Rattle

Well .. it’s done.

Hazel and I are separated – have been so for almost a month now.  She lives on one end of the metro area; I live near the other end.

Today is my birthday.  It’s the first birthday I’ve ever had where I’ve had an alcoholic drink; it’s also the first birthday where I was definitely drunk.  I think I’m no longer drunk now — it’s nearing 4.30am, and my last drink was around 0.30am.

Instead, I am having another bout of insomnia.  I really need to get some sleep; I’m supposed to get up around 6.45 in the morning and go help Hazel with some things she needs done.  I don’t want to let her down.

When I moved out of the house, I moved in with a roommate.  I’d known her for about a year before moving in; we got along OK, and she offered the chance to live elsewhere for less money than renting an apartment, so I accepted.

Problem is, I’ve fallen in “like” with her, and I can’t bring myself to say anything to her about it.  We’ve spoken at length about just wanting a cuddle buddy; about how neither of us really even wants a sexual relationship with anyone; and about how neither of us can find a cuddle buddy.

Also, we flirt with each other.  I worry that I am taking it all wrong; that I’m seeing the flirting as just a way to avoid admitting actual attraction, rather than simple joking around.  My ability to read signals is very impaired, and not by alcohol.  This has been going on for a couple weeks now, and it’s been escalating; tonight, we sat together at a show, and she put her hand on my leg as she flirted.  Twice.

There are a few things that have been going thru my mind, for months now, that may help explain why I’m finding myself in this sort of predicament.

• I’ve come to realize that even though Hazel and I have remained married for 34 years, our marriage was truly over some fifteen years ago.  We haven’t had an actual loving relationship for that long, at least.  It gradually became this caretaker / dependent kind of thing.  When she left back in March, I found myself wanting a relationship pretty quickly after that; at the time, I thought it was because Hazel had left me, but now, I think it was because there’s been no relationship for a long time, and I am starved for that.
• I’ve been feeling very unmoored lately, as if my boat had run aground at some point, the anchor chain snapped, and the tide came in, lifting me back up and tossing me into this sea, this ocean of uncertainty.  If there’s been no relationship for the past fifteen years or so, what exactly does that mean?  I still came home to a wife, even if she ignored me and even sometimes avoided me.  We would sit in the living room watching (rather, “watching”) television and not saying much of anything to one another.  Was this all wasted time?