"No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness" -Aristotle

So this time it was my fault.

One day I was driving along, a typical weekday morning, when quite suddenly I started to feel odd. Not a physical kind of odd but it was like a certain clarity washed over me.  I was about twenty minutes into my forty minute commute and I felt like I was waking up from a nap that I wasn't aware I was taking.  My chest began to tighten, my pulse quickened, and my mind raced.  I almost had to pull my car over.

I wasn't aware just how numb I felt about my life until the panic set in.  I had been on a type of autopilot for so long I forgot what it felt like to feel anything else. My life was very much like my daily commutes.  I was so familiar with my route that there were times I was unaware of driving at all.  It was similar to how you can arrive at your destination and cannot remember having actually driven there to begin with.  Wake up. Go to work.  Take care of my husband.  Clean my house.  Go to bed.  Repeat.  It never occurred to me that I was unhappy. Maybe unhappy wasn't even the word for it.  Discontent, restless, lonely, or unaware would all fit a little better.

I don't know what stirred those emotions in me that morning but what I do know is from the moment that realization crossed my mind I was unable to stifle it.  It bled into every aspect of my life. Rapidly.  I felt the life being sucked out of me.  I have never in my life felt less attractive, more tired, or so alone. I was practically crawling out of my skin.

I tried several things to make a change.  It started simple.  I was unhappy with my job, I got a new one.  Why not change my hair?  That might be fun.  That was certainly an impulsive and stupid idea too.  Not only was it not flattering to have semi-blonde hair when I was used to rocking longer dark locks, but it also did little to suffocate the beast growing within me.  I started to run.  Religiously, obsessively.  The literal act of running slowly eased the frustration from the inability to actually run from the perfectly decent life I created for myself that I suddenly resented.  I lost some weight.  I ate healthy.  I started remodeling my house. It all distracted me briefly, but it was exhausting, and at the end of the night while I was all alone with my thoughts I couldn't deny it.  I was sinking and no one but me knew I was going down.

My husband is a good man.  Oblivious, but a good man. By oblivious, I don't mean dumb.  He just doesn't notice things, and when he does, he doesn't think to say or do anything to show he is aware. If he knew something was off, he didn't let on that he knew.  I started to become furious with him for not seeing me.  I was lucky if he noticed the physical changes let alone the ones raging the war within me.

The night that could have been avoided...
It was a late, cold, Saturday night and I was feeling more anxious than usual.  I wanted to be out in the world.  I needed to be near other people.  The problem is, I don't like a lot of people, so I didn't have many choices as to what to do.  I opened a bottle of wine and went to work on consuming it.  My husband had long since went to bed, and I was wide awake.  Again.  Insomnia was a new addition to my mental state.  I logged onto my Facebook account and opened my messenger.  Impulsively and feverishly I typed his name in on the search bar.  It popped right up as if it remembered or predicted what I needed to do.  I didn't think one thought as I typed three letters that would successfully fuck up my life all over again.  Hey.

I bit my lip as I watched the three little dots dance along the screen indicating that he was typing back to me.  Part of me wants to believe that I wasn't planning on what I inevitably would end up doing when I sent that message, but the other part of me knows the feelings that rushed through me as I hit send.  Excitement.  I forgot what it felt like to feel anything but content at best.  It was obvious even in my semi-intoxicated state that I was up to nothing good.

I bit my lip while I waited. I smiled a smile that no one could see when he responded seconds later.

"What a pleasant surprise, how are you tonight neighbor?"

And with that we talked for hours.  He was in another state on a job.  This made me feel safer that he was so far away.  It was still potentially innocent.  It took a little more than an hour before he asked about why I decided to talk to him.  At first I didn't have an answer for him.  I typed several explanations ranging from innocent and quirky to slightly mischievous.  I deleted them over and over again. I knew every time I typed and then deleted that I was showing up on his end as three indecisive little dots. He was satisfied though with my simple response of, "I'm bored."

He didn't ask for a clarification as to what I meant.

From that point on there was nothing innocent about our conversation.  He was being blunt and I felt like I had nothing to loose, despite in all reality I had everything to loose.  He told me all the things I had longed to hear since the last time he left me broken and bruised.  We never talked about how we ended last time. We spoke only of the time that had passed since then.  He asked about my husband.  I was honest.  I asked if he had a girl.  Who knows if he was honest.  Probably not.  He told me he didn't.  He then tacked on that even if he did, I would still have dibs.  His words.  Not mine.  There were big red flags all over this horrible conversation and I was all too aware of them, but I chose to shove them aside and plow on through.  It was closing in on two in the morning and he had already mentioned to me he had to work at five.  I was out of wine and tired, but I was wired at the same time.  I playfully told him to go to bed, he said he was going to, and that he planned on dreaming of me.

I know how lame of a line that is.  I hate that I feel like a sixteen year old girl when it comes to him.  I told him I would certainly be thinking about him too.  With that, we said goodnight.  I sat for a moment absorbing the silence in my dark living room.  My head was still spinning from both the wine and our words.  I felt a pang of guilt when I thought of my husband upstairs.  It quickly disappeared as my phone went off one last time.  He sent me a picture of a dancing minion.  I had mentioned that they completely cracked me up earlier in the night.  My guilt lay forgotten as I responded, "Goodnight neighbor, it was really nice talking to you."

Part of me really believed that I would be okay if I never talked to him again.  I got what I needed.  That little bit of attention would surely hold me over until I found a way to make it work with my husband.  I wouldn't be messaging him again.  I was still desirable to someone who wasn't obligated to want me.  That was all I needed.

I woke up the next morning and reread my conversation from the night before prior to deleting away all evidence that it ever occurred.  Sober and coherent I still felt a rush as I reread the flirtatious banter between us.  He was in another state.  I am married.  What was I thinking could happen?  Worse yet, he seemed like the guy I fell for all those years before.  Not the asshole he had become later on.  That was dangerous.  Of course, people change all the time.  Right?

Almost on cue, my phone lit up and made a familiar chirp.

"Good morning dear.  Have a good day."

It wasn't my husband who thought to send me a sweet message to start my day.