The sirens were mythical sea nymphs who lured sailors to their death on the craggy shores of the island of Anthemoessa. As ships went by, they would sing their bewitching song so beautifully that sailor got closer and closer to the shore where their ship would be thrown by the waves onto the murderous rocks surrounding the island.
This is my new challenge. As my W keeps contacting me and getting closer and closer to me, so far I haven’t been able to resist the enchantment of her presence, of her company and this closeness has robbed me of my armour, detachment.
Without detachment, I cannot outlast the fog, and without distance I cannot achieve detachment therefore I must strengthen my will power and resist at all cost my W’s ever growing hold over me until I can pull back and allow her to miss me.
It is said that Odysseus managed to get pass the island by having his men put wax in their ears so they couldn’t hear the mesmerizing chant while he himself was tied to the mast of his ship. The sirens were so distressed to see a man hear their song and still manage to escape that they jumped into the sea and drowned.
While this distance is meant to preserve my sanity and protect me from further pain, perhaps it can be twofold and maybe, my W too will feel similar distress at seeing me pull away in the face of her constant presence.
With this said, today I informed my W when we were about to get back home after our morning’s activities and she got here shortly after us. I greeted her civilly and we exchanged platitudes and then I excused myself and went to practice my guitar as I was called yesterday and it looks like my gig will be resuming this week. The owner of the café also wants me to play tonight.
In fact, todays’ interaction with my W were very minimal and restricted to necessities as in the few words exchanged while putting up mosquito screens in D8’s bedroom together. I surprised myself by not initiating conversation while W was sitting at the dinning room table and I was grilling the fish for dinner. It was a bit awkward but I managed to look busy cooking and dancing to good old R&B which was playing (something I’ve always done while cooking). She on the other hand tried to make herself look busy by reading one of D8s books but I don’t buy it. She was truly dumbfounded.
During dinner me and D8 interacted as we usually do and had a good time while wife simply ate. After dinner she thanked me for the food (which she really liked by the way as she said countless time how great it was) and again, I replied civilly and went to my room.
I noticed how W often went to D8’s room and closed the door and I figured she was checking her phone and therefore seems to be respecting my boundaries.
Contact is inevitable as we have D8 and I always told W that she could come around as often as she wished. In fact, that is one of the two reasons why I chose to come back to this city for D8's sake (the other being to try to save my family). With that on my mind, it’s evident that I can’t totally avoid contact with W but I’ll just make sure that while we are in each other’s presence, our actual contact is limited to the bare minimum, no matter how tempting she may be.
I suppose that if she does initiate a convo, I’ll need to figure out if I want to be a part of it or not. I’m quite new to this approach so I’m not quite sure. If she asks me why I’m so distant, I’ll need to come up with an answer that doesn’t involve me telling her how much I’m hurt. I guess I could just evade it and tell her that I’m fine but I have stuff on my mind.
I’m not sure I can do this but for the time being, it seems like I have to follow this path to save myself from more anxiety and pain. Perhaps I’ll need to resort to putting wax in my ears and tying myself to a mast if I wish to succeed.
Thanks you all for your time and advice and most importantly for your friendship.
Freshman Class of 2012
M-49 W-42 1D-10 T 10 YEARS M 9 YEARS EA/MLC 07/2010 Separation 28/05/2012 PA confirmed 31/07/12 W Asked for D 31/07/12 D on and off the table since then
