Shortly after my 43rd birthday I suddenly realized that I had comprehensively fucked up my life by not marrying the girlfriend I had in college. Instead I dumped her. This was 13 years ago. Since then I've married another woman and had a daughter with her, who's now 2. I'm no longer sexually attracted to my wife at all, not even remotely. On the rare occasions that we have sex I am never sober. But then I'm not sober too often anyway. My wife is a fine person but I've fallen out of love with her, if I ever loved her in the first place. The woman I dumped was sexually kinky in a fashion that exactly complemented my own urges. She was beautiful and smart and loved me like nobody's business but I treated her like shit and pushed her away. So 13 years later the truth hits me like a lawn dart passing through my chest: I love her, I crave her, and I've irrevocably thrown her away. I live with this absurd time-delayed heartbreak 24/7. Every waking moment is an agony of regret, and at night I dream about her. The reason this happened is that I have the emotional intelligence of a lawn jockey. My wife and I have shitloads of debt and don't make much money and likely never will. Today we went to see an insurance broker and applied for a million dollars in life insurance. Once the policy is in effect and I've made out my will, I'm going to find a discreet way to commit suicide—meaning I'm going to make it look accidental. I'd do it today if I had the insurance ready to go. I haven't figured out the means of death yet. Drowning strikes me as one option, and we're going on a beach vacation later this summer. Carbon monoxide seems like an easy way to go, but I can't figure out how to fix it so it looks accidental. Apparently there's a tree in India called the “suicide tree” that's undetectable and causes fatal cardiac arrest, but I don't live in India. I could also ride my bike into the path of an SUV. I think it's important to do it soon before my daughter gets much more sentient. I'd rather she had no memory of me to minimize her trauma.