I was out biking and ran into a friend. She does not know the story of Jack, or how my marriage has come to crisis.
We were talking about writing, and I referred to a teacher who wrote extensively about her divorce from a man with gambling problems. They tried working it out. It seemed the problem was resolved until she found out he had not stopped gambling, and became better at hiding the debt.
"Why not cut your losses?" she said, implying she would not have given this man a second chance.
This got me thinking. People talk about second chances, but they don't talk about third or fourth chances. Right now, Jack is on his second chance. What makes me sad and frightened is that this is it. This is the end of the line. Either things change for the better or they don't. If they don't, time to move on. And even if they do get better, I have to wonder what will happen if things fall apart again in the future, if he continues to withhold information about his job and internal life. I barely have room to give him a second chance. I can't imagine a third.
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
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