Let's pretend that everything is fine.

Everything has changed; nothing has changed.

If ever I had an ego, it ceased-to-be in 2025, along with any inherent sense of pride I might have once possessed.

But maybe what I'm actually talking about is self-esteem. Or could I be talking about my sense of self-worth?  I don't really know. Took my last psychology class half-a-lifetime ago, so I'm not really sure. Also, I haven't seen my therapist in a while (maybe it's time). Thus, at least for today, I'm doing my own stunts when it comes to dredging the definitions and depths of these terms.

To phrase this in the most vulgar way: I basically feel like a worthless piece of shit. Have for a year now.  Devastated. Sad. Unlovable. Humiliated. Unwanted. Without value. Aimless. Everyone who knows me knows why.  My wife left me.  A year ago. Told me she didn't love me any more.  Moved out of our house.  Walked away from me, our home, our pets, our family photos. And her extended family. Ghosted. All of it.

Tired of pretending everything is fine.

She lives with someone else now. Someone she's known for years; they met at the local community theater, I'm told.  He came to the house with her, in her rented U-Haul moving van, right after our divorce was final, the day they moved into their new house together. He helped her pack the last of her things, like it was the most mundane and normal thing ever, like we hadn't been together 30 years, conceived and raised a child together, literally tattoo'd our lifelong promises to each other on our ring-fingers together, and spent thousands and thousands of days and nights together in this place, making this house our Home.

She had her reasons, of course.  I kept a list of them, adding to the inventory each time she proffered a new one during the final weeks of our cohabitation.  They weren't all about her problems with me, nor were they all about her problems with herself.  I'm pretty sure she would say something to the effect of: it was a long-spoiled concoction of co-equal fault... I was a selfish, self-absorbed asshole only interested in using my time to do my things my way... She was a frustrated aspirational artiste in search of herself, tired of living in my shadow, tired of being the good wife... We were a couple of mid-life empty-nesters left bereft and with nothing left in common.

I didn't want to get divorced.  But I was the one who first brought it up.  Pleaded with her for weeks to reconcile with me, attend couples therapy together, work diligently and deliberately on "our shit" together.  But she would not.  Nonetheless, in the end we agreed to file amicably and uncontested, which we did.  I no longer wished to be married to someone who didn't love me, who didn't want to be married to me.  I think she just wanted out, the sooner the better. Conveniently, an uncontested divorce petition (with no minor children) takes just 60 days (and a couple hundred bucks) from co-filing to the judge's decree in the Superior Court of Coconino County, Arizona.

So here I sit, a year of melancholy and solitude, of being a ghost in this house, has now transpired.  I'm not getting any better at coping with all that I've lost, with all that has changed. Still hate being alone. Still miss her and our life together every day.  Still don't feel like I've moved on, nor do I feel that I want to. Still not feeling like the deliberate efforts I've made to learn and grow, to blossom into a "new you" in the last 12 months have been met with any kind of tangible extrinsic affirmation or intrinsic positive reinforcement... in fact, in this moment, it feels like the exact opposite is actually true... still feels to me like each attempt I've made in the last 12 months to move forward, find purpose, speak truth, make connections, reach out, seek healing, develop companionship, or embrace this new format for living this solitary life has been met, at every turn, with one or more of the following: rejection, disappointment, contention, injury, and/or disillusionment. Each of these "setbacks" has served only to further chip away at the scant scattered remnants of my ego, exsanguinate what little might have remained of my post-divorce self-esteem, and serially dilute the rapidly evaporating solution that was once my sense of self-worth.

So now I just exist, and sometimes self-loathe.  I have my routines, I walk my pets, find the occasional opportunity to spend time with my friends, ride bikes, ski, read books, listen to music, and do a couple part-time "gig" jobs around town that keep me busier, and my mind occupied, more than it might otherwise be.

But there is no flavor, no seasoning, in this self-serve diet. Because I have no Purpose.  No real reason for doing any of this.  

Sure. My kid. She is wonderful, really amazing.  So proud of who she is, as well as who she's becoming.  I love her quite literally "to the moon and back," always have. Moreso now than ever, in fact.  Our enduring, newly revitalized and now unbuffered relationship is, to me, the silver-lining in all of this. Every moment I get to spend with her is a gift that fills me with joy, albeit fleetingly.  She never stays for long.  Because she shouldn't.  Her life is happening, as it should, at an exciting, frenetic pace.   And the fact-of-the-matter is simple: she no longer needs me as she once did, when she was younger and still living under our roof.  And this, too, is as it should be.  She is not my Purpose, nor should I be hers.  

My Purpose left me on 03 January 2025.

And it turns out, that is a super hard thing for someone like me to accept.  I am a person that enjoys doing for others.  I am at my best, and find that I am most satisfied with myself when I am serving those that I love. "Acts of Service," is how I think proponents of The Five Love Languages would identify this satisfying compulsion.  

I naturally assumed that I would lovingly take care of and tend to the well-being of my wife for the balance of my lifetime or hers, that I would abide with her, responsibly secure our home and our finances with her, remain ever faithful to her, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, all the things, for the remainder of my days or hers.  And for some 30 years, since before we ever said our vows, I was certain: 

She was my Purpose. 

But now she's gone.  And so here I sit, a full year later, wondering... what will I do with the rest of my life now?