NOTE: As I mentally deconstruct the demise of my marriage, I am publishing a series of short essays about things that happened, the way I felt, and so on. It's intended to illustrate my mental state at the time, and provide a kind of chronicle of my emotional state, hopefully helping me not make the same mistakes in future relationships.

10/1/03 12:15 AM:

roadways of your pristine future
have none of my casual litter,
stand bereft of my glorious pollution
as you keep on moving away

I see you disappearing,
growing more faint like radio signals on a dark freeway
and each second of every day
I feel myself missing you
a little
   bit
     less ...

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Two Saturdays ago I met with my ex-wife for what I believe will be the last time. Due to her request, I won't go into the specifics of what happened (not here on the website anyway), but up until the last five or ten minutes, we were both very nice to one another and it was almost not horrible being around her.

Once we discussed money, she became considerably less pleased with me, which reinforced my belief that we won't be "friends," as I prophesied months ago. I will eventually have to deal with her -- she threatened to show up at next year's Virgo Birthday Bash, an annual event held by a number of my Virgonically challenged friends (that Yuri actually started). Nevertheless, our "business" is at a conclusion, her days as a regular part of my life are over.

After all the dread and loathing and apprehension, it was over in an hour and a half and I was pretty much okay about everything that happened. I didn't expect that, but sitting with her, I neither missed her that much (again, I'd mourned losing her even when she was in my arms) nor did it hurt so terribly to talk to her (although she is still the biggest reminder of my most daunting failure). In my own space, I think more about the loss of opportunities more available to a couple than a single person -- having children or helping each other achieve goals best conquered by team efforts. Yuri herself became a cipher to me, a placeholder in my regret, the same way I always felt she treated me. A sad irony.

With all finally said and done, I look back on my experience and find my crimes misdemeanors, not the felonies I even believed them to be. I stand swaddled in a sense of self-righteousness that could well be the emperor's new clothes, but leave me feeling a lot more confident about my ability to contribute positively to a relationship and a lot more despondent about the chances of it ever working out for me -- or anybody -- in the end. "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero," as was said so well in Fight Club.

Still, money is coming back to me like a long lost lover, I sleep when I want to and wake up when I want to, leading a literally stress-free life. That's weird. When things go well, without me almost killing myself to will such a possibility into existence, it makes me nervous. After so much of it, I expect life to kick me in the face, and am often left flummoxed by easy wins (despite secretly wanting them in my every waking thought). I drift through the ring, championship belt on my shoulder, looking as confused as "Sugar" Shane Mosely did after his second bout with Oscar De La Hoya, mind already re-knitting reality to fit around the susprise upset.

As the days have gone on, and I've dealt with other issues, romantic and professional, I've felt Yuri drift into my mind less often. To be honest, I barely remember what she felt like, can't remember her taste at all, don't really remember a lot of the way she did things. I don't miss having her around anymore, I don't miss her smell nor her voice. What I do miss, the biggest thing I have lost -- more than the love of a wonderful woman (I can still admit she's a really great sister ... just not for me), more than the tactile pleasures that fell by the way side, far more than even even community property and more money than I want to think about -- is the ability to believe. The idea that things can turn out all right is now a foreign concept, as if I was listening to someone speak to me in Farsi. Recent events (which I am likewise less than interested in revealing, as they are embarrasing to all parties involved, you'll just have to wait for the book) leave me with no real negative reinforcement for my dour thoughts. Even happy relationships end badly, and the amount of work it takes to make one work either is overwhelming for many or is ignored as people simply suffer through things. Near as I can tell.

So I think about Yuri, miserably hanging around a house dripping with memories, reminding her of this "failure" (a word both of us have used), stocking up on Claritin to overwhelm her allergies to the dog in her living area, forced to deal with her mother, who was barely speaking to her six months ago (is that another personal detail I should have not included? Ah well ...). Working six and seven days a week to battle the debt load she kept building as I looked on indifferently. On occasion, I think about these things -- things that would have sent me leaping into the fray as her savior, with no thought of myself -- and I don't care. Mentally going over the things she told me that Saturday, I feel I did everything I could as long as I could, and my mis-steps are characterized only by their egregiousness, like not believing her the morning of our wedding when she told me through a curtain of tears how she would fail me.

Then a ray of sunshine beams through my blinds, or the phone rings, or an email comes flying into my inbox like a half-blind paratrooper, and thoughts of Yuri Hinson disappear like morning dew under noonday sun. My thoughts move on with my life, growing brighter and less doomed every day, leaving the shadows behind.

" ... how we touched, and went our separate ways ..."

NOTE: This strangled cry for help began 9/22/03 at 9:34 PM, and was continued on 9/29/03 at 4:55 AM, just for your information. Oh, and I'm deeply worried I'm running out of steam on these essays, but for some reason I can't seem to shut the hell up ...