Life

LL

Lives lived and not lived.

Ten, no, nearly eleven years have passed since we parted. When you were in a more vitriolic mood you mentioned boredom and me in the same breath. One of the weaker reasons you gave for your infidelity (ies).

Fact is ma'am your 'life' of weekends, occasional holidays to the same places and dwelling on what you eat, to me, is far more boring than the life you could have led.

In those 10-11 years I have climbed glaciers, visited volcanoes, aqua dived on the Great Barrier Reef, learnt Italian, and improved my other languages - French, German and Spanish. I've been everywhere from China to New Zealand, from Barbados to all of Europe. None of that includes the internal trips in my home country - the USA. The cars the boats and the plane are just means to an end, but make life quite pleasurable.

I have friends you never heard of (because I never introduced you to them), grandchildren who are at the center of my life, Ben my dog, the ranch and horses in New England and the means to do whatever I wish. I wouldn't call any of that boring - would you!

My life is rich (as is my bank account!) and enriched by the people around me, most of all by my wife. That position was yours once, but you were too indecisive, impulsive and wayward.

I get reports on your life from time to time and it all sounds quite mundane, repetitive and far from the excitement you once told me you craved.

I wasn't going anywhere as I told you long ago in the States - you were and that's what destroyed 'us'. That was, and is, your loss, in the main. You did me an enormous favor.

I'm reminded of black and white. My white shirt and black dressing gown. Long gone, I'm sure,  but I still have a photo of the former... You thought things were black and white when you believed you had left, but they weren't. It was not as 'clean cut' as you imagined. That is you decided to go and thought that is what you did. You didn't - I had already 'gone'. You lost me pretty much back in 2004 around March of that year. You must have thought I was born yesterday when you carried on as though nothing had happened.

You know what the most amusing thing is - the same has happened to you since you went your own way. Not everything in your garden is rosy. I find that funny, sad and ironic. You are blind to many things and none more so than those quite close to you. If you betrayed my trust what makes you think others can't do the same to you...and have.

Food for thought. You chose your bed... Me, you could have trusted me to the ends of the Earth, but you thought everyone lived by your standards. They don't.

Ciao