Don't Tread On Me

My wife and I are going through some difficult times, or at least I am, and for the time being I don’t really want her reading anything I write. She’s been so bitterly critical of the content of my writing in the past couple years that some things I’d write for my own benefit would cause her such frenzied anger and insecurity I’d be punished with pouty silence and abstinence for days. As of this post, she hasn’t called to talk to me in four days while I’ve been on the road.

I’m thinking of having my dispatcher route me to North Carolina for my home time this weekend. I’ll miss seeing my kids but I think I need to kick back with my sister and brother and their spouses and shoot the breeze with Mom. I’m wound pretty tight right now: blood’s not getting to my head. There’s no clarity, man. Just shitloads of sizzling electric rage. If I went to Delaware this weekend Jessica’d start sermonizing and push my tottering self over the edge and I might do something regrettable.

She often accuses me of “hiding,” or trying to escape from the issues we share in life, but the truth is she’s the only person I hide from. She’s the only person who turns flipped flung shit when I write about drug use, or say “fuck,” or question God, or mention sex or love in anything but a Disney-esque tone. She’s actually been threatening people behind my back, warning them not to read my journal or she’ll be pissed and they’ll go to hell. It’s psychotic, but I’m trying to breathe deeply and be understanding and all that other draining stuff you have to do to make a relationship work.

Last time I was home, we were talking and I mentioned that if she was anyone but my wife I'd consider her a crazed paranoid stalker. She laughed, but she also admitted it was true. Scary, man. Weird scary shit. In her perception everything I do and say in life comes back as connected to her, related to her somehow. I guess that’s normal for women. Self-absorbed bints. There’s no rational communication with them at all.

Me: “I’m hungry...think I’ll go make a sandwich.”

Her: “What’re you saying? That I’m the reason you had an affair?”

I try to respect her viewpoints. A lot of her hostility is understandable. Shit, I couldn’t put up with me if I was in her shoes. She’s right to be insecure and untrusting of me, because I’m not trustworthy. I’ve proven that. I don’t trust myself.

But trying to stamp the writing out or take editorial control is going too far. Writing pre-dates her in my life. I started journaling when my parents separated. I was fifteen. I used pen and paper to extricate the agony. It’s helpful to me. I can’t stop just because it makes her uncomfortable.

And even though I don’t want her reading for awhile, I’m not really doing anything clever or subversive to hide this stuff. I don’t like feeling forced into secrecy. That shit’s no good, boy. I’m not doing it anymore; I’m trying to be transparent.

Fact is the more she knows me, the less she likes what she sees. We’re at a crossroads in our relationship, and I’m not sure which way the pendulum’s going to swing.

If history’s an indicator, it’s going to slit my head open either way.

I am a Man of Constant Sorrow

I am a man of constant sorrow
I've seen trouble all my day.
I bid farewell to old Kentucky
The place where I was born and raised.

For six long years I've been in trouble
No pleasures here on earth I found
For in this world I'm bound to ramble
I have no friends to help me now.

It's fare thee well my old lover
I never expect to see you again
For I'm bound to ride that northern railroad
Perhaps I'll die upon this train.

You can bury me in some deep valley
For many years where I may lay
Then you may learn to love another
While I am sleeping in my grave.

Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger
My face you'll never see no more.
But there is one promise that is given
I'll meet you on God's golden shore.

-- The Soggy Bottom Boys