2.25

I remember when I decided to see a counselor. I had just gotten home from work at MMS, twenty five miles to drive in the cold of a January afternoon. I was trying to unlock the door to get inside. The dog was dancing near me, excited to go inside, and I was trying to manage my bag and the key for the lock at the same time. I just started crying. I remember the wall imposing on me, the dead leaves underfoot, the gray sky, the open screen door pushing insistently against my shoulder, the keys in my hand. I felt so small, so useless, so alone. I knew there were people who would listen if I wanted to talk about what I was going through. But I wanted someone who could maybe give me answers, who was trained to see the inside of skulls and to lay out what to do next.
I called an office that couldn't take me that day. It had been months since she had left for the last time, and longer since she had left without knowing she was leaving for good. I called around to a few other offices until I found a man who could see me after work. I scheduled an appointment. I felt awful.
On my first visit, I laid out everything that had happened, all the things I could see that led up to the end of the end, and he sighed and suggested that she was cheating on me, that she didn't love me anymore, that I should get a divorce. I knew as soon as he said it that if my insurance didn't pay for counseling I would never go back. He had never seen anyone like me before, and I don't know why. People like me exist. I've met them. But I think perhaps people like me don't often end up in counseling sessions in Moberly, Missouri. I think perhaps ninety percent of the breakups he sees are due to abuse or infidelity.
I made a string of appointments, at first once a week, then every other, then he let me go. Maybe he thought I was better, or that I was beyond his treatment. Either way, I wish I could have gone to a psychologist, not to be diagnosed but to be explained. I wish I could have talked to myself from today. I wish I hadn't been hitched by necessity to the only counselor available, a man who thought the only right answer was something I still don't think was likely. Who knows? Maybe she cheated on me. But hearing it didn't make my life better.

I remember playing the saddest songs I knew for an hour in an old chair outside in the moonlight, the dog circling nervously at my feet, until my fingers were so ice-cold I couldn't form chords anymore and I just softly sang a song I used to love, the song I held for her. I got up from the chair and took the dog inside and slept on his bed even though he's terrible at being comforting because he likes to stand up and walk on you when he gets confused, which is all the time.

I remember the last time I saw her. She was like a balloon that had been sitting for too long in the corner, tired and used up. She was probably just off a hard shift. She was, all things considered, pointless to me, and all the tears I had ever shed over her seemed wasted in that moment. I had taken off my ring to see her, to sign the divorce papers that day. I didn't wear it after that. I didn't need to be honest to my bond with her anymore because you can't be married to a deflated balloon.

I have lived a good life and had a bad marriage. I'll carry my scars forever, but they don't always have to hurt. And the next time I see a counselor who gives bad advice, or sing in an ice cold night, or take off a ring, it won't be for her.