Understand The Problem

I leave my job because it's too much stress on top of you and your lack of a job. I get something with shorter hours, even though we need the money I'm losing in the transition. I have to step up and be the breadwinner and the one who holds us together.

You can't get off of the couch. I drop him off at daycare while you stay at home. I go to work while you stay at home. I pick him up from daycare and take the long way home because I don't want to see you. I don't have anything to say to you.

I don't mean to make it sound all bad; it's not. I go from working with the public to working alone in an office. Many mornings I can leave the fluorescent lights off for an hour or two and just enjoy being by myself. I am never by myself, so it almost feels wrong to get paid for this.

I go through the backlog of podcasts I have downloaded. I let myself get lost in the worlds they present to me. I feel like I could become anyone, study anything, go anywhere. I want to leave you behind and be on my own forever and ever amen.

I listen to songs about separation and divorce while I think about my own. They are the soundtrack of the path I'm on, and I'm eager to reach the end. I plot out when I will tell you and how. I wonder how you will react. I wonder how I will feel after. I wonder what the legal process will be like.

None of it seems terrible in my mind. Anything would be better than what we have now. I feel trapped even though I am the one leaving the house every day. I feel like you are smothering me even from so far away. 

I clock out and get into my car which has spent the day baking in the sun. I feel like I am boiling over. I can't drive home; I want to drive south, east, west, anywhere but back to you.

358 words