September 1st, 2008
The day after the day after my birthday
Having completed my 33rd year on this planet over 24 hours ago, I’m left in a thoughtful, and somewhat pensive mood.
I’m coming up on the one year anniversary of a rather painful date. Truth be told, painful anniversaries have already passed – including my own birthday. I found out after-the-fact that Carolyn’s parents’ visit (which overlapped my birthday) was for the expressed purpose of discussing our separation before I even knew about it.
Yes, you read right. Carolyn had her parents come down and visit for a week so she could talk to them about separating from me. I had no idea what was going on; these discussions obviously took place in my absence.
The irony was – nobody even wanted to do anything for my birthday. So I spent August 30, 2007 at the Duke University library doing some reading. I remember thinking to myself, “wow, this is a crappy way to spend a birthday” – I had no idea that this was the tip of the iceberg.
The whopper, of course, will be September 11 – the actual anniversary of when she “dropped the bomb” on me. I still feel its wake every day, and I still lay awake in bed wondering exactly what went wrong, and whether we’ve passed the point of no return.
I’m also wondering if this is the sort of person I want to be with – if it is reconcilable. Time is about the only thing in a situation like this that brings clarity, although I’d hardly claim to have 20/20 vision right now.
There’s a lot of days when I’d like to take Carolyn, shake her by the shoulders and exorcise the alien that has possessed my wife’s body. But I’m not sure if that will happen, and I’m starting to feel rather ambivalent about the disposition of this marriage.
And that, in itself, is a sad space to be in.
Happy birthday, Mike. And thank you, Carolyn, for spoiling two birthdays in a row.
