April 26, 2024

looking so long at these pictures of you

but always just breaking apart

Sometimes I sit down to write a newsletter with no idea what I am going to write about. I just know I want to write; I have the urge, the desire, the clarity, and the time. But what I don’t often have is an idea. There are vague topics in the back of mind, things I want to explore but I’m either emotionally or mentally not ready for them yet. There are albums I’d love to write about that I don’t think anyone would be interested in. Stories from my youth, ramblings about being divorced, things about the state of the country and the world. So much to write about, so little brain power sometimes.

I have a few things I like to do when I get stuck. If the weather cooperates, I’ll go for a walk. No music, just my mind working itself free while I get some cardio in. Sometimes I’ll sit in a dark room with my airpods in and listen to my favorite writing music. And sometimes I go on flickr and look at old photos, back from when I had a lot of creative energy.

As always happens when I open flickr is I’m bombarded with my photostream and there they are; pictures of him, pictures of us, pictures of vacations and adventures and good times.

When I accepted the finality of my divorce, I also accepted the fact that we had some really good times and I was going to hold on to those memories because life was great then. I wasn’t going to ritualistically destroy photos of us because that would be to ignore the fact that he really did make me happy for a period. It would be an insult to the wonderful trips we took to Barcelona and Memphis, Chicago and LA, to San Francisco and Tahoe. All those memories are solid and good, and I didn’t want to lose them. I thought this was a healthy way to approach things. I was proud of myself.

And then things changed. I discovered - three years after he left me - that he had a secret life, one which involved infidelity, lies, omissions, betrayal. Everything looks different now. The rose colored past I was pining over with those photos became murky and discolored. The pictures seemed faded to me, like they had lost their lustre.

I scanned my photostream and stared at particular photos - there he is pointing at the Mediterranean Sea and laughing about something. There we are in my sister’s backyard, his arm protectively around me, smiling; and here at the Faith No More concert, the sun lighting up his golden hair. And look at this one, on the beach in Lake Tahoe, sitting cross legged on the bank of the lake, looking for all the world like a rock star.

I used to look at these memorials of a time gone by and smile, if somewhat wistfully. For fourteen years, I lived with a man who I thought loved me unconditionally, supported me, slept with me, shared his life with me. All those vacations and adventures were wrapped up in that. We were a couple, seemingly devoted to each other. At least it appears that way in my photos. While those pictures were being taken, as he presented himself as the loving partner, he was living two lives. I look at those photos now and think, was he cheating on me then? Was he hooking up with someone on his phone while we were in Spain? Was he secretly carrying on an emotional relationship with another woman while I thought I was living my best life? Here’s a picture of us in Disneyland, looking like the happiest couple in the world, me shrouded in blissful ignorance, him concealing his penchant for trawling Craigslist.

I thought I was happy. And really, I was. There’s something to be said about the phrase “ignorance is bliss” because not knowing what was going allowed me to believe my life with him was a gift, that I was lucky and fortunate and blessed and it would be this way forever. That’s what he promised: his loyalty, his love, his fidelity. Forever. That’s not what I got.

Knowing all this now has tainted the memories. I no longer look at these pictures and think, we had a good time, I’ll be grateful for that. I just look at them and think about all the lies he told, all the things he hid. I scour his face in the photos for clues. Was he thinking of someone else as he held my hand walking down Beale Street? Was he really working on his laptop while we ate room service croissants for breakfast in bed during our stay in Barcelona? Oh, that one of him in our backyard with his hair long, sun shining down on him, looking for all the world to me like the perfect man. My perfect man.

But he wasn’t mine. He never was. He belonged to everyone else. He belonged to the woman he was carrying on an online relationship with. He belonged to his quick hookups. He belonged to AA. He belonged to his work. He never belonged to me. If he did, he wouldn’t have made the decisions he made.

When we first separated, I mourned my marriage. I mourned fourteen years of giving my all to him and only him. But I settled into this place where I was fine with it all, where I hung on to the happy memories and remained grateful for the life experiences we had together. Now I’m mourning more than that. After three years of confusion as to why our marriage died, I have clarity. And with that clarity comes a whole slew of other feelings that work against the way I chose to heal. The wounds are open again; there are new wounds among them that will take some time to close up.

Every photograph of him is a reminder of betrayal. Every picture where we are smiling - the one from our honeymoon where we look radiant comes to mind - makes me feel like an idiot for trusting him with my heart and my life. I wish I didn’t know the things I know now. I wish I could spend the rest of my life thinking that we had a good thing for awhile. But we never did. It was all a lie, a front, a joke. That hurts more than the leaving did.

All my memories are tainted. All my photos are reminders of betrayal. I will never forgive him for that. Nor should I be expected to.

As usual, when I sat down to write today, I didn’t know what I was going to write about. I thought maybe this would be about writer’s block, about the way my mind has been working - or not working - lately. Writing is a journey, though, and it’s best to just go down the road your mind wants to travel. Purging emotions is good; that I have somewhere to put all these intrusive thoughts is a godsend. That you read them at all is a miracle.

I want to write about him less, I already said I was done with him. These developments have brought me back to square one and I am fighting a battle to not only move forward, but leave all those happy memories behind. It’s a battle I will win. In the long run.