I am looking forward to getting away. A few days in the far North-West. Bellingham. I hear that it is a beautiful place. I have always liked Seattle and Vancouver, so I suspect that this will be no different. We will go on hikes and eat seafood, I hope. I have updated my iPhone's software and backed it up. I am prepared to lose it, if needed. I have been losing things lately, again.
Writing this blog has allowed me some odd insight into myself. In certain ways it is a fiction, where ideas are entertained purely for the sake of indulgence. Then, there are other times in which I write something that surprises me, yet I see a kernel of truth in it. Other times it is plainly confessional. Artlessly flat, composed of Catholic guilt. It is all an exercise in fictive honesty, or rather creative self-revelation, hopefully and when at its best.
In the past week or so I have had to ask myself some very difficult questions about how I want the future to unfold. I had hoped that the questions need not ever be asked, but it seems now as if the questions will be forced. One never knows precisely how much they are willing to concede or to swallow until they hit that point. Then you know, and you can't pretend that you don't know any more. You can keep swallowing or conceding if you choose, but something inside of you is lost, perhaps gone forever.
An online friend whom I have grown quite fond of has encouraged me to "take the high road" and that is good advice. Difficult advice to heed.
Nobody, I do not believe, seeks a state of mutual accusation. It's a small part of why people stay together. Divorce is painful and involves the asserting of grievances over time. It is a simultaneous assertion of, and yet loss of, credibility.
Crimes and misdemeanors.
I have seen a divorce statement and it is a very difficult read. You see another person's idea of you in it, cobbled together with a version of fact and held by innuendo. Divorce statements are not flattering, by necessity. They are not meant to be. They are meant to make your version of the story of your marriage part of the permanent record. All of them should be forced to include your wedding vows as a preamble, as a reminder, but I don't make the laws around here.
I wish that I did. I would make all marriage illegal, unconstitutional if possible. I would establish that a marriage fundamentally infringes on a person's right to the pursuit of happiness, and as such should be struck from the books. What right should state governments have to knowingly issue a document that causes intrinsic suffering which often results in inequality.
You see, this is why they do not let me make the laws.
I have not been the only person who has been crafting a narrative about me. There are parallel documents elsewhere that one can go and read if they so choose. They are part of the permanent public record.
I imagine Rhys one day going and reading them out of curiosity. It is not a thought that gives me much solace. So, a companion piece is all that I can offer.
It will start with the simple recitation of a vow: First, we failed at keeping our word.
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