Part I - Exposition

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009, at around 5pm; it's a date that will haunt me forever.

For those of you who don't know, Nancy, my wife of 6 years, 1 month, 2 weeks, told me she can't be married to me anymore. It wasn't me, it wasn't us, it's her. I know it sounds trite, but it's true. What she wants out of life and what I want out of life have just become too different. She quit her job, is leaving town, and us (I wonder if she got the idea from Ken Nordine). Practically, this leaves me in a pinch: I can't afford to live here by myself. I have offers of plenty of places to go until I get back on my feet, but I can't handle moving. And then there's the real problem...

I feel like my heart has been torn out of my chest, and everything hurts. Well, that's not true. Sometimes everything's numb. I still love her. She still loves me. I'm the naive, romantic type who foolishly believed that would be enough. And for me, it was.

When I'm asleep, I don't remember my dreams, but the moment before I wake up, I'm back to Tuesday, September 1st, when my life was good. As soon as my eyes open, the cold, cruel hand of reality knocks me right in the ribs. Wednesday night (and every night since) I stayed at my Mom's apartment. As you might expect, I cried, no, wailed myself to sleep. As my cellphone alarm went off, familiarly vibrating and playing "Sweet Georgia Brown," I for the briefest of moments thought I was home, and like any other day I could roll over and there would be Nancy. Then I opened my eyes.

Today I went to the OSU game with a dear friend of mine. I didn't want to go, but I had a good time while I was there. The calm of the ride back was bad. I drifted off briefly between Grove City and Lebanon. Then I opened my eyes.

The whole thing is pretty amicable; there was no fight, there's no fighting over who gets what. Friday, September 11, 2009, is her last day at work, and ostensibly her last day here. She'll be packing a few things into her car, and heading back to New York to live with her mother, at least for the time being. We'll be separated for a year, and then we'll make it official. In the meantime, I have to figure out how to keep my life together, and I don't really have a chance to grieve.

She is my everything. We had a great life together. She told me when she met me, she had no idea what she wanted out of life, and I did, and that's what attracted her to me. I still want the same things, but she found out she doesn't.

I don't know why I'm publicly declaring all of this.