Dear Jane

E-mail

To: jane.furlong@hotmail.com


From: Frank Flounder


Date: January 7, 2011


Subject: Dear Jane

Dear Jane:

I am writing to say that I am leaving you.

I recognize that this comes a bit late, as I actually left yesterday. I also recognize that doing this via e-mail is juvenile and, some might say, even cowardly. Given how often you have accused me of cowardice, I suppose you have, for once, been proven right.

Truthfully, I was going to have the Conversation with you last Tuesday, but when I came home early, Barry was there, and the two of you seemed to be in such a fuss I decided to put it off until Wednesday. Also, I did not think it appropriate to discuss this in front of him.

But then Wednesday came, and Barry was over again, and even though he said it was best that he should leave, I thought it best that he stay to fix the jacuzzi, even though that's what he was supposed to have been doing on Tuesday. I would also point out that while I like Barry, and you've always said he is an excellent plumber, it seems to me that the jacuzzi was working just fine before he supposedly fixed it.

And then you decided go to your mother's on Thursday, and its always impossible to reach you when you’re at your mother's. Also, your mother hates me, and so I like to give you your space while you're there, not to mention the fact that the last time I called she pretended that she hadn't seen you in months.

And so now its Friday, and I am gone. I would like to say it was a difficult decision, but I don't know if it was as much a decision as it was a spontaneous burst of direction. I probably would not have even mentioned it at all if it were not for my (probably unfounded) fear that you would report me missing. But I'm not missing. I'm just trying to disappear.

I don't know where things went wrong between us. I do know that, despite the fact that you've begun referring to me as a "hopeless, narcissistic prick," we had eight semi-blissful years of marriage. Were there some blips along the way? Of course. But leaving aside our minor spats and occasional differences of opinion (e.g. someone's brief and extraordinarily expensive dalliance with Scientology), I think we really did love each other.

Exhibit A: Christmas, 2007. I will never forget how you came to my defense after your sister, rest her soul, claimed that I came onto her while you were out getting turkey. And how, after she claimed that I'd tried to kiss her, you said that was impossible, because she was fat, and that no one would ever love her, and that she'd be lucky if she ever found someone at all because she had issues with men. And then you called her a word that, frankly, I would never use, and it brought a tear to my eye: the lengths to which you would go to defend my honor have never been more evident than they were that night.

Exhibit B: Christmas, 2008. The year we decided to skip the family drama and rent a cabin in New Hampshire. Do you remember the night we stayed up late getting drunk playing Monopoly? And how, after about your seventh glass of wine, you called me a heartless bastard because I didn't want to have children, and I said that you were one who was heartless because overpopulation was destroying the planet? And do you remember how you then threw your glass of wine at me and ran barefoot into the snow, and I had to run after you, and how I got lost after following your footprints, which inexplicably led in a circle, so that when I finally found you I was extremely disoriented and/or extremely agitated, and then you demanded that I take you home, and I refused until you agreed to get alcohol counseling, and you told me to go fuck myself, and I said fine but I wasn't the one whose feet were going to be amputated from frostbite, and then you said you would get alcohol counseling? I thought that showed a lot of courage on your part.

Exhibit C: Christmas, 2009. The year we decided to vacation in India so that we could get as far away from our relatives as possible. The Christmas that our lovemaking prompted a series of concerned phone calls to the police (I'm referring to the time that the police came on account of our lovemaking, not the other incident, which was unfortunate, and for which I've already apologized). We learned so much about each other that year, as well as about the sexual mores of the Indians, which apparently do not correspond to our own—which is strange now that I think about it, since they're the ones who invented the Kama Sutra. But I digress.

So it hasn't been all bad. We have both made our mistakes – you may have made slightly more than me – but that's not the point. The point is that we have the chance to grow from our mistakes and move on to the next phase of our lives.

What with my spiritual crisis I don't have much time for legal matters, so I would respectfully ask that you hold all major litigation until after the New Year. Anyway, it will take the accountants at least that long to figure out that I've hidden most of our money in offshore accounts (kidding!, but maybe not!).

Well, I guess this is goodbye.  It is my sincere hope that we can deal with this like mature adults. I also hope that, someday, you will be truly happy, or that if you remain unhappy, you reach some lesser degree of unhappiness such that you are able to take frequent stock of the miserable people around you and, perhaps, realize that you are not nearly as miserable as they are. There is no lack of suffering in the world, so you should have more than enough material to work with.

So, goodbye. Until we meet again, God bless you.

Love, F.F.

Sent from my Blackberry wireless