Ambien, my Ambien

2011-06-29
3:30 p.m.

On the television last night was the story of a woman who had lost her husband to a sudden death. She was talking about how there was no closure. Never a chance to say goodbye.

And it occurred to me that it isn�t just death that creates that hole in our soul. Anything that ends suddenly leaves a gaping canyon of whatifs and whatnows and all the thingsIcouldhavedonedifferently maybes.

Bastardo left with no warning. One night, three days before our third year anniversary he simply said �I think we need to take some time apart.� And by the next morning he had blocked his phone number and email addresses. Two days later the boxes containing everything I had at his house arrived at my office via FedEx.

Three years of Iloveyous. Three years of untiltheendoftime�and beyond. Three years of our pet phrase ditto, the one I uttered when he said I Love You and I didn�t quite know how to respond. The one he engraved on the gold heart he gave me to wear around my neck. Three years of all the nights he wasn't working spent together, of putting names on each other�s bank accounts, of sharing everything about our lives. Of knowing all the worst things, and all the best.

Well, almost everything I suppose. For while I trusted and believed him, he never trusted me. While I was scrupulously faithful, even to gradually shutting down communication with almost all of my friends at his request he was sleeping with his previous girlfriend. Maybe girlfriends � I only found the one. While I wrote glowing praise, love letters, cards and emails, he was trashing everything about me in the personal diary he keeps on his phone.

It would have been better had I not looked. Last year he tested the Blackberry backup he installed on my computer by backing up his own phone. I had never touched it, never opened it. But after the FedEx boxes arrived I couldn�t help it. Three years of never, ever, looking at his email account or looking in his phone (even though I knew the passwords and even though he not only looked at mine but answered it) I opened the backup and looked. Maybe I was looking for answers. For a way to understand. What I found was unmentionable and crushing in its stark reality.

And while I can make it through the days by working hard, the nights � oh my soul � the nights. I grasp at anything that will put me to sleep quickly so I don�t ever, ever have time to think.

Back to closure. Now that I know. Now that I�ve read it. Now that the evidence of the �Continuing Education Credits� trips to the Dominican Republic two years in a row I couldn�t go on with him because �it�s really just the hospital staff attendng really boring classes all day� were actually with her. Now that all the emails and messages signed �with love� have been seen. Now that events that had been presented as just helping an old friend out were actually something else - with her. Now that I see the reason we never spent Halloween (his favorite holiday) together was because it was their anniversary.

When do I get closure. When does he finally actually SAY to me � I never wanted you, I never loved you, everything about us was a lie. When does he say he used me for whatever sick personal reasons he needed to use me for. When does he say that he didn�t ever trust or believe me because he knew I shouldn�t have trusted or believed him. When does he admit the reason he always accused me of infidelities was because he was unfaithful. When does he apologize for the bruises and the screaming, and the shoving and all the constant accusations of all the things he imagined I must be doing to him because he was doing them to me.

When does the hole close, the tears stop, the self-loathing and recriminations for being quite so completely ridiculously stupid and trusting YET AGAIN finally end. Because I want closure. And I need to figure out how to finally start over � or make a Finally Decision not to.

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