{"id":3819,"date":"2015-07-01T11:53:31","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T18:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3819"},"modified":"2015-07-01T11:54:00","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T18:54:00","slug":"3819","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3819","title":{"rendered":"Farewell Ladies – [06\/18\/2015]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Walking_Away_From_Everything_by_vampire_zombie\"<\/a>I felt it as I approached her. If we\u2019d been at a bar, she would have turned her back on me in an elegant sulk. As it was the crisp salt air ruffled my hair as I looked up at her, the equivalent of a natural sigh. I muttered under my breath<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you think at me in that tone of voice! We talked about this you and I. We talked about this long and hard. Now stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did. Mostly.<\/p>\n

Not completely; but then, she wouldn\u2019t be a lady if she had.<\/p>\n

I walked up the gangway, felt a lurch in my stomach as I passed under the low ceiling of the break door. I should have factored this in, should have realized how strange it would feel coming back to her, but I hadn\u2019t, and now it was just that hair too late to get all the leaf mail into place. My footsteps carried me up two levels before I was fully aware that they had done so. I felt her give a sigh of what could have been called relief, a creaking settling of slapping waves and shifting floors. I gnawed on my lower lip.<\/p>\n

\u201cHush. This is temporary. I\u2019m not back. I was good to you, but you and I both know you weren\u2019t always good to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The office looked the same, but not. The little touches were missing. She was well cared for, but not loved. The shelves were neat, but not full, the painstakingly organized back closet would later prove to be jammed full of chaos, not even attempted to be organized (\u201cI have stuff in there, so what?\u201d the new caretaker said carelessly to me when I winced). Little things that would once have been taken care of instantly now\u2026just not; cared for, but not loved. Minimally cared for \u2013 perhaps \u201ctaken care of\u201d was a better way of putting it.<\/p>\n

I was still there though, around the edges, in those little things that couldn\u2019t be changed or reset. I didn\u2019t think those would ever go away, not really.<\/p>\n

My fingers twitched, and I resisted the urge to look for keys and set things straight. This was not mine anymore. She was not mine. I had divorced her, handed her to someone else so that I could take the hand of another.<\/p>\n

Later, standing in the department office with an awkward guide that I did not want but couldn\u2019t shake, and therefore unable to speak freely, I found myself thinking, perhaps to her, perhaps to myself, perhaps to the person I was talking to:<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not me is she? There\u2019s only one me, and she\u2019s not it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The guide I couldn\u2019t shake spoke, and for the first time I actually heard what was being said instead of just listening, and in her words I heard the difference I had felt since I walked on board,<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only a ship. Not like it\u2019s a career or a life or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, when I was looking out the window watching her turn her back on me and troll her way back out of the harbor, I realized I had never told her I was sorry that I\u2019d had to leave\u2026I mean I had, months ago, when I thought all this was settled, but today I hadn\u2019t\u2026<\/p>\n

And I should have.<\/p>\n

Because she was a lady, and she deserved it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I felt it as I approached her. If we\u2019d been at a bar, she would have turned her back on me in an elegant sulk. As it was the crisp salt air ruffled my hair as I looked up at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,17,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-reflections-below-the-waterline","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3GtNE-3819","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3819"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3822,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819\/revisions\/3822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}