Scratch, Scratch, Scratch

She had a thought. She knew the thought to be false, a new form of self-loathing that etched its way into the strange mass of gray matter inside her skull on a random Saturday night in early August. But, as most of her thoughts were self-diagnosed as possibly being the key to freedom from nostalgia, she allowed it to permeate deep into the boggy swamp she lovingly called her "brain." The thought was this:

Maybe it was because I used the toenail of my right big toe to scratch the polish off of the nail of my left big toe. With my feet propped in his lap while watching television, the scratching would inevitably cause him to twitch every time I scraped. It caused such a horrible clicking noise that it slowly made him go insane, and then he would begin to imagine a more stable life with a woman who got pedicures and took her toenail polish care more seriously. The thought of being with a woman who actually cared about toenail beauty would then lead to the breaking point of his patience, which resulted in his pleading, "Stop it. That is so annoying. What are you even doing?"

Yes. This was it. She had finally figured it out. The reason for the downfall of her marriage was to be blamed on happily watching little paint chips of Cover Girl Boundless Color (black, of course) fall onto her husband’s lap. And this, this is what drove him away.

Of course, this was just another sick conclusion that she had come to in a laundry list (funny still, because she never did the laundry) of possible reasons for her divorce. Another favorite was telling herself that her self-righteousness concerning justice in the universe was entirely too overwhelming. Could they not just take a Sunday drive without her pointing out various facts about the state of the economy? On movie nights, must she always pick out the documentary on the global effect of the war in Iraq? And, could she just once leave him alone about "opening up" and "wanting to grow together" in their relationship?

Once, he had told her, exhausted, "It’s like you’re in love with your sadness. I feel like you are in a bad mood all of the time. Do you have to be so complicated?" She hadn’t the heart to flat-out tell him why she was so sad, so she let him in on her secret in little increments. On certain days when the secret overwhelmed her, she would say, "I miss you," even if he was sitting right next to her. And, she honestly really did miss him. He could be lying behind her on the couch while stroking her hair, and an overwhelming sense of loneliness would envelop her. He never caught onto her strange remarks. He would just respond, "But, I’m right here." At other times, she would feel as if she was floating away in a world of her own thoughts to the point where an actual separation from her physical body was felt. She would begin to panic, slightly. At this point, he learned that if he lay on top of her for five to ten minutes, she would begin to feel grounded again. It always worked. There was something about the weight of his body on her body that made her not only feel as if she was being held by him, but by everyone in the world. And if she felt any connection, she felt safe.

One of her favorite fantasies involved a morning in which they would both wake up at eight o-clock, read The New York Times together, drink coffee and discuss their favorite articles. They would trade interesting quips, smile at each other over the table and proceed to water the garden in the courtyard of their 50’s Modernist home. But, he didn’t like gardening. He didn’t like getting up early. He didn’t even like coffee.

Mornings were an exceptionally magical time for her. It was a whole new chance at being "okay" with her life and her marriage. There were nights she went to bed at nine-thirty, just so she could make morning appear to arrive more quickly. So, it was with great disappointment that whenever she woke with hope and began to sing her silly morning songs with brilliant lyrics such as, "Hello, toothbrush, here I am. Come clean my teeth that are filled with ham," he would slightly groan and roll over in his cocoon of blankets. She would say, "You would miss my morning insanity if I was gone." He would eventually completely awaken at one in the afternoon, and she would mourn the death of lost, shared sunrises. Little by little, day after day, she dropped hints. Hints of her secret. In the back of her mind, without knowing why, she knew. She knew that he would leave her one day. He would leave her for a woman that got meticulously perfect pedicures on a regular basis...with luminescent pink polish.

It is now 12:44a.m. on yet another night in August. She misses her friends. More now, and harder. The racing thoughts begin and continue in waves. They are loud and annoying like when she was annoyed with the sea on summer vacation. The reason she was annoyed with the sea was because it was interrupting her obsessive thoughts. See the pattern? The real reason she was annoyed with the sea was because she was actually annoyed with her husband. Florida was their chance. (She should have known that Florida is not a place for reconciliation.) It was their last, dying hope of ever making their marriage work. They had made grand plans to renew their vows. They traveled on their wedding anniversary. Four years. They had made it "work" for four years. At the moment they were to renew their vows, they looked at each other, took a sip of wine straight from the bottle and said absolutely nothing. "Aren’t we supposed to be renewing our vows?" she asked, cautiously. "That’s what I thought," he responded. He rose to his feet and started walking down the sparsely populated beach alone. She sat on the dune, watching him walk away. As she squinted to see his body, the body she had loved so deeply, slowly moving down the shoreline, further and further away from her, she thought, "It’s over. I’ve lost him. He’s not coming back. I will never love like this again. Ever."

Fast-forward three, long, excruciatingly painful and heart-wrenching years. She has opened her heart again. She has done a lot of really hard work, for lack of a better term.

She wakes at 8:00a.m in a loft apartment she had visualized months before. She is lying next to a man who makes up songs about cheese enchiladas and family pets. He studies plants for a living. He says, "Sweetie, the coffee’s ready. I’m going to get the paper." She is still unaware of what is happening before her very eyes. He comes back with Sunday’s edition of The New York Times. He tells her that she can have the crossword with an ornery glint in his eyes, and she rolls her own eyes at the thought that she could ever finish it. She relays a story about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in veterans of the Iraq war. He points out dogs he wants and laughs out loud at Dilbert. They sip their coffee. She looks over her section of the paper. They share a glance. They smile at each other in complete silence, and it finally hits her. She doesn’t tell him that it hit her.

Later on in the same week (today), she pulls up a piece of writing from a lonely night in August. She is astounded at what she reads and how it directly correlates to what is happening right now on a daily basis. She decides to finish this little piece of writing. She adds on the part that begins, "Fast-forward three long years . . . " And, then . . . she decides to tell him about her epiphany right this very second.

"Shhh...stop your obsessive thoughts and listen to the ocean. She’s telling us something," the man pleads.

"Okay, I’m listening. What is she saying?" the woman asks.

"She’s saying: You are not you’re past. Trust this love."

The woman says, "I think you used the wrong ’your’ again, but I love and trust you, anyway."

The man says, "Your so weird, but I love and trust you anyway, too."

And, then...love and trust gave them a "Welcome Home" present.

The present is one hand inside of another.

(Scratch, scratch, scratch.)