Up In Smoke Reviews: The Point of No Return by JD Combs

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

The Point of No Return by JD Combs

CHAPTER ONE

March 8, 2012

How did things get so bad? Ok, maybe bad is the wrong word. Maybe it’s just not what I expected. I have a good life, from the outside anyway. Anyone looking in would think I have the picture perfect world. My life makes me think of the song “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” by Mary Chapin Carpenter. In the song Mary Chapin Carpenter talks about how the wife works to keep things looking picture perfect “spit and polish til it shines,” but she falls out of love maybe because of the monotony of her daily life. Or maybe it’s because she didn’t get much recognition for who she is as a woman and a lover, only as a mom and a wife. I think I’m becoming the girl in the song.

I know things aren’t really that bad. Garrett doesn’t abuse me or cheat on me (at least not that I know of). But we rarely talk anymore. The laughter is gone. It’s been replaced with apathy. Where there was once passion, laughter, and a shared ideal about building a life together, now there is only indifference. The TV is the moderator in our marriage. As long as the TV is on, there are no conflicts. I have to wonder how, with no work being put into our marriage, he thinks he’ll keep me.

I have to admit I’m partly to blame for all of this. I used to be the one to pick fights, to try and draw out what was wrong between us and fix the problems. But I got so tired of feeling like a nag and a shrew so I stopped. It was always up to me fix things between us. Garrett has always been happy to bury his head in the sand and let things go. In our early years, I brought up our problems to Garrett. He used to sit and talk with me. He wanted to look interested in fixing our issues, but things always went back to the way Garrett wanted them. If he wanted to fix things, he would fix them, but if they were my issues things always went back to the way they were before. It was exhausting and unrewarding work, so I stopped. I always hoped, though, Garrett would see how our marriage is becoming empty, and he would want to help fix things before it was too late.

I know things could be so much worse, and I feel like a shrew as I sit here thinking, “OH, woe is me!” So I'll take a break from my pity party and try to focus on the positive. The kids are my positive and my world.

As long as I focus on them, life is more than bearable. The five of them take my breath away when I look at them. I am in awe of what a gorgeous young woman Christina is. At 16 she’s in charge of her world and not afraid to show it. It’s scary to think how confident she is. She’ll do big things in her life. Noelle, sweet little Noelle, with her halo of blond hair, she’s quiet and bookish unless she’s with Andrew. Andrew pulls her out of her shell. His boisterousness is combined with an unrivaled sensitivity. I love seeing them together. And the twins, Amanda and Chandler, crack me up with their bickering banter back and forth. Those two are like a little old couple. I am in heaven when all of them are around.

It’s really only Garrett. He’s the void. The empty space in my life.

If I let my mind wander back in time, my heart hurts. I see a man and a husband who used to think the world of me, but that feeling is disappearing day by day. The joy we shared together is gone. Life is flat. Our marriage is mediocre, at best, and teetering on divorce, at worst. Sometimes I wonder why, if it used to be so good, we let it get the point of being nearly irreparable. But then I remember the hurt, the pain from so many years of unresolved conflicts. I see the lack of trying, on Garrett’s part, to make things better. I feel I always come last with him.