(Done as part of this New and Amusing E2 Game)
You were never one to be too vocal about those sorts of things, so I never bothered asking. To be honest, it wasn't a question that ever reared up in my head. From time to time I'd worry that you'd been kidnapped by the mafia, or that your plane had disappeared into the bermuda triangle, or that you'd been savaged by wild dogs while out for a jog. These all seemed to be perfectly rational, of course. Wild dogs are a worry in todays wild dog ridden society.
I'm a worrier. I can't seem to avoid picturing horrible things happening to my loved ones. I'm not sure if this makes me a bad person, per se, but I don't think that such horrible mental imagery could make me a good one. I wasn't too taxed though, all things considered. I didn't have panic attacks or telephone the police or strap on a small arsenal and scour the city. It was simply that now and again I would think to myself "Perhaps she's been ravaged by hounds", and, after a quick analysis, dismiss it as being wildly unlikely. Statistics have always comforted me, in a strange and numerical sort of way. The odds of being slain by dogs in New York City are actually staggeringly low.
Perhaps I should have paid more attention to all of those articles about the rising divorce rates. Maybe, when Mike and Susan broke up and you said that it would probably be better for both of them, that they were too young to be so committed, that they were throwing their lives away -- well, maybe I should have done some math. I worked it out a few minutes ago, and realised that Mike and Susan are two and three years older than us, respectively. I guess it just sort of flew right over my head at the time, though.
A lot of things did. As much as I developed an amusing hobby of doubting the intentions and relationships of everyone and everything, I never for a minute doubted ours. When I spent time away from you, I noticed a definite waning in my libido. It was the old "Why eat a hamburger when you've got a steak at home?" scenario. The world was full of hamburgers, and the ketchup probably sucked too. I actually think that some sort of subliminal effect born of knowing that phrase caused me to cut down on my hamburger intake after we met. By this I actually mean hamburgers -- like McDonalds -- not other women. There was no metaphorical hamburger consumption on my part, I can assure you.
There is a wide body of literature about stupid people who place too much value on any single thing. The stories of Narcissus, Moby Dick, Indiana Jones (Nazis, Ark, etc.). All of these have taught me an important lesson: never commit yourself so totally to something that you cannot question the legitimacy of it. I'm not sure how I managed to miss out on that for so many years, but there's public schooling for you, I guess.
I thought, then, that you could invest yourself into one thing, that you could be all that you can be without dying on foreign shores. I'm starting to wonder if I wouldn't have preferred being cannon fodder, at this stage. I loved you so much that I never stopped to wonder if you loved me back. It was an assumption, like seeing two flies on top of each other bouncing around on the lampshade -- they're having sex, right? They could be engaged in a fight to the death, but that never enters my mind. Piggyback Flies + Lampshade = Sex. Similarly, Me + You = Love. It was that basic to me, and to my childish sensibilities.
I suppose that nothing can be done, save to bury those three years in which I lived what could only have been a delusion. If you never loved me, it invalidates all that I felt for you, as those feelings were inextricably tied with your loving me.
I suppose that's all there is to it. Time to keep on keeping on.
I thought you loved me.
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