February 16: Writing Prompt #47-The Clock

Write about anything you’d like. Somewhere in your post, include the sentence, “I heard the car door slam, and immediately looked at the clock.”

I heard the front door slam and immediately looked at the clock, midnight. Left for his walk at 10 pm and returned at midnight. I could never really sleep on his “walking nights” until I knew he was back home. My stomach was too knotted up to sleep peacefully.  I knew what was going on or at least I had my suspicions.  Most of what he said to me didn’t make sense anymore, and his actions rarely matched his words.  I kept telling myself I was just being paranoid, but turns out I wasn’t.  That was probably the most devastating realization, that my intuition was right, that my paranoia was justified. I denied it for a long time, but once I allowed myself to believe in the betrayal, there was no turning back. 

Once trust is lost, it’s so difficult to find it again. Suddenly, I stopped second-guessing whether or not what he said was true; it simply all became lies in my mind.  Not trusting the person you live with 24/7 has got to be one of the worse feelings anyone could ever know. It’s that watching the clock feeling, waiting for that fateful phone call or worrying as you wait on the ones you love to get home safely, except this anxiety is mixed with a sense of nauseous bitterness. The years of hurt quickly morphed into numbness and my emotional connection to him turned cold.  I could no longer feel anything but a sense of urgency to get out, let go, and move on.  It sounds terrible, but it built over a number of years. And at some point I knew that if I didn’t cut the ties my heart had to this man, I would end up in the mental ward of the hospital as my own mother had done some years before after allowing herself to stay too long in an emotionally damaging relationship. 

As I was pulling my mind back from the depths of my despair, I heard the front door slam one last time and immediately looked at the clock, knowing now was the time to find myself and redefine my life, for my own sanity and peace of mind.