So, trusting each other to expect more from themselves, each
lead lives of the suffocating silence that liberated them.
His solitude
was real and almost complete as he went through the motions of life. He ate, showered, mowed the lawn and read in
the company of only his dog, Dave.
Her
solitude was much more select and stole in at times when her husband was out or
sleeping and the responsibilities of running a household were
discharged. These moments came and she
was as alone as him or anyone. Perhaps
more so because the lonely moments were so arbitrary and she was so
unprepared. She knew a full and
wonderful life that was somehow still not complete. Why else would the silence become so loud so
suddenly? Why could she never see it
coming?
They’d both
been through the whole thirty-something, “Who am I and how did I get here and
is this who I want to be when I grow up?” thing. He’d pretty much ignored it because life was
a party then. Money and booze and women
came and went faster than he could have ever kept up with even if he’d
cared. Every so often he’d get bored and
that discontent would try to settle in. But back then he thought that there was
nothing in the world that another beer and another random woman didn’t
fix.
But her? She’d struggled mightily, wallowing in the
hole in her life’s meaning. Eventually,
banged up and muddy and bloody with doubt, she’d focused on the “important”
things- faith, family, career- and pulled herself back from the depths with a
resolve that only occasionally felt like resignation. But lately faith had failed her, family was
faltering and career had turned into a game played by those with too much to
prove. Still, however, the laser focus
on being who she’d decided to be remained the source of her calm
intensity. She was only vaguely aware that
she’d assumed this air of not quite grim determination.
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