why i left...

the last few days have been consumed with some major...and i mean major cleaning...along the way...i have come across some interesting things...in files, boxes...what have you...one stopped me dead in my tracks...it was a letter written to my ex...in reading it...i started crying...not because he was gone...but because of how much i had grown since leaving him...and the painful steps it took to get me here...

i remember years of abuse...verbal abuse...my excuse was...that he never hit me...but his words...well...they cut through me...on many occasions...when i look back...i am proud of the woman i am today...and what it took for me to leave that situation...and regain my strength...

it didn't happen overnite...i'm sad to say...and there were many times i went back...what i learned is that the tie that a man may have over a woman is often so binding that he can insult and mistreat her...and she seems helplessly enslaved to him...many women will tolerate all kinds of abuse and they won't understand why...

it took meeting another man for me to start seeing that things were way off between us...but even then...i waffled..and went back to him...not because of the way he made me feel...but because i had invested so much time...so many years...and deep down inside...maybe i wasn't ready to admit...how wrong i had been about this man...

my friends didn't understand it...and honestly...i didn't either...

today...i can say...i am free of this man...and the ties that held me to him...i know that i know....that i will never be back in a situation like that...

i decided to share the letter...i am not quite sure why...for me...it is a reminder of how free i am today...for someone else...well...i would like to think...if one person reading it...is prompted to make a move...then my personal thoughts displayed for anyone to read...well it would be worth it...

today i know...that i choose...whether to give up at the first obstacle or give it my all...to speak up or stay silent...to change what i don't like or let it change me...with every word...every step i take...it defines who i am...and creates my future...

"why i left you"
i saw you the other day at that place downtown near the arch...you know the one...we used to eat fish there...i never really liked the place...but we ate there anyway...you looked good, you know...i was glad...it's been a while since we split...and i hope you don't mind if i tell you that it will please me very, very much if you turn your face forward now and don't look back...it's going to be tough for you to do so, though...i peeked into your angry eyes...at all the darkness and hurt that's still in there after all this time...and i knew...

you still don't understand why it was that i took off in the first place, why i had to, what it would have meant for me if i did not...you don't see your part in all that happened, either, not at all, nor any of the reasoning or feeling that drove me to do what i did...

all you see is my fault...
that's easy, of course...it's so obvious...

yet if i know anything, know this, my former boyfriend and friend...you've got to understand more than you do right now if you're ever going to get over to the other side, to the place where there is light and heat and a fresh sunrise every day...and i want you to...

but i can't really tell you...you know...not straight out, face-to-face, like i should...we'll fight again, and then the darkness will set in on both of us...me, i never want to live in that place again...instead, i'll write it to you here, for both of us...because part of me will never truly be happy until you are again...

so please, listen...

i left because when the wind blew in the trees, it blew cold and rattled in my bones...and when i turned to you for warmth, i found too little...perhaps i didn't turn the right way; maybe i should have done that differently too...but in the end...some crucial part of me went off on its own...searching...searching...

i left because of so many things...i remember how i loved how clean your house always was...your place was clean and warm...boy, i thought...that's the way to live...years and years later...that house became about "take off your shoes when you come into the house." all your beautiful cars...your pride and joy...turned into me needing to watch how i sat in them...where i stepped...i couldn't enjoy your toys...you wouldn't let me...and i know it's unfair to find intolerable in a person the very things we found admirable in them...but of course, that's exactly what we do...

i left because you didn't allow me to be me...you praised me when i did things the way you felt i should do them...but only then...i wanted to be able to screw things up if i must...to touch things...move them around a bit...to dream a bit...in the end, it came to feel like it was your way...and only your way...yes, i know. it's unfair. i should have talked with you about it instead of seething, and yearning. but...wait...i did...you just didn't listen...

i left because if we talked about it, you'd maintain your position staunchly and finally convince me that i was being ridiculous, or vain, or selfish, or foolish, or mean, or whatever you needed to say to win the fight...

i left because you were a better fighter that i was and very early on in our relationship, it became very clear to me that it didn't pay to fight you, that i would only lose, even if i was in the right, so i stopped fighting and began conducting my warfare in a much less straightforward manner - behind your back; even, in a way, behind my own back...

i left because there developed, without my really knowing it was happening, a kernel of resentment, alienation, and loneliness that sat inside me always as i moved through my daily life, working, talking with people, and always searching, searching, in secret, for something else, some other life, some other road to a kind of happiness that i thought, perhaps, might exist for some lucky others, wondering why that could not be me, or if...even more terrifying...it could!

i left because i was not the woman you wanted...not really...otherwise you would not have tried to change everything about me...

i left because when i saw two people kissing on a city street, it hurt me...fools, i thought...kissing out in public like that...when deep down inside...i was envious...

i left because i could not stay and live...

i left because i was dying...not metaphorically...i saw myself on a train platform, one hand clutching my left arm...or was it my right? it doesn't matter...the image haunted me persistently...now it's gone...today when i think about my end of days, i see myself at the age of 90...a shriveled bean...walking on the beach somewhere...the sun is setting...i am happy and looking forward to dinner...

i left because there is no other life than this one that we are given...and to live it as if it belonged to somone else...no matter how beloved...is wrong...

i left because you would not change that deep part of you that none of us can change, the one of who we are, the part that dreams at nite, that needs to order the world in a certain way...i don't blame you for that...it's very hard, and part of you has to die in order for it to happen...i know you will say i never really gave you the chance...that may be true...it feels to me like i gave you the chance every day for a long, long time...

i left because that part of me that was unmoored was an unmanageable beast...roving like a predator through the world, hunting for something to feed itself...i could never understand it...now i know that it was my heart...

i left because i was faithful to you and did not feed that thing inside me until it would not be satisfied with anything but true love...

and yes...i left you because my whole, hungry heart was available when the right person came along...at the right time...and i found that person who saw me not as a girlfriend to be managed, but as a woman...not even as a woman, no, but as a wondrous being of infinite interest and worth who liked the way my skin felt when he touched it...he touched it absently, without knowing he was doing so...with the tip of his finger on my face...or the back of my arm...not for any purpose except that something inside of him felt good when he did so...and something about that moved me so much that i literally felt the disconnecting, roving, ravenous thing inside me turn over on its back and, for the first time, meld into the rest of me...

i left because you did not really love me...no, no, not really...i know that now...and that's all right...but not really...

i didn't do it well, i know...i didn't leave the way one is supposed to, by talking things out and fighting fights that should perhaps have been fought long ago...or rekindling that which should have never been unkindled, or fessing up...or leaving everybody their dignity...actually...come to think of it...i did do that...so many times...but you called me crazy...for thinking what i was thinking...and in the end...i lied...i went behind your back...i held myself apart and pursued my own destiny, as i had been doing for years...couldn't you see that?

and so now i will say what i have to say once more, not for the first time, but perhaps for the last time...i'm sorry...i wish a lot of things...but i don't and can't unwish my happiness...no, maybe not that; i can't unwish my chance for happiness, at life, at a true life where not part of me is left to wander and wonder and crave some mysterious thing it does not have...

if i really think about it...i left you...not because of what you did to me...over and over...but the things it didn't occur to you to do...

i left you because i had to...and now? now you must leave me...not in hate, not in anger, not even in regret...leave me for the life you should be living, with somebody whose heart you wholy own and who owns yours...maybe then you and i can reclaim our memories...we have, after all, so many...and in spite of why i left...they remain sweet to me...

those i will never leave behind...