A Detached Feeling Understood in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

Yesterday, I was feeling sad about the divorce. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was a lonely feeling, a feeling that called a tear to my eye and a hollow feeling to my heart. But it was not and could not be said to be a feeling of missing Nancy. So what was it? What brought this feeling and how could I describe it? And when I woke up this morning… it was still there. This detached, unconnected, listless feeling of sadness that I intrinsically know is about or connected to the divorce but could not otherwise put my finger on it.

As I was getting dressed, I was contemplating what it was. Then my eyes fell to Nancy’s side of the closet, still teeming with her clothes and footwear. In the far back corner where things go that she doesn’t wear but moves with her every time we moved… two pairs of black leather boots. One, a mid-calf high-heeled black leather boot. The other, an ankle level high-heeled biker boot. Then my eyes turned upward into her shoe tree. She is a shorter woman so the shoes she wears the least are highest up. At the very top the fuschia high heels and just below them a pair of mild platform stiletto heels. Those shoes stuck in my mind and started to get wrapped up into the thought process. This detached feeling of sadness, this listless nameless feeling, and the shoes. And I started contemplating the various times in the last 10 years any of those shoes could have been appropriate… maybe even fun. And then I started thinking about the last time I actually saw her wear any of those shoes. As I tied my tie and got in the car to start the drive to work; my mind turned again. This hollow feeling in my heart, this strange sadness, and the shoes. As my car started passing large fields of corn stalks and empty space, I started thinking about not just the last time she wore those shoes; but my favorite memories of her in those shoes. And then, almost as if doing a puzzle one piece at a time before realizing there is a picture being formed… the larger picture came into focus.

I’m not mourning the loss of Nancy Wife. I’ve mourned that loss, thoroughly, because in too many ways (tragically) it was no great loss. My Wife no longer being around means that I’m not sharing my bed with someone who doesn’t touch me. I’m not coming home from a long day of work only to bend over backwards cooking and cleaning for someone who spent most of her day at home anyway. I’m not rearranging my life (schedule-wise or emotionally) to accommodate someone who refuses to do the same for me. Ultimately, removing Nancy as my Wife and Roommate honestly is no loss at all; in fact, more of a benefit. SO any sadnesses connected are of course going to throw me since it doesn’t immediately make logical sense. But thinking through the relationship as understood by those shoes she no longer wears or cares about? I didn’t realize such a metaphor would be so apt!

I used to know the woman who bought those shoes. I used to know the woman who wore those shoes. As ridiculous as I found the fuschia high heels from a fashion stand point; they are connected with one of the sexiest things any woman has ever done for me. In our second or third year of dating; Nancy wore those heels, nylons, and one of my button up white shirts, and nothing else. Just to hang out. Because she loved my reaction to it. And she was so hot in that!! And it wasn’t a situation where I said, “You’re doing something sexy, we’re fucking right now” because I appreciated what she was doing… she was wearing something sexy FOR ME to appreciate how she looked in it. I think, I’m almost fairly certain, we had sex that night because damn but… it was Nancy intentionally being sexy for me. Or like the time she wore the black heels to surprise me once while we were dating. She had made dinner, put on some Nora Jones, and when I got to my place after class and work; she was there looking beautiful having done something very nice for me. Or like when we would hit up the bar in WDM to enjoy a happy hour after shitty retail jobs. She’d throw on the biker boots, feel powerful, and we’d enjoy ourselves. Obviously, our dating life was not without issue. I wouldn’t have tried to break up with her in 2009 if that weren’t the case. But in dating… like those shoes in the back of the closet… there were good times connected to powerful memories. But that woman died upon getting married. It’s like the Rick and Morty “Rick Sanchez Perspective on Marriage” was a thing she just accepted and decided to live. “Weddings are basically funerals with cake.” Though we did have an amazing wedding reception. I suppose, if that was going to be The End of Nancy… it was going to be a helluva good party.

And I think a point of concern, a point of worry, or a point of emotional connection on all of this is… I had hoped, I had still believed somewhere within me, that Nancy would come back. After all, she kept saying that it was just “living in Nebraska” that was fucking with her… then “working at Wal Mart”… then… over and over. There was always the promise that if I could fix it, the woman I fell in love with would come back. It never happened. Technically, it still hasn’t. But it is important to note (and worthwhile to say) that the closest this woman has ever been to the woman I proposed to? Has been in her pursuit of other men. The woman I asked to marry me is gone… but her “close approximation” is out there dating daily, having new sexual adventures, trying to snag her next “stable, security relationship.” And when I think about it that way, there is some anger. But ultimately what exists most? Is the sadness. The sadness that I can now put a name to, a description to. I grieve the loss of the woman I fell in love with. I grieve that she will never exist again. Part of me is, honestly, a little suspicious… did she ever exist in the first place, or was it her way of snagging a stable, secure relationship as she is doing now. But the anger and the suspicion are not what presents strongest. It is the sadness. Not the loss of the woman who was my wife. But ultimately, the finality of the acceptance of the loss of who I proposed to. Even if not for me, just for Nancy’s own well-being, I had hoped that she would return. She would find new life and burst back into being. But she’s gone. The woman who wanted to do nice things for me, wanted me to find her sexy, who wanted to be part of my life… it’s hard to understand that she’s been, in all important ways, dead for the last 9 years. And I’m finally letting go of her. She’s gone. She isn’t coming back. And while I am not responsible for her loss, I grieve it deeply. Both for her sake and my own. I don’t know why marrying me destroyed Nancy. I pray with every ounce of strength within me that whatever happens to her, whatever she becomes now… she’s happy, if she can be. I pray almost as hard that I might one day find someone willing to dress sexy for me, or surprise me with kindness, or hit up the bars with me again. I now have a name to my sadness, a logical understanding of this hollow feeling. Somehow, that makes me less embarrassed about the tears.