fork in the road
How different would things be between us now if I made a different choice that fateful night?
In the midst of a furious row I screamed and shouted and threw things off my deck. I told you it was over, go home, leave me alone, we were through. But you didn’t. I punched the wall. It wasn’t enough, I punched it again.
*crack*
I knew right away something was broken.
Immediately my anger dissipated and turned into pain, regret, embarrassment. I walked away, hid in the bushes of the newly cut road behind my house, cursing my stupidity towards myself and my insensitivity towards you, cradling my injured hand while trying not to cry.
If I made a decision then I could have come to you waving my broken hand like a flag of truce or surrender. I could have told you how sorry I was, how the pain and resentment and frustration welling up inside me was put there by me over the course of my life, but only brought forth by your refusal to take it on. In so many ways that made me respect you more for your strength of will. Until then everything I put forth into the universe simply carried on away from me. As soon as we got close the negativity I threw out bounced right off of you and straight back into me, blinding me for a time with my own pain and hurt that had accumulated over the years. I needed to see how it felt to be on the receiving end before I really understood I had to change.
How would things have been different?
I know things had to happen as they did. I am a new person and am still changing. Things have to get bad before they get better. I have wallowed in the ashes and chewed on my own sense of pity. No longer. I do not hold either of us to blame. We both were in the situation and our actions defined it. I know it had to happen for me to learn this lesson, and I know you learnt too. My only regret is that during it all I caused you pain, and while you know I loved you I didn’t show the extent of it.
But sometimes I wonder. If I had been able to see it then, to admit it to myself and to you, how would things be between us? Would it be the way I think it still could be? Am I torturing myself still by these imaginings?
Probably.
