What If You Knew It Was The Last Time?

I was going to write about being stung by a bee while riding my bicycle home from work yesterday, but had a less venomous moment of inspiration when I read Just Jules posting about Last Moments. She has an interesting point that we often commemorate Firsts in our lives: baby’s first step or word, first day of school, first indictment.

However, our Lasts are frequently ignored or worse, we don’t know they were Lasts.

It got me to thinking about Lasts in my marriage. I have posted a few times about my Ex, but since I never get that personal she has been an infrequent topic.

People have often asked how long we had been separated and I have been stumped at answering because there was never a definitive “Now we are together, now we aren’t” moment, just a series of Lasts. Put them all together and you can see the demise of what had been a wonderful relationship.

Last Vacation Together as a Family: Christmas 2005. We made a spur of the moment decision to drive to Oklahoma at Christmas to see relatives. I thought it was a fun time, but she was not very intimate.

Last Night Together in what she considered the “Family Home”: April, 2006. The next day I loaded up the car and moved to the West Coast to start a new job in anticipation of she and the kids joining me in the new house when school was finished.

Last Time we Celebrated my Birthday: October, 2006. The next month I rented a friend’s condo because I was getting tired of staying at her mother’s each time she felt like she needed “space”. My birthday the next year she had a date.

Last Time at her Sister’s: August 2007. It started off as a great day, there was even a hint she was willing to give “it” another shot. Then I dropped the camera in the water while trying to take her picture and she reminded me this sort of stuff was why we were never going to be together.

Last Trip Together, Just the Two of Us: November 2007. I asked her to accompany me to Vancouver to a conference. We stayed at a chic hotel. The second night, she made plans to meet a girlfriend for drinks and would call me later to join them for dinner. No call. She came back the hotel room at 2AM. The girlfriend had left the bar around 11.

Last Christmas Together: December 2007. Her whole family was coming to our house (even though I was renting a condo 15 minutes away, it was our house) and she wanted the kitchen reno’d. I was laying new flooring down right up until the minute the doorbell rang.

Last “Time” Together: Spring 2008. This one is a little hazy. I remember the moment, but not the date. We were engaged in the activity and I tried to kiss her and she avoided it. She was pretty drunk so I didn’t think too much of it. Then I tried to remember the last time we had sex when she wasn’t drunk and couldn’t. It dawned on me that it had stopped being ‘love making’ for her a long time ago, and she could only have sex with me when inebriated. When I realized how little respect and how much loathing for me she had, I knew that was the last time. I got up and slept in the downstairs bedroom. She never spoke of it the next day.

To finish this posting on a “bittersweet note”, here’s a wonderful song from Amanda Wilkinson about the last times of love.