Wal-Mart Criminal

 As I was staring at my future ex-husband in disbelief at wal-mart today, a Mark Twain quote flashed through my mindscape. "Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."  I was awestruck at the events that occurred and the indigestible wordage that my ex-in-training continued to spew on me.  I apologize for any lack of eloquence that this blog may contain, this one is strictly for cathartic purposes.

In order to fully understand the extent of my hurt and disbelief today I need to give you all a little backstory.  My wal mart offending future ex and I got married less then 2 years ago and have been together for over 3 years, and we have known each other for over 6 years.  A few months ago I am, in every sense, blindsided when he informs me that he is "no longer happy" and apparently these sentiments have everything to do with his vows and devotion to me and nothing to do with any twisted pathology of his own self.  He has always been, if nothing else in this world, my most intimate companion and in the most endearing expression of the word, my best friend.  He knows every form of me and every particulate and facet of me, and what blows me away is that he is taking that knowledge and using it for evil.  He knows just the right things to say to twist the knife of treachery and broken promises just a smidge further.  I had to be around him today, his mother is in town and she wanted to buy the kids new car seats and she insisted that I be there so that I could pick out what I wanted.  The gesture was a wonderful one, but the events it involved fell short of being even remotely tolerable.  It is still a very tender and tenuous situation, most especially when we are in each others presence.  He is still my husband and, with the exception of the last few months, he was everything I wanted and expected him to be.  A part of me is terrified of how I can ever let that mindset go, because I truly formulated "Me" around it.  I swallowed it, digested it, and absorbed every bit of it into my existence.  How do you regurgitate fare which has surpassed its purgative point?  That has been turned into a non-vomitous substance....like a portion of your own flesh or soul, or the stuff that defines you.

As we were waiting on some of our crew to finish bathroom breaks, my son is in my cart and his son is in his and we are waiting in a deafening silence for the return of our clan (he has three children and I have two).  My son, Brienn, is a very active, both in mind and body and these attributes are most especially prevalent when he is tired.  This was the case today.  I don't even remember what Brienn did, but the first major verbal assault that my ex-to-be committed against me was at the moment when I had to correct Brienn on a minor offense(most likely for making some loud aboriginal, or animal sound).  At that point, he says in front of his son, OUR son and to my face, "I don't know what has crawled in his ass today but I'm about to pull it out for him."  This was not OK. First of all, I would prefer to influence my children to speak in ways that will give people the proper perceptions of them, and not in ways that would encourage any negative connotations upon their character.  Simply put, we don't curse in front of our children.  Next, there is no need for such hostility towards a child, especially ours and especially when he loves you so much and your opinion means so much to him.  I love  my children, devastating them is not a priority to me and neither should it be for you.  Now let me just say this, he is a phenomenal, amazing, momentously wonderful dad.  However, it is this that blew me away about this statement. Despite my intense distaste for this statement to our child, I simply looked at Mr.Meanie Head and said, "Please don't talk to Brienn that way." and I was sure to move in close and speak low because I don't want to take up parenting issues in front of the children.  It is at this point that he takes a step back and he gets this look in his eye that I have never seen before. It was a look of disdain, distaste and uncontained wrath and scorn with a touch of all things hateful when he said to me, "Thank God I didn't have another baby with you."  This was the point where I almost lost control.  I've been broken, I've been knocked out of my shoes, I've been laid out and confused, but I have never in my life felt so attacked and disheartened.  I have to tell you, my two children are not biologically his, they are by blood my first husbands but by nurture and love they are his.  An act I will always love him for.  And both of my children were wonderful "whoopsie-daisies", and I have always said that I desperately want atleast one more child.  While I love and cherish my amazing babies, their births, although amazing things, were not a shared and cherished occurence as many births ought to be.  Their biological father just managed to fall completely off the cliff at that point and but a huge damper on what could have been some of the most amazing moments of my life.  I want to go through that experience with someone who I laid down with one night and, out of love and desire to unite what we love about the other, we create a child that we then build and raise out of the same motives...the motives of "Us".  He knows how much this, or the hopes of this, means to me. He knows how much I wanted this with him. And furthermore, he knows precisely how infinitely those words hurt me and I saw the instant regret in his eyes, but regret or no regret, words of that severity might as well be written in stone because they will never be expunged from the places that they have been spoken unto.  That is both the beauty and the danger of the spoken word, atleast pencil can be erased.  I stepped away from the cart, I went into the bathroom and I let myself lose all control in the obtrusive privacy of a wal-mart bathroom stall for just a few minutes. (this is a big deal for me.)  I felt raped. I felt like he had just ripped away my clothes, my shield, my shell and exposed me to everything hurtful and then taken something away from me that I can never take back.

I wish I understood what is happening.  I wish I could explain how someone can go from loving me as intensely as I perceived he did to hating me as intensely as he did in that moment.  I dream of the day that I can find someone I can trust with my heart, my terror is that I will never be able to allow myself to give it to him. That my fear will never let it go no matter how hard I try.  I took that risk with our wal-mart offender and it pained me beyond what any lexicographer can explain.  I am ok now. I have shed some more tears this evening over this and events that have lead up to this point, but thankfully I have an uncharted resilience. However, there are times that I just don't feel all that tough. And this is one of those nights. I'll listen to my music and read something satisfying until it all subsides enough to resume life as usual.  I have recently come to realize that marriage isn't necessarily for me.  And I don't say this as the marriage-scarred divorcee.  I say this out of a person who wants someone who continue to stay with me, and express love for me and take care of me not out of obligation to do so, but because they love me enough to do it without the legalities and moral expectations. You hold me because you love me.  You come home to me because you love me.  You stay faithful because you love me. You create a child with me because you love me.

 

Who You Gonna Call? Vanitybusters!

I have come to learn that the parent to child association is a correlational relationship. Sometimes this can be a negative correlation. For example, I will feel very accomplished when I have been able to mow my entire yard while the kids were taking their naps. Until I enter my humble abode only to find that I overestimated their level of unconsciousness to find my formerly pristine living space the victim of a child-sized natural disaster.  There is also the highly esteemed positive correlation.  These are often the more enjoyable moments in parenting, like washing the dishes together and everybody is able to laugh and giggle and blow soap bubbles on each others noses.  Today, I was once again victim to the negative correlation.

I don't consider myself to be a vain person.  As I have stated before, I know that I am not unattractive, but regardless, I enjoy doing what I can to achieve the highly sought after status of "hot-ness".  In addition, I am not at all seeking anything in terms of men at this current ripple in time, but that doesnt mean I don't want to look good in front of them, especially the dreamy ones.  Now with all that said, my semi-felicitous, late 20-something and single neighbor (who loves to play with my son) was out playing with his dog when my son asked if we could go hang out with TJ.  So I, agreed, but not before I revamped my wardrobe and attempted to go from my Jama-Jams and bedhead to a status which was closer to the hot-ness end of the spectrum.

There is one other tid-bit of information I need to fill you all in on before continuing with my story.  The women in my family suffer from a tragic disease which has infected the maternal line for generations spanning hundreds of years...back to Adam and Eve probably(or the first ape people, whichever theory you cast your rod at).  It is a disease entitled "bountiless bosoms", and I don't think I need to expound on it any more than that.  You know, for the most part I have been ok with it. I don't usually feel the need to soup them up, but in an effort to make some shirts fit a little better and to help my brassierre's fit more comfortably (yes, it is really THAT bad, thanks for asking!) and really, to acheive more friggin warmth on the hot-ness scale, I went and I purchased some "Silicone Dolly Super Wedge Push-ups".  Ok, I admit it...I wanted to get the ladies a little more attention.  And, needless to say, I utilized them for our trip to Neighbor McDreamy's house.

So, the kids and I walk over to TJ's house and upon our arrival he promptly gets me a lawn chair and a beer and we begin chit chatting, throwing darts and generally just enjoying a nice, warm afternoon.  My daughter Madisen, who is very much her mama's baby and a cuddle bug climbs up on my lap as TJ and I are in the midst of a conversation.  During the conversation, I keep noticing that my daughter is wiggling, patting and poking around on my lap. All of you parents out there know that this is just one of those things that you eventually become immune to and learn how to keep it from being a distraction.  There is about a 3 second break in our speech just long enough for my 3-year old Madisen to chime in with;

"Mommy! What are these two humps right here?  They got bigger!  How did they get bigger mommy?!"

When I look down, I finally realize that she has been poking and proding at my benumbed super wedges, and in addition to that, she has managed to unearth the edges of them from their unsuspected realm just enough to see them past the lace of my top. It is by a strength of my own character that I was able to turn the situation from a moment of mortal embarrassment to a memorable moment between friends.  Nonetheless, this is one of the correlational moments of parenting.

Our children are dirt makers, mistake pointer-outers, question-askers, privacy invaders, nerve shakers and in this case...vanity busters.

Rapture

It was a sweet intoxication to look into his eyes,
a sweet intoxication with a forboding...looming...reprise.

The taste, the touch, the power of the steeping, reaching air,
is the simply, sweet intoxications drastic nom de guerre.

The sweet turns to bitter, the bitter turns to sour
and then it comes the witching hour.

The Sweet intoxication of lovers losing all their dreams,
The Sweet Intoxication of their fights and angry screams.
The Sweet Intoxication escalates and rises,
Until it rips, until it tears and Intoxication loses all disguises.

The Intoxicated rhythm....the Intoxicated rhyme...
matched with the Intoxicated moments in an Intoxicated time.

The sweet Intoxication, not really sweet at all.
Has been the cause of hearts demise...
and has sweetly made them lose it all.

Notes to Myself...and to Those Who Might Need Them.

7.) You are subject only to what people tell you.  And nothing more. You may think that you have been given all the information, but always listen to the voice in the back of your head when it says that something is awry.  Listening to that little voice may someday be your saving grace, or the only umbrella from the rain (or in this case hail).  There is always more to the story.  What is left out could have been forgotten, but it may also have been an omission of a very stark reality. 

6.) The truth will set you free...or atleast make life easier. I have told lies in my life (especially lies of omission). They are never fun when happened upon by either party.  It would be in your best interest to come forth with your situation, no matter how shocking or unappealing, then to let it slap yourself or someone else in the face.  I have gained more respect by presenting an undesirable situation then by concealing it.  Hey, you know my past situation...I promise you that I could offer you some useful advice on yours, and I would deeply respect you for it. 

5.) We are two lost souls, swimmin in a fish bowl. But, we all know that we swam with someone else before...so what? And some people can swim better than others, eventually we all learn and there is no shame in the occasional mis-stroke.

4.)  Perception is not reality. A chihuahua seemed like a great pet....this was not so. My first ex-husband appeared to be sane....this was not so. Both my ex-husbands I believed had eternal love for me....this was not so.  I looked in his eyes and and thought I saw something real, something meaningful...and this was not so.

3.) Just because they don't wear a wedding band doesn't mean they're not married.  And we will just leave that one at that.

2.) You can't help someone if they don't confide in you.  No matter how much you want to, if someone hasn't asked for the help or volunteered the information you cannot go into their office and lay the wrongly acquired cards on the table.  They must have a reason for hiding that skeleton in the closet, especially after they have told you so much. 

1.) Always keep your guard up until the situation dictates otherwise. Yeah, it saved your ass this time Corporal. (<me.)

My Unexpected Cake

Love will always cause you pain.  There is expected pain, and there is unexpected pain.  I have experienced them both and I have to tell you, I'm not certain which one I would prefer.  I am experiencing the unexpected pain at the moment, and of course I think that the expected pain is preferable.  However, I remember thinking the reverse at the time that I was experiencing expected pain.

Expected pain comes from an event that you know is inevitable. Such as death, surgery, impending divorce, breakup, titty twisters, etc.  Unexpected pain comes from a source that was determined as passive and apathetic.  For example, the toe nail you clipped that shot into your eye or the coffee table that bruised your shin.  When I split up with my husband, and even prior to that when he was slowly detaching from our agency, I knew that the loss of said agency was going to be painful.  Now, I have met a man that is comprised of everything that I need, everything that I want, and everything I didn't know I wanted and needed..and he is beyond the scope of my grasp.

I shouldn't say that he is permanently out of my grasp, but for the time being, I don't see anything coming of it.  Don't get any ideas, he is not married.  Let me just tell you, that my personal moral code will never allow such a thing.  I can't give you specifics, because this is the world wide web, but just know that there is a barrier that seperates me from this potential suitor.  In addition to this obstacle, I suffer from a lack of ability of understanding why someone would choose me.  I realize that this is an oddity, I know that I am not an unattractive woman, and I know I am an intelligent woman, but I also have this uncanny ability to see everything wrong about myself.  I see the cowlick on my forehead, I see that I have a tendency to leave keys in the freezer, and I see (most notably) that I am a twice divorced woman with two children.  On top of all that, I am just a quirky individual.  I am nothing you expect me to be, and usually even more of what you wouldn't expect me to be.  I have come to find out, that when  you aren't what you are expected to be it is human nature to go find what you were expecting.  However, it is this phenomenon about myself that makes me think that I might just catch his eye....maybe?  He seems to thrive off of the quirkiness of life and the world, and yet he manages to maintain a mostly conventional air about him.  An air that, no matter how hard I try, I just can't breathe enough of it.

I need to take a moment and just lay a few of these things out.  He is incredible.  I feel like I could sit and talk with him everyday and never run out of things to talk about.  One thing I hated about my ex (one of them, ugh), is that you could never have a viewpoint that was beyond the borders of his own.  I do not act, or believe, or think traditionally.  I realize that there are many different beliefs and viewpoints in the world and I love discussing them.  So, I am sure that you can see how this could have been quite the cohabitation conundrum.  My lover boy certainly takes on the attitude of "agree to disagree", something I can highly appreciate.  His love of his pets, and the way that he speaks of them made me instantly blush.  I've never met a man with such an emotional attachment to anything, most especially a cat.  I've met men who speak of their wives and children with half of the affection.  When he talks about this cherished animal, you can see in his face the care for it.  All that went through my head was "I wonder what he looks like when he is looking at the face of a woman he loves."  His eyes are so intense, he can be talking about politics and economics and his eyes are still tyrannically intrusive and affecting.  I have had to make an effort to avoid the study of him, and let me tell you, I haven't succeeded in doing so.  I hang on his every word, and each day I desperately try to just let them go, but somehow I still remember every second of it and every aspect of the conversations we hold (no more details, I wouldn't want to come too close to making an identification).

I am a very focused woman.  I make a plan, I execute the plan with clear and decisive perfection, and I succeed.  I promised myself that I would focus on rebuilding myself and raising my children and that I would complete this first phase of my academics before letting a man in.  If he approached me tomorrow and offered to wisk me off my feet I know for a fact that I could never say no.  After knowing me for more than a mile, you will know that determination, perserverance and discipline are the most deeply rooted qualities that I hold, but he melts them (Damn it).  It is to the point, where I am experiencing a very audible pain over this matter.  There is such a meaningful connection and chemistry between us that I am hurting over this.  I can't find a flaw that would make him a "deal-breaker", and I can't alienate myself from him.  I know how to deal with expected pain, because I have dealt with it many times over.  But I don't know how to deal with unexpected pain.  I have felt unexpected pain many times throughout my life, and it has never fully died.  I lost my first boyfriend (who eventually became a very close friend) to a car accident. The pain of his death is always kept alive by regrets.  When Ryan and I broke up it was because we both knew that we were too young to be so committed to a relationship.  We thought it would be a good idea to break up and then get back together when we were both older and more prepared and capacitated to have a serious relationship...and then he passed away.  That pain will always live inside me because of the regrets that it is coupled with.  I don't know how my mystery man feels, but I do know how I feel.  I do know what I see and I always know what I want, and I don't want to live with another layer of pain added to my unexpected cake.

I can't approach him, I can't "confess" any of this to him.  There are several reasons for this, first of all, I believe in a more chivalrous tone of dating.  I respect the masculinity role that men should abide by, therefore, I feel he should start the talking.  Second of all, it just wouldn't be right for me to put him in a situation like that.  He has far more at risk than I do. I respect him and his position enough to leave it to his choosing what can and cannot be risked (that's to say that he would want to initiate anything, of his feelings and intentions I haven't a clue).  Lastly, I don't believe in impropriety and I firmly uphold professionalism and propriety, and an action like that violates all of these.

So what is the answer? Fuck if I know. (I was in the Marine Corps, step off)  I can't approach him and I can't not approach him.  So what is my answer?  For now, I will write a blog about it.  For now and for later, I will put faith in Providence as I always have before.  There is a God (which one, I'm not too sure), but he has shown his guidance of occurence more than once throughout my life.  So I will follow my path, and "pray" that I will never write a blog one day that uses this particular unexpected pain as an example that is coupled with a regret.

The Morning After

I woke up this morning and began my morning routine, as I do every morning(hence routine).  Except this time, I think about the loss of my blogger virginity and I realize that it is tantamount to waking up looking at someone new. Inside my mind it is a bustling managerie of questions, vulnerability and...regret?  All of them roaring and squawking to be ackowledged and affirmed.  So what's the answer to silencing the madness? Do it again; remind yourself of the satisfaction that it once provided you with the night before.

But let's back track my morning a little bit and track the "morning after" scenario. I am snuggled into my bed, clutching my body pillow in koala-fashion with my beloved Belley girl(my rhodesian ridge back/brindle boxer who is my most loyal companion in life) sleeping soundly on the side of my bed where my former husband once occupied. We are bitch-slapped into consciousness when my telephone rings at 0730. At first, I answer rather agitatedly until I hear my 3 year old on the other end of the phone,

"Hi Mama!  Do you miss me?"

"Of COURSE Baby! What are you doing this morning"

"Nuffin, Do you miss me lots?"

By this point, my heart has been reduced to a pool of melted  butter and I am choking back tears.  I will never get used to having some weekends alone and having "me time".  I have no one new and neither am I seeking someone new.  Well, that's not entirely truthful.  There is one person that I believe is a man made for me specifically, but that's a topic for another blog. When I became a mother, I signed over all my "me time" to the booger-eaters I committed to raise.  It goes against every motherly instinct which courses through my apron to put them in the car, kiss them goodbye and then go man-shopping.  And the fact of the matter is, I will not do it.  I'm not a super religious person, I believe in a God of some kind and was raised under the influence of christianity, and will most likely pass that to my children, but undoubtedly I believe in Providence.  Providence provided me with my two children and I became mother in heart, mind and reality and I am not going to let any part of the mother die off to pick up my spear and traipse the barstools for a penile replacement.  I want love again, but I won't remake the mother that I am to get it.  As parents, whether we like it or not, our children suffer the consequences of our actions and I will take every possible precaution to spare them that pain. Even though he doesn't love me anymore, I would lie next to him for the next 80 years if he wouldn't walk away just to spare them that pain.  But he is not me.

"I miss you mama, can you come see me now?"

"No baby, mommy can't see you right now, but I will see you in a few days. ok?"

"Ok...(I can just hear the down-turned lip of my estrogen defined child)I love you mama"

"I love you more baby"

"nu-uhhhh, I love you MORE (giggle giggle)"

"NUUUUUH-UHHHHHHH, I love YOU more....Bye baby, Love you to the moon and back"

"Bye miss you love you mama!"

Click. The conversation ends and I find myself having a threesome between me, my empty house and my blog.  All the questions about it being read by the wrong people, all the regrets over bandwagon jumping and all the boilings of vulnerability are all put to silence by the clicks and taps of my keyboard.