The Death of Marriage
It looked so right on paper to everyone; but when the night embraced her she was alone, still wanting to believe in love.
Her footsteps echoed through her cathedral of a house which offered her refuge in the empty rooms with only the sound of her walking.
Once again certain realities became inevitable;
dinner for one,
one side of the bed slightly misshapen,
empty closets,
it was all too familiar, again.
She told her friends she slept in the middle, which was not
exactly true, but there was no need to share everything since
this was not the first time she had found herself living in-between love.
When she was afraid the night might become her enemy, she would find some old Cary Grant movie to watch, they all seemed to offer the promise of love winning out in the end.
But she knew better. Movies are only made up celluloid pieces
of romance infused with fantasy and glamour to make you
believe in the stuff of dreams.
Sometimes when she sat on her patio in the cool night, she listened to the sounds exiting from the surrounding hills and didn’t feel so alone.
She thought it wasn’t supposed to be like this, being single again,
holding a glass of chardonnay shadowed against the twilight of fallen stars, this was not the Hollywood ending she dreamed of.
The death of her marriage was a solitary experience that eroded
slowly in the beginning, then faster when there is no place left to go.
Until each day stayed longer than the one before, and the hours
seem to stretch out to a place called forever; now she only wanted
to be alone with the silence of her self-imposed sanctuary.
She had been here before; when the hands she felt on her
body were her own, when there was empty space in the bathroom cabinet, when she went to a dinner as a party of one, not offering any excuse; when it was alright to fall asleep with the lights still on.
She knew being in love was never easy, but she hoped that maybe it would be different this time; maybe she had gotten it right.
She was wrong.
II- Endings and Beginnings
The beach was her refuge. It was her place of solitude where she did not need to hide.
She walked by herself, as she did most mornings, the never-ending waves caressing her feet, moving the fine grains of sand around, into shape shifting patterns.
The mystery of love was something she no longer pretended to understand, as she looked out at the water trying to appreciate the quiet at this hour.
She had grown sensitive to the noise that followed her wherever she went, but in the calm morning, she didn’t need to protect herself.
The early morning cool mist hung in the air as the orange sun began to explode out across the endless Pacific.
Her thoughts tumbled inwards, juggling bits and pieces of a life she had rebuilt, now she was going to have to go back to the beginning, again.
This second act had begun as friendship, and in the end, it had turned back into a declaration of the same; it sounded better that way, more like a made for television movie with a safe ending.
She had hoped when love caught up with her once more, it might last forever, but the suddenness of the end, was unexpected.
She caught herself laughing out loud, a smile creased her face as
she shook her head and turned around to head back up the beach, leaving the morning behind.
She knew tomorrow was going to be a new beginning anchored with another ending like so many that had come before.
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