Quitting

It’s so hard now to figure out when I started to give up completely.  I had surrendered control but I hadn’t begun the mad decline into depression, medication, overeating, sleeping and only doing what I had to do to get by.  I sort of rallied for a bit but I know it’s in the next two years that I turn into a lump...a breathing, existing lump.

I’m stranded.  I have no car. My house is overrun with these people.  My son’s emotional development would have been tough without the added drama and now it looks seriously in danger.   I’m wracking my brain continuously.  Crafting, shaping, and honing a plan that constantly changes and I can’t ever get a handle on where to start.  It’s my birthday around this time, Happy fucking Birthday to me and it’s also the 2 year anniversary of having met Tucker.  I met him on my birthday.  How’s that for a kick in the pants?

I was still of a mind that I could become interdependent and not just dependent and remove myself from his business dealings and family and we can still be together.  Why? I don’t know.  When I met him I wanted someone I could respect and revere not someone I had to tell what to do and push to get up and be an adult. He had been that.  Sexy, savvy, take-charge and I was sort of in awe of him. By the time I ended up where we were, I still felt a lot of those things for him and I frequently blamed myself for the problems we had because I wasn’t handling them well. I felt that if I figured out a way to handle everything better then everything would be okay.  Plus, he had expertly laid the ground work to let me know that he’d trusted me and let me into his heart and only a heartless, shameless, worthless individual would betray him over anything as petty as money troubles or squabbles involving the children

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How did he know he could suck me in and make me feel so guilty, so easily?  How did he know I’d be stupid enough to fall for his shit?  I’ve fallen prey to so many other men in my life and thought I’d finally gotten to a point that I could spot the bullshit and run the other direction.  I’d stayed single for so long before him for just this reason but this was all new and improved bullshit however. It snuck up on me over time and it felt like slowly drowning in honey. 

Sweet torture.  Here’s something incredible but first you must eat shit.

Tucker decided that I needed a new truck and of course I agreed with him because he was in charge and running everything.  I didn’t know what else to do but go with the flow because I felt like it would be the most detrimental to not just stay low and not make any sudden moves as part of my “grand plan” …. I was a moron in love still but I think I’m about to get this shit taken care of you see?

I told him my credit was non-existent.  There weren’t a lot of options and that’s why I had a car that was paid for in the first place.  Oh, he knows someone that knows someone and he’ll get it done.  So I took off work to go hang out at a car lot all day. 

He did indeed know someone that knew someone and we sat in the finance office and the office manager said, “Okay all we need to finish up is the down payment.” She sat there staring at me expectantly with her huge blonde hair and too much tan. 

I looked over to Tucker who handed me my business checkbook.  I looked at him and wanted to say What the fuck to I do with this?  I didn’t but I did, however, look to the office manager and ask her how much the down payment was going to be and she did not blink as she brightly said, “$8,000.”

I think if I had had some gum, I would have swallowed it then.  I just looked at her and said, “Could we have a moment, please?” Now she blinked. It’s funny what things you remember.  This was big for me.  I knew there was not $8,000 in that checking account and I was pretty sure that if I signed that check, I could get into major trouble.  The office manager bounced out of her office and left us sitting there alone. 

I turned to Tucker and said, “I think you know what I’m going to say.” I sat looking up at him with my giant notebook/checkbook in my hand. 

He was visibly irritated with me. “What the fuck are you doing? You’re making it look like there’s a problem with this and they might make us wait until the check clears now and we won’t have the truck.”

I talked through gritted teeth, attempting not to yell, “How in the holy hell are you going to cover this? It’s not like it’s a $500 rent check or something.” 

He started telling me to keep my voice down and shut my mouth and write the check and he’d take care of it just like he took care of everything else.  I just looked at him. I badly wanted to tell Blondie we’d be back when I could actually cover that check.  I just sat there and slowly opened the checkbook.  I can’t tell you why I acquiesced except that I kept thinking, I’ll have a truck and independence and it’ll be alright and he’ll pull it out of his ass like he always does.

Tucker called Blondie back and proceeded to smooth talk her with some crazy shit about how I wanted to know how many cattle we had in the back pasture to bring up and sell to move the money over into the business account from the farm account to cover the check. My pen froze over the part where you write the number amount out. I knew it was all lies.  We didn’t have a back pasture or another farm account or even any extra cattle that didn’t belong to someone else. I took a deep breath and continued to write the check.  I knew it was wrong. I knew this was going to get me into trouble. I was scared to death but I still felt trapped and he kept assuring me it would all be alright.  He’d take care of it.  I signed it.  I handed it over.  I wrote in the register like it mattered…like I’d forget or let him forget that fucking 8 fucking thousand fucking dollar fucking check.  What had I done? I felt so sick and I was shaking.  Tucker yanked the checkbook out of my hand and put it in his briefcase.  He rushed me out of her office before I had a meltdown and leapt across the desk to rip the check from her bedazzled fingers.

When we went out to get in my truck, I was a little bit in awe.  It was the nicest vehicle I had ever “owned”.  Nicer than the SUV it was replacing and I loved it.  Driving it the hour and a half home made me forget what I had just done to get it.  It sort of helped me forget what I had to do later to thank him for putting myself in harm’s way. It was retail therapy at its most extreme.

He covered that check.  I don’t know how he did it.  What’s worse, I didn’t want to know.  It scared me to even think of it.  As it turned out though, his truck died the next week and was beyond repair.  I ended up back afoot while he proceeded to turn my beautiful truck into the dirtiest, nastiest, smelliest work truck you have ever seen.  He screwed up the electronics, smoked like a chimney in it and hung a 36’ gooseneck behind it.  I rarely saw the truck again and if I did manage to drive it, I was too disgusted to stay in it long. 

Tucker had started saying things like, “How come you’re so bitchy all the time?” or “You’re no fun anymore.”  Gee…I wonder why I’m not fun anymore?  

I began to sink into myself and think about that plan for escape. How to get away with a truck that I never have? With no money in my accounts? With no access to my own accounts? With my friends further and further away from me?  I started to think that things like signing that check and wanting nice things and turning a blind eye so that I could have them were the reasons that this was happening to me. That I was being punished because I had done things that I knew were wrong just to get “stuff”.  I was turning inside and away from even my children and very often felt on the brink of absolute madness.  I cried more than I laughed. I quit singing. I quit smiling. I quit myself.