Baltimore, Maryland. I’m tinkering. I brought the laptop with me, and since I’m in a customer’s dock and may be here for awhile, it seemed like a good time to see whether the laptop is going to like being on the road again. I’m also checking to see how long a battery charge will last.

I’ve been thinking about Mara a lot lately. It seems so strange to suddenly find myself where I am now. Something funny will happen on the road and my first impulse is to send her a message about it. It’s going to take me awhile to get it through my head that she’s gone. It’ll be awhile before I lay down in bed and don’t reach over to put my arm around her.

I have my good times and my bad. Most of the time I be-bop along like everything’s fine, and feel like my whole life is ahead of me. And then there are other times, like today, when I think about how much of our lives Mara and I shared together, and how many things we saw and did together, and I’m just dumbfounded that it’s all gone now. I knew we had problems, but I thought we could work them out. It honestly never occurred to me that she wouldn’t want to, that she had already found my replacement, and that she wouldn’t want to talk to me anymore.

I keep going over this. What could I have done differently?

Well, there’s a lot, actually. I could have just gotten us out of the house more. Since Mara came home and I started driving solo, we haven’t had many shared experiences. We’ve lived separate lives. I had planned to make some changes and start showing Mara how much I loved and needed her. But I never got the chance.

I don’t blame Mara for leaving. Her life with me has not been a joyride. Hell, a year after we were married we were on a truck. What kind of life is that? One would think that if there is love between two people, all things can be overcome. But Mara always resented the truck experience. She always resented being held back from whatever it is she has yet to decide to do with her life. Mara was young and needed new experiences and partying and friends. Instead she was working her ass off for a trucking company that couldn’t give a shit about her, and was tied to a husband who could not get out of survival mode. It’s no wonder she went looking elsewhere.

That’s not to say I excuse anything she’s done. Mara could have had a good life with me if she had wanted it. She could have made the house her home. But all she was interested in was playing Everquest II. Well, we all know her crimes. I’ve listed them in detail here. I suppose what I’m doing now is examining my own crimes. There are a lot of things that I could have done to make Mara happy. Well, happier, anyway.

I guess when it all comes down to it, Mara and I were just not very good for one another. She was too bossy and I was too stubborn. Mara needs someone who will exist solely to provide a support base for her many psychoses. I was never it. I had too many issues of my own to sit around and wait until Mara needed patching up again. In short, I think we both need a normal person with us to balance out our psychoses. We proved that two crazy people together does not work, because we could never be what the other needed.

I would like think that Mara and I could remain friends, but I don’t think she wants that. She doesn’t seem to want to talk to me at all, and only responds when I poke her. I honestly don’t care if she’s found someone else. That’s a moot point at this juncture. If she’s found someone else, there’s a long road that led to that, and there’s no use in pretending that I was surprised, because I was not. What’s done is done.

More than anything, I guess I’m just wondering how long it will take me to realize that she is not a part of my life anymore, and she will never be again. Whatever she might want to believe, I loved Mara deeply. I may have kept myself together rather well on the day that she left, but it broke my heart when she drove away. I cried, in spite of myself.

I keep coming back to that one thought. We were just no good for one another.

I miss Ria, too. It seems even more strange to not have Ria underfoot anymore. I hope she’s happy within the Nickell cabal. I hope Mara is, too.