As I sit here eating my oh-so-healthy breakfast of cheddar potato chips, vending machine pastry, and bottled Starbucks vanilla iced coffee, I realize that I’m desperately searching for a way to feel better this morning. How do things reach this point without any logical explanation? Four months ago we were stupid in love, planning a life and a home together after a year of commitment and a matching tattoo, and today I’m waking up alone again without a single shot being fired. No one cheated. There were no fights other than some deep discussions as the distance between us became more apparent, but today all she can say is “I don’t know why” and I’m left with my shredded heart in my hands wondering how the hell to pick up the pieces and move forward. Is it me, did I do something? “No, it’s not you. It’s me,” she says, (my favorite conversation.) Have you fallen out of love? “No, love is not the issue,” she says. So what is it? What can I do or say to change what’s happening now? How do I stop what feels like a roller coaster ride out of control as all of my life seems to slide through my hands like sand and I feel like I’m breathing through broken glass? On the inside I’m on my knees screaming and bleeding and trying to patch the holes in my defenses and all she says is “I don’t know.” Why don’t you know? Why not fight for what we have? Why let it just slip away like garbage instead of something rare and precious to be treasured? This thing that I’ve loved and nurtured and come to value as something I can count on in my life seems to mean nothing to her and I am lost. Suddenly, I am not worth fighting for. We are not worth fighting for. I don’t understand and I don’t know how to make it ok in my head and my heart without that.
“But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.” *
*From the poem "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer The Examiner June 3rd, 1888
© Sarah Ultis 2011
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