This Feels Like Something

This is Where it Ends

—

I don't buy everything I read
I haven't even read everything I've bought
I don't cry every time I bleed
My eyes are dry, but they're bloodshot
I have faith in medication
I believe in the Prozac Nation
You play doctor, but I've lost patience
But this is where it ends.

—

It had been Stevie's words. Leaving, creativity... something about freedom?

Or maybe not. No maybe it was Rhett's. It was definitely Rhett's. His heart scare. The inevitability of health issues.

Could he put this on someone else?

Link couldn't place the exact sentence that sent his life spiralling, but something in the tide had turned and suddenly he was falling.

No more Ear Biscuits, no more Stevie— hell, maybe even no more Rhett if he didn't heal up right. What in the world was happening to him? His life had been built on four pillars: his job, his best friend, his wife and his kids. Link didn't think the pillars were crumbling, but they were changing shape and like marshy ground in the Carolinas, he secretly feared he'd built a house on it. That unease had put a damper on a good chunk of his life these days. His kids were off enjoying college, of course Lando was still at home, but being an older teen meant they didn't see much of him anymore.

And Christy was still Christy.

People told Link how much he'd changed daily. Mythical Beasts said he'd burst out of his shell, Rhett said he'd lost his filter, meanwhile anyone from back home just said LA had gotten to him. But Christy was always the same. Their lives ebbed and flowed, Link took the punches and she was his constant.

26 years and the woman he loved had aged beautifully, she'd brought him 3 wonderful children, and a lifetime full of safety and security. A lifetime of sameness.

It was a funny thing. 21 year old Link adored sameness, it was the safety he found in religion, in North Carolina and in Engineering. Even 32 year old Link enjoyed that comfortability. So why did a health scare and Stevie needing creative freedom test that safety? Why did it suddenly feel so confining?

Link had spent his twenties building himself into a version that fit. His and his wife's life was consumed by schedules and church meetings and nasty arguments over time spent at work. And as any southern woman would, Christy had stuck through it. Once their marriage gained its second wind they'd worked through those years in therapy. But that second wind wasn't defined by mutual passion, it was an amalgamation of years of suppressed feelings. It was two people who had never truly known themselves feeling the wind against honest skin. It was freeing.

It freed Christy to be honest, honest about her needs and desire for a quiet, comfortable life. It freed Link to be more Link-ish in the most problematic and outlandish ways possible. And it freed the both of them to realize they were completely different people than the boxes they'd shoved themselves into.

Link stared at the studio door. He'd been sitting there for a solid 5 minutes, hand resting on the door of his SUV. Mulling over his life was more time consuming than it'd ever been before. Everything had been so simple just yesterday morning.

Of course, that wasn't true. It hadn't been true for a long time. He hadn't even argued, or asked why. But when Link walked through that door he'd have to pretend it was. He figured he should start practicing. Problems had been brewing, resentment had been growing and his wife had already bought herself a single ticket back to North Carolina. But just yesterday morning, he hadn't known she'd be leaving him today.

They hadn't shared many words, she'd only explained she needed to be with family and hoped, when she came back, things would go back to normal. They both knew that wasn't true.