Bruised fruit

It's been close to a year since I came home one day and announced I was done with my marriage.  That day surprised me almost as much as it did him.

Although in the months of retrospection and introspection, I've convinced myself it wasn't that surprising at all.  The signs were all there, in that elusive, intuitive, only-I-can-see them way.

Still, I've been told over and over again that it's easier for me; I was the one that made out, the one who got to do what I wanted to do, take control of my destiny rather than deal with the ashes I left behind. 

And maybe that's true.  Who knows?  I'll never be able to try on his experience of this whole thing, like someone else's coat from last winter.  I can only try to imagine, try to push aside my own feelings to sympathize.  But when I do -- and believe me, I do -- I find myself screaming to put my own moth-eaten coat back on.

My marriage was to a wonderful, supportive, extremely dedicated husband and father.  That has always been true. 

So why did I leave?  Well, those reasons are between me and him, so if you're reading this looking for dirt, fuck you and your little doggie too.  Go find the dirt in your own life and thank your lucky stars that you own it and no one else does.

In a community as small as ours, though, it's hard not to feel the eyes on me.  It's hard not to feel defensive, to want to explain. 

And in some ways, that's a good thing.  If I can explain, after all, then the rightness of the new direction in my life solidifies for me.  Still, the marriage that is quickly fading into my past is a semantic puzzle for me.

People leave marriages because there was something wrong, don't they?  Someone cheated.  Someone lied.  Someone wasn't committed to making it work. 

But none of that happened with me and my ex.  We were the best of friends, volatile lovers, and among the things we liked doing together, our favorite was making a home for our daughter.

I'm still at the point where I deal in metaphors.  Maybe years down the road, I'll have a blunt, straightforward way to describe what happened, but for now, the best I can come up with is bruised fruit.

What was it like leaving my marriage?  Like deciding whether to eat bruised fruit. 

Holding in your hands a gorgeous, ripened peach.  Smells delicious, and you know anyone would be lucky to have such a treat in front of them.  But in washing it and preparing to eat it and claim it for your own, you drop it.  And when you pick it up, there's a bruise on one side. 

And that's what it was like for me, that choice.  Knowing I was lucky to have the marriage I did, but also knowing if I went ahead and ate the damn thing, I wouldn't be able to avoid that bruise.  I'd obsess over it, wait for the mealy consistency that comes from eating the bruised part, ignoring the ripe, juicy flesh of the rest of it.   

And knowing that no one deserved to have to share that peach with me, thinking I was savoring it when I wasn't.

Comments

[Sazzy]

I couldn't help but read this slowly, like a good short essay, and be amazed at the analog of bruised fruit. Hmmmmm gets me thinking!

In other words, its a big "WHAT IF" that you went for to get answered, yes? Rather than forever wondering.

[Lady V]

You don't owe anyone else outside the relationship any explanation (except your daughter). It's your life and your heart.