The Clouded Line V

gene candeloro
3 min readJul 27, 2020

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What we write and what we live sometimes become clouded.

I’m not sure when it started. Maybe about two months ago maybe longer, I’m really not sure. It started, when the love of my life, the woman who vowed she couldn’t spend one minute in life without me walked out of my life. The women that spoke of forever. Now spoke nothing.

At first, I just wrote about her. Writing has been my go-to whenever life’s stressors become too much. The time the Dr. said the four-letter word-cancer. The time I thoroughly got the crap beat out of me up NYC way. The day my dog died. I do not have to describe that feeling to anyone who’s been there.

I wrote of her perfection, of our fortune having found each other. I wrote of all the things we loved to do. I wrote how we stayed up all night talking. I wrote about her incredible touch and smell.

Then I shifted to writing about how she was coming back. How we would be so happily reunited. I dreamed of our cooking meals together. Of me filling album after albums of amazing pictures of her exotic beauty. I wrote and dreamed of the new puppy we planned to get. I wrote in my sleep I wrote in my dreams. I wrote in my morning stupor. I’d arrive at my son’s house ten miles away and realize I never paid attention to the drive the entire way because I was writing another story in my mind.

One day I wrote how she was coming back. The next day of how she was back. I even wrote of our future together. I wrote how I reached out for her in the middle of the night and was reassured by the soft touch of her skin. Other nights I’d reach over and …nothing. I would jump out of bed and run to my writing desk and write her back into my bed.

Then I realized some nights I had to run through the house to see if she was here. I had to search the closet for her clothes. I ran into the bathroom searching for her plethora of supplies. Somedays they were all there so I wrote happily. Then I’d wake up at 2:00 AM and go through the entire routine to find no hint of her. No scent of her. So I madly wrote about the hurt of her not being here. I wrote of the hope of her arriving soon at my doorstep.

Now she is back. I watch her closely. I never take my eyes off of her. We talk we laugh. We cook our famous dinners together. At night I sleep better knowing she lies next to me.

But then there are days she isn’t here. She doesn’t answer me she doesn’t laugh at my puns. There is no soft voice, gentle beautiful eyes looking up at me.

Now I am afraid, afraid to go to sleep. Afraid to wake up in the middle of the night and ridiculously tearing the house apart searching for her.

I am paralyzed with fear to sit down and write because I do not know if she is here, if she is coming or if I am losing my mind.

My friends call and leave messages. My brother wants to know why I didn’t show Sunday for his wife’s birthday cook-out. My sister has recommended I hang up the writing and visit a counselor.

I’m afraid if I stop writing about her I will lose her forever. I would rather write fiction then face reality. I would rather live in my writing world where there is hope. Where there are memories, dreams, and hope.

So now I do not sleep. I do not eat. I do not talk to friends or relatives. I throw my tablet across the room because I cannot write another word about her. Then it slowly creeps over me the only way I can ever have her is in my writings.

My life is no longer real. Only my writings are real.

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gene candeloro
gene candeloro

Written by gene candeloro

Writer, photog., wanderer. Hopeful romantic. Lover of all things dogs. I write about ordinary people. Follow my Relentless Pursuit. Medium Noteworthy Writer.