Looking around the empty house, he once again told himself it was the sensible thing to do, given the circumstances. He knew that she would eventually stop hating him for it, or at least he hoped she would. Time heals all, right? He had repeated that to himself four or five times a day as he had gone about the business of ridding himself of his effects.
He held garage sales every weekend for months on end, selling for pennies on the dollar five rooms full of furnishings and whatnot - books, artwork, knickknacks - paraphernalia that at one time he felt compelled to purchase and now he regarded as just so much worthless dead weight.
Every so often as he was emptying a shelf or clearing out a closet he would stumble across an item that would remind him of a moment, a time and place that had been special for them both. Occasionally he felt a tinge of sentiment, but more often he would look at the item and wonder if it had all just been a waste.
The relationship had begun auspiciously enough. They had met and there was a mutual attraction, and he thought she was smart, fun, sexy. She told him he was the first real man she had dated in a long while, and that he made her feel safe.
He recalled feeling though, that however great it felt to be together those first few months, there was always an undercurrent of apprehension, of caution. She had made a comment on one of their first dates that she wanted to keep everything casual, that she had rushed into relationships too quickly in the past and had made mistakes. He clearly recalled her playfully saying it would be nice if they could hold off getting too serious for "at least ten years or so."
That schedule wasn't to be, for it wasn't long before they had made the leap from casual dating to committed relationship, and it wasn't long after they had agreed to the serious, mutually exclusive status that the small disagreements became loud shouting matches that always resulted in three or four days of hostile silence between them.
She had moved in with him after she lost her job, about six months after they had met. It was just going to be temporary, until she got back on her feet and was stable financially. It had now been almost two years.
In that time her playful, confident persona had transformed into one of paranoid insecurity, and with that had come accusations of him not wanting to spend time with her, or worse. It was as if she had gone from being a fully-realized adult woman to an emotionally unstable teenage girl.
She did, he had to admit, always find a way to apologize for her "lapses into immaturity," and she made what he considered valid points about some of his behaviors not being entirely mature either.
So he worked to stay rational when they argued, and he made every effort to minimize anything he brought to the table that she felt threatened by - he stared at the floor or ceiling whenever they went shopping or out to dinner in order to avoid being accused of looking at other women, and he stopped spending time with a few friends that she felt could not understand their "relationship dynamic."
Then one night, after yet another argument born of an unfounded accusation of infidelity, he decided enough was enough. He had finally arrived at the point where he could no longer fight - not with her, and not for her, and certainly not for the relationship.
When he told her she had to move out, she laughed at him. Two days later when she came home from work (the fourth job she'd had since they had met) and found all of her clothes and belongings packed up and stacked in the garage, she exploded in a rage that scared him - she made threats of calling the police and accusing him of assaulting her, of raping her. She threatened to kill his dogs, and she swore she would betray every secret he had ever told her to every friend and family member of his that she knew.
His sister and her husband came out of the back bedroom after she had screamed that she would get him fired. Seeing them standing quietly at the end of the hall stunned her. She started to cry, violently, and then collapsed on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
The three of them stared at her for a short while, then her father came out of the back bedroom as well, his face a mask of concerned distraught. He bent over and wrapped his arms around his daughter and told her it was time for them to leave.
That had been three months ago. The day after her father had walked her out of his house he had returned with a U-Haul and loaded up all her belongings. He had not seen or heard from her since.
The sense of guilt he carried since that day had yet to subside. He knew he had done what had to be done, but still doubts crept in. He spent hours wondering if he had somehow failed to do enough, if maybe he hadn't tried hard enough to make the relationship work, if he had given up much too soon.
Now, today, he loaded up the last of the books that he hadn't sold at any of the garage sales into a large box and carried it out to the truck. He would make one last donation to the AmVets thrift shop and then get on his way.
The house was empty, and he felt compelled to make a comparison to his life. The new owners would be taking possession in three days. His new life was waiting for him almost 1200 miles away.
Sitting behind the wheel he looked up and saw the small note he had tucked under the sun visor. He reached up and read it yet again.
"Patience, tolerance, & forgiveness will not always fix a relationship. Stop trying to convince yourself you have to be strong to be in a relationship, just stop. Stop right now. There are some people who are just looking for conflict to make themselves feel alive, and they are not capable of being in a relationship. The fight they are having is not with you, it is with themselves. Stop wasting your life on them. Stop fighting for something that isn't there. Having someone in your life who is constantly tearing you down does not make you better. Stop being afraid of being alone. Being alone is much smarter than being in a relationship that you have to constantly fight for."
And then he drove away.
.JPG)
