Dear Sarah

Dear Sarah,

First of all
I’m not leaving you
Don’t mistake me
I am leaving
But I’m not leaving you

I’m leaving the woman
Who’s reneging on all the promises
The woman I married made to me

‘You like that veal? I’ll make that for you once a week when we’re married.’

The first time I asked for that veal
After the wedding
You looked at me as though I asked for a ménage a trios
With one of your relatives
I said the word again ‘veal’
‘Veal, Sarah, veal.’
In the hopes that I would jog your newly fuzzy memory
But you just shook your head
And told me to order Chinese
From that place you like and I don’t

That woman who shook her head?
The one who wouldn’t make me veal?
She’s who I’m leaving

‘I have a voracious sexual appetite. I could have sex every night.’

Apparently I need to bone up on my vocabulary
Somehow since I left college
‘Voracious’ has become a synonym
For ‘inconsistent’ and ‘fussy’
We did, in fact, have sex every night for two weeks after the wedding
Then there was a week where, I assumed, we were taking a break
To catch our breath, perhaps
It was something like a television show
That keeps you riveted for one season
But after summer’s over and you return to the program
You find yourself disinterested
And you wonder what else is on

Since then, when I try to initiate sex
You remind me of a child
Being forced to get a haircut
Swearing they don’t need one yet
And I usually just roll over and go to sleep
Sometimes I make faces at you
When I’m turned away
Like an insolent toddler
Other times I just put a pillow over my face
And let out a silent scream
That wakes the cocker spaniel across the street
But seems not to disturb you in the slightest

That’s who I’m leaving
The woman sleeping next to me
Not the one who would cradle herself against my body
So I could smell the honey scented shampoo in her hair
And wrap my arms around her

‘You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met. I’ll never stop feeling lucky.’

Lucky?
You look at me as if I’m a sweater your grandmother gave you
That you can’t throw away but you don’t want to wear
It’s as if I’m sitting in a drawer you have to open every day
And you’re wondering if Goodwill would even want me
I’m surprised my skin hasn’t turned plaid

Every day I come home and smile
I kiss you on your cheek
And ask you how your day was

‘How do you think it went, Travis?’

I’m not sure
Said in that tone
There’s ever any answer other than—

‘Not well?’

You then rattle off how much you hate your life
This life, our life, that we’ve built together
You hate our house because it’s too small
You hate your entire wardrobe
A closet that would have made Jackie O. weep with envy
You hate that we don’t have children
You hate our friends with children
You hate my family, your family, and the family across the street
With the cocker spaniel that won’t shut up at night
You hate the postman because he keeps losing your magazines
You hate the plumber because you insist he flirts with you
(Even though I think you’re really mad that he doesn’t)
You hate the pizza place I like to go to
Because they don’t have vegetarian pizza

Whenever you say that I want to shoot back—

‘Some things are not meant to be meat-free
And pizza is one of them.
SO SHUT UP!’

But I don’t

That’s the woman I’m leaving
The one who wants the bok choy pizza
Not the one who made the best damn meat sauce
I’ve ever tasted
Until she decided that meat was passé
And that the smell of anything meat-related
Including veal
Made her sick to her stomach

That’s who I’m leaving

I didn’t sign up for this, Sarah
I signed up for a marriage with a loving
Passionate, joyful woman
And now I wake up everyday
To a revolving door of Disney villains

‘Do you have to talk so loudly, Travis? Can’t you keep your voice down?’

Ursula from The Little Mermaid

‘Eat more apples. They’re good for you.’

The Witch from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

‘I would skin that cocker spaniel given the chance.’

Cruella DeVille from 101 Dalmations

I laugh when I hear people tell me
How sure they are
That they’re going to love the person they married
For the rest of their lives

I want to show them photos of us
When we got married
And say—Tell me, how sure do we look?
Because believe me, I felt sure
I felt absolutely, knock down, one hundred percent
Positive

I want to ask them if they feel that sure
Because if they don’t
If they’re going on promises
If that’s what they’re signing up for
Lots of sex and good veal
Then they should probably rethink a few things

To conclude, Sarah, I’m not leaving you
I’m leaving this marriage
Whatever’s left of it
Today a woman came to the door
Asking for you
Something about not being able to do what she had promised
For a second I thought you had sent her to kill me
And I felt a little bit…excited
But then she burst into tears and took off
She smelled like a zebra

Maybe she was one of your friends
Do you have friends?
I know nothing about you
I used to ask three questions about you a day
But when all the answers turned into—
‘Go away, Travis. I have a headache.’
I would go downstairs and work on my model trains

Do you know why I work so much on those trains, Sarah?
Because when I was a child
All I ever wanted was a train set
My mother promised it to me every year
Every year she said she’d get me a train set for my birthday
And every year, for some reason, I couldn’t have one

‘It was too expensive this year, Travis. Next year.’
‘You’re still a bit too young. Maybe next year.’
‘Oh! I completely forgot. Well, you got all the gifts you’re going to get. Next year.’

I grew so sick of empty promises
I learned that anything you want
You give to yourself
And so that’s what I did
I bought myself a train set
And now every time I go downstairs
I hear all the empty promises I’ve ever heard
From my mother, from you, from everyone

And I look at the one promise that was kept
That was a promise I made to myself
Not to love someone who only loves you enough to pacify
But not satisfy

…Maybe this is all unfair of me

Maybe I’m a lousy husband
There’s a very good chance I might be
I can see sometimes that you’re drowning
But I don’t know if I’m strong enough
To pull you from the water
So instead I sit back
And hope you'll make it to shore on your own

I suppose that makes me a coward
I wonder if I've ever been anything else

When we made it through the sinking of the cruise ship disaster
I thought we could survive anything
I thought it would bring us closer
But I think instead we both realized what we were really doing...

Wasting time with each other

That’s why I’m leaving

By the time you get this
I’ll be on another ship
Hopefully this one will stay afloat
I promised myself a boat trip around the world
And I’m going to keep that promise

Good-bye Sarah
From now on
You won’t have to break any more promises

Sincerely,
Travis

PS

I feel it’s only fair to leave you with a happy memory

The third time I ever saw you
You were in an awful play
Something where you had to wear a corset
And speak in an Irish brogue
I didn’t understand a word of it
But I thought you were a walking miracle
I fell in love with you then and there

The first two times I saw you
I rejected the idea of loving you
Because I didn’t think you would ever have me
But that third time I didn’t care
I was a man on a mission

That night after the play
I ran across the parking lot
Filled with fallen autumn leaves
It felt like I was walking on one of those bouncy devices
That little children have at their birthday parties
Not quite air
But something better
Something that elevates

By the time I got to you
You were heading towards the local café
And instead of looking scared
Scared of this strange boy who was in your writing class
You smiled at me so kindly
I never felt that sort of kindness before
It made my face flush and I stuttered out a 'H-h-hello.'
And after I complimented your performance
You invited me to have coffee with you

I was so shy
And you made me laugh
You brought me out of myself
I’m the man I am today
Because of how you good you were to me
Those first few years we were together

So I'm sorry

I’m sorry I’m not who you need anymore
I’m sorry time had to go by so fast
I'm sorry I allowed us to toss our problems back and forth
Between each other like tennis players
Rather than ever try to fix them

I’m sorry I was sure and sure wasn’t enough

Sometimes I like to think that there’s another place
Where there are two kids
Us, as those those happy honeymooners
Smiling in their wedding photo
Holding onto each other
Convinced they’re so strong
That they’ll never need to let go