a short story

Why did my marriage kill my spontaneity? Why did I fall into an immediate routine of eat and sleep and fuck--sometimes--and work, and work, and work? 

Why did turning my relationship into a business partnership kill the passion? Was it because there wasn't that much passion in the relationship to begin with? Was it just that the relationship was so inherently flawed that it couldn't stay in business? Is that why I gave her everything I owned and ran for my life? And if that is the case, why do I still guilty about saving my own life? Didn’t my educators always tell me to follow my dreams? And if my dream was to be a writer and a poet, didn’t I need my spontaneity and passion? Was I not right to eviscerate the life of my ex-wife to save my dream?

So, again, why do I feel so guilty about this? Is it because I knew I didn’t love her? Is it because I knew I never loved her? Is it because I allowed myself to settle into a long-term relationship and a marriage? Do I feel guilty for allowing the marriage to happen in the first place? Do I feel like a coward for not calling the whole thing off? Am I disgusted with myself for doing what was easy?

I mean, why the hell did I get married? Was it simply because I felt it was time? What does that even mean? Did I just turn thirty, look at the woman I was dating, and think: I guess this will be my wife? Did I do that? Why would I do that? Am I stupid? Or was there more to it?

Was it because she was so timid, and I wanted to save her? Was it because she reminded me of the image of my childhood mother—small, frail, abused, and frightened, and so completely lonely? Was that why I couldn’t just break up with her after our first meeting?

Oh, did I fail to mention that I actually ended up marrying a woman that I wasn’t attracted to from the start? Can you believe I allowed the trauma of my childhood to push me into doing that? Is that fathomable? If it didn’t happen to me, would you even believe it? I mean, if you just heard this story in a restaurant, in an eavesdropped conversation—so, he met this woman that he found completely unattractive, but he ended up marrying her, anyway, even though he knew he didn’t love her and he never would, and he did it because he was still trying to save his mother from his father—would you believe that? I wouldn’t. How can that be the story of my marriage?