Music N' Other Drugs

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” – Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön.

116 days have passed since she left. 116 days marked by shock, anger, betrayal, and a state of perpetual emptiness that would make Bukowski blush. I feel it every night when I go to bed alone and every morning when I wake up thinking that she’ll materialize from beneath the sheets like a child unaware that a game of hide and seek came to an end hours ago.

Except this isn’t a game and she’s not hiding. She’s gone for good.

I suppose there’s an argument to be made that I either deserve what’s happening or somehow contributed to the furtherance of our apartness for far too long, but I also know that a scorekeeping mentality is incompatible with a committed relationship. I know what I did and didn’t do in terms of keeping the train rolling all these years, so the idea that my entire reputation can be undone by an adult version of the telephone game is a tough pill to swallow.

When Rainer Maria Rilke said that a person should be defined by who they’ve been throughout the course of a relationship as opposed to the last conversation you had with them, I naively bought into that concept at face value. I believed that everything I did or sacrificed throughout the last 14 years carried more significance than anything I didn’t do, because that’s the way love goes. You play to your strengths and balance each other out to ensure that everyone’s needs are being met.

Neither party deserves blame if the balance shifts too far in one direction, as any partnership built to last is naturally going to have moments where one person feels as if they’re doing more than the other.

However, those moments are temporary, and you shouldn’t allow them to cloud your judgment to the point that you’re willing to throw away everything that used to matter.

But that’s what happened, and I can’t change it no matter how badly I want or need to. The reality is that mistakes were made on both sides, and, as Bruce Cockburn told us, nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight, and I’ve always known in my soul that what we had was worth fighting for.

I paid a price in my relentless pursuit to be taken seriously as a writer/music journalist and the irony of the situation is that the qualities she once found endearing are the very same qualities that pushed her to the breaking point. I used to spend hours agonizing over every word with the expectation that she would engage in a vibrant discussion regarding what she liked, didn’t like, or thought was shit, but now I can barely bring myself to touch the keyboard.

Sure, it sounds silly to miss something little like that, but it never felt little to me. While I wrote plenty of stuff before we met, she awakened something in me that I didn’t know existed and represented everything I needed before I even knew what I needed.

Not only has the emptiness drained me of my desire to write on a regular basis, but it’s also caused me to lose confidence in my day job as well as my overall abilities as a parent. When you hear enough people talking, their negativity is bound to permeate your consciousness eventually and I’ve reached a point where my attempts to please everyone appear to have had the opposite effect. I haven’t taken any interviews since March and I haven’t gone to a concert since Dec. 2024 with no foreseeable end in sight.

Now, do I hide beneath the covers and study my pain, or do I rage against the dying of the light?

Those are the questions I just can’t answer yet, but I’m trying. I’m trying to get to a place where I feel like leaving the house again and can enjoy the things I used to enjoy once upon a time.

My immediate focus is on ensuring that my three boys aren’t getting shortchanged regardless of how burned out I feel, because I owe it to them to rediscover the best version of myself. I owe it to them to not get bogged down by circumstances that are no longer in my control despite how strong the temptation to give in continues to be.

One of the most poignant observations to come out of Leonard Sax’s 2007 book “Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men” is his admission that manhood is conditional, and in 2025, there’s nothing my sons need more than a strong male presence worthy of emulation.

I’ve certainly been tested in every way imaginable this year, but who knows?

Maybe the healing will come sooner rather than later.