A Birthday Postcard

August 1st, 1988

Juan Carlos,

This is our second time celebrating your birthday together. You have no idea how happy I am. My only wish is that you are happy and healthy and surrounded by love all of the days of your life. I am so grateful that I get to spend this day with you.

Love,

Patricia

When I wrote those words, I thought that, more than likely, we would be over and done within a couple of years. If I was really, really lucky, statistically speaking, the best I could hope for, was seven to ten years, considering that we were so young at the time. The fact that neither one of us was in any hurry to get married or join adulthood, plus my ambivalence about relationships, told me we would probably part ways before we hit thirty.

To a nineteen-year-old girl, thirty sounds extremely old. I had a different outlook. Thirty looked like a chance to reinvent myself. I thought of it, as a chance to be young again, reborn, if you will. But, if we did surpass that mark, somehow. and got married, and made it to our twentieth anniversary, no, wait, our twenty fifth, then we'd be in our forties, late forties even. That would make it harder. Not impossible, just harder to start our lives over.

But why would we get divorced if we had lasted that long? Surely we wouldn't be in a loveless marriage. Not us. Much less a sexless marriage. HA! We couldn't keep our hands off of each other. That would be the day.

And here we are, way past our 25th mark, going on our 26th anniversary. We haven't had sex since July of last year. Before that, it had been about 5 months. We have sex so sporadically; I can't keep track of it. You don't come when we have sex. Neither do I.

You decided 8 years ago that you weren't happy. Not unhappy enough for a divorce, just unhappy enough to banish our sex life. I had always thought that I would walk out of a loveless marriage. Yet, here I am. Hoping that something is going to change, that we are going to find our way back.

But we haven't.

You say you haven't been unfaithful.

I have.

Not physically, but mentally.

Emotionally.

I drift away into my own little worlds. Realms that you will never reach.

In some of them you are dead, and I have collected the insurance money. I paid off all the debts, and secured our child's future and my retirement. I work to pay my expenses, but I am set. And free to do what I want. And although I have lovers, I remain untethered. I travel, read, eat in bed. And never think of you again.

In others, when you leave me, my suitors are better men, kinder, softer, richer. You are jealous., realizing what you've lost, Angry and sad and pathetic. And I don't care.

Other times, you are the one that gets off easy, as if you haven't done enough damage already. You date a younger, prettier model, that is everything you ever wanted. But I still one up you, because I kill myself, and your child hates you forever.

When I wrote your birthday card, long ago, I said a little prayer.

I thanked the Universe and the Creator for the time that he would let me spend with you. I said I would be grateful, even if you were to leave me that same day. For I had wanted you so badly, and I had had you. So for that miracle alone I was grateful. Any time with you was a gift. So should the time come that we should part ways, I promised that I would be graceful. And in my original prayer, if we divorced, we'd do it amicably. And after a period of self-discovery, we would both re-couple. And when we saw each other, our love would have transcended into something everlasting and beautiful. And painless. And our children would be proud of us. And we would too.

But right now. At this moment. I wish with all my heart we never get there. I wish I could discover a way for us to find each other.

But I don't know we will.