More reflections from a friend of mine who came home after a long trip, greeted by his wife at the door who without feeling said, “I’ve met someone else. I’m leaving.”

Space. It’s not mine to give her and she’s taking it, having it. I cannot rein or reign her behaviors, her choices, her judgments. My emotions also cannot be reined in and where the healthy line is for me to reign over them is a source of confusion. To be healthy, I probably need to give them a large pasture to run through, unbridled. Breathe.

Judgment. These bleeding edge, raw emotions are mine. Like hunger or weariness, they are mine and have no morality attached to them. They’re okay. They’re mine. But I’m judging some other’s behaviors as wrong. Just plain wrong. Moralistically wrong. Cosmically wrong. And I struggle, fight, and fear the dichotomy of my judgment of the behavior that has causes so many deaths and my need to remain the nonjudgmental witness to my own flood of emotions, thoughts and memories. I fear their ability and my surrender to control by them or being plucked up by them like a raging current into a spiral of self-destructive choices. What blend of respect and curiosity can master them and discharge them if not constructively, at minimum appropriately. I’m suddenly a child. Six years old. And must treat myself as kindly as I would that display of raw, unbridled and at times inappropriate emotion.

“I’ve met somebody. I’m leaving you.?? God damn. God Damn! You’re not supposed to meet somebody! You’re married to me. You can look. You can even stray. But leave?
Fuck! Just like that? I feel tossed aside. Like the history means nothing. How could I miss that? When did requited become unrequited? We’ve always been far from perfect. But pretty damn good. God, this hurts so fuckin’ bad. It feels like a wound that will never close, always ooze, never die. Death without dying.

How, how, just how the fuck am I supposed to free the emotions and control the behaviors? Not that I have any impulses yet. I’m not even eating and alcohol and drugs scare the hell out of me right now. And even this fear of losing control scares the hell out of me right now. Damn. Maybe it’s just all fear. Fear of the dark? I’m certainly in a place with no light. Pitch. Black. Heavy. A bag on my chest. Breathe.

Transcend! What an idea! For someone without this weight anchored to the murky, muddy depths. Andy says, “Happy, Healthy, Whole.?? Normally, those would seem easy enough goals. Today, I’m not so sure. Steph and I had some laughs last night. But we’re not happy. I’m not drinking. But I’m not eating either. Somehow, playing observer and tackling this ogre seems like the healthiest thing that I’m capable of right now. Whole? I feel as whole as an amputee just released from the hospital.

My value remains. My values shaken. I could have worked more on my marriage. But the family, the team, the four of us, the unit. That was / is my everything. And I will be strong, I will defend, protect and do what ever I can to close these gaping wounds and restore us. To do so. And to resist impulse requires such a careful observation of this disoriented, dismembered soul. Such self-centeredness this, this thing.Judgment-free emotions, tightly reined impulses. How can one not implode, if they do not explode? Or vise versa?
Can I behave with integrity and allow my emotions to be my advisors but not my masters?

“I’ve met somebody. I’m leaving you.?? The continuous loop tape plays over and over in my mind. When my father died, the image of his body on the floor of his apartment, two paramedics and a cop working it, the dark stain of piss down his pants and across the chair where he breathed and wet his last seared forever in my memory. Will those two sentences stated so matter-of-factly at the kitchen island, her facing the window, me facing the fridge, will they remain frozen in my ears? Will they ever go away? Will the coldness of them ever thaw?