In These Pictures...

What went wrong?

I ask myself that all the time...about so many things...

But tonight it's about our love....and our marriage. I found myself tonight caught up in browsing through our old photos...and in many of them I find myself wondering who that woman with you is...then I realize it's me.

It feels like a different life. Like a completely different person, someone I don't know.

It was one year four days ago that I left for the first time. You had told me that you never believed that I would stay...that you never believed my marriage vows to you. I was heartbroken. We were already on rocky ground...I had been telling you for months. Then you also admitted that you felt you could never be yourself around me...that you were always walking on eggshells.

Sometimes I am just completely baffled at how I ended up here...alone. Nights like these, when I walk in the door...and it's just the cats welcoming me. Nights I spend in complete silence...except for the hum of the heater and my occasional guitar strumming...if only it were just as quiet inside my head.

As I look through our pictures...I wonder when exactly it was over. I wonder when it was over for you...and for me. I knew more than a year ago that it was done....when did you know?

I hate that we can't be friends. I tried...you shot me down. But I guess it's better...for someone anyway.

I do get mad...that it's over sometimes. This is not what I had intended....and I know I did not fail alone. I get angry...

I have been ill...and tonight I was visiting my parents and Grandma. Grandma, of course was fussing over me, and I told her, "Don't worry, I've been sick before."

My Dad replied, "Not single."

Those simple words reverberated through my ribcage like a gunshot. It's difficult enough to come home to be alone...to not have someone to hold on to or hold you...to not have someone you can talk to all about your day every day...but then to be reminded of it...kicked while you're already down.

Frankly, it's not easy for me to be single. I see myself much more clearly reflected in the eyes of another...trouble is...in these pictures, I already knew I didn't like the reflection I saw.

What makes it most difficult, is once I found a reflection I liked...it was taken from me.

In these pictures...we looked happy--and sometimes we were. Sometimes I was happy. But no one knew we were on the brink of divorce. Oh...what a facade...

So what went wrong? So many things.

And I am still reeling. Still alone in so many ways. Still angry with you for so many things. And I know you don't care.

I guess that's the last thing that's wrong.