'if one was looking for something to do, where might one go?'
send.
buzz. view message.
'where i last saw you.'
i was already halfway there. having a glass of wine to cure my boredom. paid, tipped. left, walking briskly.
i walked in. he was happy to see me, or so it seemed.
we talked for a while. over my second glass of wine.
i had something very specific in mind. 'what are you doing tonight?'
'hanging out with you?' smiles.
'wanna go on a tiny suburban adventure with me?'
'yep.' we left, locked arms.
i drove to my parents' house. he'd been there only once before, not inside. on a similar adventure years before. i wondered if he remembered.
we chatted on the way, but traveled mostly in silence betwen us, listening to a deliberate mix. i pulled into the driveway. left the car running with him in it.
i went inside, grabbing my laptop and heima. my ipod and a splitter with two sets of headphones. i wouldn't tell him that i'd planned for this. mom was baking, a tray of cookies was warm from the oven. i grabbed three in a napkin and went back to the car, handing him two.
'my mom's been baking.'
he savored, slowly, each bite.
put the car in reverse, pulling up to the stop sign. 'alright. i grabbed a movie and a way to watch it. where should we go?'
he thought for a few seconds.
i offered, 'how about a field somewhere?' it was a mild night, the kind perfect for laying out in it, in the dark, lit only by the moon and the stars.
'that's good.'
so i drove back toward the city, to a lake with which i'm quite familiar.
parked under that same tree. pulled the blanket from the trunk. spread it out and set up camp.
i turned it on, and started the movie.
heima.
i'd been waiting for this for a very long time.
we watched in silence, my head on his chest, the laptop warm on his belly.
i cried at times, couldn't help it. it has that effect on me.
the movie ended over an hour later, but we weren't ready to leave yet.
'it's a good thing i grabbed music then.'
handed him headphones, but had the volume down so we could still talk.
'tell me something. anything...' i said, my head was still on his chest, he squirmed slightly, and started telling me a story.
my mind wasn't following entirely, i could never concentrate when i was thinking about him, and the same was true now, listening to him.
we fell asleep to the music. he stirred and woke me. i sighed, 'oops. i fell asleep. should i take you home?'
'sure, will you come inside?'
'sure.' i tried to hide my smile. it was dark, but i think he still saw.
his place was not as i'd imagined it. familiar art adorned two walls. a simple space, a house. the wood floors i'd imagined, knowing he lived in the historic district. the last place i'd known was sparsely filled. mostly with a stereo and music. he still had that, only a tv now, and movies. we sat on the couch, nervously.
continued other conversations we'd started earlier. he poured two glasses of wine. we talked until my need for a cigarette kept me from sitting longer. took the wine onto his porch, staring into dewy grass.
'this isn't how i thought it would be.' i launched into the story of my recent life, he listened contently, hugging me as things got hard to talk about.
'it's unsettling, you know?'
he knew. not from experience at all. but from the way i explained myself to him.
'your turn,' i said, tired of hearing myself talk about my life.
two cigarettes later, we'd reached th ebottom of our glasses.
'i'm getting sleepy,' he said, tired. 'would you like to come take a nap with me?'
i obliged. it was how we were. curling up in all of our clothes, perfect spoons, sometimes he was big and i was little, sometimes i was big and he was little. i watched him sleep for a while, then followed suit. amidst nightdreams of being with him, waking up to re-realize i was really with him. excited for a moment, then falling asleep. repeatedly until the sun was about to come up.
he woke up, nuzzled into my neck, head on my chest. i liked his breath there, but knew i needed to be home. i didn't want to see the sun come up. i didn't want the night to end.
' i should go.' i slowly got up, put on my shoes, watching him watching me. 'thanks for having me.'
'this was nice. will i see you again before you leave?'
i tried to wait to respond, changing my answer from an emphatic yes, to 'well, that all depends. gimme a call if you want to hang out again.'
he nodded, walked me to the door, watched me pull away.
the sky was turning from navy to turquoise. the sunrise was near. i raced it home, beating it just in time to get into pjs, and smiled. i fell asleep. the best sleep i'd had in years.
leaving.
(this is the 'leaving' i was referring to in 'after leaving')
it took everything i had in me. i mustered up my strength, and sighed it on an exhale, 'i want my own place. i'm moving out.'
he stood dumbfounded. 'what? is that supposed to be funny?' he glared at me, with fear and disdain in his eyes.
i started to cry, and he immediately knew that it wasn't joke. in fact, it wasn't funny at all.
i'd thought about it alot since december. we'd talked about it a lot since december. but never felt that he really ingested it. i knew that this was my fate, delayed for the sake of rationalizing away gut feelings, and growing anxiety. i knew what i wanted now. and i was going to stop at nothing, making impossible decisions along the way, to take the reigns and get it.
we'd promised to try to work it out. we'd made an honest go of it, we talked more than we had in the last nine years we'd known each other, after the honeymoon phase of dating had worn us thin, before we were even married.
i repeated myself, tired. i'd told him almost everything. that i wasn't happy. that this wasn't a marriage. that it was a business partnership, that i needed more. that i wasn't feeling loved. that i was only feeling wanted in the most animalistic sense. they way that your body becomes comprised of parts, with only the purpose of satisfying a primal need.
i needed to be loved. i needed to be kissed and courted, as he had when we first started dating, before he charmed his way into my pants. and it had been years since i'd been satisfied, in bed. we'd worked on that, too. but you can't start a fire without a flame, and the passion had long since been dead.
we'd tried. both of us, mostly equally.
but we'd failed.
the life that we'd known together would never be the same now. it seemed so sad, the difference that eight words could make. he was crushed. absolutely.
i never thought i'd be one to say 'my first marriage failed.' nothing could have prepared me for the road that led to this point in time, late at night, exhausted from nit-picking. the thermostat. the dishes. the laundry. the dog. the condition of the office. spending money we didn't have on unnecessary things that go up in smoke. the way he didn't take care of something we spent more money on that we could even afford. there were financial problems. he'd been sleeping on the couch for months.
we were passing ships. in a violent storm, becoming lost at sea.
i'd tried to work on it on my own. i read voraciously, hoping that there would be a line in a book that said that everything would be okay. that this was just a passing phase. that it was possible to rekindle, and fall back in love again.
but there wasn't a book that told me that. instead, reading perpetuated my fears. books warned that our style of partnership was doomed without valiant effort. and our efforts were great, but didn't make the grade.
we'd fallen victim to our differences. i never really believed that opposites attract. and when we first started our path together, i'd felt that we had so much in common. but over the years, i stayed the same, and he changed slowly. then i changed slowly, he changed me to be more like him. until one day i woke up, and realized that i was still the same person, just buried below layers and layers of hardening. a little death of the person that used to be me.
and once it dawned on me, i was never the same. yes, i'd tried. but i'd also not been able to fully concentrate on our problems. because in the back of my mind, i knew that it wasn't going to work. there wasn't enough of a bright ember core to rekindle and relight the fire. the coals had burned out long ago.
everything would set me off. anything would set me off. and when he finally caught a break in his work, i was genuinely happy for him. i was happy for me. because it would serve to soften the blow. if he at least had that going for him, it wouldn't make losing me so bad.
plus, in all fairness, i was relatively certain he was sick of my bullshit. my shenanigans. my attitude. my eyes when they were staring back blankly at him, when his were full of hurt and love for me. he called me a bitch often enough to make me aware of it. and rightfully so. i'd become mean, hardened, bitter towards him. and he hadn't really done anything that was bad, or wrong. nothing deserving of what i was dishing out to him.
when he drank, i used to call him an asshole. all the time. to the point that, when he was in a room full of people, he said he'd turn to anyone who said the word asshole, thinking that they were addressing him.
he'd changed. for a time. and i liked to fix broken things. and he was very, very broken. had been for his whole life. and i came along, and i brightened his life, i minimized his problems. i understood completely why he was so content to be with me. i was good for him. i picked him up and dusted him off. when he would backslide, i would encourage him. i helped to heal him.
but he hurt me. he made my life dimmer, and it wasn't entirely his fault. depression is a bitch. he gave me problems, whether it was worrying about him drinking or resorting to drugs, making it home alive, making it to me without crashing or getting pulled over, worrying about him being faithful when his mind was cloudy.
when we first started, we were tumultuous. and it worked for me, because i'm volatile. and i enjoy a good argument, and an even more powerful makeup. but after years of discension, i was tired of making up. i didn't want to fight anymore. i didn't want to fight it anymore.
i just wanted to live. live my life, and be HAPPY. and it was something i could no longer do with him. he couldn't be included anymore. he became so desperate to be around me, that he followed me everywhere. and all i wanted was space. from him.
and then, i decided. everything will be ok. i'm leaving.
i had begun mentally divvying things up, which had been the biggest obstacle so far. he got the dog. i loved her immensely, but thought he'd die without her. i was more of a cat person anyways. they're more independent, like me, and can be left alone to ward off mice and take care of themselves when i travel. which i intended to do, in an effort to make up for lost time. he couldn't travel. panic attacks kept him from flying, and i wanted to go places that we couldn't drive to. i wanted to go overseas. out of the states. see the world.
i would get the car, because i could make the payment, and needed it for work. he rarely left the house. that was easy. but the house. this had posed a problem. we needed to get it out of my name and into his. i needed to pay my parents back, they'd spent so much time and money on our house, only to have us split up just after the one year mark. we were so rightside up in it, that selling it to him wasn't really an option. that would come with time. as long as he made the mortgage payments, i just wanted a tiny apartment. until i decided to buy a house on my own, someday. i really hate renting. it is such a waste of money. but for now, it was a necessary step.
i'd get a new computer. he could keep the old one, he used it for work, he needed it. i'd claim the wii, a present from my parents. it's all so insignificant, things to quibble over.
i'd leave the bed, even though he rarely slept in it. beds in apartments don't always fit up staircases. so an ikea special foldaway was right up my alley.
i'd leave him almost all of the furniture. only a couple things meant something to me, everything else just belonged in that house. everything except for me.
those were the big things. i hated the amount of money we spent on fancy appliances, because now they'd be his, and he rarely used them. i want a contract. in the case that he ever sold the house. i'd get half. or more. but at least half. he'd been the one to put all the elbow grease into it. but i'd financed it and paid for it all. i don't know how that piece will work out.
i mean, what else is there? custody of the pup. the house. the car. i can fit what is mine specifically into the car. i don't have a lot. it's mostly things for him.
all my books. all my old journals. keepsakes, pictures, memories, cds. that's all obvious.
writing it all out, our life is really just his life. we don't have anything other than things for his work. how unfortunate for me, upon my leaving. but this was to be a new beginning. better to have to buy new things and start fresh than to bring things with negative associations attached to them. this was key to my new life. owning things for LIVING. not for working. buying things for a home, not a home office.
what a mess.
financially, i should have an idea of what i'm giving up to leave, i guess. it hardly seems fair to have paid for more than half of everything, and to have nothing to show for it. but like i said, i guess that payoff would come with selling the house. i couldn't ever really picture that happening. unless it became too hard for him to be in it if i wasn't.
it was just a matter of him having a roommate or two, i think. there are 4 rooms in the house, plus a basement. it could definitely be arranged, especially if i wasn't in the house anymore. people practically live at our house anyways.
so that is it. it was settled. the divvying commensed. i'd already found my new apartment. a tiny little thing. with a nice stove, which was important to me. and a small space for the dining room table. room for my bookshelf. room for a new bed. room for the old table and new tv. room for a futon. not much else. closet space for my clothes. which there was too much of.
it was perfect. it was exactly what i needed. i was leaving. yet, somehow i was arriving.
it took everything i had in me. i mustered up my strength, and sighed it on an exhale, 'i want my own place. i'm moving out.'
he stood dumbfounded. 'what? is that supposed to be funny?' he glared at me, with fear and disdain in his eyes.
i started to cry, and he immediately knew that it wasn't joke. in fact, it wasn't funny at all.
i'd thought about it alot since december. we'd talked about it a lot since december. but never felt that he really ingested it. i knew that this was my fate, delayed for the sake of rationalizing away gut feelings, and growing anxiety. i knew what i wanted now. and i was going to stop at nothing, making impossible decisions along the way, to take the reigns and get it.
we'd promised to try to work it out. we'd made an honest go of it, we talked more than we had in the last nine years we'd known each other, after the honeymoon phase of dating had worn us thin, before we were even married.
i repeated myself, tired. i'd told him almost everything. that i wasn't happy. that this wasn't a marriage. that it was a business partnership, that i needed more. that i wasn't feeling loved. that i was only feeling wanted in the most animalistic sense. they way that your body becomes comprised of parts, with only the purpose of satisfying a primal need.
i needed to be loved. i needed to be kissed and courted, as he had when we first started dating, before he charmed his way into my pants. and it had been years since i'd been satisfied, in bed. we'd worked on that, too. but you can't start a fire without a flame, and the passion had long since been dead.
we'd tried. both of us, mostly equally.
but we'd failed.
the life that we'd known together would never be the same now. it seemed so sad, the difference that eight words could make. he was crushed. absolutely.
i never thought i'd be one to say 'my first marriage failed.' nothing could have prepared me for the road that led to this point in time, late at night, exhausted from nit-picking. the thermostat. the dishes. the laundry. the dog. the condition of the office. spending money we didn't have on unnecessary things that go up in smoke. the way he didn't take care of something we spent more money on that we could even afford. there were financial problems. he'd been sleeping on the couch for months.
we were passing ships. in a violent storm, becoming lost at sea.
i'd tried to work on it on my own. i read voraciously, hoping that there would be a line in a book that said that everything would be okay. that this was just a passing phase. that it was possible to rekindle, and fall back in love again.
but there wasn't a book that told me that. instead, reading perpetuated my fears. books warned that our style of partnership was doomed without valiant effort. and our efforts were great, but didn't make the grade.
we'd fallen victim to our differences. i never really believed that opposites attract. and when we first started our path together, i'd felt that we had so much in common. but over the years, i stayed the same, and he changed slowly. then i changed slowly, he changed me to be more like him. until one day i woke up, and realized that i was still the same person, just buried below layers and layers of hardening. a little death of the person that used to be me.
and once it dawned on me, i was never the same. yes, i'd tried. but i'd also not been able to fully concentrate on our problems. because in the back of my mind, i knew that it wasn't going to work. there wasn't enough of a bright ember core to rekindle and relight the fire. the coals had burned out long ago.
everything would set me off. anything would set me off. and when he finally caught a break in his work, i was genuinely happy for him. i was happy for me. because it would serve to soften the blow. if he at least had that going for him, it wouldn't make losing me so bad.
plus, in all fairness, i was relatively certain he was sick of my bullshit. my shenanigans. my attitude. my eyes when they were staring back blankly at him, when his were full of hurt and love for me. he called me a bitch often enough to make me aware of it. and rightfully so. i'd become mean, hardened, bitter towards him. and he hadn't really done anything that was bad, or wrong. nothing deserving of what i was dishing out to him.
when he drank, i used to call him an asshole. all the time. to the point that, when he was in a room full of people, he said he'd turn to anyone who said the word asshole, thinking that they were addressing him.
he'd changed. for a time. and i liked to fix broken things. and he was very, very broken. had been for his whole life. and i came along, and i brightened his life, i minimized his problems. i understood completely why he was so content to be with me. i was good for him. i picked him up and dusted him off. when he would backslide, i would encourage him. i helped to heal him.
but he hurt me. he made my life dimmer, and it wasn't entirely his fault. depression is a bitch. he gave me problems, whether it was worrying about him drinking or resorting to drugs, making it home alive, making it to me without crashing or getting pulled over, worrying about him being faithful when his mind was cloudy.
when we first started, we were tumultuous. and it worked for me, because i'm volatile. and i enjoy a good argument, and an even more powerful makeup. but after years of discension, i was tired of making up. i didn't want to fight anymore. i didn't want to fight it anymore.
i just wanted to live. live my life, and be HAPPY. and it was something i could no longer do with him. he couldn't be included anymore. he became so desperate to be around me, that he followed me everywhere. and all i wanted was space. from him.
and then, i decided. everything will be ok. i'm leaving.
i had begun mentally divvying things up, which had been the biggest obstacle so far. he got the dog. i loved her immensely, but thought he'd die without her. i was more of a cat person anyways. they're more independent, like me, and can be left alone to ward off mice and take care of themselves when i travel. which i intended to do, in an effort to make up for lost time. he couldn't travel. panic attacks kept him from flying, and i wanted to go places that we couldn't drive to. i wanted to go overseas. out of the states. see the world.
i would get the car, because i could make the payment, and needed it for work. he rarely left the house. that was easy. but the house. this had posed a problem. we needed to get it out of my name and into his. i needed to pay my parents back, they'd spent so much time and money on our house, only to have us split up just after the one year mark. we were so rightside up in it, that selling it to him wasn't really an option. that would come with time. as long as he made the mortgage payments, i just wanted a tiny apartment. until i decided to buy a house on my own, someday. i really hate renting. it is such a waste of money. but for now, it was a necessary step.
i'd get a new computer. he could keep the old one, he used it for work, he needed it. i'd claim the wii, a present from my parents. it's all so insignificant, things to quibble over.
i'd leave the bed, even though he rarely slept in it. beds in apartments don't always fit up staircases. so an ikea special foldaway was right up my alley.
i'd leave him almost all of the furniture. only a couple things meant something to me, everything else just belonged in that house. everything except for me.
those were the big things. i hated the amount of money we spent on fancy appliances, because now they'd be his, and he rarely used them. i want a contract. in the case that he ever sold the house. i'd get half. or more. but at least half. he'd been the one to put all the elbow grease into it. but i'd financed it and paid for it all. i don't know how that piece will work out.
i mean, what else is there? custody of the pup. the house. the car. i can fit what is mine specifically into the car. i don't have a lot. it's mostly things for him.
all my books. all my old journals. keepsakes, pictures, memories, cds. that's all obvious.
writing it all out, our life is really just his life. we don't have anything other than things for his work. how unfortunate for me, upon my leaving. but this was to be a new beginning. better to have to buy new things and start fresh than to bring things with negative associations attached to them. this was key to my new life. owning things for LIVING. not for working. buying things for a home, not a home office.
what a mess.
financially, i should have an idea of what i'm giving up to leave, i guess. it hardly seems fair to have paid for more than half of everything, and to have nothing to show for it. but like i said, i guess that payoff would come with selling the house. i couldn't ever really picture that happening. unless it became too hard for him to be in it if i wasn't.
it was just a matter of him having a roommate or two, i think. there are 4 rooms in the house, plus a basement. it could definitely be arranged, especially if i wasn't in the house anymore. people practically live at our house anyways.
so that is it. it was settled. the divvying commensed. i'd already found my new apartment. a tiny little thing. with a nice stove, which was important to me. and a small space for the dining room table. room for my bookshelf. room for a new bed. room for the old table and new tv. room for a futon. not much else. closet space for my clothes. which there was too much of.
it was perfect. it was exactly what i needed. i was leaving. yet, somehow i was arriving.
after 'leaving'
3 am.
came downstairs from writing 'leaving'.
had no idea what was in store.
a huge discussion. i'd had four beers and a piece of a glass of champagne in the five hours that came before. two parties, attended alone.
he started it. i don't know where it came from. i guess it had been in his mind, but not in the front, until i climbed into bed. he'd called me downstairs from writing to get into bed, which i was too awake for, and not ready for. i was writing fluently, and was sad to stop. but i answered his call.
we talked. he still is convinced that i just dreamed up all these problems while i was home. that because i read a book, i was now believing that we had problems that i didn't think we'd had before i read it. like the book created problems in my mind. in the same vein that i diagnose myslef with various mental disorders when i read about them and identify.
i took plenty of time to remind him of the conversations we'd been having since at least easter. also in the years preceding, but especially over the summer, and constantly in these last few months.
he cannot come to terms with the fact that he isn't happy. he swears that he is. yet he can also acknowledge that he is lonely, underappreciated, and other things that point out ways he feels neglected. i kept trying to drill it into his brain that he isn't happy, based solely on things he says and admits. he won't have it.
that he needs to get out to realize it. that i want him to go away for more than just four days. because i want him to have the clarity i have. to come back with a fresh mind and a rejuvenated spirit. to know what will make him happier. that will motivate him to change the things in his life that are keeping him from happiness now. that i think he needs to get it all out of his system, all the things he does vicariously through his 'employees'. traveling in the same clothes, without bating out of necessity, not by choice. that his actions show me that he wants to do it, despite him denying it, much less realizing it for himself.
he repeatedly blamed my unhappiness on hormones. and depression. and on seasons. and on the book.
it was my idea to get help. to see a shrink and work my head out and figure out what to do about my life. with my life. that i write things down to process and delay saying them in the moment, when i edit them later. and i told him that i'm not going to go to a dr and take some pills and be magically happy. that i've been figuring out what it takes to make me happy on my own in the meantime. and that, because he doesn't join me when i do things that make me happy, that it means that i'm happier when i'm not with him. because i'm tired of not having fun. and tired of living a hermited life that he insists on living himself.
he didn't want to leave. he didn't want to be social. and that is fine, but that's what i had forgotten that i was. and i'd forgotten the happiness it brings me, to be in a social setting. over drinks.
i told him that i have huge problems with him drinking, even if it's only once a year. because he's an alcoholic, and i don't want to be part of his life if he's gonig to walk that path again. because i already walked that path with him, and it led to our one and only breakup while dating. i gave him an ultimatum then: me or drinking. and he chose me and quit cold turkey. he might be okay having a few beers every once in a while. he might be able to stop there. but it's a fire that i don't want to toy with, and i don't want him to want to do it. and i don't want to see him fail at it. because it's an addiction issue, which his entire life has been plagued with.
i told him that he can't think he's unhappy because of the drugs that he uses to protect himself from those feelings. that it started with his antidepressant. which he NEEDS. but he has chill pills (adavan?) and he takes them every single day. and i think he should only rely on them when he's anxious. and now, with the weed. i told him that he's constantly numbing himself to things that are painful, stressful, and bad for him. and that he can't see through the cloud he puts himself in the midst of. that he thinks of them as crutches. but it's more like being committed to getting around by way of wheelchair.
i told him that i'm aware that i've been using drugs to escape, too. and that i'm not proud of it. that since i started to realize that i was changing that i drink more than i used to, smoke cigarettes like a fiend. or really more than i had in years since we got married. i drank a couple times a week when we were dating, quit because he had to quit completely. and that i don't want to smoke weed every night. but choose to, and that i'm not proud of it, and need to stop. because it's blocking me from making decisions that rely on motivation. that it sucks that right out of me. that it feels fun, but leads to problems, on the most basic level, to financial problems.
i told him that i changed physically while i was away, that i couldn't eat because of the physical stressi was under as i was realizing all the things i couldn't see when i was here. he continues to believe, and said, that i just went home to goof off and to get my family to spend a lot of money on me, to run away from my problems with him, and to let my family buy me clothes and material things. i explained that those things were just side effects, because my mother knew that i'd never do it for myself. and that i NEEDED it to feel better about myself, my life, the position i hold in my job, the way i see myself when i'm staring myself down in a mirror.
it had to happen. i'd felt like white trash for so long before it, and it was something that $600 fixed. and what a small price to pay, to change the way you feel about yourself, lacking confidence that causes daily depression. i make super decent money. and cannot afford myself simple things, like new clothes that help with professionalism.
and i just needed to be nudged and helped along, to be able to do those things for myself, starting while i was there, and that i will continue to do in the future, because now i know now, for certain, that it is worth it.
he actually said some pretty alarming things. that, if i think i'd be happier without him, that i should just end it now. that if i want a separation or a divorce, that i just need to decide that, and do it. and i told him that i don't want that now, not so soon. that i need time to process (which i repeated repeatedly) and to adjust to what i'm figuring out about myself.
and then he said that it might not be up to me to end it. he said 'sometimes people don't have the control over calling it quits.' i was confused by that, and he clarified by saying that it might not be my decision. which really freaked me out. because it told me that he would end it if he thought i was going to; to beat me to the punch. he could preemptively end our marriage, if he thought that it was what i wanted.
problem being, he is a very heady guy. he thinks he knows what is going on in my mind. always. but he's only right a small part of the time. and the other part of the time, he's just deferring his issues onto me.
he said that he knew what he was getting into before he asked me to marry him. and that i am whining about it being hard to be married, and that it's too much work, that i don't feel like doing it. but we've been working on it for so long, this isn't new.
he said that he knew who he was before he married me. i told him that i'm just now figuring myself out, and that i'm not who i thought i was.
i told him that i didn't know what i was getting into. that i didn't really understand what marriage entailed.
he said that he knows the milestones of relationships. living with women before i came along taught him what happens at the one year mark, two year mark, and so on, to the five year mark. he did it twice, five year live-in relationships.
i reminded him that, not only did i not have that experience before marrying him, but that i was never in a relationship for more than two years until him, and that he's the five year professional. to cut me some slack while i learn all the things that i didn't know until i was committed. that we didn't see each other more than just on weekends until we got married and ran away to start our life together. and that it was SHOCKING.
i just had to keep telling him that i'm trying. and i'm tired of trying, but that i'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. and that, yes, it's tempting to take the easy way out, and just quit. but that i'm not there yet.
he said that he knew it would be hard. and work. and that he signed up for it. he didn't remember telling me that he thought it was a mistake to marry me, both a week before he asked me, and the very next day after. nor that he thought i was just getting married for the sake of getting married (i didn't remind him of this statement last night, i'm just remembering it now), which he also said the day after.
he blamed my desire to live my dream on hormones and seasons also. said that i bring it up a couple times a year, and that when i don't mention it between those times, that he thinks it's not important to me.
i explained that i just need to be on the path to that. and cried, saying 'i can't do that to myself. i can't think about that all the time, because it's a TEASE. it's a tease to tell yourself that you can have something you know you can't have.' i can't trick myself or have blind faith that i will get it. so i told him what it would take to get there:
to pay off our credit card debt, $15k. and to buy myself a years' worth of time to not depend on the income from my cafe, that i'd have to save up a years' worth of my salary. so that if it flopped, bottomed out, went under, that we wouldn't lose the house, just the business. i know these things from experience. it is what i know.
he said, 'what if i just went to work, making what you make now? so that you could do it. would you do it?'
and i said that it wouldn't work that way, because we'd be in the same cash-strapped boat that we're in now. just with a role reversal.
that we'd have to pay off our debts, and save up an additional $45k to make me feel like i could even try to do it. and that he'd have to be making what i make now to make that possible, with $60k socked away. that we have no retirement set aside, no savings, no 401ks. and that we're not getting any younger, and that we've set ourselves up to fail because it's not early enough to be starting it. that we should already have done it years ago.
i know that he's trying. but he doesn't think about money logically, the way that i do. the way that i know we have to, just to make the mortgage and keep the heat and water and electricity on. and that every time he throws one of his dreams at me, it is a huge mental setback to me, because it just adds to the money that we don't have, and can't obtain. and tacks on tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to the amount that it will take to live my dream.
that when he talks about finishing the basement by the end of 2010 (a $40k project, conservatively), and about buying another building to grow into and rent out ($100k for the half he thinks he can swing), that it devastates my dream.
he tried to downplay those daydreams, but it's about where his mind is. it's not on me. it's not on making my dream come true. it's about perpetuating the hobby that he calls his work. and he has no concept of income, and what it takes to survive. because i haven't made him pay bills. he doesn't get it. and probably won't until he is on his own, and doing it.
luckily, we are on the edge of a cliff right now. we got a call that really could change our financial situation exponentially. and i know that the opportunity is there, for him to be paid just now for what he's been working toward for the last seven years. it's almost payoff time. if his 'employees' don't fuck it up.
which i do fear. i am afraid that it's not going to happen on their end, and that it's going to blow a chance to change our future, financially.
he told me that he tries every single day to make me happy, by telling me that i'm beautiful and kissing me and hugging me and thanking me. and that i don't try to make him happy. i told him that every time i ask him to come to bed, and he declines, that i'm trying to make him happy. that cooking for him every day, cleaning up the house here. that these are my efforts.
that just waking up and going to work everyday is my sacrifice to make him happy by enabling him to live his dream out, in real life. which he didn't think of before that. and will probably promptly forget.
i told him that i am honestly trying. and that i need some space. and i had begged him repeatedly to not try to have this conversation last night, because i was too tired and angry and upset. and that my biggest fear in the place we are in, in our marriage, is to say something irretractable, out of tire and anger.
that he should know this, because he needs to 'sleep on it' practically every day. to take the time to think about the problem, whatever it is, digest it, and then decide what to do. that reminded him of times when he would have temper tantrums in the past, and i'd lock myself in a room away from him to give him time to cool down and get over it, so that we could talk about it later. he really used to freak out on me when i'd use that tactic. because he saw it as my way of running away from my problems.
he thinks that i think that my life will magically be wonderful, better, happier, without him. that if i left him, that i thought all my problems would disappear. that everything in my mind is his fault.
i told him that i am not so simple to really think that leaving him would equate to my happiness, when he suggested that this thought was in my head. i am not that stupid. i am honestly scared to death that when i'm alone, i'll 1. realize that i made a huge mistake in leaving him, 2. that i'll not be comfortable alone, because, at 32, i've never really been alone in my life, and that 3. i know i can't run from my problems, that if they lie within (which i am aware that some of them do), that they'll be with me no matter where i go, or who i'm with, if anyone. if anyone other than him.
i don't know. the whole conversation lasted over two hours, with two cigarette breaks. and two nose blowing breaks, from crying.
the last thing before we went to sleep for the night. i told him that, in the back of my mind, there was this little thing that had always nagged at me, tugged at me when i felt less than confident in our marriage. that when we were dating, he used to accuse me of cheating on him and on getting 'booty calls' (never had one of those in my entire LIFE - i'm nearly asexual). and that, in my experience, limited as it was, that accusations usually signified that the accuser was the guilty party.
that i got an std (don't know the name, guess it's the best kind, because you take one pill and it's gone forever) about six or eight months into our relationship, out of the blue. and that it had always made me wonder how i'd gotten it. i didn't tell him that my dr had told me it was entirely possible to get it from a toilet seat. i told him that it's a std. that you get it from having sex with someone who has it. and that, for the last nine or so years since, it had planted a seed of doubt in my mind. that, during the two weeks we broken up while dating, that i'd been fairly convinced that he'd been with someone else, one of his fuck buddies, to get even with me, and to get what he wanted. instant gratification, no strings attached. and that i'd never even know.
he looked me dead in the eye and said that he had never been with anyone else, the entire time i'd been dating him. that he hadn't seen anyone else since we met and started dating. that i should've mentioned it before now, because it's something that eats away at me, and fucks with me. and i told him that how ridiculous he made it sound that i could think such a thing, was precisely the reason i could never bring it up. but that i wanted to put it to rest once and for all. that i'd never even kissed anyone else since i started kissing him, that it had been six months before him that i was with someone else, and that person was a long term boyfriend, not some random guy.
the whole conversation now is so surreal. how do you move past that? he went about his day today (after a four hour nap lasting from 6 am to 10 am) as if nothing was wrong. that everything was fine again. i feel sick. can't eat. it's after dark, i've had nothing other than coffee. i'm just now needing to eat to stay upright.
he said that i'm giving him mixed signals. like push away, pull back. and i denied that, because i don't think i have. i told him that i'm not a fake person, i'm not a liar. that i don't care about keeping up appearances for the sake of the people we interact with on a daily basis, mostly his 'employees'. that i can't just pretend that nothing is wrong, amiss. and that i am trying to be true to myself and take care of myself so that i can get through this, and eventually past this.
but he made a very good, very valid point. at my birthday dinner, with kit, and mostly his employees, he had tried to sit across and down from me, at the table. and that i asked him to come and sit next to me.
at the time, i think now that it might have been for the sake of appearances. so maybe i am guilty of that. but it wasn't intentional. i thought at the time that he was leaving space for kit, who had yet to arrive. and i was trying to put myself between them, so i could sit next to both of them.
but it is what it is. it was the appearance of us being together. companions. after the last discussion we'd had where he threw around the words divorce, single life, and mentioned selling the house now, to get it over with.
when he said the piece about divorce and separation last night, he said that he wanted to get out before we hated each other, if that was where we're heading. i told him i could never hate him. that i truly love him very very much. and i meant it.
but i also know that loving someone isn't the solution to all your problems. in fact, thinking on it now, i realize that it just serves as a complication to potential solutions. because my heart will always get in the way. i will always delay something painful until i simply can't take it any more. just to avoid hurting myself or someone else.
lately, i've become more self-centered. until now, i have always sacrificed my happiness for what other people want or need. i'm the healer. i take pain on myself so that the people around me have less of it. and the thing is, i just can't wear myself so thin like that. because it's taking a physical toll on me, and it will kill me. or hospitalize me. so i won't do it anymore.
i'm glad to be going through this. catalyzed metamorphosis. i'm so glad that i'm on this path. and little things keep happening to me, showing me that i'm going in the right direction. that i'm doing what i'm supposed to be doing. and that things are going to change for me, whether they happen to me, or whether i make them happen. or whether it is a joint decision to just cut our losses. and fucking RUN.
i don't know what my future holds, but every day, i'm less afraid of it. and that is a healthy place to be.
came downstairs from writing 'leaving'.
had no idea what was in store.
a huge discussion. i'd had four beers and a piece of a glass of champagne in the five hours that came before. two parties, attended alone.
he started it. i don't know where it came from. i guess it had been in his mind, but not in the front, until i climbed into bed. he'd called me downstairs from writing to get into bed, which i was too awake for, and not ready for. i was writing fluently, and was sad to stop. but i answered his call.
we talked. he still is convinced that i just dreamed up all these problems while i was home. that because i read a book, i was now believing that we had problems that i didn't think we'd had before i read it. like the book created problems in my mind. in the same vein that i diagnose myslef with various mental disorders when i read about them and identify.
i took plenty of time to remind him of the conversations we'd been having since at least easter. also in the years preceding, but especially over the summer, and constantly in these last few months.
he cannot come to terms with the fact that he isn't happy. he swears that he is. yet he can also acknowledge that he is lonely, underappreciated, and other things that point out ways he feels neglected. i kept trying to drill it into his brain that he isn't happy, based solely on things he says and admits. he won't have it.
that he needs to get out to realize it. that i want him to go away for more than just four days. because i want him to have the clarity i have. to come back with a fresh mind and a rejuvenated spirit. to know what will make him happier. that will motivate him to change the things in his life that are keeping him from happiness now. that i think he needs to get it all out of his system, all the things he does vicariously through his 'employees'. traveling in the same clothes, without bating out of necessity, not by choice. that his actions show me that he wants to do it, despite him denying it, much less realizing it for himself.
he repeatedly blamed my unhappiness on hormones. and depression. and on seasons. and on the book.
it was my idea to get help. to see a shrink and work my head out and figure out what to do about my life. with my life. that i write things down to process and delay saying them in the moment, when i edit them later. and i told him that i'm not going to go to a dr and take some pills and be magically happy. that i've been figuring out what it takes to make me happy on my own in the meantime. and that, because he doesn't join me when i do things that make me happy, that it means that i'm happier when i'm not with him. because i'm tired of not having fun. and tired of living a hermited life that he insists on living himself.
he didn't want to leave. he didn't want to be social. and that is fine, but that's what i had forgotten that i was. and i'd forgotten the happiness it brings me, to be in a social setting. over drinks.
i told him that i have huge problems with him drinking, even if it's only once a year. because he's an alcoholic, and i don't want to be part of his life if he's gonig to walk that path again. because i already walked that path with him, and it led to our one and only breakup while dating. i gave him an ultimatum then: me or drinking. and he chose me and quit cold turkey. he might be okay having a few beers every once in a while. he might be able to stop there. but it's a fire that i don't want to toy with, and i don't want him to want to do it. and i don't want to see him fail at it. because it's an addiction issue, which his entire life has been plagued with.
i told him that he can't think he's unhappy because of the drugs that he uses to protect himself from those feelings. that it started with his antidepressant. which he NEEDS. but he has chill pills (adavan?) and he takes them every single day. and i think he should only rely on them when he's anxious. and now, with the weed. i told him that he's constantly numbing himself to things that are painful, stressful, and bad for him. and that he can't see through the cloud he puts himself in the midst of. that he thinks of them as crutches. but it's more like being committed to getting around by way of wheelchair.
i told him that i'm aware that i've been using drugs to escape, too. and that i'm not proud of it. that since i started to realize that i was changing that i drink more than i used to, smoke cigarettes like a fiend. or really more than i had in years since we got married. i drank a couple times a week when we were dating, quit because he had to quit completely. and that i don't want to smoke weed every night. but choose to, and that i'm not proud of it, and need to stop. because it's blocking me from making decisions that rely on motivation. that it sucks that right out of me. that it feels fun, but leads to problems, on the most basic level, to financial problems.
i told him that i changed physically while i was away, that i couldn't eat because of the physical stressi was under as i was realizing all the things i couldn't see when i was here. he continues to believe, and said, that i just went home to goof off and to get my family to spend a lot of money on me, to run away from my problems with him, and to let my family buy me clothes and material things. i explained that those things were just side effects, because my mother knew that i'd never do it for myself. and that i NEEDED it to feel better about myself, my life, the position i hold in my job, the way i see myself when i'm staring myself down in a mirror.
it had to happen. i'd felt like white trash for so long before it, and it was something that $600 fixed. and what a small price to pay, to change the way you feel about yourself, lacking confidence that causes daily depression. i make super decent money. and cannot afford myself simple things, like new clothes that help with professionalism.
and i just needed to be nudged and helped along, to be able to do those things for myself, starting while i was there, and that i will continue to do in the future, because now i know now, for certain, that it is worth it.
he actually said some pretty alarming things. that, if i think i'd be happier without him, that i should just end it now. that if i want a separation or a divorce, that i just need to decide that, and do it. and i told him that i don't want that now, not so soon. that i need time to process (which i repeated repeatedly) and to adjust to what i'm figuring out about myself.
and then he said that it might not be up to me to end it. he said 'sometimes people don't have the control over calling it quits.' i was confused by that, and he clarified by saying that it might not be my decision. which really freaked me out. because it told me that he would end it if he thought i was going to; to beat me to the punch. he could preemptively end our marriage, if he thought that it was what i wanted.
problem being, he is a very heady guy. he thinks he knows what is going on in my mind. always. but he's only right a small part of the time. and the other part of the time, he's just deferring his issues onto me.
he said that he knew what he was getting into before he asked me to marry him. and that i am whining about it being hard to be married, and that it's too much work, that i don't feel like doing it. but we've been working on it for so long, this isn't new.
he said that he knew who he was before he married me. i told him that i'm just now figuring myself out, and that i'm not who i thought i was.
i told him that i didn't know what i was getting into. that i didn't really understand what marriage entailed.
he said that he knows the milestones of relationships. living with women before i came along taught him what happens at the one year mark, two year mark, and so on, to the five year mark. he did it twice, five year live-in relationships.
i reminded him that, not only did i not have that experience before marrying him, but that i was never in a relationship for more than two years until him, and that he's the five year professional. to cut me some slack while i learn all the things that i didn't know until i was committed. that we didn't see each other more than just on weekends until we got married and ran away to start our life together. and that it was SHOCKING.
i just had to keep telling him that i'm trying. and i'm tired of trying, but that i'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. and that, yes, it's tempting to take the easy way out, and just quit. but that i'm not there yet.
he said that he knew it would be hard. and work. and that he signed up for it. he didn't remember telling me that he thought it was a mistake to marry me, both a week before he asked me, and the very next day after. nor that he thought i was just getting married for the sake of getting married (i didn't remind him of this statement last night, i'm just remembering it now), which he also said the day after.
he blamed my desire to live my dream on hormones and seasons also. said that i bring it up a couple times a year, and that when i don't mention it between those times, that he thinks it's not important to me.
i explained that i just need to be on the path to that. and cried, saying 'i can't do that to myself. i can't think about that all the time, because it's a TEASE. it's a tease to tell yourself that you can have something you know you can't have.' i can't trick myself or have blind faith that i will get it. so i told him what it would take to get there:
to pay off our credit card debt, $15k. and to buy myself a years' worth of time to not depend on the income from my cafe, that i'd have to save up a years' worth of my salary. so that if it flopped, bottomed out, went under, that we wouldn't lose the house, just the business. i know these things from experience. it is what i know.
he said, 'what if i just went to work, making what you make now? so that you could do it. would you do it?'
and i said that it wouldn't work that way, because we'd be in the same cash-strapped boat that we're in now. just with a role reversal.
that we'd have to pay off our debts, and save up an additional $45k to make me feel like i could even try to do it. and that he'd have to be making what i make now to make that possible, with $60k socked away. that we have no retirement set aside, no savings, no 401ks. and that we're not getting any younger, and that we've set ourselves up to fail because it's not early enough to be starting it. that we should already have done it years ago.
i know that he's trying. but he doesn't think about money logically, the way that i do. the way that i know we have to, just to make the mortgage and keep the heat and water and electricity on. and that every time he throws one of his dreams at me, it is a huge mental setback to me, because it just adds to the money that we don't have, and can't obtain. and tacks on tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to the amount that it will take to live my dream.
that when he talks about finishing the basement by the end of 2010 (a $40k project, conservatively), and about buying another building to grow into and rent out ($100k for the half he thinks he can swing), that it devastates my dream.
he tried to downplay those daydreams, but it's about where his mind is. it's not on me. it's not on making my dream come true. it's about perpetuating the hobby that he calls his work. and he has no concept of income, and what it takes to survive. because i haven't made him pay bills. he doesn't get it. and probably won't until he is on his own, and doing it.
luckily, we are on the edge of a cliff right now. we got a call that really could change our financial situation exponentially. and i know that the opportunity is there, for him to be paid just now for what he's been working toward for the last seven years. it's almost payoff time. if his 'employees' don't fuck it up.
which i do fear. i am afraid that it's not going to happen on their end, and that it's going to blow a chance to change our future, financially.
he told me that he tries every single day to make me happy, by telling me that i'm beautiful and kissing me and hugging me and thanking me. and that i don't try to make him happy. i told him that every time i ask him to come to bed, and he declines, that i'm trying to make him happy. that cooking for him every day, cleaning up the house here. that these are my efforts.
that just waking up and going to work everyday is my sacrifice to make him happy by enabling him to live his dream out, in real life. which he didn't think of before that. and will probably promptly forget.
i told him that i am honestly trying. and that i need some space. and i had begged him repeatedly to not try to have this conversation last night, because i was too tired and angry and upset. and that my biggest fear in the place we are in, in our marriage, is to say something irretractable, out of tire and anger.
that he should know this, because he needs to 'sleep on it' practically every day. to take the time to think about the problem, whatever it is, digest it, and then decide what to do. that reminded him of times when he would have temper tantrums in the past, and i'd lock myself in a room away from him to give him time to cool down and get over it, so that we could talk about it later. he really used to freak out on me when i'd use that tactic. because he saw it as my way of running away from my problems.
he thinks that i think that my life will magically be wonderful, better, happier, without him. that if i left him, that i thought all my problems would disappear. that everything in my mind is his fault.
i told him that i am not so simple to really think that leaving him would equate to my happiness, when he suggested that this thought was in my head. i am not that stupid. i am honestly scared to death that when i'm alone, i'll 1. realize that i made a huge mistake in leaving him, 2. that i'll not be comfortable alone, because, at 32, i've never really been alone in my life, and that 3. i know i can't run from my problems, that if they lie within (which i am aware that some of them do), that they'll be with me no matter where i go, or who i'm with, if anyone. if anyone other than him.
i don't know. the whole conversation lasted over two hours, with two cigarette breaks. and two nose blowing breaks, from crying.
the last thing before we went to sleep for the night. i told him that, in the back of my mind, there was this little thing that had always nagged at me, tugged at me when i felt less than confident in our marriage. that when we were dating, he used to accuse me of cheating on him and on getting 'booty calls' (never had one of those in my entire LIFE - i'm nearly asexual). and that, in my experience, limited as it was, that accusations usually signified that the accuser was the guilty party.
that i got an std (don't know the name, guess it's the best kind, because you take one pill and it's gone forever) about six or eight months into our relationship, out of the blue. and that it had always made me wonder how i'd gotten it. i didn't tell him that my dr had told me it was entirely possible to get it from a toilet seat. i told him that it's a std. that you get it from having sex with someone who has it. and that, for the last nine or so years since, it had planted a seed of doubt in my mind. that, during the two weeks we broken up while dating, that i'd been fairly convinced that he'd been with someone else, one of his fuck buddies, to get even with me, and to get what he wanted. instant gratification, no strings attached. and that i'd never even know.
he looked me dead in the eye and said that he had never been with anyone else, the entire time i'd been dating him. that he hadn't seen anyone else since we met and started dating. that i should've mentioned it before now, because it's something that eats away at me, and fucks with me. and i told him that how ridiculous he made it sound that i could think such a thing, was precisely the reason i could never bring it up. but that i wanted to put it to rest once and for all. that i'd never even kissed anyone else since i started kissing him, that it had been six months before him that i was with someone else, and that person was a long term boyfriend, not some random guy.
the whole conversation now is so surreal. how do you move past that? he went about his day today (after a four hour nap lasting from 6 am to 10 am) as if nothing was wrong. that everything was fine again. i feel sick. can't eat. it's after dark, i've had nothing other than coffee. i'm just now needing to eat to stay upright.
he said that i'm giving him mixed signals. like push away, pull back. and i denied that, because i don't think i have. i told him that i'm not a fake person, i'm not a liar. that i don't care about keeping up appearances for the sake of the people we interact with on a daily basis, mostly his 'employees'. that i can't just pretend that nothing is wrong, amiss. and that i am trying to be true to myself and take care of myself so that i can get through this, and eventually past this.
but he made a very good, very valid point. at my birthday dinner, with kit, and mostly his employees, he had tried to sit across and down from me, at the table. and that i asked him to come and sit next to me.
at the time, i think now that it might have been for the sake of appearances. so maybe i am guilty of that. but it wasn't intentional. i thought at the time that he was leaving space for kit, who had yet to arrive. and i was trying to put myself between them, so i could sit next to both of them.
but it is what it is. it was the appearance of us being together. companions. after the last discussion we'd had where he threw around the words divorce, single life, and mentioned selling the house now, to get it over with.
when he said the piece about divorce and separation last night, he said that he wanted to get out before we hated each other, if that was where we're heading. i told him i could never hate him. that i truly love him very very much. and i meant it.
but i also know that loving someone isn't the solution to all your problems. in fact, thinking on it now, i realize that it just serves as a complication to potential solutions. because my heart will always get in the way. i will always delay something painful until i simply can't take it any more. just to avoid hurting myself or someone else.
lately, i've become more self-centered. until now, i have always sacrificed my happiness for what other people want or need. i'm the healer. i take pain on myself so that the people around me have less of it. and the thing is, i just can't wear myself so thin like that. because it's taking a physical toll on me, and it will kill me. or hospitalize me. so i won't do it anymore.
i'm glad to be going through this. catalyzed metamorphosis. i'm so glad that i'm on this path. and little things keep happening to me, showing me that i'm going in the right direction. that i'm doing what i'm supposed to be doing. and that things are going to change for me, whether they happen to me, or whether i make them happen. or whether it is a joint decision to just cut our losses. and fucking RUN.
i don't know what my future holds, but every day, i'm less afraid of it. and that is a healthy place to be.
future tense
i was driving. very fast. due west. i couldn't remember exactly the events that had lined themselves up to lead me to this point. it was all a rushy blur. my heart was pounding as i thought back in time. but i couldn't get past that morning in my mind.
but i was driving and i was HAPPY. i was beaming, smiling, ear to ear. teeth showing and all. my face hurt from smiling so hard. my cheeks ached. a headache was forming.
when we left, it was warm. far too warm to be january in florida. somewhere midway through louisiana, it started to cool, and now i had the windows down and the heater set to high, blowing up from the floorboard. a favorite sensation.
it had been a rough road. literally. i had tried to fit everything that meant anything to me in my car. i had made a clean break. my life had changed so many times over that i was a completely different person. barely recognizable as my self. even my reflection was different.
i woke up one day. and i wasn't the same. and never would be again. i suddenly knew what i wanted, and would stop at nothing to get it. being confined for so long, i had broken free, flown the coop. i was making a new life, for myself. for ME. for the first time in my life.
it began in a tiny apartment. very, very simply. a bed with a bright red comforter. a small round white kitchen table with two chairs. a furry white rug. a white laquered table, long and skinny, topped with a tv and a stereo. and one painting on the wall - i'd painted it within weeks of waking up.
everything was white. everything was clean. everything was quiet.
i went on in my day to day life, feeling empty and awake. like i had been deprived of my senses for years. nothing looked the same. the leaves on the trees were a shimmering green. nothing smelled the same. coffee made me want to be in my bed, dreaming again. nothing felt the same. the cool metal and warm plastic of my bicycle beneath me made me want to rush to wherever i was going, especially when i was riding home. nothing sounded the same. lyrics that had passed me by had a whole new meaning, applicable somehow in my life before, but now as they were intended to be applied. nothing tasted the same, pumpkin cheesecake and chocolate chip cookies made me long for my mother's kitchen.
everything had awakened in me. at first, there was an immense sadness. i was so sad that my life had become something that was so unhappy, so dulling. like a headache that sneaks up on you, slowly irritating and ruining your day until it is substantial enough to elicit a response.
then a dramatic fear. one that kept me from eating for days on end. and i am a girl who loves to eat. there is no shame in filling a third plate at the indian buffet.
a vacation from my life, a new beginning based on epiphanies i could only have realized in the precise situation i was immersed in. if any one aspect of my time away had been different, the end result would likely not have been the same. it was a perfect storm. it was devastating.
but a few things happened then, and once realized, there was no turning back. no going back. no coming back from that. i boarded a plane filled with such dread. i didn't want to leave, which was nothing new. but it was never from the dread of returning back to my life.
when the plane pulled away from the gate, taxiing to the strip to take off, i wanted to scream LET ME OUT OF HERE, i can't go!!!' instead, i quieted my screaming mind, and cried silently, hiding my face beneath the brim of a hat. and i couldn't stop. i finally calmed myself down, mostly out of embarrassment, and read more of a book that told me all the problems i was dealing with, and what would most likely come of it.
i fought it. i fought it long and hard, tooth and nail. holding strings that no longer held balloons. trying to fight the inevitable. out of sheer stubbornness, and a desire not to fail in life. wanting to keep my parents proud, not disappoint them.
but time passed. and all the work was in vain. and we called it quits.
it was a slow untangling that followed. amicable, yet stressed. strained. tense. separating ten years of time spent together, piece by sad little piece. into boxes. and up. and out. and away.
everything else in my life stayed the same. i did the same things, i went to the same places, i kept the same job. believing that, one day, if i stayed how i was then, life would be its new version of normal, and that i wouldn't feel so horrible and awful anymore. that i would be forgiven.
and one day it was. the apartment was set up, i came home from work, i got into my pjs and climbed under my warmest blanket in the middle of the day, pulled taut to my chin, in clenched fists. i had a good cry, and then a cup of hot chocolate with extra mini marshmallows. and it was over. i was free from the burden, from the decision that had bound me. finally.
and i decided that i'd waited long enough. and that i had wasted enough of my life waiting. and i put a calendar on the wall, and circled a date. it was six months away. it was very near my birthday. it was the day that i would leave. for a trip home. that would last exactly one month. until new years' day. and that i'd have exactly that much time to decide if, what i felt in my heart was worth the sacrifices it would take to make it happen, it was worth it.
i'd planned it out meticulously. which is quite unlike me. i like to fly by the seat of my pants. but this trip needed to be thought about, really thought out, and i needed details to commit myself to the decision to take the trip, under its circumstances and conditions.
six months moved along. with one week left, i let him know that i'd be coming home.
i'd rented a storage space. anything i had of value, i stored away. and i left my tiny apartment that had seen so many firsts in my life. my darkest days, initially. and finally finding happiness in the end, again.
i put the things i couldn't live without in my car. and hit play on three days' worth of music i'd compiled into one long playlist, and started driving south.
sixteen hours later, i was home. everything was as it had always been, but everyone looked at me through different eyes. eyes that made me feel like a quitter. like i'd let them all down, only none of them voiced the sentiment. they just looked at me with those eyes.
and one night, my phone rang. and by the end of the night, things were again how they'd always been.
and now here we were. smoking endlessly chained cigarettes. together. driving to the grand canyon, to throw our old lives in, and leave with a new one. it was new years' day.
i had so many questions. i'd been thinking them up over many years, since the last time we'd played 20 questions together. when he was my seatbelt keeping me safe in the passenger side of his car, on our way to dark spaces to stare at the sky.
where we were headed at this hour, well, it was to be the best place we'd ever seen the sky. and i'd been before, as had he. but it was different being there together. it seemed so unfair that we'd have to wait through two more days of driving to get there. we were stuck in the eternal loop of driving through texas. which felt like it would never end. the sky was dark, the sun rose, the sun set again, still in miserable texas. i hate texas. its sole purpose is to keep you from getting where you're going.
but on just the other side sat new mexico. and i'd loved new mexico, in passing, the last time i'd driven west. the long trains slipping through the desolate desert in the night. lights moving along with the pace of the car, seemingly toward the same destination at the same speed, yet somehow, not. the scale of the space was so unbelievable to me - i realized that the trains always seemed to be so close, relative to the mountains, but that if i thought about it, the distance between them would have been miles on each side.
shadows of clouds moved along the ground, on top of the rocky landscape. the flats of texas slowly gave rise to the hills and small mountains that slowly gave rise to the shape of the mountains. crazy pillared mountains that look as though they are made of magic sand and run on together forever. the magic sand that lets you build stalagmites in water, and when pulled from the water become dry sand in your hand again. and the pillar mountains gave way to the canyon landscape so slowly that it wasn't realized.
then we were in arizona. the stars were moving about the sky, new constellations revealing themselves in the stark darkness. and then, many hours later, we were there.
staggering trees lined the two lane highway into the national park. as had been the case the first time, some elk had wandered into the road after dark, when twilight was darkening and stars were beginning to appear much brighter in the windshield. the car was in park. we were so antsy and excited at being nearly there. we were bouncing expectantly in our respective seats, bodies shaking with anticipation. and the gut wrenching realization that one mile on either side of the car lay the vastness of the grand canyons struck me so hard that i trembled.
carved out over millions of years, telling a story so beautiful. so awesome. in the most literal sense of the word.
we'd decided somewhere in texas to camp out under the sky. it was a cold desert night. much too cold to actually go through with the camping plan. no degree of closeness could warm enough in this weather. without seeing the beauty surrounding us, we sulked and decided on a hotel.
then i remembered.
the morning when everything changed... the morning after the night he called. still awake, still together talking. hours had passed. and for the first time in my life, i was anything but regretting what had been spoken aloud in the moment, from my heart to my mouth.
there had been a very sweet kiss. so slight. only hinting at something simmering beneath - i had held back. and i was okay with initiating it, because i'd waited long enough already. he kissed me back, briefly. and then we just laid there, staring into each others' faces in that moment. and i said it.
'come with me. right now. i have to leave now, i want to take you with me. but it has to be RIGHT NOW. will you come with me?'
he wanted to know where i was going, and how long i'd be gone. i told him i was going to the grand canyon by car. and that i didn't know when i'd be back, or if that was even the final destination. he had so many questions, i just wanted him to come unconditionally, but he had a life before i rolled into town and into his life again, so i was trying to wait for his answer patiently.
he said, 'we'll get some sleep. and pack and leave first thing in the morning.'
'really?' i said with so much shock and wonder that my voice wobbled and my eyes teared up. i had been waiting my entire life for this one solitary moment to define it, and i was here. i was in it.
i couldn't sleep, but let him. i decided that he could drive the first leg while i rested in the car, and i watched him sleep. i just wanted to be there immediately, and knew that i had three days' driving ahead of me. i was incredibly antsy and excited. and awake.
and here we were. three days later. so close to the campsite, waiting on nature to run its course. waiting for the elk to realize that we were, in fact, waiting for them to move.
and after about 20 minutes of the car in park and the engine turned off, they moved. just as they had fifteen years earlier. i started the car, pulled slowly away, deeper into the canyons that teased us from the other side of the trees.
we pulled into the hotel parking lot, got a room, and tried to sleep. because it was night, we had yet to see anything. we made a pact to wake up before the sun, and make our way to the rim with coffee, to see the sunrise over the most beautiful place in the contiguous states.
and we did. cracked out from three days pent up in a car, and sleep deprived after a fitful attempt at rest, excited for what the morning would bring. we made our coffees and shared a wool blanket, shuffling along together, slowly, huddled, sipping carefully, so as not to spill. tightly bound together by the plaid blanket, arms laced at each others' hips.
we were not the only people there before sunrise, with the same dream. we walked the paths until we found a spot no one else had found. we were there, finally. squinting our eyes in the darkness, adjusting to the silent darkness. there was no guardrail, there was just the end of the earth. and the abyss.
we stepped carefully, closer to the edge. within three feet of the edge, stomachs dropping from under us at the thought of falling in. and inched backwards.
and stood waiting. like solemn children, waiting.
the sky turned from navy to true blue, from cerulean to turquoise so quickly. the sun peeked up from a place so far away that the space between us and the sun looked like an oil painting. like a backdrop for a film, painted to scale on a set. my eyes were streaming tears. it was the most beautiful thing i had ever seen. and he just held onto me from my side, not wanting to affect my experience, but wanting to share it with me. squeezing. comfort. appreciating it deeply, personally.
i threw the things from my life into the canyon: disappointment, fear, regret, sadness. we slowly backed away from the edge once the sun was free from the horizon, and in the sky.
i didn't know what he was thinking at that moment. i was mostly sure that he was happy he'd dropped everything to come on my crazy adventure with me. i was entirely sure that he was glad he was there.
we stayed for three days in the canyons. we continued west, to san francisco - my favorite city - and up the coast, staying with an old friend in oregon, before making it to washington state, to seattle.
then the long, sad trip back to our lives as they were, before i'd interrupted them with my impromptu road trip. carving our way diagonally. down, down, through idaho. wyoming. down through tornado alley during its off season. eventually down through arkansas, alabama, the panhandle.
a few hours later, i pulled into the driveway where i'd picked him up eleven short days before. we'd gone so far, in so little time, all things considered. he grabbed his knapsack from the back seat, slung it haphazardly over his shoulder, and his compass from the dash. he said goodbye in an understated, tired way, and looked back to wave from his front door. he unlatched his door, stepped in slowly, and closed the door behind him.
i backed out of his driveway slowly, sadly.
driving home, i kept forgetting that he wasn't in the passenger seat next to me. i'd start to say something, after my thoughts carried me away. open my mouth and sigh inward, then out instead of starting a sentence that would never be said aloud. i stared at the empty car seat next to me. i preferred him sitting in it. i preferred him.
i drove home, to my mother's kitchen, for a hot meal, and to sleep and recover.
but i was driving and i was HAPPY. i was beaming, smiling, ear to ear. teeth showing and all. my face hurt from smiling so hard. my cheeks ached. a headache was forming.
when we left, it was warm. far too warm to be january in florida. somewhere midway through louisiana, it started to cool, and now i had the windows down and the heater set to high, blowing up from the floorboard. a favorite sensation.
it had been a rough road. literally. i had tried to fit everything that meant anything to me in my car. i had made a clean break. my life had changed so many times over that i was a completely different person. barely recognizable as my self. even my reflection was different.
i woke up one day. and i wasn't the same. and never would be again. i suddenly knew what i wanted, and would stop at nothing to get it. being confined for so long, i had broken free, flown the coop. i was making a new life, for myself. for ME. for the first time in my life.
it began in a tiny apartment. very, very simply. a bed with a bright red comforter. a small round white kitchen table with two chairs. a furry white rug. a white laquered table, long and skinny, topped with a tv and a stereo. and one painting on the wall - i'd painted it within weeks of waking up.
everything was white. everything was clean. everything was quiet.
i went on in my day to day life, feeling empty and awake. like i had been deprived of my senses for years. nothing looked the same. the leaves on the trees were a shimmering green. nothing smelled the same. coffee made me want to be in my bed, dreaming again. nothing felt the same. the cool metal and warm plastic of my bicycle beneath me made me want to rush to wherever i was going, especially when i was riding home. nothing sounded the same. lyrics that had passed me by had a whole new meaning, applicable somehow in my life before, but now as they were intended to be applied. nothing tasted the same, pumpkin cheesecake and chocolate chip cookies made me long for my mother's kitchen.
everything had awakened in me. at first, there was an immense sadness. i was so sad that my life had become something that was so unhappy, so dulling. like a headache that sneaks up on you, slowly irritating and ruining your day until it is substantial enough to elicit a response.
then a dramatic fear. one that kept me from eating for days on end. and i am a girl who loves to eat. there is no shame in filling a third plate at the indian buffet.
a vacation from my life, a new beginning based on epiphanies i could only have realized in the precise situation i was immersed in. if any one aspect of my time away had been different, the end result would likely not have been the same. it was a perfect storm. it was devastating.
but a few things happened then, and once realized, there was no turning back. no going back. no coming back from that. i boarded a plane filled with such dread. i didn't want to leave, which was nothing new. but it was never from the dread of returning back to my life.
when the plane pulled away from the gate, taxiing to the strip to take off, i wanted to scream LET ME OUT OF HERE, i can't go!!!' instead, i quieted my screaming mind, and cried silently, hiding my face beneath the brim of a hat. and i couldn't stop. i finally calmed myself down, mostly out of embarrassment, and read more of a book that told me all the problems i was dealing with, and what would most likely come of it.
i fought it. i fought it long and hard, tooth and nail. holding strings that no longer held balloons. trying to fight the inevitable. out of sheer stubbornness, and a desire not to fail in life. wanting to keep my parents proud, not disappoint them.
but time passed. and all the work was in vain. and we called it quits.
it was a slow untangling that followed. amicable, yet stressed. strained. tense. separating ten years of time spent together, piece by sad little piece. into boxes. and up. and out. and away.
everything else in my life stayed the same. i did the same things, i went to the same places, i kept the same job. believing that, one day, if i stayed how i was then, life would be its new version of normal, and that i wouldn't feel so horrible and awful anymore. that i would be forgiven.
and one day it was. the apartment was set up, i came home from work, i got into my pjs and climbed under my warmest blanket in the middle of the day, pulled taut to my chin, in clenched fists. i had a good cry, and then a cup of hot chocolate with extra mini marshmallows. and it was over. i was free from the burden, from the decision that had bound me. finally.
and i decided that i'd waited long enough. and that i had wasted enough of my life waiting. and i put a calendar on the wall, and circled a date. it was six months away. it was very near my birthday. it was the day that i would leave. for a trip home. that would last exactly one month. until new years' day. and that i'd have exactly that much time to decide if, what i felt in my heart was worth the sacrifices it would take to make it happen, it was worth it.
i'd planned it out meticulously. which is quite unlike me. i like to fly by the seat of my pants. but this trip needed to be thought about, really thought out, and i needed details to commit myself to the decision to take the trip, under its circumstances and conditions.
six months moved along. with one week left, i let him know that i'd be coming home.
i'd rented a storage space. anything i had of value, i stored away. and i left my tiny apartment that had seen so many firsts in my life. my darkest days, initially. and finally finding happiness in the end, again.
i put the things i couldn't live without in my car. and hit play on three days' worth of music i'd compiled into one long playlist, and started driving south.
sixteen hours later, i was home. everything was as it had always been, but everyone looked at me through different eyes. eyes that made me feel like a quitter. like i'd let them all down, only none of them voiced the sentiment. they just looked at me with those eyes.
and one night, my phone rang. and by the end of the night, things were again how they'd always been.
and now here we were. smoking endlessly chained cigarettes. together. driving to the grand canyon, to throw our old lives in, and leave with a new one. it was new years' day.
i had so many questions. i'd been thinking them up over many years, since the last time we'd played 20 questions together. when he was my seatbelt keeping me safe in the passenger side of his car, on our way to dark spaces to stare at the sky.
where we were headed at this hour, well, it was to be the best place we'd ever seen the sky. and i'd been before, as had he. but it was different being there together. it seemed so unfair that we'd have to wait through two more days of driving to get there. we were stuck in the eternal loop of driving through texas. which felt like it would never end. the sky was dark, the sun rose, the sun set again, still in miserable texas. i hate texas. its sole purpose is to keep you from getting where you're going.
but on just the other side sat new mexico. and i'd loved new mexico, in passing, the last time i'd driven west. the long trains slipping through the desolate desert in the night. lights moving along with the pace of the car, seemingly toward the same destination at the same speed, yet somehow, not. the scale of the space was so unbelievable to me - i realized that the trains always seemed to be so close, relative to the mountains, but that if i thought about it, the distance between them would have been miles on each side.
shadows of clouds moved along the ground, on top of the rocky landscape. the flats of texas slowly gave rise to the hills and small mountains that slowly gave rise to the shape of the mountains. crazy pillared mountains that look as though they are made of magic sand and run on together forever. the magic sand that lets you build stalagmites in water, and when pulled from the water become dry sand in your hand again. and the pillar mountains gave way to the canyon landscape so slowly that it wasn't realized.
then we were in arizona. the stars were moving about the sky, new constellations revealing themselves in the stark darkness. and then, many hours later, we were there.
staggering trees lined the two lane highway into the national park. as had been the case the first time, some elk had wandered into the road after dark, when twilight was darkening and stars were beginning to appear much brighter in the windshield. the car was in park. we were so antsy and excited at being nearly there. we were bouncing expectantly in our respective seats, bodies shaking with anticipation. and the gut wrenching realization that one mile on either side of the car lay the vastness of the grand canyons struck me so hard that i trembled.
carved out over millions of years, telling a story so beautiful. so awesome. in the most literal sense of the word.
we'd decided somewhere in texas to camp out under the sky. it was a cold desert night. much too cold to actually go through with the camping plan. no degree of closeness could warm enough in this weather. without seeing the beauty surrounding us, we sulked and decided on a hotel.
then i remembered.
the morning when everything changed... the morning after the night he called. still awake, still together talking. hours had passed. and for the first time in my life, i was anything but regretting what had been spoken aloud in the moment, from my heart to my mouth.
there had been a very sweet kiss. so slight. only hinting at something simmering beneath - i had held back. and i was okay with initiating it, because i'd waited long enough already. he kissed me back, briefly. and then we just laid there, staring into each others' faces in that moment. and i said it.
'come with me. right now. i have to leave now, i want to take you with me. but it has to be RIGHT NOW. will you come with me?'
he wanted to know where i was going, and how long i'd be gone. i told him i was going to the grand canyon by car. and that i didn't know when i'd be back, or if that was even the final destination. he had so many questions, i just wanted him to come unconditionally, but he had a life before i rolled into town and into his life again, so i was trying to wait for his answer patiently.
he said, 'we'll get some sleep. and pack and leave first thing in the morning.'
'really?' i said with so much shock and wonder that my voice wobbled and my eyes teared up. i had been waiting my entire life for this one solitary moment to define it, and i was here. i was in it.
i couldn't sleep, but let him. i decided that he could drive the first leg while i rested in the car, and i watched him sleep. i just wanted to be there immediately, and knew that i had three days' driving ahead of me. i was incredibly antsy and excited. and awake.
and here we were. three days later. so close to the campsite, waiting on nature to run its course. waiting for the elk to realize that we were, in fact, waiting for them to move.
and after about 20 minutes of the car in park and the engine turned off, they moved. just as they had fifteen years earlier. i started the car, pulled slowly away, deeper into the canyons that teased us from the other side of the trees.
we pulled into the hotel parking lot, got a room, and tried to sleep. because it was night, we had yet to see anything. we made a pact to wake up before the sun, and make our way to the rim with coffee, to see the sunrise over the most beautiful place in the contiguous states.
and we did. cracked out from three days pent up in a car, and sleep deprived after a fitful attempt at rest, excited for what the morning would bring. we made our coffees and shared a wool blanket, shuffling along together, slowly, huddled, sipping carefully, so as not to spill. tightly bound together by the plaid blanket, arms laced at each others' hips.
we were not the only people there before sunrise, with the same dream. we walked the paths until we found a spot no one else had found. we were there, finally. squinting our eyes in the darkness, adjusting to the silent darkness. there was no guardrail, there was just the end of the earth. and the abyss.
we stepped carefully, closer to the edge. within three feet of the edge, stomachs dropping from under us at the thought of falling in. and inched backwards.
and stood waiting. like solemn children, waiting.
the sky turned from navy to true blue, from cerulean to turquoise so quickly. the sun peeked up from a place so far away that the space between us and the sun looked like an oil painting. like a backdrop for a film, painted to scale on a set. my eyes were streaming tears. it was the most beautiful thing i had ever seen. and he just held onto me from my side, not wanting to affect my experience, but wanting to share it with me. squeezing. comfort. appreciating it deeply, personally.
i threw the things from my life into the canyon: disappointment, fear, regret, sadness. we slowly backed away from the edge once the sun was free from the horizon, and in the sky.
i didn't know what he was thinking at that moment. i was mostly sure that he was happy he'd dropped everything to come on my crazy adventure with me. i was entirely sure that he was glad he was there.
we stayed for three days in the canyons. we continued west, to san francisco - my favorite city - and up the coast, staying with an old friend in oregon, before making it to washington state, to seattle.
then the long, sad trip back to our lives as they were, before i'd interrupted them with my impromptu road trip. carving our way diagonally. down, down, through idaho. wyoming. down through tornado alley during its off season. eventually down through arkansas, alabama, the panhandle.
a few hours later, i pulled into the driveway where i'd picked him up eleven short days before. we'd gone so far, in so little time, all things considered. he grabbed his knapsack from the back seat, slung it haphazardly over his shoulder, and his compass from the dash. he said goodbye in an understated, tired way, and looked back to wave from his front door. he unlatched his door, stepped in slowly, and closed the door behind him.
i backed out of his driveway slowly, sadly.
driving home, i kept forgetting that he wasn't in the passenger seat next to me. i'd start to say something, after my thoughts carried me away. open my mouth and sigh inward, then out instead of starting a sentence that would never be said aloud. i stared at the empty car seat next to me. i preferred him sitting in it. i preferred him.
i drove home, to my mother's kitchen, for a hot meal, and to sleep and recover.
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