Beach, sand, ocean, tide

How I remember our trips to the beach, ten years ago, those secluded spots at the edge of the rocky shoal where we laid our towels, in parallel, and soaked in the warm winter sun, even on that one day when the temperature dipped to 55 and the wink picked up so much, our skin was tarred and feathered by blowing sand on HPV 15 sunscreen! And how I remember swimming in the ocean with you those fun, romantic times, even when the water was only 75 degrees, we could detect a mild but otherwise prohibitive undercurrent. The magic of those days, the vibrant blues and greens and yellows and reds of the land, sea, and sky, and how it gave me hope that, in the middle of life, we might recapture the distilled energy of our youth, and engage in one last thread of impetuosity, before the sagging weight of gravity and time pulled our bodies, minds, and souls into psychosocial menopause –

Until that point, two years ago, when I found the e-mails from your lover, the one you’d been screwing six months, those six months just after our long-delayed wedding, the wedding that took place in the witness of all your family, all my family, all your friends, all my friends – but I err, for you had no friends at that wedding. I used to wonder why, why it was, that all your friends kept their distance, visited you never, called you rarely, why you never called them, sent birthday cards, gifts, inquired after their families and their own friends. And that got me wondering,, why the alcohol, why the prescription drugs, why the flirtations, why the spending, why the gambling, why the risk-taking, why the … why the hell?

And so this is goodbye. I’ve packed up my suitcases and I’m heading to points unknown, to a place where I can find myself again, after all these years, where I can lick my wounds and figure out how it is, how it is that I shall spend the twenty, thirty, maybe forty years that are left to me. But I know that if I were to stay, I would be lost, and forced by the all-powerful pull, I’d end up following you down that sucking vortex of self-destruction.