I wondered where I was worse off

I thought some things were easy that weren’t. I don’t mean like nuclear physics or putting together an entertainment center. I’m talking about how my perspective was you could slide out from under the emotional weight of a lie whenever you wanted and create another, lighter one. This is called callousness, I guess, or it isn’t. I don’t even know anymore.

It goes like this. I woke up next to her with one of those thoughts you can’t figure, like maybe I thought that the clock always goes still for a second or two before I opened my eyes to look at it, like maybe it waited on me to start up again. The kind of thing that seems true even when it isn’t, you know? I used to think I had control over just everything, like the only reason we didn’t have good weather most days was because it suited me. I thought I was goddamned Zeus or something. I was full of illogical thoughts and the illusion of control is all.

I was there in bed listening to her deep breathing and looking at that clock when I realized that the whole of my existence was a path I could not see. Every time I made a choice—the choice to get up, the choice to roll over and wrap her up in me between the sheets, the choice to keep still right there and let the whole bleak truth of life wash over me some more, well, they were all made blind. Even if I could be childish enough to believe that I had a thing like free will, it didn’t much matter overall.

But my problem with the lies and the emotional weight. I didn’t ever lie on purpose. It was only that words were never enough for the truth. Actions either. There’s too much truth to tell to even try to tell it. This is what I was thinking when the clock stopped ticking for four or five seconds. I counted in my head. I never felt more alone.
________________________

No update on Thursday.  Sorry.  I'm on a book tour.