It was not exactly the best start to a day. In fact the last two days weren't exactly the "best" starts to days, but that's just how it goes sometimes, isn't it?
Yesterday began with a text conversation on my way into work. The weight of what was being said at odds with the format of speech-to-text over a car Bluetooth system at 65mph in poor weather, and yet that's how it happened.
Space.
That's what she needed, wanted. To clear her head. To figure out her future.
How exactly does one respond to something like that when she was the one to propose in the first place?
A million thoughts run through your head at a billion miles a minute. One thought sticks out, thornier and sharper than the rest.
Alone?
It echoes.
Alone.
Will we be alone once more at the end of all this? Despite saying that the end goal was still me, one can only wonder what the end results of such a situation will be. Can anyone really predict such a thing?
What if the answer is "not you"? Or "not this"?
What does one do when the one who proposed to you suddenly realizes they're better off without you?
Where does one go from there when everyone knows what the plans had been? When you told family and relatives have met you together?
While nothing is a foregone conclusion, one can only watch, wonder, and worry.
I responded with tear-filled eyes, contemplating just calling off for the day while debating the impact on lives such a choice could have.
A lot, apparently.
It turned out lives were indeed at stake, and had I chosen not to go in, at least two people could have died, a third may have been permanently blind in his remaining eye.
It was with the words of that morning that I walked into work, running late, and would eventually get multiple priority 1 emergency/life or limb calls.
Helicopters were grounded due to weather so the only option was by ground.
Over a hundred miles traveled. Hours of lights and sirens responses. The shift ended hours later than my off time.
It's been...difficult.
But. I would rather this get worked out now than down the road. At the very least, we owe ourselves that much so we don't resent and hate each other down the road if this isn't gonna work.
I don't know what will come of this or how it will end. All I can do is wait, watch, and hope it works out.
If it doesn't, well, at this point I'm just too tired to care. I think I would be more content just working myself into oblivion and shutting out the world once more. Life isn't terrible alone. It's just empty. And emptiness is better than trying to fight the pain all over again.
Have I already assumed this is dead in the water? That, after introspection, no one would actually choose to stay with me given the choice to leave me behind, esp after they get whatever it is they needed or wanted?
Am I too cynical? Projecting? Realistic?
Who knows? I'm just tired and I want to know where I stand. Do I have a wife or do I have a life of solitude?
I know I say i'd still be friends, but could I do so without the pain of each day? I mean I suppose it is possible and yet at the same time, things never got this far with anyone else, so...
I don't know. Yeah I said it. I don't fucking know. I don't know anymore.
This hurts my head.
I am disassociating.
