TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR: UNDER THE INFLUENCE

I. Vulgar language (not excessive)

II. Mature topics like death and (limited to a few chapters)

III. Terrible puns and sarcasm (I have a sick sense of humor)

III. Mentions of heavy alcohol use

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     Sometimes, when I'm bored, I think about how easily I could've killed him.

     He's not a pleasant man. He's made a lot of enemies on his way to the top; I could've pushed him, then blamed a business partner for his fall. It wouldn't have been hard. But getting away with the murder, or even the murder itself wasn't what stopped me from going through with it. It was the thought of after.

     Not, of course, living with the fact that I had killed a man but learning how to live after this particular man was removed from my life. Something that felt suspiciously like fate, (or maybe God) had tied us together. From the beginning, no matter what I did, it would always lead me back to him. I knew that if I were to kill him it would come back to bite me in the . Not, in the same way committing a crime would haunt me, but in the way a junkie without her fix would be dogged by the memory of her greatest high... However, if it were anyone else, I don't believe I would hesitate in pulling the trigger.

       After pondering all of this, I'm struck by the notion that all of it could just be my mind grappling with the idea that I had almost killed the man I love. Maybe all this brooding over his almost-death is just a way to cope with how I over think things when I'm angry-- and, Lord, was I angry at him that night. Maybe I should just hop off my high horse and accept the fact that I didn't have the balls to kill him, and that fact hurts my pride so much I need to come up with the grand illusion that I could've if I really wanted to. The point is still moot either way. I didn't. Whether that was because of some deep, fated connection, a guilty conscious or lack of effort, it's up to God to decide. 

    It's funny how in middle age you tend to pick up phrases like that. I don't believe in God, especially not the Christian one, despite that, I still apparently let Him decide things. I even say stuff like "Lord help us all" when "this is a fest" won't quite work. My older years have also given way to the correct grammar and less vulgarity that my predecessor would've scoffed at.

     I guess I have him to thank for that (note the lowercase h) He was always the more refined one between the two of us. He doesn't wear pants in our relationship, he wears dress slacks. Not that I'm complaining about that, I've never minded a hot guy in a suit, it's just interesting to muse about how our quirks have rubbed off on each other. I wonder how I've influenced him. Speaking of rubbing off on each other, I find myself back to the idea that I could've murdered a man that I almost believed I was fated to. (Because, you see, if I had killed him then I wouldn't be here right now. I wouldn't be me. And if I'm not me then who am I? Where am I? But that's another butterfly trail to chase altogether; Where, or even who, I would be if I would have gone through with it) He's not religious in the slightest but he's slightly superstitious. I've never told him about my "we're bound together by a higher power" theory, but I feel that if I were to, after he had downed some scotch, he would be open to believing it-- I would say that I've digressed from my original point, but you can't digress if you didn't have a point to begin with. So I'll continue sifting through memories of me and my husband before our marriage, looking for hidden gems inside of these "loops" him and I seem to have gone through. To go to the root of the cluster--this is one of those scenarios where 'cluster' fits more appropriately than any religious idiom I can crank out-- I'd have to tunnel my way back to my first day at 일부 큰 회사, where I started working underneath the biggest I've ever laid eyes on.