It’s Everything
This is an anecdotal piece for those of you who are sure you’ve found your soul mate. Remember there’s a difference between a soul mate and a Twin Flame. Like you, I believe in true love. I believe in happy endings. But stories don’t always end the way we ant them to. Just keep that in mind.
It’s a cool and pleasant early Sunday morning; he has no intentions of doing anything except lying on the front porch swing reading a good book. A gentle breeze is blowing through the trees, the most relaxing breeze in weeks. The night before was long and kind of crazy; it’s football season and in overtime his team came through and won. He was at the game and shouting, not something he usually does. But it’s his kid’s school and for his sake he cheers the home team.
His voice is hoarse and he’s nursing a bit of a headache, when his wife comes out and asks if he’s ready to go. To a party he wasn’t invited to, for some people he doesn’t really know; they’re her friends and she’s asked him to go with her, so when she asks again, “Do you want to go?” he says “No.”
He’s gone with her time and time before because she’s asked him, knowing that these weren’t his friends at all. Trying to keep the peace by going with her when he’d rather have gone with her somewhere alone. He told her once she was the only friend he wanted, that he’d never needed more than one or two. To which she bristled and said, “I don’t need that kind of pressure,” so he never said anything like that again. Slipped up one time time and said he was “immensely attracted” to her, a fair enough thing to tell your wife. But she dismissed it and said, “I don’t like mush,” and he replied, “That’s been the story of my life.”
He turns back to his book and tries to read it, but she's standing there not knowing what to do. So she says the only thing that comes to mind right at that moment. She says, “Okay, but could you tell me what’s bugging you?”
He stares down at the page, but he’s not reading; he’s wondering what’s appropriate to say. Should he lie and simply tell her “nothing”? Or should he think about himself and tell the truth? He lets the question pass without answering and, pretending to be satisfied, she turns. And as she opens the front door he says the first and only word that comes to mind.
“Everything,” he mutters while she stands there, not asking what he means by that. It’s an answer she’s probably been expecting, and without another word she goes inside.
“It’s everything,” he says again, as if she’s listening, as if she’s there to care at all. But he hears the front door close and puts his book down; then details to the breeze just what he meant.
“It’s the fact that you don’t love me, that you said once you weren't sure. That to love you is like trying to pick a cat up that doesn’t want to be picked up.
“It’s the mood swings and the judgment, it’s the time we spend apart; it’s the lack of meaningful conversation; it’s the music you don’t like. It’s your politics and your rules- they don’t bend and they don’t break; to try to make you laugh is to try to ski up a mountain.
“It’s the constant repetition, it’s the spending and the food; it’s the fact we don’t agree on what’s bad and what’s good. It’s the ghosts you’ve seen and still deny, it’s the questions you won’t ask. It’s the answers you won’t accept.
“It’s ethnicity and hunger, it’s weapons and war;
It’s hypocrisy and gunfire, it’s you and so much more.
It’s the selfies and the violence; it’s the ignorance and greed;
It’s taking everything for granted, it’s wasting all the things we need.
It’s the loneliness and sorrow; it’s wanting somewhere quiet to talk;
It’s not having to make a bargain just to share a moonlight walk.
“So when you ask me what’s the matter, and I tell you ‘nothing much’
Understand it’s actually everything, and my love for you is used up.”
