Heartburn

How does a marriage end?  It is with a word?  Is it a compilation of a little million pieces of disappointment?  Is it with the thought of something else?  Or is it with a moment that cannot be taken back?

I have always been a giver.  My first love/boyfriend Cesar drove me crazy in love.  I followed him around, bought him jackets and shoes and watched him cheat on me at the Metro.  No matter what he did to me, I wanted him.  I loved him more than I loved myself and that was the problem.  Years later, he called me and told me I was the one.  I was smart enough to turn away.

To turn away.  That is what is required to end a marriage.  For one of the married persons to turn away and not look back.  That is probably why so many marriages end with an affair.  It is easier that way.  To have someone else to turn to, I imagine, has to be easier than turning to a life alone. 

I have never been good at keeping ultimatums.  For years, I told Adrian to marry me or I would leave him.  I never did.  It was seventeen years before we tied the knot.  The knot that binds.

A binding can be used as an adjective or verb.  As a noun it means a strip sewn or attached over or along an edge for protection, reinforcement, or ornamentation.  Thus, marriage can be protective and/or reinforcing (for me at least, it has never been ornamental, I make a bad trophy wife).

When used as an adjective, a binding is defined as uncomfortably tight and confining.  To marry someone and compromise is hard.  The daily necessity to try and try again can be confining and at the very least uncomfortable.  At times, it can be downright painful.

Like I said, I am a giver.  I give and give.  Yet sometimes, I feel it doesn't come back.  As if I am sitting at the end of a dinner table in the last seat waiting for a meal that never comes.

Dinner.  I wish.  Just in case you don't know, I can't eat right now.  My stomach has been stapled and my system re routed.   And yes, if it isn't obvious, my heartburn is caused by more than the surgery.  I am hoping it goes away like most heartburn does.

Now dear reader, just in case you read too much into this, my marriage is not over.  Marriage is hard and I have a feeling my weight loss will change many things including my marriage.  Change can sometimes be big and sometimes change can be small.  But, just so y'all know, I feel a big change is coming.  A big change.