My Long Walk

I read a short story (not so short by any means…Stephen King’s short stories are looooong) called The Long Walk. It was about a competition that started on the east coast of America and finished, well…it finished wherever it finished. The rules were set by the U.S. Army. No lagging. No stopping. No outside interference. If your pace slowed down below the set pace for a period of time, you were out…and “out” in this race meant having your head blown off by a soldier. Oh yeah, the stakes were high in this race, but the winner and his family were assured to never want for anything else for the rest of their lives.

Of course, the race started with many contestants, but as in any race, there is only one winner. But at what cost? The “winner” in this story kept on walking, after the fanfare and loved ones tried to congratulate him on his success, he kept walking…the finish line was still up ahead, there was someone still walking ahead of him in his mind…his mind that had slowly gone mad over the hundreds of miles he had walked and the threat of being killed he had endured and had seen happen to the other contestants. The reader is led to believe that he kept walking until he collapsed on the ground and died from utter exhaustion.

I don’t mind a good walk. Walking is good for the body. It tones muscles, strengthens the heart, increases blood flow, keeps you in shape and feeling healthy, all without the strenuous impact that running puts on your feet and legs. In the long run, walking is better on the body. You get the exercise need while getting from point A to point Z.

I really think I am about to take a long walk myself. I have never liked running. In high school, we had to run a mile for P.E. There were boys who were running the mile in “record” time. Me? Sure, I broke records…records for the longest time ever. No, I don’t think I was ever last. There were boys who were fatter than me. But walking? I have always done that. I would walk for miles from my aunt’s house to work on a not-so-daily basis back in college. But this walk…I have never taken a walk like this one. I am not the kind of person who willingly walks away from anything.

To walk away from something or someone usually means you have turned your back on them. I have been walked away from myself and have seen my share of turned backsides. It doesn’t feel good. But it doesn’t always mean that the person is intentionally turning their back to you. It’s just that’s the side you see when they are walking away, going in another direction, a direction that possibly leads to a better situation for both parties. But they are still going “away”.

I’m not fairly excited about taking this walk. But I’m not too content with staying where I am, either. Although, where I am is not so bad. Where I am is this: a future parent to a child that I mentioned last time, a future co-parent with her mother. What’s so bad about that? Nothing…just that I am not strong enough. I can’t take on the responsibility of another child. Not now. I thought I could, but the realization that I am in no shape to do it, emotionally, financially, or physically…that realization has set in. I know that I said I was able to. I certainly am willing to. And now I’m about to do what I thought I could never do, something that I feel will make me less of a human, less of a man, less of a friend. I care about this woman and our daughter. I really do. In fact, I can say that I do have love for her. I have love for our child.

Rowan. That is her name…

I have been told by her mother that I have the choice to walk away. I never wanted to. I just know that it will probably be best for us all. For Rowan especially. Her mother and I…well, we will be ok. I know that Rowan will be ok. She has the largest village surrounding her and her mother. This village is full of love and protection for them both. I feel lucky to have met them and even have grown to love some of them.

Rowan’s mother (baby momma) has said that if I choose to walk away, communication will be cut off. She isn’t saying this to be mean. I believe that she is trying to protect all those involved. Herself…protected from being hurt with keeping up with a man she could have loved. Rowan…protected from the different life teachings and the inconsistency that a divided household can have (different rules for different places…kinda screws ‘em up, I think). Me…protected from having to see her progress and know that I walked away from what I see. That and leaving her mom is what would/will hurt me the most. Knowing that she is mine and I will have nothing at all to do with refining her into a young lady.

I hope to be notified of her birth. I hope to be able to see her, at least see a picture. Contrary to belief, I do care for them both. I care enough to see that the points made about my parenting skills are ringing true. Not that I am wrong, mind you, just too different from what baby momma agrees with. When kids are playing, or just being kids, the line in the sand from being playful to being unruly is across the room for me. That same line is right in front of her feet.

This walk will result in the loss of two beings that I do care about. I am not going into this lightly. Lots of thought (inner struggles and outer thoughts from caring parties) has gone into this decision. It is the hardest decision I have ever faced. On one side there is the knowledge that both of them will be just fine without me. Rowan’s mother is a strong woman, surrounded by strong, loving people who will not let her struggle with raising a child on her own. To those people I want to say that I really enjoyed getting to know you…R and M…M and S…TJMax…Char…Mtn. D (sweet woman)…who did I forget?...Tams…damn this hurts more than I realized. Please know that I do care and love y’all.

On the other side is the realization that I left her. I left them. I will not see her learn to walk, eat sloppy creamed peas, pull on cats’ tails, curiously open boxes. I won’t see her step onto a school bus, bring home a frog found at a pond, sit in a field of flowers. I won’t see her blush when talking about a boy, cry when in pain, laugh at a funny. I won’t see one single thing that fills your brain with memories. Memories is all you got, because each day that goes by, these things called kids change so much, grow a little bit more, and you had better remember because tomorrow won’t be the same as today.

(Just as a side note, and for an example…I saw my boy get on a school bus last week for the first time…at least the first time that I saw him get on one. He looked so big and grown up. Day by day by day…they pass so quickly.)

To Rowan…maybe your momma will read this to you one day or let you read it yourself…momma will explain the circumstances. It isn’t that I didn’t love you. It isn’t that I didn’t care. It is because of those reasons that I did what I did. Please forgive me.

This walk isn’t because I have found someone else and couldn’t care a less about “baby momma” and Rowan. I thought that I did find someone else. The connection that I felt and believed that she felt too was a real feeling that I hadn’t felt in a long time…that initial feeling of “wow!” that comes when you know that something is going on. With baby momma…sure I felt something, but we both knew that it wasn’t a “forever’ kind of thing. There was emotion, but it didn’t last long. I do care for her, I do have love for her, but I am not in love with her, nor is she with me.

With this person that I have grown to care for…there is this thing that I can’t describe. Whether or not she feels it too, I don’t know. I have asked her and she says that she does like me, loves to flirt with me, knows that I am a good man and would treat her right. But is that enough? I don’t know. I might not be able to find out either. She has three kids that I have grown to like too. They are good kids, and my kids like them as well. Like I said, I am not walking away because of finding an interest in someone else. I won’t be with this other woman, even though my heart is about to burst with an extreme “like” of her and her kids. Why? Because she is doing her own walk. They have moved away. They are in a place about ten hours away from here. Whether there is hope for us or not remains to be seen. But they are not going away forever. Whatever tears are shed over this “walk” are not shed for nothing…I do care for her so much. But the tears are for a sense of loss for the moment, not forever. With my “walk”, the tears are for sense of a loss for the rest of my life.

I had said before and I’ll say it again…I am not running away. I don’t like running. It is a walk that I am frightened about taking, but I feel that it is best for all. My back may be turned, but my head is facing backwards, hoping to catch a glimpse of what I am leaving behind, what soon will be the past, soon to be a future…a future full of love of life and learning for those left behind, but a future rife with regret and endless hope for the one walking away.

Some may say that this is an easy decision for me to make. “He’s taking the easy way out”. To those who may think that, I say, “A pox on you.” This is so not easy. Leaving someone is never easy. Ask my ex. Apparently it took her years to do it to me.

Last week, after meeting with baby momma to work out the details about my walk, as I was leaving after an emotional evening (I had several of them that week…I thought my head was going to explode and that there were no more tears in me left to cry…) and as we hugged for what may be the last time, she whispered in my ear, “Thank you.” I really didn’t have a clue as to what she was thanking me for (although deep down, and after she said why, I felt that maybe I did know) and so I asked, “What for?” “My baby”, is what she said. Funny. When she told me about being pregnant so many months ago, I thought that I had screwed her life up forever. She had told me about her aversion to kids. That she never wanted one. That they all looked the same (ugly). I know it takes two to make a baby, but for some reason, I thought that it was my fault, that I should-a, could-a, would-a…but that “thank you”…that told me that she was going to be all right.

I hope that I will be. I hope that my mind won’t constantly think about what is happening; about what I am leaving behind, with my body walking in one direction and what is left behind getting smaller and smaller in the distance behind me. I hope that I can live with this decision. I hope that I can accept it and move on. I won’t ever forget either of them. Baby momma recently told me via email that she was not sorry for meeting me, not sorry for getting pregnant, but that somehow my life would have been better without ever having met her. I replied just tonight that my life would have been screwed up whether I met her or not. It was going to happen anyway.

Right now it seems that my life is all about loss. I have lost so much, but I also have given so much. From September of last year, to the present and into what is to come…loss, loss, loss. I hope to gain once more. Dignity…I hope to get that back. Love…surely it is to come again. The ability to pay bills and have enough left to buy food and gas…hmmph…maybe one day. But I have gained something. I have learned to never take things for granted, for one day what you have will be gone. I have learned how to be more bold in trying to get what I want…I’m too old to play games (I am a shy person, so when I recently told an interest all about how I felt and then asked her how she felt, I took on the persona of a superhero, at least in my mind). But most of all I have learned that no matter what happens to me in this life, no matter what things keep beating me down, no matter if what happens makes sense or not…it is supposed to happen that way. It happens for a reason, whether I see it or not. When baby momma thanked me for her baby, I told her that maybe that is what I was supposed to do. Maybe that is why we met in the first place. If that is the reason, then I think that I did a pretty good job at doing exactly what I was supposed to do.

But this walk…if it is what I am supposed to do, I had better get to stretching my legs; make sure that my laces are tight to keep me from tripping up; try to determine the best direction to head; and remember the path that I have been on, because the former path is an indicator of what lies ahead…lots and lots of roots and stones to trip over.

It’s going to be a long and lonely walk.