Ralph

And maybe that’s a good thing.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything to add to this,but here I am.
I appreciate the fact that anyone cared enough to notice my small problem and offer a kind word or advice.
I usually find it easier to give advice than to take it, but it all made perfect sense. I let go of my wounded pride and reached out with my heart. I was rejected. So much had changed. I had changed. There would be no happy ending, no fairy tale reunion.
I still love her like no other woman I have ever known, but I now know that you can’t go back. What is past is past. Only the memories, the scents and sights and souns. The touch you feel only in your dreams. That’s all that you have and that has to be enough.

It’s a shame that at 46 years old, I have never lesrned to drive.
My daughter has been driving for 5 years now.She’ll drive to the next county to get a candy bar just because she can.
I’ve had at least ten learners permits over the years and keep passing the written test, but something always keeps me from the practice time I need to pass the road test and get my licence.

Twenty years into the process, I realized that my marriage had reached the point wehere love had very little to do with staying married. I had become the dutiful husband, father and caretaker. I suffered and sacrificed for my wife and my daughter and had absolutely nothing to show for it. It was made clear to me that I would always be second to the requisite possesions and rituals of a middle class life. I was irrelevant as long as my wife had everything she wanted and useless if she didn’t.
In the middle of a period when suicide or homicide seemed like reasonable alternatives, a women entered my life and changed me forever.
She didn’t need me, she wanted me and more importantly she wanted me to be happy. I spent the happiest year of my life with her. She looked into my soul and found all the good things I had hidden there. She encouraged me and healed me. And I let her go. A final concession to duty and the need to do the right thing. It was and is a decision that I regret more and more every day.
Even though the relationship we had has been damaged beyond repair, I owe it to her to try to live the most important lesson she taught me. It is a qoute from John Keats and it took me a while to understand, ” Oh for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts.”
I owe her that.
More importantly, I owe myself that.