Life is a series of doors

Sometimes they are open.
And sometimes they close.
You don't know what is behind them.
Nobody does until they go through them.
Sometimes there is joy behind them.
At other times it is sorrow waiting.
But we walk trough them anyways.
Really, if we don't we are forced.
Thus is the question I ponder today.
I started the query with Buffy at breakfast.
Starbucks leads us to intense conversation.
Actually WE lead us to the intensity.
A simple question really when you ask it.
Anyone that reads this knows she left me.
My thought? When would I have left her?
Obviously neither of us was happy.
She was more fickle than me though.
I tended to think more than her.
I measure things much differently.
If I want to know where the grass is greener?
Well hell, I just look over the fence.
I don't need to invade the next lawn to know.
I don't need to burn my lawn to find out.
It is because I can think about things.
I can extrapolate information from experience.
It is just one of the things I learned in life.
That was something that always befuddled her.
Anyways, I gave it a lot of thought today.
When would I have left her?
How long would I have let that go on?
And the answer surprised me.
I wouldn't have left her directly.
Go ahead and let that one sink in for a second.
If you find it shocking, think how I feel about it.
I could not have left her, probably never.
There was too much history for me to.
Too much of a bond from the accident.
Have you ever been close to someone that almost died?
Ever been sitting next to them when it happened?
It is a shock to everything in the relationship.
The accident was absolutely a horrific time for us.
And something happens psychologically to you.
If I had left, it would have felt like betrayal to me.
(Obviously, she did not feel the same :-)
I had had to say goodbye to her back then.
For a while, I didn’t think she would make it.
After going through that, how could I end it all?
So like I said, I never would have left her.

HOWEVER…
I would have kept doing what I was doing.
It was a strange passive-aggressive dance.
I was becoming more and more rigid.
Almost adding a harsh edge to myself.
I was absolutely unchanging in most anything.
I had learned that both decisions offered were lies.
No matter what I picked, I was going to be wrong.
So I would rather be wrong for not choosing.
I was less and less likely to go along with things.
The harder she pushed, the more I resisted.
Just pushing and tugging against me.
It is also a little funny now in hindsight.
The things became more and more lame.
Heck, once it was over moving stuff in the garage.
Seriously, that was one of our issues (hey, it was my space).
So in the end, she ended up leaving because of them.
Sure, there were a couple of bigger issues causing it all.
But those were not part of the chat this morning.
The question was when I would have left.
The answer (shocked… stunned) was I wouldn’t have.
So it took me 3 years to answer that question.
I have actually wondered about it since it happened.
Nobody likes to confront answers they don’t like.
But that is one I can live with.
I don’t operate the same anymore.
Heck, I would boot her in a blink now.
No intense thought even required.
“You make me feel like crap, get out.”
I just love that I know that now.