Madness

My name is the one I was born with. My face is the one I have naturally aged into.

However, the nature of my military service occasionally put me in proximity to men who lived in the shadows.

In the weeks immediately following the accident, my small exposure to that world was enough to send me into bouts of delusion.
There were moments where I didn't believe she was dead. She had seen something. She was being hidden. And once the issue had been resolved, she would come out of hiding.

I would be driving down the street and see a blonde woman in a car traveling in the opposite direction. I would whip my car around and follow, thinking it was her.

I would recognize her walk in the corner of my eye. More than once, I left my car running in the middle of the street, as I ran into a business to find her.

Looking back, I realize that I was insane. The combination of grief and alcohol made fertile ground for unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Anything was better than the reality that I faced, so I constructed a fantasy that, while terrible, was better than what was true.

As I sit and write these blogs, details come back to me.

I had kind of forgotten about the delusions, the sightings.

I wonder how many frantic 911 calls my behavior inspired?

In time, the madness faded, until I no longer saw her in my waking hours.

I continued to see her in my dreams.

Cheryl once told me that I talked in my sleep, and I said wonderful things. Cheryl thought I was dreaming about her.

Maybe the realization that I wasn't was her motive for the way she left.