Namastay Outta Mah Face

In service of myself, I have to start saying a few of the things that pop into my head but I don’t let escape my lips.

When lab manager felt the need to touch me on my side to show me where his mother in law’s ribs had been broken, I didn’t say anything. Partly from shock and partly because I’m that girl that doesn’t make a big deal out of anything for fear of being perceived as difficult. 

Considering even having anyone in my bubble that isn’t in my tribe makes me nauseated, the touching thing is strictly verboten.

I should have said, “Don’t touch me, please. That makes me uncomfortable.” I was so shocked however, and he just kept talking and the panic that had momentarily sparked through my entire body had abated just as quickly as it came, so I didn’t say shit, as usual.

At my other job, I have a nemesis as well but we all sort of dislike her together. She steals sales from us and she lies and is generally just a shit head. She’s been in that department a hot minute longer than me but tries to tell me what to do constantly and dismissively. Not to mention, she’s young enough to be my child. I was headed toward a ringing phone once and she said, “No, I’ll get it. It’s for me.” So, I kept walking. 

Another co-worker asked if the phone was for HER and I said, “I don’t know. N said it was for her so I let her get it.”

THIS coworker said, “Oh, you gonna let her tell you what to do? N’s your boss now?”

Consequently, I find myself stuck between starting shit with the annoying coworker every time she tries to tell me something to do because the others are making fun of me for being amenable, OR telling the others that I’m a little too mature to start warring with someone over every little thing, which is actually how I feel.  I have confronted her when she’s stolen a sale because that’s money out of my pocket but when N throws a pile of shoes on the counter, she’s just priced and says, “Put these out on the tables.” I just grab them and do it because I know it has to be done. I don’t see why I need to start Bitchfest 2015 to appease everyone else’s need for drama.

Thus, the plight of the emotionally battered.  You are raised to be a wimp and a doormat, a people pleaser.  You don’t necessarily enjoy it, but oh my, are you good at it. You seek out those who will flatter and praise you for being their lapdog.

Once you realize what your life is becoming, you try to work hard to shed all those things and people who drag you down into such stellar subservience. You may eventually gain somewhat of a voice but it never quite surfaces in that moment when you need it.  You end up being a clown for everyone’s amusement but never daring to completely be the bitch you know you can and should be for fear that someone won’t like you, for fear of being viewed as a hysterical female.

While we’re at it, speaking your mind as a woman makes you a bitch, period. I’m going to just start owning that even though I’m still a people pleaser inside, I’m going to reserve that for people who deserve it.

I just have to find a way to walk the line, I suppose. I cannot keep popping a Klonopin every time Lab Manager makes me want to clear my desk and fling poo at him.  I’m sure there’s a way to calmly deliver my opinion even if it’s going to be an unpopular one. Maybe, it’s all in the delivery.  Zen bitchy.  I’m going to start that movement now.  Let’s get some T-shirts made and have a retreat. 

Zen Bitchy – How to tell people to go fuck themselves while remaining calm and centered.

A Minor Tremor

When I was a kid I was a consummate, fantastical liar.  We moved every year until my brother and I got to high school and I remember at about 9 years old telling someone that what a disappointment it was to move to this new berg.  I continued in a tone of complete bullshittery as I told them how distressing it was to leave behind my uneven bars in the back yard we’d had because I was really good on those things.  I’m sure I had watched an episode of Wide World of Sports on a Saturday after cartoons were finished that included some gymnastics and decided that I was going to the Olympics.  My fantasy life was rich and full as a child because reality was often just too shitty to reside full time there.  I learned as I got older you have to eventually start backing your bullshit up.  I quit lying on the outside.  I just continued to fantasize constantly about being a singer, a secret agent, a business woman, a race car driver but mostly I dreamed of being normal, someone who didn’t have to constantly make up an imaginary life to lie about, someone who wasn’t slapped, beaten, yelled at, belittled constantly, someone who didn’t have to make strategies at 9 years old to avoid being noticed.

In any case, I learned to be a person that internalizes and doesn’t say what she means or thinks or verbalize how she feels.  I learned to be the person I still am.  I am so much stronger, so much wiser, and so much calmer now.  I don’t cry at the drop of a hat anymore and that used to be one of those things that disgusted my mother and by proxy disgusted me about myself. Everything she hated about me, I hated about myself because she told me I should.  Too sensitive, too weepy, too fidgety, too stupid, too expressive.  I still, however, stay quiet and take heaping piles of shit and mostly from men because I was raised to do so.

I am visiting all of this because the experiences that you have pile up like strata, like a cross section of earth you find in a diagram in a geology chapter.  They layer on and build up and make you into the person you are and sometimes the layers make you stronger and sometimes those fuckers shift. The fight between all the good shit that you struggle to pile on against the bad shit that’s stacked up will make a fault line that will cause earthquakes. Those quakes can come and go, they can settle and serve to settle you in and they can also have aftershocks that last a lifetime. 

I signed up for OkCupid and Tinder.  Lemme just tell you, Tinder went down in flames real fuckin fast.  They all just want sex. They’re not shy about telling you that and what's more, they are stunned that you don’t already know that.  I met one good looking, tall, charismatic dude who took me out to breakfast and kissed my face off when he left me at my office and then he just got weird and then sexy and then weird again and I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something there wasn’t right and I quit answering his calls and texts.  I don’t know except that I have learned that those red flags are flagging for a reason, so I started paying attention to them.

Killed the Tinder after that and met (and by met I mean we did the message exchange on the site then did the number exchange a few days later) a beautiful bald, mustachioed gentleman who’s grammar and spelling and complete sentences whilst texting had me like Scarlett on a fainting couch.  His turn of phrase, his wit and charm and the fact that he didn’t devolve to sex talk made me giddy.  We talked for weeks.  He is law enforcement and had odd shifts but texted and we got to know each other’s schedules.  He got all my jokes and made me laugh and we talked late at night with sleepy voices and through yawns, under covers, giggling at each other and chit chatting about nothing and everything. I even gave him his own ringtone and notification sound.  I was getting fucking serious, yo.  The only hiccup in any of it was that he was 3 hours away.  We discussed that right off the top but we seemed drawn to each other and it didn’t matter.  We exchanged pictures and not naughty ones either.  He didn’t smile in any of his and they were all pics that had been taken by someone else and he said selfies were for girls and he didn’t do them. 

Then came the day he sent me a selfie, smiling, from work in his uniform.  More swooning and no flags.  I really liked him.  After almost 3 weeks, we did it one night … talking and then saucy talking and pictures and I’m not a fan of the phone sex. At all…but…it was fun.  It was racy and exciting.  Shortly after that though, I noticed the texts were fewer and further between that had anything of substance in them.  The talk at night was instantly rushed by him to talking about my ladybits and what he was going to do and blah, blah, blah, blah.  I found myself wondering if there was one man on this planet that wanted both things and then I thought I was just being too hard on him. I was yet again making excuses and second guessing my own feelings and motives because I had been taught that most of what I felt was wrong. I manned up and pushed the issue of us meeting to see what would happen. I broached the subject only to be answered with a long and windy text that said he really, really liked me and thought I was funny and sexy and brilliant but if we met in person we would not be having “relations” or a relationship beyond what was going on.  

Stunned does not begin to cover how I felt. Dumbfounded is more like it.  I sent a text that simply said, “Then what the fuck are we doing this for?”

Also...Fun Bobby

He didn’t answer for hours.  Stupid washed over me and I sat with leaky eyes reading and re-reading our conversation.  I felt duped and foolish.  This man now had pictures of my everything and dude, I mean everything.  Not that I put my face in that shit but still, I felt so fucking foolish like Romy waiting for Billy Christiansen after the prom. 

When he finally answered he made an excuse about having his kids on his off days and not having time for a relationship beyond what we were doing with his work and side work and crazy hours. I told him that I DID want that stuff and I thought that’s what we were working toward all along and he’d intimated those things to me and he knew it. I told him this just wasn’t going to work for me any longer and I didn’t answer another text or call from him. 

A week later, home alone doing chores and shit on a Saturday, I heard that ringtone I’d assigned…Don Juan taught me not to delete numbers out of my phone.  You end up in conversations you don’t want to have that way.  When the Caller ID warns you not to pick it up, it’s worth not having to say, “Who is this?”,  and then be drawn into a conversation that leads to you getting your heart broken, AGAIN.  (Read all about that HERE if you haven’t already.)

I looked at my phone dubiously and read, I miss your sexy ass.

“That’s all you miss.” I said out loud to an empty room but, dumbass that I am, I answered it.

I was just thinking of you earlier and wondering how you were doing, which shift you were on.

I get off at 3 today, what are you doing?

Just housework and watching TV. Nothing exciting.

Damn, I just knew you were gonna say, Getting naked and calling you at 3:30.

And that was that.  I was right the first time, ass was all he DID miss.  I never, never, never answered him again and he did continue to text until he realized I was over it.

Anyway…I reactivated my account and thought, ‘There’s one out there, I know there is.’

Let me just boil it all down for you. There’s not. I literally had a man sweet talk me and call me Princess and send me good night texts EVERY NIGHT within a week of our starting to talk only to have him quit texting and disappear completely for over a week.  Then he sent a text that said, Hey stranger and proceed to try to talk me into driving an hour and a half to meet him and spend the night at his house. When I told him I had my daughter home and I don’t want to be that far from her overnight in case she needed me, he said, Well, I have wheels dear. So I further made clear that there will be no having of the sex if he DOES drive in, he IMMEDIATELY quit texting. I didn’t hear another fucking word until a week later …. That motherfucker was looking for pussy and pussy only even after he’d been very clear to tell me he was looking for a monogamous relationship, a girlfriend, a companion. I, of course, have taken most of what he's said with a grain of salt but it still irritates the fuck out of me.  I’m sure he found some local strange in the week he had quit working me over.  I never answered another one of that asshole’s messages again either. I was not emotionally invested in anyone after the Popo man but I still had this tiny speck of expectation.  

It was handily snuffed however as I had a very similar experience with more than one of these dicks.  I don’t want a husband. I just want someone to share time and more than just sex with.  A shoulder to lean on, a soft place to land, once in a while.  The last few days and the big, black dark that I’ve been fighting showed me a couple things though. I’m not over Don Juan.  It’s not so much him as what I truly thought was there for us.  Lying in bed and not showering, hoping that sleep will overtake me at every turn, it became clear that all of this was just a distraction. 

It never fails to disappoint me though.  It never fails to make me so sad that they treat me the same way over and over and I somehow have a beacon that calls them to me, the cads and the scoundrels.  I have this hope that there’s a sweet soul that will appreciate me and what’s inside and will be just as eager to know my favorite book as he is to get my panties off.  I keep saying that I’m not going to worry about that and just do what I gotta do and then, well, then I get bored.  I decide the only thing missing in my life is some testosterone.  Of course I’m missing it but, why? Simply because it’s been a constant and not a good one most times?  I have to stop piling the bad side of the strata on.  I have to just build up the good side and hope the aftershocks are more like a massage chair than a 14 story implosion because the fallout leads me to the dark place, the place where I simply cannot move. It leads me to the place where I’m not going to the gym, I’m not meditating, I’m not doing the daily chores that keep me on track.

It leads me to the place where I hear the alarm and reach out from under the blankets to silence it over and over until my daughter is standing over me telling me it’s 7:20, asking me if I’m going to work.  I am still fully dressed in sweats and socks and shirt and bra from the night before and have neglected to set the coffee pot. I barely make it from the couch to the bed at 3AM.  I tell her I’m going to go in late because I’m still feeling sick.  She knows and I know that she knows but she says nothing and kisses me goodbye.  I send texts to work and roll back under the covers.  Wakefulness is painful a few hours later. I stumble from the bed to the bathroom, let the animals out and stand in front of the refrigerator and slug Coke Zero from the two liter bottle.  I let the animals back in and we all pile back in my bed. I am still in those same clothes from the day before.  I find something on the television, check my phone for fires and floods and hope for more sleep. Messages to friends checking on me with the where are yous? and the what’s wrongs? I say I’m not stellar but it’s fine. It’s all fine.  More sleep.  I wake hours later to repeat the cycle, bathroom, animals, refrigerator, phone, sleep.  When I wake up close to 5, I check emails that are pissing me off and finally I begin to feel something enough to get up.  I brush my teeth and get the laptop.  I fix all the problems and my daughter comes home to see me, in the same clothes, in my bed with my laptop.  I am so ashamed that it almost sends me back until she piles into bed with me and hugs me and asks do I want her to get supper. I hold back the tears and nod and she races off to get a pizza and some chocolate because she knows.  She comes and brings me chocolate and pizza and more of my precious Coke Zero right to my bed. She asks if I’m feeling better now and I answer that I am.

I am not but I must get up and make plans for a better day. A minor tremor derailed me for a day but I got my feet back under me. What will I do when she’s not here any longer? Who will drag me up from the big black dark? I am the only one that will.  I won’t have a choice, lest I leave it to swallow me whole. 

Return to Dick Mountain

So T-Bone was jettisoned and guess who calls? Right on the motherfucking heels of that shit. Don Juan/Hypocrites. He called and I had deleted his number so I answered with no fear or hesitation, thinking it was a student or the Gurl Child.  When he said, “Hi.” Followed with, “It’s me.”, the bottom dropped out of my stomach and I wondered what in the world he’d be calling for.  I just couldn't imagine and my mind raced out a 100 different scenarios in a split second before I simply said, “Hi.”

He stumbled over his words but eventually told me he wanted to say hi and see how I was and he’d tried to tell a person we both knew from Schmome Schmeepo to tell me he’d said hello but then what kind of coward would he be if he didn't tell me himself and a bunch of other stuff that I didn't really hear because I was still wondering what this was all about.

He said that he’d missed me, that he knew he had no right to be saying any of this to me and that he would understand completely if I hung up but he wanted to tell me, “Hi.”

I simply said, “Well, hi.” Again.

He asked what I thought about his calling and I said, “Well honestly, DJ I don’t know what to say.  I’m dumbfounded and I’m going out of town and I’ll be back next week and I guess we can talk it over then?”

He acquiesced immediately and said,

”Whatever you want. Take your time.”

I said okay back and we hung up.  I still, to this day, wish I’d have been a bit more of a hard ass.  Made him work harder for my agreement to even speak to him. Chances are, it would have turned out the same but I would have maybe come off like a bit more of a someone who wasn't a doormat. 

In any case, he sent some of the most panty-melting, heart stopping, Nicholas-Sparks-would-be-proud sweet talk via text until I finally said, “Yes, come by the store and we’ll talk.”

He walked in while I was working and my stomach flipped and I grinned because there he was. He followed me throughout the store, he told everyone he was there to take me away from it all, he practically made me swoon and he waited for me until I had closed the store.

I walked to my car slowly and I was so scared and sick. Why? Why was I scared? Because last time he had so completely broken my heart that I drank myself into a crying, sobbing stupor that had my best friend and daughter pouring me into bed?  Because last time it had taken me weeks to feel normal again? Because last time I had taken back TBone on the rebound from a shattered heart? No biggie.

There we stood in the parking lot, his arms around me while I felt my worth being buoyed.  I felt at once stupid and elated.  Why did I need this indecisive jackass to make me feel so good about myself and yet here he was, another one crawling back. He was offering himself up as my life partner telling me that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Telling me how insane he was to ever let me go.  How perfect I was for him and that he would NEVER EVER NEVER do to me what he’d done to me before.  Never shut me out and push me away ever again.  That he loved me like he loved no other.  I cried and felt an enormous sense of relief.  I told him that I felt like less of a fool for putting myself so completely out there last time and I wasn’t as stupid as I’d thought before. 

I was wondering to myself how two men had come to ask for me back in the space of just a few months and how had I ever settled at all at any time for anyone. I must be pretty fucking awesome.  The glow of all that awesomeness led me right back into temptation with DJ.  I ate it up.

He held me and crooned, “Oh baby, you are not stupid, I am. I’m the fool for ever thinking that I could do better than to have you in my life.  You are beautiful and a beautiful soul. I can talk to you and tell you my heart and my fears and I can trust you with them.” He laid his hand on my heart and said, “I was the stupid one and I’ll never let you go ever again.”

I cried from relief. I cried from the relief that I hadn’t imagined all that had gone before with us. I had agonized over whether I’d imagined this great love and passion and here he was telling me he felt it too.

I pulled back and asked point blank, “Why did you leave me then?”

He paused, he took a breath and launched. “Remember when I first started this job and I told you I needed to get some good shoes and slacks and you offered me your Macy’s card?” I nodded and opened my mouth and he held his hand up. “And you did that because you thought we were going to conquer the world together and now I understand that, but at the time I felt like a supreme failure.”

I wrinkled my brows and backed up against the car and hung my head.  “I offered you help and you didn't want to take it and so you flirted with some girl on Facebook and then broke my heart?? How do I know if you were to get sick or if something terrible were to happen, you wouldn't act exactly the same?”

He advanced and scooped me off the side of the car.  “Because I realize what an idiot I was. You were right.  You were right about everything. Nothing and no one in my life has or ever will compare to you.”

I sagged against him and buried my nose in his neck. He still smelled so fucking good. We kissed like we’d never kiss again.  Ridiculously passionate, grasping and desperate right there next to my car. I was swept up in all those sweet words and let myself be carried away.  I told him I would give him another chance that I’d loved him so and never really stopped and he told me the same.  We hugged and laughed and talked and kissed and it was a bit of delicious déjà vu in that parking lot where it had all started.

So it went … loving messages and conflicted schedules and stolen moments and we did more this time.  We all went to dinner…me and DJ and my daughter and his 6 year old son.  The Girl Child and his Boy Child cut up and played during bowling and then dinner.  Suddenly, as we were sitting at dinner, his BC said, “Is she my new sister?” I panicked and all the blood drained to my toes.  He didn't ask me and so I sat back in the booth and let his dad take the lead. 

His father took a drink and said, “Yes.”

I almost slipped under the table in shock but it felt like he was all in this time and I began to relax into it. We looked at houses; we talked forever about what, when and where. I stopped looking for work out of state and decided that this is where I could stay because this man, this great love and I were going to build a life together. I really could not have been happier.  In those moments, I was standing in the sun again because this guy had so much more than any that came before… a hard worker and a good father and dedicated to succeeding. He was sweet and complimentary and appreciative. I had a purpose… for all of us. 

One thing I have learned about myself in the last couple years since leaving Tucker is that if I don’t have direction, I’m not happy.  I can’t just drift by every day and escape depression.  The more days I let just float by without doing something in service of accomplishing something else, the more the black fingers reach up and pull me back under the covers.  Enveloping me and soothing me into nothingness.  Nothingness with nachos and Netflix...but nothingness nonetheless.

This purpose and drive moving forward made me overly optimistic and I suppose slightly blind.  It happened that our schedules conflicted so much that we hadn't seen each other in over a week when he called me very early on a Monday morning.  So unusual for him and it threw me.  I won’t divulge the entirety of the situation but he had an issue with his son that had sent his ex-wife into a full on freak out.  A freak out that was not warranted but pushed DJ into super fixer/sponsor/protector/man mode. 

I offered what I knew to be calm, sage, loving advice because I’d been through very much the same thing with my daughter and step kids and told him that I was here for him and anything me or the Gurl Child could offer was his.

“Thanks, Medi. If I don’t answer my texts or call, it’s because I’m wrapped up with this. I spent all night with Barbara last night trying to calm her down.”

My brain imploded.  You spent all night with your ex-wife trying to calm her down???? What the codependent fuck?!?

I was silent and I think he sensed that did not settle with me particularly well. 

“Her fiancé is out of town working and she had no one and she’s really flipping out. I had to stay with her and keep her calm so she didn’t make the whole situation worse.”

“I understand. Something like this can be unsettling but it’s what kids do and I’m sure it’s nowhere near as bad as all that.”

He hesitated and sighed then, “Well Barbara can be a bit hysterical when life doesn’t follow the script but we’re talking about my son here. I needed to keep the situation as calm as possible.”

“That’s fine. I understand.” But I didn’t understand.  I felt like I was dealing with a pack of idiots here and wanted to shake them all and knock their heads together.

That moment, when he called me by my name instead of baby or honey or sweetie; that moment was when I really knew.  Oh, I hung on for 3 more weeks sending encouraging emails…hearing from him via phone call exactly twice and a few scattered texts, but I knew. 

Here’s the thing…he had all these wonderful qualities. Goal oriented, handsome, cared for other people but he was also tortured. I knew this already from the last go round but I had let the fact that he’d tortured himself over losing me sort of blot that out. Have you ever met someone that doesn’t necessarily seem happier when things are going wrong but they seem comfortable there? This, I was discovering, was DJ.  He picked up misery and wrapped it about him. He wore it well and may not have reveled in it but he certainly thrived.  He wore the hair coat with pleasure and I finally figured out why.

 He once told me that being 20+ years clean and sober was still a struggle some days because when things were going well were the times that he thought, A beer would be good right now, I can handle a couple of drinks.  So…he was more comfortable in turmoil or strife.   He could handle that.  He could work his steps and talk to his sponsor and go to meetings and have this thing working that kept him on a path that he knew how to navigate without fucking up and using or drinking.

There was also this slightly martyr-ish portion that told him if he had to sacrifice his ultimate happiness for it then that was okay because he was doing important shit.  He was saving his kid or the world or whatnot. I was vaguely reminded of my dog that used to roam our acreage and always managed to find something dead somewhere to roll in.  He would come home reeking of funky decay and be thrilled with himself. It’s like DJ shrouded himself with funk because it was his comfort zone.  It was the only way he knew how to forge ahead with any sort of regularity or normalcy. He flourished in his funk because happy and normal was scary as fuck.

The two phone calls I DID get from him were one sided conversations about how he counseled his ex through everything and kept her relationship with her fiancé intact because he was, in fact, such a fucking wonderful stand-up dude.  Those things made me angry when they should have made me proud of him but how is it a man can ask someone to share his life or even say, “You are the love of my life.” when he doesn't even manage to speak to them or think about them for 3 weeks?

I was already lounging in bed one night wondering what the fuck I was going to do about all this when called and he said, “Everything is starting to work out and the counselor told us much of what you told me and I think everything is starting to get better.”

“Well that’s great.” I answered cautiously and without much enthusiasm. 

“I’m ready to see you, babe.” He said it quietly and I made him repeat it.

Not I need to see you, not I want to see you but I’m ready.

Omg hallelujah. He’s ready.  I should drop everything and make sure I can meet all his needs in this moment.

Guess what?  I’d been ready for weeks but what I wanted hadn't mattered.  I felt sort of like an asshole and as if I were being a bit selfish because he was dealing with shit about his son but I also knew deep down that they’d all overreacted and turned something that most kids with blended families go through into a major ordeal that didn't need to be one.  I felt like a casualty of a stupid, pointless war.  Not to mention all I’d been going through and it hadn't been world ending but it had been a pretty shitty month for me.

He said, “I’m going to text you first thing in the morning even if I don’t have anything to say.”

I told him okay and that I’d talk to him the next day.  Guess what, again? Nothing.  All morning I stared at my phone willing the light to notify me that he hadn't forgotten about me, that I mattered to him as much as he mattered to me.  At 11:55 while it was still morning, I texted him.  I sent it on Kik so I knew when he had read it and that he had simply chosen not to fucking answer me.

I wrote an email that day and I agonized over sending it. I agonized over and over.  Was I ready to let go of this shit?  He had made me realize what I wanted out of life, finally.  I had been adrift since I’d left Tucker and didn’t know if I’d be trying to travel the world or be looking for a place to settle down. I basically hadn’t figured it out.  The excitement I felt when looking for a place to raise our family together was genuine. I hadn’t felt it because it was what he wanted.  I had seriously felt it in my heart.  An experience during all of this where the Girl Child had friends over and I cooked them all breakfast and we sat laughing and chatting had made me realize that I am happiest when I’m nesting and being a homebody. It solidified what I wanted. For that, to him, I am grateful.  He helped me find my way but sadly, now it just wouldn’t be with him. 

I sent the email which you can read if you click the pic over there.   Who knew if I’d ever be able to see him face to face again? I wasn’t important enough for him to make time to see much less even text me apparently.  I felt awful and okay all at the same time and mostly like I’d been on a rip roaring roller coaster that had taken me to an incredible high full of promise only to leave me 3 seconds later feeling like I was going to puke. 

He sent a short text two days later:

You’re right. You were right about all of it. I’m sorry I dragged everyone into this

He missed the point. He missed the entire fucking point. It solidified my decision but it didn't ease the hurt.  I’d made the same wrong decision twice. I’m going to blame it on hubris and chemicals.  His stroking my ego was legendary and I’m not gonna lie, he made my panties fall off but he had to go.

It was a mess. I was a mess.  I have no idea how I feel about anything anymore except I know more of what I don’t want.  I know I’m ready to settle down and I have to be happy doing that alone.  Unfortunately, this little episode catapulted me into Tinder/OkCupid frenzy in an effort to bandaid the stab wound, which I can assure you has made everything shittastic for my emotional well-being. Whoever said the whole getting under someone to get over someone was the thing apparently had zero emotional baggage.

I’m not trying anymore.  I’m going to make some goals that don’t have penises involved.  I’m going to post a prologue for my book this week. I’m going to make myself accountable for finishing the damn thing. If I’m not holding a copy of my book by 2016, it’ll be because I wrote a piece of shit and not because I didn't write it.  

  

Mediocrates Meets Hypocrites

So I was in love and I thought with someone different. Someone self-aware and whole.  Sure there was a ton of self-reflection going on and at times he seemed flighty and unsure of his course but he always seemed to work it out. We talked about the best sequence of actions for getting a home together, how long we should wait, etc. Whose house first or fully together when we were ready. We talked about all kinds of things. We continued to steal kisses and see each other and bask in the glow.

And so it happens that one weekend I go to meet a friend at the bar where she works.  We are going to eat and hang out but she has to work.  There are families there and kids singing karaoke and I take a stool at the bar and she and I chat in between her customers.  A 100-year old pipe liner sits down and buys me a beer.  I drink it and I talk to him as he regales me with his own brand of cowboy poetry and bull riding stories.  It soon becomes evident that I cannot drive home in my current state so I start to drink water.  I drink like 4 bottles…turn down more beers from more pipe liners and I go home.  When I convey this tale to my beloved 3 days later, he becomes shitty and sullen.  He withdraws and goes back to work after our supper together and I wonder "What the fuck?"

Ensuing discussion reveals his disappointment that I let someone buy my beers while sitting in a bar without him. Further, he is not the sort of man that would ever let there be any doubt about the fact that he has a woman and he would treat her with the utmost respect to include not letting another woman overtly flirt with him, hug him or put him or his woman in a situation that either of them would have to be embarrassed about later. He told me that a girl at work had been hugging him and he knew I didn’t like it much even though I hadn’t said anything so he made sure it never happened again.  He didn't want anyone anywhere to think they’d had something over on me where he was concerned. I loved that.  I loved it.  I knew he was upset and I knew why and what’s more I wholeheartedly agreed with it.  I’d never had a man say anything like that to me.  Now though, in his eyes, I’d sullied the whole thing and I tried to explain that he could walk in that bar with me and he would have no reason to be embarrassed, it simply hadn't been like that.  Long story short, we hashed it out. I have a tendency not to be the one to put up a fight or try to prove my point because it’s exhausting but I thought he was worth it….that our future was worth it.

Hypocrites

So the moment that it happened that I saw the fateful post on motherfucking Facebook on another girl’s motherfucking page and I said something about it; about how that wasn't respectful and about how if all three of us were ever in a room together that I would be embarrassed and belittled; about how I was hurt about how it belied the exact thing we’d almost broken up over a month before….I expected an apology. What I got was defiance. It broke my heart when he puffed up.  I knew right then it was over. Shit, I knew the moment I’d seen the post it was over.  

In the end, I imagine that he was not ready. He was still trying to put the pieces of his life back together and we crashed into each other in an unexpected and passionate wave that proved to be too much for him and all of his inner conflict. I don’t think he meant to be a hypocrite, he just could never get out of his own way. I ended up feeling like the long suffering wife who sees her husband through medical school only to be dumped when he becomes a doctor.  I know that’s not exactly fair to him but it is still how I felt. I had dropped everything more than once to take him meals. I had put gas in his car to help him get to work and made sure he had things for his son. I had gone out of my way to make things work between us and did it happily because I thought we were working toward a future. It seemed the minute he got a better job and things were looking up though, he no longer needed me and that is just the most crushing of blows.

I told the bestie that I was going to just start being a bitch from here on out and she said, “No, you won’t. That’s not who you are.”

I tried too hard and gave everything but I don’t know how to do it any other way.  I go out of my way for the person that I love and I’m going to have to make damn sure that next time, whoever he is, doesn't

see me coming from a motherfucking mile away.

Being Kalinda

Does anyone watch The Good Wife? I just started a binge watch of the first season as part of the March 2014 Mediocrates Depression Tour.  I’ve watched all 8 seasons of Weeds, 2 seasons of House of Cards and now The Good Wife. I’ve currently made my way to season 2. I normally don’t like a weekly episodic that wraps up neatly at the end of the hour.  I like character studies.  The Good Wife as it so happens out is a veritable cornucopia of character studies. I catch myself sort of ignoring the weekly legal drama and focusing on the soapy operatic deliciousness. I adore Josh Charles and have ever since Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.  His unrequited love for Alicia didn’t quite fly with me at first but it became a matter of course as I sank deeper into my covers with the small screen churning out the theatre. 

Alicia is long suffering and quiet and as I watch, I find myself screaming at her to be angry, to stand up for herself, to say something instead of just standing there being silent through any and all outrages. As much as I love Chris Noth, (who doesn’t love Mr. Big or the plaid tie wearing Mike Logan?) I hear myself thinking loudly…Why are you letting that motherfucker back in your house after what he’s done? When her brother tells her that she’s like the person on the Titanic that drowns because she’s too polite to leave her room, I just cringe and think holy sheep shit, YES!!!! Then I wonder why I’m so irritated at her until I realize how much she reminds me of myself.

I often tell myself that staying silent will show my quiet strength, only it’s not strength that keeps me quiet most times.  It’s fear.  I slowly began to grasp that she’s handling her fears by internalizing and trying to deal as best she knows how; navigating uncharted waters with all the skill of Gilligan.  Just like me.  Reactive not proactive.  I have been spending hours lying covered with the heavy blanket of nothing only rising when required to work, visit the powder room, throw some food down my throat or sporadically shower. I had been in the midst of much worse but was dealing with boyfriend problems that were throwing my future into shadow and my certainty with my peace askew. I was handling it with much less aplomb than she and that was sort of pissing me off.

Then there’s Kalinda.  I love me some Kalinda.  When asked if she’s gay, her answer is, “Why does it matter?” That’s a great response and one I should utilize more often when asked questions I don’t want to answer.  She’s fearless and bitchy and everyone loves her for it. The moment that she told Alicia that flipping someone off was good for the soul, I had to wholeheartedly agree with her.  It IS good for you when the recipient has been deemed worthy. And so what if your answer or demeanor might possibly sting another sometimes? There are times that people deserve a sting and you don’t have to be hateful to deliver it as I was learning from good old Kalinda. Yeah! I should be more like hard assed Kalinda.

So, I got up.  I haven’t watched any more Netflix.  Well, not compulsively anyway.  I have laid out a tentative plan for my future that may or may not include my boo. I had hoped that this sensitive, caring, passionate man would be in my future but it’s gotten lost in the mist of neuroses and curiously, not my own.  I finally met someone more neurotic than I, it seems.  I have so many other things to take care of and look after.  A teenaged daughter about to be driving, a father with cancer, a mom who is caring for a man with cancer, a teenaged son that desperately needs guidance and refuses to take it, a career that needs nurturing.

I have to keep my head down and work this shit out and if he falls into place then that will be wonderful.  If he doesn’t, it’ll hurt but we’ll all make it. I don’t need anyone else to fix me; I can “fix” myself.   Don’t get me wrong, the nothing is there.  It’s jumping up and down and rubbing its hands together in dark anticipation but I will keep it at bay.  I’ve got things to do. I’ve got me to do.   

One Bite at a Time

I’ve often thought of the months that followed our exodus to my brother’s house in terms of a year.  It was really a little over 3 months but I had so much inner turmoil and mental thrashing about going on that it seemed longer before I ended up getting my shit together.  My brother was mad at his girlfriend and they were locked in a constant struggle and I invariably ended up in the middle of it. He came home much sooner than anticipated so we were all there in his house and I know he didn’t particularly enjoy the intrusion so I did my best to feed them well since Helena didn’t really cook and do my part to clean house, etc.

I spent my birthday there with them and despite all that was going on they tried to be there for me, to make me feel better. I continued to get phone calls and letters from Tucker. He begged. I cried. I tried to figure out what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. I was still getting phone calls from randoms telling me that I’d better watch out because Rangers or Feds had been asking around about this and that.  I tried to push it all to the back of my brain and just figure out a way to exist.

I started feeling like myself a little bit more every day but constant contact with him in the form of visits and phone calls left me feeling as if nothing had really changed.  I was biding my time and trying to figure out how to get divorced and what they would do with him, where he’d go once they’d charged and released him. Luckily for me all his bonds were revoked everywhere. Once he cleared his mess up in that county he began a county to county trek from jail to jail to answer for his transgressions. This meant I didn’t have to deal with him face to face any time soon and that was good news for me. I wasn’t strong enough to tell him no to his face.  His con was too good and I knew I’d give in still.

I alternately ignored his phone calls and took them.  After they transferred him to another county, I quit going to see him and I took my wedding rings off though occasionally I would look down and find myself wearing them and not know how they got back on my finger. 

Helena one day pointed to my finger and said, “I thought you weren’t wearing those anymore.”

I lifted my hand and gave a half smile, “I’m not. I have no clue why they’re there.”

I slipped them off and into my pocket and shook my head at myself. By the end of the day when I was getting undressed, I noticed had them back on again. I took them and put them in a ring box and put them in the bottom of my jewelry box so that they weren’t readily available to slip back on. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the jewelry box willing the sneaky little suckers to stay put.

I finally found a place to live close to my work and dished out the cash to get moved. Staying with my brother had helped but I knew it was going to be tough trying to cover every bill on the $11.86 an hour I was making.  I was still getting through to finish school and without a degree, it just wasn’t getting any better. Harlow and I had a place of our own nevertheless and with my mom’s help we got moved into a tiny 2 bedroom 1 bath cabin looking little house with a backyard for the dogs and a view of the trailers in the trailer park.

I felt accomplished and sane if only for a short while.  Bills piled up immediately and I thought about what I’d have to do to get through them to get by and started feeling that overcome, chokey, drowny feeling again.  Just like the day of the move though, I told myself one thing at a time, one day at a time. I don’t remember who told me first but I’ve always remembered when I start feeling like my head is going to explode...How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time. 

Rock Solid

I woke up early that Saturday morning afterwards. People always talk about those blissful moments after waking up before realization of something terrible dawns.  It didn’t take me a few seconds to realize anything.  I remembered upon waking. I was alone. He was gone and I was alone.  Not that it was bad I guess but I was lost after 7 years of being at his beck and call.  I had been a strong independent woman when I met him and now I was a hollowed out husk.

I dragged myself out of bed and looked around at everything in that massive 3 bedroom house and wondered how the hell I was going to get it all packed.  I found some old jeans and a tshirt and put my hair up and went next door to get Harlow.  I hugged her so hard and she just kept asking me what was wrong. 

I thanked the neighbors and took her home and told her.  We have to start packing. Now.  Tucker is in jail and I’m not getting him out and we’re going to go and live with Uncle Wayne for a while.  I was stunned when she threw her arms around me and said, “Good!”

I looked at her in amazement as she said, “What school will I have to go to?”

“Well that’s kind of the good part.  You’ll have to go to Shay’s school. Uncle Wayne lives on the edge of the school district so you can ride the bus into Fredricks to go to school.”

Shay was Harlow’s best friend and had recently been taken to her dad’s after a horrible custody fight including a court battle where I’d been subpoenaed to testify against Shay’s mother. Harlow hadn’t been able to see her for months because we lived so far away.

Her 14 year old face lit up and she yelled, “WHERE’S MY PHONE?!?!”  I laughed then. I laughed a lot.  Guilt rushed in on me though as I thought about Tucker in a jail cell. I quashed it and told myself he deserved it and I wasn’t responsible for him or his feelings any longer.

“Well the bad news is that we have to start packing and get moved in three days.”

She didn’t care.  She was ecstatic and the thought of going to the same school with her best friend made her giddy. 

We drove to the store and got as many boxes as we could.  Helena showed up with more and we began to furiously pack and sort and burn trash.  I had to sort Tucker’s things out from mine.  I had horses to get homed and sold and when I momentarily stopped to think about it, I felt overwhelmed.  So I just didn’t stop.  Phone calls to people saying this happened and that happened, not sugar coating any of it as I knew that Tucker would want me to do.  I called and called…I have this horse and that horse, do you want this pony?  All in between mad dashes through piles of shit packing and tossing things. 

I called the crazy ass landlord and simply said, “I have to move.  Tucker’s been arrested. I can’t afford this place on my own.  Please add up what we owe and call me.  I’ll be living with my brother in Horne and I’ll be able to make payments.”

I was expected to be met with yelling and screaming and protestations of his being fucked over and surprisingly he just said, “Okay.”  I hung up the phone glad to have gotten that phone call over with.

 

After a few hours, Helena and I stopped packing long enough to sit across from one another in the kitchen at the island.  We sat smoking cigarettes and talking of what was still left to do.  Suddenly, Helena looked at me and then began to almost cry.  Tears in her eyes as she told me how she and my brother were having problems.  I felt a little overcome as she told me that he’d hacked her Facebook account and saw that she’d been chatting with an old friend that she’d been deployed with in Iraq.  I asked if she had cheated on him and she said that she hadn’t but her friend constantly told her that he loved her and she hadn’t put a stop to it.  She said that he’d told her he wanted her to move out before he got home from Iraq himself and she didn’t know what to do.

I sat there in my empty kitchen with my head about to explode.  Okay, so I needed to be selfless and give her some sage advice in the middle of this current chaos.  Fuck all, I could think of not one solid thing to say.  I let her spew and then said, “Girl, I got nothing.  If you love him, do whatever he needs you to do to make this better as long as you can live with yourself to do it.  If not, then tell him you’ll be gone before he gets home.”

She sighed and said, “I guess I need to see if he can get over it or not and I guess I can’t do anything about it now.”

We called Harlow from the back of the house and began packing and loading trucks again. There we were, a 14 year old, a tired ass 41 year old and a teeny tiny little 30 something, packing trucks and moving furniture and driving back and forth the 60 mile trips one way.  We did a fair job of clearing the house out the first day even so and by the time that day was over we’d made enough headway to sleep at Wayne and Helena’s the first night.  They had a huge room in the back of the house with its own bathroom that had two full beds and a set of bunk beds and we still had room for dressers and clothes.  Harlow and I showered and fell into our respective beds.  The exhaustion was abject and almost tangible.  I rolled over toward the wall and began to cry.

I couldn’t stop it.  I pushed my face into the pillow to try and muffle the sobs.  I was really really done and it hurt.  My entire being felt utterly smashed.  Ripped apart and fuh-rap-aaayed.  A million thoughts raced through my mind.   You’re free.  Truly free.  There’s no one now.  Just you.  You have to do this without anyone telling you what to do or what to think.  Hollow affection is still affection.  You’ll have none.  You need none.  You need some.  You’ll be okay without it.  No you won’t.  Fuck him, fuck every person seeking to pull things from you that you can’t afford to give.  Why are you crying? What have you lost? A man who sucked the life from you? Your whole being? No. You can do it.  You can do it all.  Alone. Aimless. Wandering. Lost. Weren’t you always alone anyway?

The bed sagged behind me and Harlow curled up to my back.  She began to rub my arm and hugged me to her.  “It’ll be fine, Mommy.  It’s okay.”

I stopped crying a bit and hiccupped, “I know, baby.  It’s just hard and he’s gone and I’m not sure how I can do any of this alone.”

She hugged me tighter, “You’re not alone, Mommy.  You have me and Uncle Wayne and Aunt Helena and Grandma and Grandpa and Granny and Freddy and if you ever go back to him….” she paused and I felt like something huge was there waiting for her to spit it out.

“What, baby?"

She sucked in her breath “...I’ll run away.”

My sweet candy girl said what I knew she meant I rolled over and hugged her back and said, “It’s okay.  I’m just getting it all out. I’ll be okay and he won’t come back.  I promise.”  I knew she was more important than him.  I knew that I was more important than him…we were.

Teeming thoughts crushed my consciousness but under all of it I caught the thread of sanity and hope and clung to it. It felt rock solid under all the other bullshit for the first time in a very long time. I knew that I could do it.     

The Last Time

We left Dairy Queen. I had worn heels to work of course and was trudging alongside Helena on top of 4 inch shooties back toward the garage where she’d left her car for the oil change.  I had cried all my makeup off and dug through my purse as we walked looking for a hair clip. I scraped up my hair and untucked my shirt.  It was 1:30 in the afternoon and I still had mountains to climb.  I peered over at Helena’s slight frame. She was short and tiny, built like a 12 year old boy really, but she exuded power and strength and I was so glad she was there in that moment.

I was still sniffling from my good long embarrassing cry and she reached over and patted me on the arm, “We’ll figure it out, you know we will.”

I looked down at the ground and said, “There’s just so much to figure out.  I can’t stay there. I won’t stay there and Harlow’s in school and I have no car. I mean it’s just overwhelming at the moment.”

We reached the garage and Helena went inside and came back out to tell me it would still be a little longer.  We sat on the hitching post bar in front of the tiny garage and I slumped. She gave me a cigarette out of her pack and we lit up and puffed. We sat there side by side in silence smoking and contemplating.

After what seemed a long while, she suddenly said, “Look, I’m not here to tell you what to do but I say we go figure out what’s up with your car, then we get Harlow picked up from school and get some supper. On the way back to your house, we’ll get some boxes and start packing and you can come and stay with me and your brother for as long as it takes to get you straight.”

Millions of thoughts scattered through my brain as I tried to put it all to rights in my head. I looked at her and asked, “Don’t you think you should ask Wayne first?”

She shrugged, “Nah. What’s he gonna say? No?  He’s not even home anyway and not due back for 3 or 4 months.  Chances are you’ll be all good and ready to go by then.  You got income tax coming, yes?”

I nodded and she continued, “Well there you go.  You can just pay whatever’s extra on the utilities and help with groceries and save the rest to get yourself straight and with your income tax, you ought to be right as rain in 4 months tops.”

I almost started crying again and she could sense it.  She changed the subject and began telling me we would be on the edge of the school district and Harlow could go to the “good” school.  I thought about my candy girl then and wondered how she’d take all this.  I thought about telling Freddy and how happy he’d be that there was no more Tucker. Then I thought of Tucker.  Locked up and safely gone from my life…maybe I could do this.

We got her car and went to the impound lot.  It was an auto parts store with a lot in the back and I could see the loaner car the dealership had given me when I pulled up, locked safely behind the chain link and barbed wire.  Getting my car out of law enforcement initiated impound ought to be easy and cheap… said no one ever.

I went in and up to the counter and said what sounded unbelievable to my own ears and made me feel like trash, “My husband was arrested and you impounded my car.”

The man asked for my name and then rudely told me that there were no cars registered to me on the property.

“I know that but it’s a loaner from the dealership while they work on my car.”

He cocked an eyebrow and said, “Well then the dealership is going to have to authorize you to get it in writing or send someone after it.”

My heart sank but I quickly asked, “How much is the charge?”  He went through an itemized spiel about each and every charge and I’m thinking, just bottom line it dickhole.

“Grand total is $293.38.” He sounded so pleased with himself.  I told him I needed to make some phone calls and he looked very unimpressed.

I called first, my stepmother. “Hey.” I began tentatively.

She heard the apprehension and panic in the one word I’d uttered and her answer was as tentative as mine, “Hey.”

“Um, Tucker’s been arrested.  He was writing payroll checks to himself on my old ranch account and he’s locked up until at least Tuesday.  They took the car and impounded it and I have no money to get it out.  Helena’s going to help me move out but first we have to get the car situation taken care of.  Can I borrow the money until my next check or until the next one or income tax or something so I can do this?”

I don’t remember exactly everything but I do know that the fact that I was willing to leave Tucker loosened the purse strings on the other end.  She gave them her credit card number over the phone to pay the impound fee and then I had to call the car lot.

They were wonderful to me.  They had dealings with Tucker previously on his repossessed truck and none of them liked him.  They sent a worker over with a car and a statement.  He picked up the loaner, gave me the keys to the car he was driving and he, Helena and I all caravanned back to town to the dealership.

The owner of the local lot and about 5 more in the surrounding areas happened to be there that day.  He was slightly shorter than me in my heels, muscle bound and completely bald.  He looked a little scary but came right up as we arrived and shook my hand.  He said, “The next time this happens, I don’t want it to be my problem. I want it to be yours, so we’re going to get you into something today.”

I smiled and told him he could rest assured that this particular problem would not be happening again. He smiled and loaded up in his truck and left. What followed was 4 ½ hours of paperwork and waiting and test driving and just general tortures.  I was standing outside and calling Harlow to tell her to go to the neighbors’ until I could get home when the phone signaled an incoming call.  When I looked at the number, I knew.  I knew it was him.

I told Harlow I’d check in with her later and I clicked over. “Hello.”

“Oh baby!! Are you okay? I was so scared but it’s gonna be alright, I need you to call…”

I cut him off. “You NEED me to call? You NEED me to do what?! No I’m not okay and what the fuck is wrong with you?  You can’t possibly think that only months after getting me out of the last mess you got me into that I’d be fine with you potentially getting me into an even bigger one?”

“Baby, I’m so sorry, I told them you had nothing to do with it. They know it was all me.  This can be all fixed and I can get out of here if you...”

I stopped him again. “Do you have any idea what I’m doing right now?”

“No.”

“I’m standing outside the car dealership trying to figure out what they’re going to do about getting me something to drive that they don’t have to worry with the next time it’s impounded.  I’m trying to figure out how to pay bills and rent and food for my daughter with the negative 2 bucks you’ve left in my account and the whopping 2 dollars in my purse.  I’m trying to figure out how clear out of this cluster fuck of a situation. I’m not real worried about what YOU need me to do right now.  You can rot where you are for all I care.”

And I hung up.

I was shaking. I hadn’t really committed to leaving him high and dry before, not ever and here I was doing it.

He called back several times over the course of that visit to the car lot.  By the time I drove out with my “new” truck, I had just silenced my phone.  Helena went home and promised to be over the next day with my brother’s truck to help me pack.

I called Harlow and check on her and drove home and dragged myself into the shower and crawled into bed, our empty bed.  He wasn’t going to be sleeping beside me any longer.  I was alone again, really alone.  No more sex I didn’t want.  No more sex I DID want. No more bad. No more good from him.  No more of any of it.  I knew it, I felt it.  I started crying again but this time it was not the silent humiliation in the Dairy Queen. I was glad Harlow wasn’t home because it was out and out wracking sobs.  You never know when the last time will turn out to be the last time until it just is.