It was the first and only line in my note.
“By the time you read this, I will be gone.”
I watched the water below, rushing past with the same indifference my family had shown to me. Twenty years is a long time to wait to get what you want, and eventually, you run out of patience.
The evidence was clear. My wife had grown to hate me and my teenager didn’t love anything but cats and screens.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spent any quality time with my family. The movies. Bowling. Miniature golf. A concert. Any kind of adventure would have been alright with me, but my wife and my teenager just weren’t interested.
Unless I did all the work.
That’s what it came down to really.
In my family the philosophy was Robert makes the reservations. He arranges social events. He buys cakes for the children’s birthday parties. He does all the cooking for the family; all the grocery shopping for the family. All the yard work and snow removal.
If the cat got sick, Robert was in charge of figuring out why the cat got sick.
Was it the unkempt feeding area (which I had repeatedly asked other members of the family to help me keep clean) that made the cat sick?
Did the cat nibble on one of our house plants, and it made him sick?
We would only find the answer if I sought it out.
I could count on two hands the number of times she ever did a load of laundry for me, in 20 years. Any effort I made to get some assistance from the person who was supposed to be my partner resulted in arguments.
For the crime of asking my wife for more effort and a sense of proactivity, I was called a terrible person. I got that exact insult on more than one occasion from my kid, too.
The breeze was a refreshing change of pace and I inhaled deeply as I contemplated the next few moments. Five days on a ratty Greyhound with slack-jawed people in need of a shower will do that to you.
God, just give me some fresh air.
I enjoyed the smell of the salty ocean air, but it didn’t change anything. I was still haunted by my memories. It had been 15 years since she had an affair. Although I was never unfaithful to her, she was mad and unable to communicate with me.
She was angry at me and couldn’t say it.
She held a grudge about something I said in an argument five years earlier, complained to her friends about it, and ended up having an affair with a co-worker.
When she asked for another chance, like a fool, I gave her one.
Let me tell you something. “No regrets,” is the most commonly repeated lie on Earth. People say “no regrets” because saying you have actual regrets is virtually the same as admitting you were wrong — that you made a mistake or an incorrect decision — and people don’t do that.
No, people fight back when you try to tell them they were wrong, or that they hurt you, or that you need more. They attack.
Honestly, I have nothing but regrets.
One after another.
I’m not afraid to admit Robert fucked up. I chose poorly when it came to women.
I am an old man. I’ve had a stroke and I am in the worst health of my life, and alone in it. It took weeks of fighting and arguments to get my wife to help me put my pills in a purple “Day of the Week” dispenser, because my hands don’t work like they used to. My dexterity is shit.
She doesn’t care because she has no empathy.
Shopping for, or preparing healthy foods, to try to extend my own life, is all on me.
To try to extend my own life.
What a joke that was.
What life did I have?
That life wasn’t worth extending.
I watched two seagulls glide above me, staying aloft as the ocean breeze slipped beneath their wings, and yet, they were almost motionless from my point of view. I reached out my hand, the gull hovering just out of reach.
The freedom to just fly away must be God’s greatest gift.
I looked down at the water again, examined the placid chaos of the waves, and the way they crashed against each other from opposing directions. The sound of the surf was rude and violent, and I relaxed my grip on the railing; allowed my fingertips to drift lightly back and forth on the cold steel—a small gesture of surrender I didn’t fully understand.
The waves grew taller as the ferry approached the shore.
I left the upper deck and descended the stairs, slipping into line with the tourists. I had a couple thousand dollars in my pocket and I hadn’t left any sign where I was going. My family didn’t love me. Nobody wanted to be with me. I didn’t have a single friend in the world. There wouldn’t be anybody to miss me.
I strode down the gangway and onto the dock. I would need to find a job and make some friends if I was going to start a new life, and I immediately got to work.
Troy Larson is a writer, digital content creator, and broadcast veteran with hundreds of podcast and broadcast credits to his name. Reach out on Facebook and on Instagram.
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You've got it Troy!