Sailing in the Wind

I feel myself plunging through a rabbit hole of change as I cruise through a dark fall morning, the back streets of quiet neighborhoods, houses lit from within, as the people of polite society ready themselves for work and their children for school. I imagine the people inside being married happily ever after, going boating on beautiful weekends and clubbing at night. I imagine happy, beaming faces around a dinner table where everyone gets a chance to speak and be heard. Where everyone is supported in their dreams. I imagine them all healthy, straight a/b report cards, top paying jobs, gleaming sports cars in the garage and fat bank accounts. I imagine husbands and wives in the neighborhood getting together for picnics and block parties, glasses of wine and a few beers on holidays. I imagine a life of loving normalcy.

My concerned roomie arrives home early, in the middle of my pacing and feeling desperate.  I feel overwhelmed by circumstances; my last long term relationship disintegrates, my job stresses me out and there is a growing list of things I want to accomplish and enought restlessness to fuel them all.
I know it isn’t always going to be like this. It won't always feel this dark, or ache this much. For me, it's always when I think I can't take this for another minute, when something finally breaks loose.  I grab my things and head for the door; going to work early. An hour too early. My roomie asks if I’m sure, do I know what time it is?
I do.
With Redemption playing over and over again in my head, I’m trying to lay hold of a feeling that pulls at me: Travel. I have to go for a head clearing drive.The moody indigo sky is banded with melon-colored light at the horizon,

          I tell myself that I will go in to work late, at 8:30 all the while contemplating how easy it would be to call off, drain my account, and drive due west 2000 miles. By noon I could have crossed out of Ohio into any one of five states, the wind in my hair and heading for...?

          Instead, I travel east along a two lane road with no curbs, named after a prize fighting boxer, over a hill, past an attorney’s office, by a cemetery fenced in with iron bars. The iron bars get to me. 
         By the time I hit Sunbury Road, I've saved myself 1,996 miles and am heading for the dam. There is no one out there at this hour, just a stream of car lights shining by, but determine people could be sleeping on board the boats gently rocking in the water. No one stirs.
Striding toward the station, I stop long enough to jot some thoughts, making sure no one else is walking around before gliding to the first observation deck in the dark. I snap a few pictures of the marina, illuminated in a way I seldom see. My connection to water, boats, wind chimes, seagulls and shorelines still a comfort to my soul.

 If I reach the dam, the exact spot where he asked me to marry him, to where I haven’t been alone since that day, I'm convinced it will somehow break the spell he holds over me, or help me connect to something that will help me release my vows.
The cement abutment where I sat on that day, is barricaded behind a trifold of expanded metal. There is no way to get to it, except through it visually. And it's while I stand there, that I see the whole event play out as if watching a movie. It was Mother’s Day, he got me gifts. I remember feeling he was up to something. I'd seen a parking lot swarming with seagulls earlier that day.
After dinner, I was supposed to pick up my daughter and didn’t want to be late. We were cutting it close.

We both wore denim jackets and were buffeted by cold breeze; although the sun cast its brightness, it withheld it's warmth. The water thundered so powerfully out of turbines below that if the dam was a boat, it would easily be propelled to the Atlantic Ocean by the force.

He stands before me with a look of expectation. He placed a peridot birthstone ring on my wedding ring finger, not because it’s my birthstone, but because I mentioned I liked it better. From this day forward, he will tell everyone that peridot is the birthstone for January. And even after people correct him, he will argue with them.

                “Well?” he asked.

                “Well what? You didn’t ask me anything.”

                “I didn’t?”

                The question was supposed to be, will you marry me? But I wasn’t willing to fill in blanks then. I needed it to be asked.
              Perhaps that should have been my indicator, but at the time, I misunderstood the significance. It would take years to figure out that when he’s nervous, he leaves out important information. When he is pressured he can hear his thoughts so clearly that to him they seem audible and they drown out everything else.
             I didn’t know it that day, and I didn’t know it for a long time. What else I didn’t know then, was that as long as things go close enough to his plan, he can recover. But when they don’t, his mood changes; everything changes. I don't know exactly when we got off plan.

Only that I was never ready for the way my words got twisted away from their intent, or how they promoted some sense of victim hood. It took me a long time to see the patterns of drama. Full moon, no moon and every holiday, with out fail, as if bent on keeping some unseen schedule. I was never able to pick the violation, the offense or the trigger. Only the timing.  A few close friends knew I was being crushed under the weight of my vows. Hope is not enough. Love is not enough.  Now, I know how promises are like bones that break under intense and unyielding pressure.

As I stand there, I see the next 8 years play out, like fast forwarding through a video tape. This is where it began, and this is where it ends. One spell is finally broken.

Yellow autumn leaves fall from the maples like a kind of dry rain, and the wind sifts through the fleece of my jacket. The thought that chides me now is singular.

“We didn't make it.” I can recover from this.

 My lip quivered more than it used to, and tears were one blink away most days. Grey days and cement clouds had become my comfort. My heart felt as empty as a looted safe.
Being honest, bending over backwards and keeping the peace were not enough glue to hold us together, but somehow, thankfully, it has been enough to hold me together. And today, I am grateful for it.
 I understand the importance of ending well, full circle moments that bring closure and healing. I feel like something has been recovered.
Clarity and strength.
My sliver of joy is just that; a slender thread that connects me to truth:  I’m out. I am free.
I don’t have to live afraid now. I can be who I was designed and destined to be. Although it is currently eclipsed by memories of past legal processes, it is a dance in which I must engage to exact the cost of an exit, and even that will be part of finishing well.

As I lean against the rail, a pontoon boat sails against the wind, the way kites fly best, rise highest. If believe with all my heart, that we can catch the storm in our sails, our kite, our wings, and fly higher than we ever dreamed possible. I desire to channel the coming storm into a new strength.

 This time next year, I tell myself, that will be me. Sailing in the wind, sun on my back, warm breezes in my hair, doing what I’m supposed to be doing, with no one to stop me.