With Less

A Sunday story on a Monday. This comes from two stories put together. And it's sad, because you can start over, but most of us just really don't know how.

Eight days ago we were walking in the woods when she said to me, “We can’t be married anymore can we?”

She said it just like that, like she didn’t know. And I didn’t either, but I didn’t offer any suggestions. I didn’t offer anything, as I often don’t, and now here I am driving down the road just over a week later, my backseat full of boxes and suitcases, a moving truck scheduled for three o’clock today.

It’s been seventeen years. Seventeen.

But suddenly, in only eight days, it is over, and I have never heard myself cry before. I didn’t know it could be so loud, that the sorrow could send pain all over my body, that I would have to move the car to the side of the road and throw up.

After, I stand with my palms to my head, as if the palms to the head might bring answers, but all I hear are questions.

Why didn’t I say more? Why didn’t I tell her? Why didn’t I ever learn how to love?

I could go back. I could try. I want to.

But sometimes it’s just too late. It’s not really, but it is.

So I get in the car. I pull back onto the road. I head for the apartment I’ve just rented an hour away from the life I built so carelessly. And I think about starting over, but I don’t know if that’s really something I can do or if I just have to keep going, but with less.

I think I have to just keep going. But with less.