Mercurial Much?

Damn, I miss the guy I married. He was...so funny, so beautiful, so gentle...so much an unexpected gift...I miss him so...freaking...much...

See, he came to me long after I'd given up on finding someone, anyone to love me in good true faith. I was after-30 lonely, and it was a different kind of lonely, not like this one, and the chances of two people finding, loving, keeping each other seemed obscenely low. I'm sure it was.

But him. When I met him, when he turned around and smiled at me in that little Church in Eldersburg, I knew. It wasn't love at first sight, I'm (as I so adamantly pointed out in the last post or two) not stupid. It was...well, it was unexpected and even a bit unpleasant, it was a realization without preparation. Knocked me down. Kept me very quiet and sort of pale (or so I hear) on the long ride home after the wedding rehearsal. Kept me up that night.

Hmmm....

We never looked back. God, how I adored him! And I'm sadder now for how he then adored me just as well. I got a dozen roses every day for a flat-out solid week after our first date. Can you imagine? I teased him that our children would be limited to community college if he kept it up. I would have been less fascinated and more appreciative of the roses if I'd known that they apparently meant something that was only true before we married. I haven't seen roses since my wedding bouquet. Foreshadow much?

Oh, I could go on...I was treasured...my beautiful husband had a smile, such a magical smile, and I mostly saw it if my late-night kiss broke his sleep just a for the briefest moment. He would lift his head and open his eyes and he would smile a smile that was so true, so loving, so pure, it made me, this tattered tired thing, it made me shine like a queen. It gave me peace. It's gone now, of course, that smile. He sleeps with a hood pulled over his head, with earplugs, and hell, half the time, I'm not sure if he's there or not--just a clutter of pillows and quilts beside me in the dark. But oh, how lost I am without that smile!

And I used to be beautiful. "Beautiful," he would say. Then, I was pretty. He would say that. Now he doesn't say. Really. If pressed, he will admit to "finding me attractive." When the fuck did I become Florence Henderson? I don't know how that happened.

How can twelve years be a regret? How can *I* regret wasting his time for the last twelve years? But I do. Oh, how I do. How can I wish that he had married better, or more appropriately, when all we ever wanted was to be married? Yes. Yes, I am sorry. Sorry I didn't quite meet minimum standards. Sorry I didn't quite get the hang of whatever I was supposed to get the hang of. I am sorry. I didn't mean to fall short for him. I know I did, I do. But I always thought he'd love me. And yet, here we are, falling away, losing our grip, fading on the horizon. God, I never had second thoughts, never reconsidered, never saw anything but our love.

Our Great Love. God, how I loved him. Him. All of him. That guy. I miss him more than I can bear. More than I can put into words. And I'm not supposed to notice the difference, sort of like when they replaced the Becky character on "Roseanne." But, as I said before, I'm not stupid. He's gone, that guy I loved. That guy who loved me. Same parking space, different car. And the indifferent stranger who swears nothing his fault and I am really losing my mind is only pulling down heart so much farther so much faster. And without so much as a thought.

I mean, seriously, I don't know him. And what's worse, I do know what he thinks of me.