It’s funny. It’s happening again. I’m beginning to feel somewhat invisible. That is a strange thing to mention when you’re currently a leading role in a Shakespeare show. Just contemplating the concept, it would be easy to imagine someone saying, “Exactly how much attention do you need?!” But when I sit with that question, it also reveals a key difference between myself and some people I have come across. Obviously, I always want a role that will challenge me, make me grow, increase the fun of the process… and if I see people in those roles while I’m playing Unnamed Henchman 21, I may well feel ever so mildly aggrieved… but as long as I am acting, as long as I am part of a team putting together a decent show, telling a good story, doing something that impacts the audience… I’ll usually be okay. Happy. That’s the balance from the absence. Returning to this after 15 years of being nowhere near it… I’m just happy sitting among the performers. Which, not to kick a dead horse, but is another of those “Oh yeah. No shit things with Hermia wouldn’t have worked out.” My partner can ask me to do fewer shows maybe but for a partner to actively be mean about me being in shows is just… there were obviously other signs of why things weren’t healthy but that is a big one and I feel less and less “oh, that’s trivial” about it. And as fun, important, and life affirming as acting is… it isn’t about me getting attention. Largely because I love the process and the “from the start to the end”… that’s just how that goes. No, I feel invisible in every other aspect of my life. Y’know the life parts of my life.
Unrelated: I may be speaking more of Hermia fall out for the next few weeks. It isn’t because I’m second guessing that decision. Merely that Shakespeare is how we met and where the majority, if few, non-dating interactions occurred. And while I am more confident than ever that it was the right decision; being steeped in the community that I am still not entirely certain what their unspoken thoughts on the matter might be.... it comes to mind. But what I have truly found very strange of late is my thoughts turning towards Nancy. And I’ll try not to detail those thoughts as, truly, no thought in my brain on this matter has not already been mentioned to death. I did very much love my wife. When you read these “WHAT’S WRONG IN MODERN DATING” articles and the women talk about men not yearning for their partner, not communicating with their partner, not doing for their partner… by my personal standards, by my culture’s standards, by my faith’s standards, by modern dating standards… in every rubric and determination, it cannot be denied but I loved my wife! And these pages drip with the thousand words of my sincere plea to the universe and God that… I would stay, I would work, I would fight, I would try! And it never proved fruitful. Nothing ever made her life better enough that she would act as though she wanted to be with me, despite marrying me. After that final year of Couple’s Counseling, indeed truly, no outcome but separation could have happened. And the speed at which she found a new man to be her caretaker… acted as incontrovertible evidence that, as she had said in counseling, she never loved me the way I loved her. And as I’ve been unpacking the house, and deleting things from my phone as memory alerts appear, and as many things in Court are now being set for July 2nd.... some things regarding that season come to mind.
I initially met Nancy for the first time in February of 2005. At which point I was 20 years and 10 months old. February 2005 is now 20 years and 4 months behind us. Come November 2025- I will have lived knowing Nancy for longer than I lived without knowing her. Which is a silly “aw, isn’t that cute” when you’re married and a “dude, it is pathetic that you know that” when you’re not.
July 2nd, 2025 would have been our 14th wedding anniversary. This November will mark 6 years since we were separated.
And I know this is a REALLY shitty way of thinking but… sometimes I wish I would just get karmic credit for all of it. I busted my ass for a relationship of 14 years trying to be The Good Supportive Caring Husband only for it to deposit me as a solo middle-aged divorcee. And now wading into this nightmare of Modern Dating where even the young and attractive are saying, “Shit’s weak! Nobody wants to commit, nobody is mature, compassion and empathy are dead! You have to spend several hours a day just trying to get someone’s attention and then, odds are good it doesn’t go anywhere anyway!” And it’s just.... I put in the serious time to do Stranger to Boyfriend to Fiancée to Husband. I did the work as Husband to try to offer my wife everything she said she wanted. And it wasn’t enough for her. And I know this is illogical and nonsensical but… I’d like the spiritual credit for all of that work. It’s impossible and foolish, obviously. NOBODY real, imaginary, or deity is going to come along and say, “I will reward you with THIS woman’s attention and affection for the work done in service to THIS OTHER woman”… I’m not deranged, delusional, or an idiot. I know that isn’t how things work. But it is very true that dating as an adult takes so much more energy and work than it did in your early 20s. I loved someone very much. I withstood the emotional abuse, the recurring themes of “not good enough”, the literal exhausting fights to try to understand or communicate or save the relationship. And all of that was for nothing. Just… energy, and youth, and time, and emotion thrown into the void to be swallowed. And from there… I’m supposed to try to engage with a dating culture that says “Men are horrible and evil and never to be trusted! And never show them respect or affection or appreciation as they do not deserve it!” while simultaneously saying “Expectations for men are on the ground. The bare minimum is too much to expect, apparently. A date or some conversation or simply treating women like people is all a man has to do anymore and they can’t even do that!”
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