I start the car, and turn the music up loud.  Then I drive my new “speakers on wheels” as fast as I dare to drive.  The destination has little to do with anything.  This is my escape.  The house holds no warmth for me, once the children have gone off to bed. 

With their departure for the evening, the hurt comes out to play.  

The "new car" smell and the luxurious feel of new leather seats, offers me the illusion of happiness and satisfaction.  My easily accessible DVD changer, plays my carefully chosen music through powerful speakers in Surround-Harp, and plays it loud.  (Loud enough to dull the pain?) 

It’s been months now since you acknowledged that your love for me was gone.  What began as a conversation in which I thought I was helping you come to terms with some external problem... became one of those speed-bumps in life that you never forget.  You cried bitter tears ... of relief. You hadn't known how to broach the subject, until I did it for you.  As the shock subsided and the man that you married died, only the father was left.  The father of your children.

A team-mate for you and a commitment for me, but a void where once my love for you held court.   

I envy the energy and the life that I still see in you. The strength that you seemed to find once you unburdened yourself of the deception that you were still bound by vows that meant something to you.  (You broke your vows.) With the children asleep, I cannot hide behind my father role.   Without it, you would see me cry… so I drive.       

The engine is powerful and gives me speed.  It takes me out of the familiar and onto strange streets that I don’t know... periodically parking on desolate, isolated streets. I am parked now because my vision is blurry and I can’t see clearly to drive. (Liar) 

I thought we had so much more time.  There were so many things that we did not do. We should have been able to watch the children grow old and begin their own families... together.   We should have been able to travel on our own and not just as an addendum to a business trip.   We were supposed to watch the children become parents... and the grandchildren become young men and women.  We were going to grow old with each other.  We should have been able to do all of that together.  

I did not see this coming.  I saw what I thought was fatigue in your eyes.  I thought you were weary from work… stressed with new responsibilities and roles at your job.  I didn’t see your true pain.  My failure to see in time to save us... has destroyed all hope for us.  I should be hoping, but I just can’t stop thinking that I failed and that this is my fault.   

(It will take years for me to allow myself to accept that you were also at fault and that we shared the blame, if blame lives at all.)  

Now, I rely on my children and my car to make the pain go away.  Swept up in the soothing pulse of my music, I can fantasize of another, future me... in happier times.  Or with the very next track, I can recreate our life together in a way that pleases me.

Oh darling, make it go.   Give them back to me.  Give me that little kiss.  Give me your hand baby 

I am parked in a neighborhood that I do not recognize.  Something reminds me that this is not a smart thing to do for a vast array of reasons, but I do not care.  Where is the maniacal serial killer when you need him?  Where are the rogue police officers who will act upon stereotyping that they will surely deny, as they beat me into blessed unconsciousness?   (That is what you need you damned fool… you need broken bones and skull fractures that doctors can treat… because they haven’t invented something to fix the stuff that is so damn broken inside of you.) 

Oh yes… I love this tune, so I turn it up.  I can feel the speakers vibrating against my arm, and I draw a strange measure of comfort from that.   

Now I see that I am apparently attracting attention from the residents of the house across the street.  Someone was looking out of the window and now someone is standing in the doorway. 

My headlights seem incredibly bright as I turn them back on.  I can feel my car smoothly shift gears as I pull away from the curb with no awareness of where I will go from here.      

It is certainly too early to go back home…. or to the house that I once called home.  I need to keep driving to make the pain go away.  

Please make it go away.

Just make it go away now.