she has done her best.
I know this as surely as I know anything I know. As surely as I know that I do not share that same fate. My future will not be full of great things, or great memories. And the man who brazenly told anyone who would listed that he lives his life without regrets will face his end with little else, knowing that this is the fate he deserves.
How I wish I could undo what I have done…
But I also know just how selfish that wish would be…
And perhaps a grownup needs to accept that the time for selfishness is passed. And to try to recapture what I have lost would be the height of selfishness, since it would only benefit me…
So I sit alone.
I sit alone. As I have after every workday for nearly three years now. No one to come home to. No pets. No plants. No spouse. No one to notice I have been gone. No one to notice I have returned.
I sit wondering what has become of my life. And what led me to this place.
And I think it comes down to arrogance.
I used to take pride in my arrogance. I used to be one who was proud of how strongly I felt about my own opinions, my own abilities, my own feelings. I used to force my arrogance upon others. Making it a litmus test for whether they were worthy of being my acquaintance. If you couldn’t deal with me being who I am, fuck you, move along.
Something changed. I don’t know when. And I don’t know why. But somehow, my arrogance became rooted in weakness rather than rooted in strength.
And now I sit alone.
I have my standard lies prepared. They are so easy to tell. They are almost easy for me to believe myself. But they are just that, lies. Lies to save face in some cases. Lies to protect myself from pain in others. But they are not the truth.
My divorce has been final for over 8 months now. And it’s been nearly three years since I moved away. I told myself at the time that it was necessary. That because of the mess I had made of my own life, I had no choice but to move in order to clean it up. I had no choice but to move 1,200 miles away from my best friend, my confidante, my better half, my wife. 1,200 miles away from the woman who spent two decades trying to make my life better. In that regard we had something in common. I was always trying to make my life better as well. Occasionally I suppose I was making hers better in the bargain, but it wasn’t the goal nearly as often as it should have been.
When I got here I told my coworkers that she was planning to follow me in a few months. It was so much easier than telling them I was willing to risk the death of a 20-year relationship because I was too much of a coward to face my problems in Texas. I made a colossal mess of my work situation in just three short months, and rather than face the consequences of those actions in Texas, I ran away. Rather than try to make amends with the boss I had angered, I ran. I was still cleaning up the financial messes of 2004-2005 and the IRS was beating on my door. I never told my wife that I had received a garnishment letter just weeks before I made the decision to move. I had successfully ducked them for over 8 years, but they finally caught up, and were planning to start grabbing all my assets. Rather than stay and face the music I ran.
I had been so arrogant about the IRS situation. She and I were in the same boat 8 years earlier. We both owed them quite a bit of money. She made payment plans and resolved her debts. That’s what adults do. Me, I tried to hide. The truly sad thing is that it worked. A year after I moved here, my clock had finally run out on their 10 years to collect and they gave up. I remember bragging to friends that I was one of the few to actually beat them. But at what cost?
After flushing two eBay accounts by procrastinating my way into negative feedback land, I had done the same again in 2007. I was so positive I knew what I was doing. I borrowed almost $8,000 at 28% interest because it was such a no-brainer that I could make money selling Magic cards on eBay. In spite of overwhelming evidence that I wasn’t reliable in getting shipments out on time, I did it again. So convinced I knew what I was doing. I didn’t make a dime on the deal. And then I blew a chunk of the money I got back on stupid crap instead of paying off the debt.
But I suppose the worst arrogance of all was my insistence that I would make a good father. Looking wistfully at young children in a restaurant does not a good father make. And I somehow insisted to myself, and to anyone else that would listen, that I would be a good parent. When my wife said she thought otherwise, I used it as an excuse to sabotage the relationship. The woman who spent twenty years supporting me in every endeavour, in every stupid scheme, in every selfish idea. The same woman who clearly knows me better than anyone on Earth. For some reason I was convinced that she didn’t know best when it came to whether I should be a parent.
I was humble when I first got to Oregon. And I was humble when I first got back to Texas. But as soon as any success came in, I assigned all the credit to myself, instead of recognizing that the woman behind the man was keeping me from falling on my ass. She was the one who lifted me up in Oregon. She was the one who lifted me up again in Texas. She never complained. She did it out of love. And I never said thank you. I never appreciated her efforts. Instead, once I felt strong once more I ran away seeking something better. I was never satisfied with having the love and support of the greatest woman I have ever known. I always wanted more. Because I arrogantly assumed I deserved better.
And now I am alone.
I guess I accomplished my goal. I moved here. I paid off that loan. I got the IRS off my back. I lived like a pauper again until I had the sound financial footing I could never achieve while we were together. The footing I could never achieve because it was always more important for me to be entertained than it was to carry my share of the load. The footing I could never achieve because it was always more important to both of us whether I was happy than whether our future looked bright.
And I now stand on stable footing. Alone. With nowhere to go. And no one to share it with. I crawled until I could stand, but now I stand alone and empty, with nothing around but the abyss of loneliness and a life wasted.
And perhaps cruelest of all, she is finally happy. She is doing things she never did while we were together. She is sucking the marrow out of life in a way I always claimed was important to me but I never allowed her to do. She has added by subtraction. The albatross around her neck flew away to California and now she is free to live her life. And she is doing just that.
Every contact I have with her shows me how great her life without me has become. And shows me that perhaps I finally gave her a worthwhile gift, by simply leaving. That after 20 years of making her life worse, I finally did something to make it better, by leaving. And it hurts.
I can’t listen to music anymore. I never realized just how many songs are about heartache, because it was something I had never known. But now I can’t get away from them. I have become a statistic. I don’t go to movies anymore. I can’t bear to get up from my seat alone, without her by my side to talk about the movie as we walk back to the car, sitting for a moment in the stifling heat without turning the AC on, letting our cold bones warm, while we race through our thoughts and feelings. Movies are empty for me now. I can’t watch TV. It seems like any time I surf through channels I see a program she liked and I wish I could talk with her about it. And instead I turn it off. I paid for 4 months of 450 channels of U-Verse before I gave up because it hurt too much. I would scroll through the 12 HBOs and see movie after movie that she and I had watched a dozen times, and all it brings back is pain.
I tried to date after the divorce. Well, I went on a couple dates anyway. But I tried to tell everyone I was dating. I wanted so bad to be ok. I wanted so badly to be the guy who moves on and is fine. And all it did is remind me how much I hurt. I wrote a Craigslist ad seeking a mate, and nearly every quality I listed was something she already had. I tried to tell myself it was about finding a mother for my future children. Because she had to be wrong. Of course I would make a good father. What was she thinking in telling me I wouldn’t? But what kind of father chooses the possibility of a future child over a woman who has spent 20 years faithfully loving and cherishing him, all because she was willing to tell him the truth? What kind of father does that? What kind of man does that?
An arrogant man.
I guess I am grown up now. Finally. I never did while I was married. I was married 18 years. I had my own business in two different states. I did all these great things. But I never really grew up. Not until I threw away the most important thing in my life, the greatest thing I have ever had, the greatest woman I have ever known. It was only after that that I grew up. It was only then that I started paying all my bills. Only then that I stopped wasting money on stupid crap. Only then that I started making the decisions that adults make.
Grown up. And alone.
And 1200 miles away, she is happy. She is vibrant. She is alive. I am no longer there to drain her energy. I am no longer there to keep her down.
And I can’t tell her any of this. Because when it comes down to it, it’s not her problem. It’s mine. She bears no responsibility here. Those ties were severed when the marriage ended. My pain is mine now. My loss is mine now. And to complain about how much it hurts would only serve to make her life worse. There is nothing to gain by it. All I would do is transfer pain from me to her. And where is the fairness in that?
I describe her as my best friend. And if I truly believe that, then I cannot share this with her. What kind of friend spreads pain and misery without cause? The noble thing for me to do is to suffer in silence. This isn’t her fault. This isn’t her burden. And no matter how jealous I may be of what her life is now, it isn’t fair for me to expect to be a part of it. I made my choices. I chose to be the arrogant asshole who puts himself above all others. For me to tell her how much I hurt and expect her to do something about it wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be what a grownup does. It wouldn’t be what a friend does.
How angry am I at my arrogant younger self who brought me to this place? More than I can ever express. I had 20 years with her, years full of joy and sadness and laughter and tears and comfort and fear and bliss and love. And I continued making choice after choice that slowly but surely led me to this place. Time and time again I chose my temporary happiness over the lifetime we shared together. Until too many temporaries piled together and became a permanent. What I wouldn’t give to undo the pain I have brought. What I wouldn’t give to have a second chance. What I wouldn’t give for the opportunity to do it all over again.
But instead I sit here alone. Knowing that I will spend the rest of my life this way. Knowing that she will be happy, that her life will go on. That she will do great things. That she will fill her history with memories. And that when the time comes for her life to end, she will greet that end without regret, knowing she has been true to herself and that she has done her best.
I know this as surely as I know anything I know. As surely as I know that I do not share that same fate. My future will not be full of great things, or great memories. And the man who brazenly told anyone who would listed that he lives his life without regrets will face his end with little else, knowing that this is the fate he deserves.
How I wish I could undo what I have done…
But I also know just how selfish that wish would be…
And perhaps a grownup needs to accept that the time for selfishness is passed. And to try to recapture what I have lost would be the height of selfishness, since it would only benefit me…
So I sit alone.