April 19, 2004

I saw you yesterday when I came to pick up the mail. And it felt both weird and normal, seeing you. Weird because we're like strangers - at least I feel you act like that toward me. But normal, because it was you and I in our house, I was playing with the dogs while you swept. Just like a regular day in the neighborhood. Until the part where we spoke. And you said, "You don't want to be with me." You think you know it all, don't you? You think you're so smart and that you know what I want. Obviously you haven't been listening, or you heard me but you think you know better than I do.

Guess what, Mr. Valedictorian? I do want to be with you. And I wonder if that's what part of this is about. If you think, deep down inside, that I don't really want to be with YOU but I want to be with SOMEONE and that I'm just taking you because you're there. Wrong.

I love YOU, Jeb. YOU. And I want to be with YOU. I just wish you'd get that through your thick skull.

I also wish we could work this out somehow. If you'd let us.

Because I don't want to have visitation rights to our dogs, I want to fall asleep next to you each night with our dogs at our feet, and awake to them each morning. I want them to greet me at the door each night when I come home.

More than that, I don't want to "run" into you when I come to check the mail. I want to come home each night and carry in the mail and sort it in the kitchen while asking you how your day was.

I want to stay married to you, Jeb. I wish you wanted to stay married to me, too.

that was then - this is now