A Beginning to an End

I couldn’t say when this feeling had barged into my life. One week, two weeks, a month, I did not know. I was the quintessence of someone with demented ideas and how they could be brought forth in the worst of times. My mind worked in mysterious ways, sort of like God. Well, not really like God and not any more mysterious than anyone else’s, I’m sure, but enough to cause me to go over the edge. I didn’t like the person I was, my mind playing constant tricks, turning me this way and that, using my body like a toy. I couldn’t help myself either, and that is what scared me the most.

I should say that I liked a large number of things, only I made sure that it was not obvious to any. That was the key. If no one knew me, knew my anguish, knew my pain, then they would not be able to use it against me, driving further down into the rut of my life. And that’s just what it was, a rut. As sad as that may seem, the rut seemed good at times, almost as if it were nothing more than a scratch in the surface, but like it or not, it was still a rut. I hadn’t had a time when I was truly happy and that may have been the problem. Thinking back hard, as my memory is mostly shambles of fragmented jelly, I can call to mind instances where I appeared happy, but those times only lasted for a day; my wedding day; my son’s birth. The disallowed any long term, over-a-day-long pleasure, where I could enjoy life and take it for what it was, an exhilarating joyride of an experience.

And so the war raged on. And with that, I lived through the days, attempting to be something that I wasn’t, my psyche barely holding on to what was left of my original personality. The wares of chemicals raged as I attempted to be the kind of person that had left my mother’s womb, the person that loved and was loved, lived through the short-term slumps meant only to occur so that transition could take place in my life and to move forward and revel in the good times. All of this was fruitless for an individual such as myself which made my situation, and current dilemma, that much more scary.

I had lived with my wife for thirteen years, producing two beautiful kids and a beautiful bond of loathing and hatred. We attempted to live as civilized humans should, playing out the game, attending parties, furthering our careers as to enjoy a fruitful life filled with the luxuries so often lusted after by people. We did what was necessary to live a good life, one in which we were able to support our children in a way that would make any mammal proud. We, of course, did not push the limits of society; we lived within the bounds, her fully, me to the extent that my rut would allow. I can remember times when I loathed her for all that she was, socialite, cosmopolitan, and all the things I would not and could not be. The tough times for all of us, which coincidentally came when my rut was the deepest, led to a stronger bond. The bond between her and me, naturally, was never stronger, ever weaker, ever decaying, like the glue that weakly held it together. That wasn’t to say that there were no times when we didn’t get along, certainly we did, but her stubbornness and my rut forbade us to continue in the fashion in which we lived a s a family unit. And so on that cold September, when the sun was low in the sky, the leaves turning rusty, and the wind whisking through the body, leaving a chill deep within our bones, our marriage of thirteen years came to a short and brutal conclusion. Again, the chemicals in my body raged, filling my brain with anguish and anger to no end, which left me in a state of both denial and distress.