Dear Dana,

I don’t listen for the gate anymore.

For many years, I did. I listened. Even while I was asleep, I listened.

I’d get home from work and I would take a nap. It was always my best sleep of the whole day! I mean it: It was the only time when I can ever remember dreaming.

But then, an hour would pass, or maybe an hour and a half, and then I’d hear the gate. In my sleep, I’d hear it, and that would be you. That was you opening the automatic gate across the driveway. Then I’d hear the clack from your front tires driving across the metal track for the gate, and that was you. Then I’d hear the clack from your back tires driving across the metal track for the gate, and that was you, too. The whoosh of your car accelerating down the driveway.

I’d hear the sound of your car doors. You.

And the cats would crawl out from under the bed. And the girls would stumble out from their room, because they’d have heard you, too.

And I’d stretch…

Every single day.

Sleep. Gate. Stretch. Repeat.

Then the day came when you were gone, and I knew you were really gone, and I was okay. I swear I was okay! You were gone, and the cats were gone, and for a long time, even the kids were gone.

I knew you were gone, Dana… or most of me knew you were gone, anyway.

But not all of me knew.

In the days and in the weeks and in the months after that, I’d still take those naps. When I took those naps, I would still dream, and you were still in most of the dreams. Of course you were in most of the dreams. Sometimes only as a sort of presence at my elbow – someone for me to narrate my actions towards – but you were there.

Then an hour would pass, or maybe an hour and a half, and something inside me would say, “Katy, it is time to wake up!”  But I’d be waiting for the sound of that gate, you know?

The gate would never open. No clack and no doors and no cats and no kids.

No stretch!

Not in September… October… November… December. And January came – and you were long, long gone by then, even from my dreams! – but these fucking naps would sort of betray me. I was still listening for you in my naps.

I’m not even sure when that changed, exactly, but it changed.

I don’t listen for the gate anymore.

Everything is different now.

In fact, I probably won’t even send you this letter.

Soap Opera

“There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.

There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know.

But there are also unknown unknowns; things we do not know we don’t know.”

                                                                          – former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld

I read these words of Donald Rumsfeld, and the words make me wonder: Why’d you leave out the unknown knowns, Don? The things that we do not know that we know?

That’s what this blog post is all about. Unknown knowns.

How to Club a Baby Seal to Death

Breaking off a long-term relationship with somebody is a lot like… It’s like… Well, breaking up with somebody is a lot like clubbing a baby seal to death.

Most normal people are not really going to want to club that baby seal. It is not anything to look forward to. It is unseemly. You just know that it’s going to wind up messy.

Okay, sure, there are likely a few sickos, a certain breed of masochist running around out there loose on the streets with no supervision who relishes this sort of opportunity whenever it arises. Who see it as their big chance to show off their manliness, to have their revenge on life, to take out their accumulated frustrations (“THIS! IS! FOR! SUZIE! REJECTING! ME! IN! NINTH! GRADE!”) on that baby seal.

But we are not talking about such outliers. No, not today. We are talking about your average, well-adjusted member of society who, it just so happens, finds himself or finds herself in a position where it has become necessary to, you know… club a baby seal to death.