She Said

Gerard van der Leun has posted a provocative and very introspective essay on lost love, vengeance, and the internal dialog that transpires at the dread hour of 4:00 a.m.

Gerard:

Nothing good ever transpires in an argument carried past 2AM, and it grows almost lethal as it winds on until 4. It doesn't matter whether or not the argument is with another or just with oneself, let it run that long into the night and you will know -- cold and stained -- the darkest secrets of the self. And you will drink them down as night after night and year after year they are drawn up from the heart's core. And the water will be dank and false and carry an ever increasing taint of poison into your soul. Tasted once, you will have a ceaseless thirst for more of it.

I've been drinking my dark bitter glass from my secret well of hate in the dark hours on and off for what is now going on fifteen years. That's a strange measure since it marks just about the same length of time that I loved the woman and was married to her.

His essay hit me where I live. There are strong parallels between Gerard’s experience and my own, but although our experiences are similar, they are not identical. I’ve lived the “victim” role he writes about so well. I know of the rationalizations, the denial, and the projection of selfish motive and pure guilt upon the other. In those 4:00 a.m. fantasies we ourselves are always guilt-free, innocent, wrongly done. Whereas Gerard admits to thoughts of hateful revenge that afflicted him for such a long time, my fantasies concern themselves not with revenge but with restoration, of a return to what once was but will never, ever be again.

My fantasy always seems to begin with words “But she said…” And yes, she did say. Often. Many times each day. Sometimes tossed over the shoulder, sometimes murmurmed secretively, but always with feeling. And at one point in time, for years and years and years, actually, she meant what she said. But then it changed, she no longer believed, she no longer said, and then she was gone. But here’s the problem: I never ceased believing, even after she stopped saying. In the face of all I know to be true, in the face of all evidence, of things said and unsaid, of legal complaints filed and adjudicated, of new vows taken…in short, in the face of incontrovertible cold hard fact, I still cling to what she said, once upon a time.

Gerard’s tale describes his epiphany, how he came to resolution, and it ends on a positive note. But for some of us, there is no answer. There’s only “but…she said."