Elephant in my living room!

I can’t talk to M about much of anything anymore and it scares me.  We are moving so soon and so much rides on him for that…. 

I keep trying in a delicate, but honest, way to point out my concerns, but just like 13 years ago, everything is an “attack”.  Every word of concern gets met with, “I AM NOT A BAD PERSON!!  I AM NOT A BAD PERSON!!  I AM NOT A BAD PERSON” screamed repeatedly over my trying-to-stay calm voice and words, until I have no choice but to hang up the phone.  Obviously, this doesn’t result in anything productive and does the very opposite of reassuring my fears. 

This experience throws me clear into full force PTSD as I’m hurled instantly to 13 years ago…trapped, scared, nervous, with a 3 month old child to care for.  My knees shake, my head spins and the frustration at not being heard, not being counted, not being considered, not being able to even TALK is overwhelming and terrifying to my core.  What am I doing?

Mark, he who I’ve watched struggle and kick for years, fighting his way past and beyond all that once haunted and controlled him, is yet again unreachable, irreproachable, impossible to reason with. And I am left feeling two options:  return to that horribly handicapping environment which threatened my sanity or continue raising my children far away from their loving father.  

Even the choices alone don’t feel like choices.  They feel like steel walls closing in on me fast, boxing me in tight, with the “rules” written in graffiti all over them in bold black paint.  Rules from my childhood; rules from my relationship with Mark 13 years ago. 

The rules:

1.  No matter what M does or says, it’s always absolutely fine.
2. No one is to question, doubt, or worry about M’s behaviors or choices.  They are all as close to perfect as could possibly be.
3. No one is to point out (kindly or otherwise) any fears or, God forbid, discrepancies in Mark’s choices.
4. If you see an elephant in the living room, no one is to speak of it, question its presence, or for God’s sake call it an elephant.  Nothing is what it appears and only M knows what it really is, so he cannot be questioned or expected to communicate with the rest of us. 
5. It’s M’s world…only his reality counts…the rest of us are just graced with the opportunity to live in it…so SHUT UP.
6. If you speak or imply any of the above, it is a direct “attack on M” and he will kick and scream accordingly, deftly playing the offense is the best defense game to the point that you’re wasting every word you can actually get into the conversation, trying (in utter futility) to insist that you’ve not attacked or insulted M.
7. Every word you say that is not an ass-kissing “M, you’re the GREATEST!”  is, in fact, going to be considered an attack.
8. Your actual words will not ever matter.  They are ALL an attack on Mark, unless they are a direct and undisguised compliment of his person and character.
9. M will hear what M hears and it’s not up for discussion…  What M hears IS what you said, no matter how far off it may seem (to you) from what you’ve actually said.
10. Questions, doubts, fears (authentic or otherwise) will NOT be tolerated or spoken of EVER.
11. Unless you are complimenting M on how wonderful he is, you must SHUT UP AT ALL TIMES.

I am afraid.  I am rendered paralyzed to act and terrified to speak of my concerns…while the walls close in tighter on me.

Washed in a forgotten moment

There was one night…it was pounding rain in fat bullets from the sky.  We ran quickly in the house, but still we were drenched!   Tiny Jake was soaking wet and shivering. Grabbing a towel, I wrapped him up snuggly and tight like an infant swaddled.  And you…. You….  I could see directly into your heart through the look in your eyes.  It was big and warm, vibrantly green  and had rays of hope shooting from it like a starburst.  So bright and full, it shimmered all the way through your eyes, dusting me with a mist of sparkling light as you watched me drying Jake.

I could have sworn at that moment that love was not merely an intangible emotion or some silly concept for romance novels and love songs, but solid and as truly touchable as a soft, furry, smiling puppy… shivering and wet from the driving rain. 

Maybe that is why I still ache for you every time it rains…

Broken wings

She felt like a child still in so many ways…wondering why the world always seemed to roughly push against her when she tried to stand up for herself and expect to be treated like an equally important member of society…  It was so uncomfortable to stand up for herself against anyone for any reason at all and the slightest resistance or push back and she just crumbled…feeling more and more weak and pathetic. She often wondered why she was so easy to knock down?

As a child, she hadn’t been permitted the luxury of finding her own way, questioning authority, having opinions, or expressing  any type of individuality.  These things simply had not been permitted or tolerated in any form.  What evolved from this was a fearful person; one who fit smoothly into the world and so many lives of others merely because she wasn’t equipped with a backbone to go against the grain, much less, stand up for herself.  Although it sometimes seemed to her that she’d been born without a back bone, a genetic deformity of sorts, logically she understood her mother had removed it entirely over a slow and degrading 17-year-long process. A few times when it seemed  one might be trying to develop in her, it was quickly squashed and eliminated.  One did not question adults, either respectfully or otherwise.  No questions whatsoever.  One liked whatever one was given, one liked what other people liked if one wanted to BE liked or ever hope of being loved.   Always just smile and go along with it.  This made her an easy target for all types of abuse and manipulation. 

So at 5, she didn’t question the teenage boy who insisted she go into his bedroom with him every day.  She didn’t question the other babysitter either, an even older teenage girl  who manipulated her even further.  She didn’t question the elementary school janitor who groped beneath her panties after school.  They were so much older and she desperately wanted to be a “good girl”.  She wanted to be liked and thought well of and maybe if she was ever good enough, someone would come along who could love her.  And anyway, she learned from a very early age that if you didn’t like something, you’d better keep your mouth shut and pretend to or it promised to get far worse.  Plus, she didn’t want to be the fussy, problem child.   God forbid she be an insolent, precocious type child who disgusted the adults with sass or youthful curiosity! She longed for love and acceptance..ached for it actually from her earliest memory on…  Thus, she never questioned or argued, never pushed back against any type of authority…no matter how uncomfortable or wrong it felt.  She didn’t suffer from a lack of identity, inner strength, or sense of righteous indignation, she simply never was permitted to develop any from the beginning.  She was always a chameleon, learning to quickly change colors and quietly blend in with whatever color seemed safest in any given circumstance or moment.  Somewhere buried inside her was envy of those people and children who had no trouble speaking their minds or pushing back against an authority figure if they did something which seemed wrong.  She envied them the security that came from knowing if they just did the right thing for themselves, someone bigger and more powerful would be there to support and protect them.

Ironically, the catch-22  started hitting her early.   She was so hungry for love and affection, any type of acceptance would be welcomed. This must have been obvious and she was often treated cruelly by her peers or friends.  She early on became the common door mat for many to wipe their frustrations and insecurities.  When she was hurt and tried to  discuss this with her mother, desperate for some consolation, compassion and perhaps even just a little sense of support,  mother would yell at her for letting people treat her badly.  This was always so confusing! She wasn’t supposed to expect better, much less demand anything better, right?  Be quiet and content with what you have, or else…it will only get worse.  All she knew for certain is she wanted to feel loved and had to be quietly unassuming and accepting so it  would not get even worse.  

After she left mother’s home and had her very first official boyfriend, she soon realized she had attracted a violent man.  A Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde type man who worshipped and adored her more than she’d ever experienced before, but also would get very angry if she upset him intentionally or otherwise.  This was especially hard for her to handle with any self-respect.  There was the back-bone issue of course, mixed with the open affection and love that flowed freely in moments when her boyfriend wasn’t angry with her.  She knew she wanted more of that, in fact she felt a bottomless pit of need for this love.  How could she walk away from the first person who loved her enough to defend her to others, even if he did physically attack her himself?  At least he didn’t allow anyone else treat her badly.  He loved her most of the time and at least this way the cruelty only came from one person, instead of several.  This was better than anything she had ever known before!

After a few years of his random and violent beatings she realized she must escape soon when he started openly threatening her life if she tried to leave.  She turned to her mother for help… scared and begging for a place of refuge.  Mother said, “You’ve let him treat you like this for years now…so you deserve what he dishes out. You must like it to have stayed so long.  Give it a few years and then if I can believe that you’re really not going to go back to him again, maybe I will help you at that point.” 

Give it a few years?   He had recently forced her into his car and kidnapped her for an afternoon and another time recently had threatened her with a gun.  She never once called the police on him (not wanting to get him in any trouble), and when concerned neighbors would hear and called the police, they never helped.  In spite of her obvious busted lips and bloody noses, they would always say something like, “You two need to separate for a while and work this out on your own.” 

Dad would take one look at her black and swollen eyes and say, “Honey, what did you do?  You know how sassy you can be…you must have said or done something to really set him off this time.  You have to learn to watch your mouth, girl.”

Give it a few years?  The violence was escalating amazingly fast.  She had no where safe to run and she didn’t believe she would last another few years.

In this desperation, she did what she had to do to get free and after a few years of counseling later in life, she realized that mother hadn’t allowed her to have a backbone or to develop any self-respect and then punished and criticized her further for being “weak”.   No one was ever going to stand up for her and she didn’t have the strength or self-confidence to ever stand up for herself, she wanted to be loved too much to ever take that chance.  It was a no-win situation.  She was the world’s punching bag, literally and figuratively… and she could never lose the fear that if she didn’t learn to accept this, it could always get worse.

With this innate sense of constant fear and drastic lack of self-respect or entitlement, she set out in life, mostly hoping not to be noticed much and praying someone safe someday would.

The unmistakable waste of regret

 

I wonder how he feels…what it must feel like to lose someone in that time, in that way?  It hurts inside me to ponder this as Mother’s Day approaches in spite of the fact that it’s a Hallmark holiday.  I wonder this all year really.  It just seems to become more pronounced at this time.

He said I was “so much like her”.  He said she was always doing kind things for people and getting hurt and taken advantage of.  He said it made him so mad to remember her standing at the sink doing dishes every day and how he wished he had offered to help or told her to sit down and let him do them.  It was the only time I heard regret in his voice, shouting through his soft and nonchalantly spoken words.  The only time ever when he was sober and before we ended. 

A few times in his late-night intoxicated visits after, I distinctly heard regret in his voice, in his words, and could even see it in his eyes.  His regret for the mass of hateful stories he told his friends and family about me and could not rescind.  His regret at the scars on my face which he readily acknowledged were not there until after we separated and after the torture began.  A few times of regret at his very arrival to me.  He is unlike me; he is not a man of regrets.  And I must wonder if those regrets were mere manipulations from a man who deeply understood how to get away with abusing my spirit….all it takes is to create the tiniest of  sympathies and my heart, no matter how angry or hurt even just prior, would soften to jello and ache for him.  It could even ache for how he hurt me, when he hurt me,  as he was hurting me…

Otherwise, he was never a man of regret, except that one time…about her.  So naturally I think of him this time of year and I think of her, the woman in his life who was so forgiving and so easily taken advantage and regretfully taken for granted.

I never asked him any questions about her.  I really didn’t know how to broach such a horrible subject of which I had no experience and no way to ease the pain, except with my love…with my devotion…  After such a horrible loss, these things didn’t seem to qualify. So I never asked…

I wish I had asked him questions.  I never knew here and yet she has visited me in a few dreams.  I can sense her thoughts it seems sometimes and I know that it can’t be, but I’d swear I can…  I miss her for him and I didn’t even know her.  I pray he doesn’t hurt too much today.  I pray that today he has a woman’s love and devotion whom he trusts not to ever hurt him, disappoint him… or leave him.

He has never been a man of regret, while I am nothing much but a regretful woman whose regret was never enough.

Tweet-tweet memories

Early morning,  birds chirping….so many memories…

She was a junior in college, working the swing shift at a casino in Mississippi…driving home with Jennifer at 4 am, laughing,  feeling so brave, fresh, young, self-confident, and maybe just a teensy bit cocky!  Arriving home at daybreak and lulled to sleep by tiny spirited chirps.  Birds chirping sweetly mean freedom and independence and they whisper softly to you in your dreams that life is just beginning…

Later, she was married…waiting and worrying through sleepless nights for him to arrive home safely.  Sitting up with exhaustion night after night as she heard the birds sweetly start chirping, like an alarm clock confirming another full night of his absence…wondering why…  Wondering what…  Remembering his stories of frighteningly excessive cocaine use and bird chirping confessions regarding his first wife.  Realizing that this alarm clock no longer brought happy thoughts of freedom and a life unwritten, full of opportunities to create future happy memories.  Now this charming sound indicated it was long past time to lock the door.  Yes.  Lock the door.  Birds chirping sweetly mean your husband is still using drugs and your marriage might be a terrible mistake.

Some years and a nasty divorce later, she often stayed at his house.  Him….the only him for her.  The one who brought joy to her simplest thoughts and hope from her worst fears.  The one who showed her how  to smile while sleeping and taught her to wake with excitement and promise…the only one. She loved that he would wake early and go fishing…  Birds chirping sweetly as nature’s background music as he made love to her.  He hated leaving her alone in his bed and simply had to have her in the wee early mornings when watching her sleep made him want her more than anything else in the world… Sometimes it seemed more like a dream and the gentle chirping reassured her this was no dream….he was real and he loved her.  Kissing her softly on her still sleepy mouth before he left, she would linger in the land between dreams and reality waiting for sleep to return….knowing that when she next awoke it would be to his adoring smile and passionate, I-missed-you-so-much-before-the-sun-came-up this morning wake-up kisses.  Birds chirping sweetly mean that you are the luckiest, most loved and adored woman on earth and bring millions of kisses….kisses that taste like falling deeply in love  and smell like the fresh ocean breeze.

Pink Converse Conversation

Spring cleaning and preparing for the big move and naturally, my (self diagnosed and labeled) Nostalgic Disorder clicks into high gear!

Pink Converse:   Remember us?  Don’t put us into that donation box!  NOT us.  Look at us… Date #2:  You met him at the boat dock to go fishing wearing us. You looked so cute in whatever else you wore that day, who really remembers?  But..but..but….  you could never forget that huge grin that spread across DK’s face as you walked up to his dock, just a little nervous, and with that gargantuan gorgeous smile, he said and we quote,  “You wore pink Converse!!!  Oh my God, I LOVE it! You are truly just too  beautiful!”

Remember how every teeny bit of your nervousness just instantly vanished?  It made it worth how much you struggled to put us on.  Wearing us was worth every swear word and every minute of the 7 minutes it took you to put us on.  And you fished and fished…and laughed…and kissed…and looked at each other with those knowing looks of a long, happy future of these fishing escapades…and the happiest ending that was ever written!  You even caught a gigantic (or so it seemed!) salmon – your first EVER, we might add!  The very same salmon which he cleaned and cooked for the romantic dinner you had that very evening.  Candles flickering, wine flowing as fast as the laughter and as smoothly as falling in love. 

Look here!!  We perfectly represent the perfect date.  You must keep us forever.  Even if just for the glorious memories.

Holding them up in the air to admire them I say, “Oh shut up you stupid shoes!”  Into the donation box you go…..

Thank you and good luck.

Tiny deaths of devotion

He showed up Friday around 2 am.  First time since the letters the girls sent.  I somehow knew he would or at least, had this sneaking hunch.  That’s rather typical, but more interesting is that Lexi somehow “knew” he was coming too.  Said she’d felt that all day long and instead of staying at a friends’ house as we had planned, actually decided to come home with me.  She told me the next day that she’d had the feeling he was coming all day the day before.  I think he intuition is far stronger than mine could ever be because she believes in herself and I’ve taught her to trust that voice inside.  So interesting to contemplate the similarities between us and the differences within those similarities due to vas environmental experiences.

So, I really felt he was coming.  We hung out for awhile debating whether he could stay or not.  I told him Lexi could not see him here under any circumstances.  That’s when he went into talking about Lexi’s letter and how he didn’t want to ever “damage” them, but that he’d only been here “once”.  For the love of God…are you kidding me??    I said, well, you might only remember once because you’re always drunk, but the girls and I are always sober and we remember 30 times easily.  What do you mean “once”??  It must be such a convenient gift to have memories only of our choosing.  I sure wish I were so blessed!!

So, after mild debate, I drove him straight home.  No sex..only a few kisses in the kitchen before we left and a few in the car in his driveway.  I felt really proud of myself for this, but sad too.  I would have loved to sleep and wake up next to him….but I chose not to regardless how much I would have loved that in the moment.

And here is where it gets  irrevocably disgusting:  Had lunch with my boss Monday.  She asks if he came over Friday.  I said “Yes, gosh how did you know?!”  She says she saw him out at the bar.  Hitting on everything there that has at least 2 teeth, stumbling around lost, and barely functioning while throwing himself at any female whose path he crossed intentionally or otherwise.  My boss said she was disgusted and desperately wanted to go up to him to say,”Sober up and go to her.  Stop this ridiculous garbage.  You have a wonderful girl who adores you and waits for you.  What the hell’s the matter with you?  Get over this and go to her.” 

Apparently his good buddies he was with just walked around laughing at him throughout this.  That makes me so mad!  My friends actually care more about his dignity and self respect than his own “good buddies”.  How sad!  And that’s only because they know of the man he once was.  My boss is now thoroughly disgusted in spite of all the wonderful things about him I’ve told her over the years and literally feels sorry that I love him at all.  She would now be about the 100th person to say to me directly, “You deserve SO much better than him.  You could way better than someone like that.”

And after he was rejected by every nasty and maybe-not-so-nasty(?) bar fly, he came straight to me.  He must have walked.  My boss said his friends were still there and suddenly he was gone.  He must’ve walked those few miles straight to my house.  I think of how sad I was that I didn’t hold him or make love to him or wake up with him.  …How it bothered me all weekend that I’d had to pass on one of the few deeply happy moments I can still experience (however pathetic it might be).  And then I think of the only reason he was here was because he was rejected by everything else and that it sure wasn’t for a lack of trying.  And I want to vomit that he comes to me and I struggle with the choice to reject him and I hurt for days afterward for making the “right” choice and not the choice I so want…  My daughter was the only reason I found the strength to succeed in making that choice.

Do I dare say that I felt the tinies bit of devotion to him die?  I’ve hesitated to even document this experience/information regarding him at all because if it doesn’t die at least a little…then I’m truly the most hopeless female that has ever walked the earth.  Yet, my fear that it won’t be enough lingers in my gut, surrounded by excuses and memories of the incredible human being he once was…tempting me to distort it all and color it inside my pink fluffy bubble of lasting love and devotion.  It’s not as though this is the first “unsavory” story I’ve heard in the past three years of this nonsense.  In fact, it’s one of the more typical.  Sadly, there are many far more disgusting.  I just feel the need to protect my love for him and not give them the validity of writing them down anywhere.

I do have enough hope this moment to almost believe that yes, a teeny-tiny piece of adoration for him has died.  Which I’m praying lasts long eough to give me the strength to see him without the deceptively loving and forgiving glasses I always wear.  Maybe even the deepest devotion can actually die incrementally in time with enough disappointment, deceit, disgust, and manipulation?  Have I knicked the surface even?  Do I dare completely give myself that possibility- that hope?

I desperately would like to think that if he came back to me this very second, begging and sober (too many times he’s done this drunk!), that I would be able to say with confidence and conviction, “I love you with everything in me that is pure and true Dave, but I do not choose to be with you again.”

That is my prayer.  To be able to say it and mean it…and not feel like  my heart is dead inside my chest as soon as the words come out and I watch him walk away….  If that is God’s will of course.

Heaven help me.  Thank you.

Cinnamon

Once I drenched myself, my home, even my car in cinnamon because I thought it would be magical.  In spite of the fact that cinnamon isn’t my favorite scent, I think I read somewhere that it was best.  Everything had the lingering delicious softest scent of cinnamon and almost by chance, there were hints here and there of vanilla.  Cinnamon is magical isn’t it?

Yes, it was magic, magical, enchanting, breathtaking, captivating, and beautifully profound.  It was all of that.  You were the catalyst of magic!  Or was I?  …It was I who carefully selected the scent and all the components, I who thought it through so thoroughly and you who just showed up to participate. Of course you did, I am cinnamon magic.  Magically cinnamon…

And nothing changed… it was just another another.  No more than that. 

Cinnamon hopes sent back to the beginning when there was everything and nothing but the smell of cinnamon.

The filthy stain on my heart

 

You know that I am quite small and my heart is big.  The only thing larger might be my  conscience and sense of guilt and responsibility.  You may be bigger than I but I am much bigger than you on the inside.

You dangle forgiveness in front of my nose so closely that I can smell its invigorating scent; almost tasting its saving grace…  But you do not let me hold it except brief moments when you drop it unexpectedly in my lap like a prize from a carnival game.  Overwhelming me with its presence and as I slowly realize it is right there, you snatch it away…running off while tossing insults at me about things you don’t even know.  Please keep your insults to what is real and fact, although I understand at this point you know very little about me and understand even less.  It must be challenging to find valid insults.  Your brief glimpses at me do not expose many of my faults, but they are there.  I am not hiding them and I am not ashamed.  I no longer chase the elusive forgiveness you dangle.  I know it is merely a tool you use to torture me, like mother dangling a moment of freedom in my face before  locking the door and tossing away the key. 

I do not want your forgiveness.  I do not need it.  I am forgiven.  I Am the forgiven.  You do not hold the power of forgiveness any more. You never did.  That was an illusion I had in the chaos of love and mistakes.  I can’t know if I see clearly now, but I do know that my eyes are starting to open and see you for what you are.  It’s so ugly it’s painful to see and it rips at my memories, creating questions of their validity.  You may be satan’s helper.  You may be the devil’s essence itself.  I may not ever know, but I know you are ugly through and through and in the presence of beauty you lost yourself and hungrily grasped at the only source of power you might ever have the chance to hold over it.

That is ugly.  You are ugly.   I leave you to dwell in the misery of your own making.  Get drunk and forget yourself.  Have sex with hundreds of unsuspecting victims or vixens in their own right.  I do not care.  Just go away.  Every time you come near, your sickness leaves a filthy stain on  my heart that takes months to scrub clean.  Stay away.  Do whatever you have to do.  Just do it somewhere else.

Rainy reflections

She drives by the only home she’s ever known.  It’s nothing special to look at; it’s rather small and non-descript.  It’s the only safe and permanent place in the world to her.  Only it wasn’t permanent.  She’s no longer welcome there.  It’s no longer her home.  She can’t go into the kitchen and fix dinner.  She can’t take the soft green blanket with the worn silky edges and snuggle up on the sofa on this rainy day.  It is not her home.  The blinds on the picture window are open and she remembers what it feels like to be inside looking out that window at the cars going by and the occasional neighbor walking their dog…  The memories of safety and happiness fill her with sadness.  She’s desperate for hope.  Craziness mixed with that sense of desperation  wants to roll around in the grass there and pretend for a minute she still belongs there…  Let go of every common sense factor and pretend for just a moment that she ever really belonged there…

Home.  Maybe a new home will be home?  If she focused on gratitude for a bigger, beautiful home, with a big kitchen; if she created a garden of her own in the big back yard of that other house; if she fixed dinners, helped with homework, laughed and cried, lived and loved to the extent she was able.  If she worked at every detail, cleaned night and day, organized and arranged to perfection…until it became home.  That was the desperate hope she held onto today as she drove by that house which was no longer her home.  Could another, “better” home ever replace what she still felt was her home?  She prayed it could.  If not, then what?  Can’t think about that…  It had to.  And she would just keep going until it did. 

Rainy days always made her deeply reflect and she hoped she’d never have to look at that other house again.  She didn’t want those memories anyway.  They weren’t real.  It had all been an illusion.  As the people in her life carried on, she wondered what that felt like..  She watched other people live, try, lose, and fall in love.  Work, play, regret, embrace…  It could be done.  People did it every day. She just had to figure out how.

So many blessings to count.  So many things to forget.  Time moved slowly.  Plenty of time to count her beautiful blessings and great joys…