Pride

Yesterday, I had a mostly great day.  It was long and punishing but I felt good. Everyone telling me my new hair is fabulous and I was wearing the Girl Child’s jeans and sweater and they both fit famously. I have been seeing a sweetheart of a man for 23 days now and got to steal kisses with him in the parking lot between jobs.  I worked a long hard day, headed home and pulled in to check my mail. I looked at my brand new car as I got out of it to walk to the mail box and I was actually….proud… proud of myself.

I have quashed that emotion my entire life. It was taught in Sunday school that pride goeth before the fall and so I took it to heart lest I burn in hell for basking in my own glory.  I also had the hubris squeezed from my little body by an unyielding mother and was forever behind her arm so my brother could pass first. We went to every football game he played but my regional track meets were just something that happened and scholarships and accomplishments were expected from me but lauded when my brother gained them. So I learned.  Do what you’re supposed to do and you won’t draw attention, good or bad.  I learned my whole life to not be proud of a fucking thing I did because that was presumptuous and just who the hell did I think I was?? I still fight the inclination today to not be proud; so last night, standing next to my mailbox, looking at my shiny car, wearing my teenager’s jeans and sweater with my fabulous hair…I felt pride and contentment. I was happy.

When I opened the mailbox I saw handwriting and without even reading it, I knew. Then I pulled out 5 envelopes, all from him, all thick and heavy. The pride. The happy. They slowly evaporated, lifting into the ice-cold night air as I stood there staring.  I said out loud, “Awww shit.” I looked up to see if any neighbors were out and about at close to 11PM. Not a soul but me and a stray cat. I carried my burden back to the car got to the house and threw all of it on the table and took a hot shower.

I came out and stared at the pile of mail and thought, Do I open it? Do I care? What the fuck can he possibly say in all that?  Maybe it’s drawings or something.

I separated all the mail and then proceeded to open it all. What I found were 71 front and back handwritten pages. Seventy…..One.  I poured a glass of wine, put on some fuzzy socks and jammies and pulled out a kitchen chair and started to read.  The first line was a double-barrel fully loaded guilt trip.

I’m not doing good, baby.

What followed was a listing of supplications for my attention, support, love and time. He apparently had corresponded with his parents who told him they saw me at his daughter’s wedding and that I looked great and he started in on that.

Why did you lose weight baby? You didn't need to lose a pound for me to think you were gorgeous. I love you, I've always loved you. Please don’t tell me you’re with someone else. I can’t bear to think of that.

He followed with worries about all the kids and more about how he loved me and at page 10, I put it down. I pictured the moment that he realized it really was going to be over.  Would he be mad or resigned? Would he quit trying? I know that in his mind all he has to do is get one tiny toe back in the door and he’s got it licked. There was a time after he was gone, that was probably true. I knew right that second that it was no longer.  I had spent the day thinking about my future and what I could do to make mine and my kids’ lives better, whether I’d find or had found that someone to get old with or whether it really would be me by myself forever and either way, I had a sense of hope and optimism about it.  Looking down at the letter on the table made me feel anxious and dirty and sad.

I didn’t finish it. When I got to work this morning I called the Department of Corrections and asked that he not be allowed to send me any more mail.  The woman cheerfully told me she’d take care of it and that was that. When I hung up the phone, I felt good and awful at the same time.  Relieved that I was never again going to open up my mailbox and find the sucker punch waiting to steal my happy but sad that I’d more than likely done the worst thing I could possibly do to another human being…erased his hope.

I know he doesn’t deserve me.  I know he DOES deserve to be where he is but I just don’t have the desire to be the cause of anyone’s pain. My best friend asked me how I felt when I told her I’d made the call and I said, “I feel a bit like I've just pissed on a burning kitten.” I got to feeling just actually like I was going to cry because I knew how badly it was going to kill him when he found out. It makes me feel like a shitty human being on a fundamental level to hurt someone and guess what? You better fucking believe he knows it.  So fuck him and his happy stealing. Fuck him and all his manipulative machinations.

I’m now shopping for seat covers for my new car…leopard or zebra???

Batter Up!!

TBone did make me realize that I enjoy having a warm body next to me and that I’m at least marginally loveable.  Rationally of course I realize that I am loveable but feeling it in your bones is something else entirely. The absolute best moments of the four months I spent with TBone happened when I got home from work one evening and kicked off my heels and began cooking dinner. TBone was on his way and I was making him a manly meal.  When he came in he looked just as lovely as always and he sat down at the bar to watch me cook. I came around the bar and sat in his lap where we began to make out like teenagers. 

Whatever was on the stove started to bubble and I jumped up to stir it. When I turned around he was standing right behind me and leaned over me and turned off the burner and said, “I’m not hungry for food right now.” He leaned in and kissed me and I felt the swell inside me that is described in every bodice ripping romance novel that my feverish little brain had ever devoured.  That moment made me feel alive. It made me realize my life wasn’t over.  It made me feel and even after all the not so fun stuff during our breaking up; I still want that feeling again.

Oh, there are the odd Murder Tanks about and if all I wanted was a roll in the hay, I could find plenty of FWB’s.  I want more than that but less than an all-consuming involvement. I did go back to that store by the way and he molested me by the Mrs. Baird’s. It was lovely and terrifying and exciting but he’s never going to cuddle up on the couch with pizza and a Shiner and watch a movie with me on a Saturday night.  He’s still so very many years younger and out partying every weekend. Murder Tank is good for feeding the ego but my soul would likely starve.

I stayed off POF because that’s where I met TBone and I didn’t want the cocksucking algorithms telling me he was my soul mate since I had already fucked him off. I thought what better way to boost the old ego than to get on a dating site and have hundreds of men tell me they love me.  Okay, so whatever. I set up the profile on a different site.  It was quirky and adorable and slightly flip.  I wanted to just cast the line without looking like I was on a husband hunt because the only thing I am crystal clear about is that husband #3 almost killed me and I don’t want a #4.

I apparently forgot to change the age settings to post-pubescent because within 30 minutes of posting it, there were about 5 messages from twenty-somethings wanting an older woman.  Most of them said I like an older “women” which made me shudder and dream of braining them with a grammar primer. I told them all I had T-shirts older than them and moved the age to an appropriate range on my profile.

I started an interchange with one gentleman who was very persistent.  His picture didn’t make me swoon or anything but I didn’t throw up in my mouth either.  I thought, you know, you gotta start somewhere, just talk to him. He didn’t offend me and he didn’t make overt sex talk right off the bat so we exchanged numbers and began to text intermittently for several days.

 

No reason except it goes with the whole baseball theme.

Meanwhile, somehow I was still fielding messages from youngsters and I had listed myself as a sapiophile so when I got a message from someone with a PhD in their username I was very pleased although I couldn’t figure out what discipline Thonology was and didn’t stop to Google it because I had a Dr on the line here for fuck’s sake.  We talked and exchanged usernames on Kik.  If you don’t know about how delightful that caca is, you should try it.  We exchanged usernames and I sent a message and it didn’t work.  I sent him a message back on the dating site and he sent, “Oh yeah, I forgot.  Take the PhD off.” When I do this I have the biggest facepalm moment ever.  It wasn’t Thonology he was a doctor in, it was THONGology.  Yeah. I’m a dumbass.  I blocked that shit directly and haven’t heard from the underwear doctor again.

In the interim, I’m still talking to starter date man.  We’re casually texting back and forth and yadda yadda and

I text, “Okay I gotta go to bed. I have to open the store in the morning and be there at 7:30.”

He sends, “I’ll be waiting in the parking lot for you in the morning.”

Me: Um that’s not creepy at all.

SDM: I’m just kidding but I can be there you know if you’ll give me a kiss.

WTF!?!

Me: Well motherfucker, show up with a taco and some hot coffee and we’ll see.

SDM: I’ll be there.

I went to bed fully thinking this man was fully full of shit.

I overslept the next morning and was racing to work when my phone went off.  I picked it up and read…”I’m here. Where are you?”

Ohhhhhhhhh…….fuuuuuudddgggggeeeeee. Only I didn’t say fudge.

I voice texted back that I was late and had to go straight into the store and couldn’t dally in the parking lot.

He sent back, “I’ll wait.”

Terrific.

I went in and opened the store and got all the cashiers lined out and then texted him and told him to meet me by the garden gate. And here he came, carrying coffee and a bag.  He was better looking in person. Still didn’t make me gaga but I thought he was sweet/stalkery/desperate for doing what he did and waiting like he did.  He gave me my breakfast and I apologized for his having to wait.  He leaned in close to me and I knew he was waiting and I kamikaze pecked his mouth and said, “Thanks! I gotta get back to work.”

I ran inside to microwave my coffee and breakfast taco. I had a text before I was through saying he thought I was a hot piece of ass or something equally offensive. I said thanks and he said,

“Well what did you think of me?”

I said, “You’re better looking than your pictures.”

His gentlemanly behavior deteriorated after that. The texting became progressively raunchier and more suggestive and when I just didn’t respond, he sent pouty texts as if I’d made a commitment to him and should answer to him; all of this in the space of about a week.  Long story longer, I was supposed to have a date with him tonight. The thought of it came in way behind a mani/pedi and taking the Girl Child to the mall with one of her friends, which is exactly what I did. My nails look fabulous and my panties and my dignity are still intact.  

Bachelors – 0. M - 1.  

Potpourri for $1,000, Alex.

So we’ve reached the point in our story that I actually started this blog in the first place.  About a month after I moved in to my tiny little house with the Gurl Child, two dogs and a pregnant cat in tow. I was still taking calls from Tucker but less and less frequently and still figuring out the “master plan”.  If you go back to Today, you can see that about a month afterwards, I was still hurting but couldn’t really explain why.

If you see Ripping the Bandaid Off a mere two weeks later, I was ready to be done with him….all the way done, I just hadn’t steeled myself as of yet. By three months further on down the line, I had decided to get the divorce done and you’ll see how that conversation went if you read Sugar Doll.

In the interim, I didn’t do much except work, try to get better jobs and eat. A lot. I’ve since decided to not wallow but dating hasn’t been super kind to me either.  I suppose I must learn my lesson from Starfish and TBone. Starfish was three weeks’ worth of I love you’s from a dude that seemed too good to be true and then turned out to be a batshit crazy motherfucker that had drugs literally mailed to my house.

Sweet, hunh?

We all know the ballad of TBone.  I am still having trouble trying to figure out why that’s bothering me so much except for the fact that I hurt him like I did.  I am a smartass, mouthy bitch but I still don’t like hurting people’s feelings and truthfully, I was still on the edge of “maybe this can work out.”  I was on the brink of “You ain’t getting any younger or better lookin and maybe you should just quit while you’re ahead.”  I’m thinking I would have pulled out of that particular death spiral before I crash landed but my MO usually entails absolutely hating a sumbitch before I get rid of him so… probably not.

I shall keep updates inserted regarding Tucker because I still get them from time to time from random and unexpected sources.  Just today, in fact, a Facebook message from someone long forgotten…

I’ve been talking to Tucker every day and he has been asking me to message and make sure everything is going well and that he loves you.  I understand if you don’t want to talk to him but I am just doing him a favor.

I mean he can sell nuggets to a chicken and get random people to do all kinds of things.  He’s good at it.  I’m sure we’ll hear more and he’s scheduled for release in November so I may be moving, who knows?

In any case, I hope you continue to visit while I sign up for stupid dating sites and go on awkward dates and raise the world’s most awesome Gurl Child.  

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. 

T-Bone

I met TBone on a dating site. When we made our date, I had every intention of meeting him for a drink and leaving.  The moment, however, that he rose from the table and towered over me smiling his dazzling smile, I was lost.  He was charming and good looking and that particular night snatched me out of the way seconds before a water leak caved the ceiling in.  He had been my knight in shining armor and we left the bar because he said, “I can afford to take you some place better where the ceiling isn’t going to fall on you.” We spent roughly seven hours together that night, the last of which were spent in my bed.  He was tender and sweet and attentive if not exceptionally skilled. I still thought he was wonderful because you know after all first times aren’t always magical and maybe he was nervous and it’ll be better next time. Boy oh boy did I want there to be a next time. He was just so good looking. I was overwhelmed by merely looking at him and it blinded me to anything else that was there. 

So it began, we dated. He texted, I texted, we Facebooked, we saw each other once a week then twice a week and internally I got crazy about him saying he loved me.  I didn’t give him the indication but I was going nuts inside my head over it.  Looking back, I don’t know what happened to me…the warning bells had already gone off somewhat. He smoked pot and a lot of it.  He lived with his dad and took care of him but the houses he constantly said were his were really his parents’.  His teenaged boys lived with his 80 something year old mother. He is retired and gets a pension from the Navy and he doesn’t have to work. I explained all of it away to good reasons just so I could get someone to treat me like I was worthy. I grew tired of listening to him sing badly to bad music. I hated watching the news every night when I’d already watched it that morning. I hated watching him “train” my cat by biting her on the ear. (Anyone who reads the Facebook knows that's the only pussy he bites.) He knew everything about everything and was more than a little arrogant about it. He literally did the touchdown signal when he was right.  He is a homophobe and turned out to be a bit of a bigot; I had to tell him to stop using the “n” word in front of the Gurl Child. Still, I tried to see the good because there was plenty of good too.  He cleaned my house, he bought dinners and groceries.  He brought me wine in the shower, he took me camping.  He did lots and lots of nice things that made it easier for me to ignore the bad stuff.

The night that I got drunk and unleased all my frustrations on him for the things he’d said and the ways he’d made me feel inadequate, he hung his head.  Defeated.  He put his face in his hands then raised it to me and said, 

“I’m just a stupid, stupid man. I’m so sorry if I hurt you.  I never meant any of that in that way. I love you. I want to spend the next 20 years with you.” I felt so awful for him right then because I knew. I knew that I didn’t want to spend the next 20 years with HIM.  I knew that he was sincere and that he was genuinely sorry that he’d hurt my feelings by mentioning my stretch marks, making cracks about my diet, talking about his ex every second. I knew he felt bad and so I prolonged the inevitable and I let him stay.

Every time he walked through the door and smiled at me I wanted so badly for him to be what I wanted him to be.  You just can’t force it. We had differing views on TV, movies, music, religion; you name it we didn’t match up.  I think we both wanted to feel loved and accepted, Lord knows I pursued him every bit as much as he pursued me. I remember the moment in almost any relationship where the other person does or says something that triggers this skepticism in the back of your brain.  A tiny hitch that gives you pause and makes you think, “Wow, where did that come from? That’s not cool. I don’t like that.” And you quash it and go on about your business because LOVE!!!! Oh my god…LOVE, LUST, ENDORPHINS!!! 

Even if I knew he wasn’t for me, he was a warm body. Even if the sex left me frustrated and irritated, there was still someone there saying that he loved me.  It had been a long time since I had real closeness with anyone and I feared I’d never have it again.  I’ve known for some time that it had to end but didn’t have the balls to say it to him because I knew it would result in that shitty talk that no one wants to have.

Luckily for me, I’m a moron who forgot about his penchant for trolling Facebook in bed before he gets up. 

One of my besties who likes my page liked this status this morning:

Same tongue in cheek crap I always post except I’m really trying to figure out how to break up with this man before he shows up with a ring at Christmas or something. TBone sees that Bestie likes Mediocrates status and sees the word TBone which he knows we call him. He taps on it and then responds with this:

My phone light goes off I see that he’s liked…wait…what? Mediocrates status?! Then I tasted the pennies in my mouth and my hands went numb. I wanted him gone but I didn’t want him to find out this way.  We had some back and forth via text and I apologized for him having to read it on the internet and then nada.  He’s gone.

I really hate that he got hurt more than he should have from my being flippant over the whole thing but it was for the best. We’ll both be better off in the end. I’ll be alone or whatever and he’ll find some nice confederate flag wearing chick that doesn’t mind that his pillow talk sounds the same as when he talks to the cat or that the number of times that he burps, farts and says fuck are numerous and plentiful every day.

I still felt a little like crying because I knew he was hurt and I felt like a giant asshole over it but I didn’t have to have the talk and for that I am truly grateful. I am again all at once relieved and adrift. I had never factored him into my future so he didn’t leave a hole but to him…from now on…I’ll be that chick that had a blog and talked shit on the internet about him to almost a whole thousand people. 

I had a LOT of Sangria.

I’m so drunk I’m not sure I should still be conscious.  We went to a dinner party and by we, I mean me, the Gurl Child and TBone. I drank a lot of sangria…that I made and brought and then drank most of...whatever.  He’s still here and I’ll tell you why later.  Suffice it to say, he’s a stupid man and he said those exact words to me and it moved me to not move him out of my life.

In any case, we went.  I drank.  A lot.  But… I can always say what I mean when I drink and I feel good about it.  We stumbled home from the fiesta and I got into the shower, my phone wailing music on the counter….me, flawlessly crooning alongside it. 

“WELL I’M ON THE DOWNEASTER ALEXA!!!!!!!”

Yes that shit’s on my playlist…fuck you.  Billy Joel is a legend.

Anyway…I open my eyes from my stellar warbling to find TBone’s smiling mug poked around the edge of the shower curtain.  He’s smiling with undisguised amusement and affection and I love him some more.  Still with the niggling thought in the deepest subconscious recesses of my mind. There she is holding a clipboard and marking off my inadequacies on a list she has clipped there with no amusement whatsoever. I hate that fucking bitch.  She’s always there, telling me all I’ve forgotten, slipped on, given in on, let slide and haven’t done.  She keeps me in line.

I digress.

I had been wailing with abandon and I’m sure the only thing between me and a million dollars is that I’m fucking a hot 6’4” ex-Navy bail bondsman and not Simon Cowell so he could be the clueless schmuck bringing me sangria in the shower.  Again,  anyway…I got out of the shower and found a text from my son.

Boi Child: Hello

Me: Hey my first born

BC:  What you mean?

Me: Sup?

BC: I love and miss you.

Me: I love and miss you too little man.

BC: Yeah so can I have my birthday present early???

Me: Maybe

BC: Ok well I found brand new tires and he said $150.

Me: Well we will see.

BC: Ok well I need the rim first and then the tires, hunh?

Me: Yessir.  We can work all this shit out.  Always.  It’s always a brand new day when you wake up my fierce young man.  Seize the fucking day.  Every day.

BC: Well this world is a fucked up place

Me:  Let’s make it better.

BC: What you do with my mom?

Here’s a kid that has been through hell with me and has no anchor. Here’s also a kid that upon meeting TBone’s gay son, poked him in the head and made him part of his group with no reservations.  Here’s a kid that still loves me even though he knows how imperfect I am. I may have fucked up a lot of shit but my son knows he can count on me.  It’s all okay.  It’s never too late to make it okay. We can always make it okay. 

I don’t know much…but this shit….I know.  I totally got this. 

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.