Voices

When I was a child I remember playing outside in the California sun, the blue sky above me, jumping in the cool waters of our pool, running on the grass, climbing every tree, each day an adventure to me.  I don’t recall any voice but my own inside my head.

As a young man I was angry inside.  My dad’s voice echoed in my thoughts and I resented the intrusion.  It motivated me and I was successful in everything I attempted, driven by my worry and frustration that I wasn’t living up to the unreasonable expectations of an emotionally distant, alcoholic man.

I married young to a fragile woman with compulsive tendencies.  I didn’t see this at the time, I only saw her beauty.  We had two perfect daughters and my wife became an addict, our lives and marriage undermined by substances and psychosis.  My dad’s voice faded, only to be replaced by hysterics, recriminations, self doubt. 

Married for 10 years, it took nearly that again before my thoughts were no longer permeated by her words and deeds, until the only voice in my head was my own. By then I was a mature man with a moderately successful career, grown and accomplished daughters, connected to my body and emotions, but alone, no partner to share life with.

Today I lie in the meadow on a warm April day in Northern Vermont.  I stare at the blue sky dotted with puffy clouds and think about the woman I met almost exactly four years ago.  There are the first butterflies and bumblebees of the season flitting among the tall grass on which I’ve flopped and I remember walking in this place with her last Fall, freeing the milk weed to fly on the autumn breeze. 

We fell in love, our passion burning bright as the sun in the West today descending toward the waiting peaks of the Adirondack Mountains. We dated and then we lived together, building a life, working toward our future.  She called me her husband, told me she was my wife. Stirred by her fervor I shopped for wedding rings by her side and we planned the when and the where of our marriage. 

And then, a few short months later, it was over.  As quickly as it had come her ardor faded away, the romance was forgotten, our friendship terminated.  I was left to ponder how for some of us, relationships hold such value and entail so much commitment, while for others they are more akin to clothing, treasured when new, neatly folded and left for the Salvation Army with nary a goodbye or second thought once the novelty is gone.

Vermont is a lovely place, beautiful, alive, serene.  But it can also be a lonely place, inhospitably cold, isolating. I enjoy the afternoon sun on my back, the slow tidal-like movement of the clouds in the sky, the sounds of the children in the nearby park as they run and play, as I did when I was young. 

But I am young no more and I don’t know if I can fall in love again, if I will be able to trust once more.  I am hurting and conversations with her wind through my head, memories of our times together, the places that we went, the things we said to one another.  They are still as real inside me as the white blossoms fluttering on the tree nearby.  I was not lovable, acceptable enough for her, I don’t even know why. 

Though my heart is broken, I am grateful to her for our time together and relieved that this time at least, the only voice in my head is that of my own grief and I know that in time it will fade, it will be quiet in there, hopefully like it was when I was a child.