What You Do Alone with an Ax
Resting a broken heart in the dead of winter.
M. said I was amazing before he left me for a woman 15 years younger. The admiration was mutual — I was in constant awe of him and our happiness. Being a naturally bubbly melancholiac, this happiness always felt doomed because it was too happy. At those levels of happiness, you are simply asking for trouble. You really can’t be that understood, nor feel that cherished, you can’t love a chin dimple or a hairy chest so profoundly, or laugh so hard you fart — until the room smells exclusively of farts.
Men often tell me that I’m amazing, usually as they’re leaving. My ex-husband’s explanation to others for the dissolution of our 5-year marriage went like this: She’s great, just not great for me. A close friend said this makes no sense. Why give up on something great? As a childless, soon-divorced woman of 44, I don’t feel particularly valued by society. In fact, I scare people — men especially — but women and children too. An object of pity, but also envy, I can’t just exist and be me, because my mere existence makes people question their life choices.
It’s my recent breakup with M. that brings me here…to a log cabin I’m renting in Tabernash, Colorado, population: 482, elevation: 8,405’, heated by a woodstove in January during the pandemic, with just my extremely hairy, loving, and obstinate Pyrenees mix named Maple at my side. Maple is a loyal companion, despite running off frequently to eat the neighbor’s garbage and poop in their yard. But, when she returns, her sympathetic golden brown eyes melt my ice hard heart until it’s burning hot again, causing me to cry.
Damnit, Maple. An icy heart is much easier for now.
I need kindling for the stove, which requires chopping logs on a stump with an ax. It’s one of the many new things I’ve had to learn how to do on my own after nearly 22 years of long-term relationships, three in total. The first two each lasted a decade, including one marriage. But, it’s the end of this third one that feels like a fresh, unexpected death. The pain comes so fast and so hard, I don’t feel like I’ll survive it. I lived in Russia for eight years, so I’m pretty comfortable with darkness and misery and crying on the floor. But now I feel like my 90s’ teenage self who knows better than to listen to that one sad mixtape, but keeps rewinding it anyway.
The man who owns this log cabin gave me a lesson on splitting kindling. Apparently, It’s about picking the right log…smooth, no knots. And, when I hold the heavy ax in my hands, I realize I’ve actually never chopped anything but veggies with a chef’s knife. It feels dangerous, like holding a gun. I think about Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment — how he murders the despised old pawnbroker by bludgeoning her with an ax handle. It always seemed odd to me, obviously less bloody, but certainly risky…because what if your hands slipped and made contact with the blade?
Roskolnikov is a proud nihilist. Even his name hints at that utilitarian belief system, which ultimately questions any actual beliefs, morals, or objective truths. Raskolnik (раскольник) in Russian means dissenter or nonconformist — a generally oppositional person. It also alludes to an internal schism or split in the mind. In abnormal psychology, “splitting” is described as a common defense mechanism in people suffering from personality disorders, characterized by all-or-nothing, black-and-white thinking. The object of this thinking is, at turns, idealized and devalued. There’s no room for subtlety or grey areas. There’s no tolerance for true humanity. When Roskolnikov decides that the pawnbroker is a horrible person who deserves to die, he is alleviated of all guilt for his crime. Except it doesn’t quite work out that way. Ultimately, he commits murder, meets a compassionate prostitute named Sonya who urges him to confess, and then does hard time in a Siberian prison camp.
At this moment, deep in winter, the end of this relationship feels like a life sentence, minus the supportive sex worker. People keep telling me it won’t feel this way forever. But, what if I want it to feel this way forever? The grief keeps me connected to M. and the bond I thought we had. Any reminder of that enveloping disappeared love comforts me now. I constantly search my memories for proof that it was even real.
My own nihilism creeps in. Can there be any objective truths about this failed relationship? Can you resist splitting — idealizing or devaluing the love that M. and you had? What was the fucking point, you weird, childless lady?
A mere week ago, I was one half of a couple. Now, I’m a mountain recluse with an ax, sheltering in place, surrounded by blinding white snow as thick as a fleece blanket. The snow softens everything like a mute pedal on a piano — even my heart. Winter has always been my favorite season, thanks to the stillness and quiet, the transformative nature of snow. As a lifelong skier, I moved to Colorado for the winters, and January in the Rockies still stuns me with its jagged white peaks bright against the fiercest blue sky. This is my healing landscape.
As a child growing up in Indiana, I took solace in any snowstorm that brought us at least 6 inches. Sitting at my wooden desk at Pike Elementary, I would watch the flakes falling outside the window, waiting for the school bus bus to drop me back home so I could put on snow pants and wander the woods behind our house. I was a wannabe survivalist as a young age, imagining my untimely death from the elements as I pretended to be far from home, lost in the forest, eating handfuls of fresh snowflakes for sustenance. Once safely inside the house, I’d make myself some hot chocolate and pretend to be an orphan who had to savor such small luxuries, slowly sipping microwaved Nestle Quik with a spoon. I was a sensitive child, who guessed at hardship, while living in Midwestern upper middle class comfort. It was as though I wanted things to be harder than they were. Or at least as hard on the outside as they felt on the inside.
Once again, I’ve come to winter, wool hat and mittens in hand, asking “Can you help me?”
He left me suddenly after spending Quarantine Christmas together, and, ultimately, for the same reason some people fear me: my childlessness. He’s six years younger, about to turn 39. He now says he wants a biological child. He doesn’t see a future with me. His words.
The weird part is I get it. I often don’t see a future with me, especially in pandemic times. I’m not a big planner. I wonder if that’s the survivor within, constantly scanning the horizon for danger, keeping her sights focused on the short-term. Or maybe It’s my moody Russian blood, inherited from a great grandfather who fled St. Petersburg during the Revolution, warning that plans are a fool’s errand. There are wars. You get swindled and robbed. People betray you or die suddenly — or both. The important thing is to catch every slippery moment you can.
The last nine months of lockdown with him were a blur of beautiful moments, even if daily life was both catastrophic and very boring. During our 19-month relationship, we often talked about creating a new model of male-female romantic love. He is a designer and photographer; I am a writer and vocalist. Together, we made a powerful creative team, collaborating on multiple projects and enthusiastically storyboarding hundreds more possibilities to promote and improve one another’s work. In this new paradigm, we would challenge conventions, spark conversations, and “break the wheel,” slaying the dragons of patriarchy along the way.
But, in the end, the wheel kept turning, and he traded me for traditional wife material: young, blonde, slim, smart, successful, and ready to settle down to be a mom. She was the predictable, high-status choice — the woman that the two-parent household and American economy was built for.
None of it was built for me. I’m still the outsider, traipsing through the snow in search of some semblance of makeshift domestic bliss. There’s no model for the partnership I desire. There’s no path to follow or approval to come. It takes guts to love a woman like me.
I just need to find that person who actually wants someone amazing.
