Sleep, sleep everywhere, but not a wink for me. 

I love sleep. More so now that I don’t get much anymore. Regardless of when I go to bed, I wake up faithfully at 2:45 am every day. I wonder do you sleep? Is it easier for you now that your secret isn’t a secret? I try to force my eyes to stay closed because opening them to the bleakness around me only serves as a reminder that you are gone.

I’m gone too; at least my stuff is gone. It’s partly in storage and partly at the new place, which I move into later this week. Currently, I’m sleeping on the couch, your couch. Our living room looks the same and walking into the rental no one would even know at a glance that anything is amiss until your eyes adjust and you realize the pictures are gone and the kitchen is empty. Was it the same with our marriage? On the surface, people, including me, saw what they wanted to see. But when looking more closely (or in my case, looking back) could one see that this was just a shell of a life? A lie you were living?

I think back to a conversation we had a week before D-Day. You questioned me as to when my parents were leaving since we were going to housesit for them. When I told you the date, your reply was odd. You said it wasn’t soon enough. You wanted to use the time we had watching two homes, theirs and ours, as an opportunity to formally separate. Now I see that you wanted the separation so that you would feel justified doing what you were doing. It would have been easier on your conscience to say to me, “while we were separated, I had an affair.” And since we would have already been separated, your reputation would have been intact in the eyes of your friends when we divorced because you could just play it off that it didn’t work out between us never having to give up your dirty little secret, never having to answer any questions. But I said no to a separation and you weren’t strong enough get off of the train you were already on.

Your lies haven’t all caught up to you. I’m still amazed when I discover yet another one, although the amazement is wearing thin and becoming more the norm. Your friends have stopped asking me about you. Maybe because I don’t know about you or maybe because they do. I’ve stopped asking questions because it really does not matter anymore. Twenty-four days ago, you told me you had an affair; today you are still having an affair. Those are my facts, those are my answers and this is my reality.

In just a matter of weeks, you and I will be divorced. I will become just someone that you used to know and eventually you will become someone that I used to love. Yes… used to love.