July was mostly nondescript. But August was tough. Things at work had become immensely challenging. I was coming up against the one-year anniversary of the "I think we should divorce because I found text messages and you're a lying, cheating bastard" week. And while I didn't think that the anniversary would have that much meaning, as it turned out, it did. I was experiencing something like muscle memory - as we started to enter that week, I couldn't stop myself remembering what I was doing on those days or how things had played out.
I tried, I really tried, not to wallow. But it was truly like part of me was remembering it without my will. All I could do was ride along.
So one night during this exact week, almost a year to the day when we decided to divorce, and at the end of a particularly shiteous month – which I had told D all about, in a misguided effort to find comfort in the old familiar – he was dropping off Little One from yet another 2-3 hour stay at his apartment. After making small talk for a while, he looked at me anxiously and said, "I have something to ask you."
After the week I had at work, and the 2/3 glass of wine I’d already consumed, I looked at him with no reaction and said, "Okay, what?"
Now, I have to tell you – on the way home from work on this same day, a Friday, I had thought to myself two things: 1) I was very appreciative that D had been kind that week, and had listened to me about work and about a few other difficult things that had happened that same month, and 2) I had a very, very strong suspicion he would be asking me for something, because he knew my defenses were down.
This is what I had come to expect from D. It wasn’t a matter of lowered expectations, it was simply having learned to expect the worst from him.
And in this case, boy, was I right.
"I wanted to know if you could provide Sally with copies of the emails that you received from that anonymous emailer," he said. With a straight face.
My heart began to pound, but I showed no emotion. I could feel that old adrenaline rush begin in my chest and spread like hot lava to my extremities. I looked him calmly in the eye, steadying myself on the one piece of furniture nearby. "I’m not sure," I replied evenly. "Why would she need them?"
D became more uncomfortable, and started speaking quickly. "Her lawyer asked for them, it’s something legal, I don’t know, there’s something going on with mediation, it’s because of the divorce," he replied, rapid-fire. I didn't do it, the check is in the mail, it wasn’t me, is what this sounded like.
So, Sally the bellydancer wants something else from me. Interesting.
In this moment, I was so tired, I tried to approach indifference. I wasn't thinking clearly when I said, "I will have to see if I still have them. They're on my work account, so they might have been archived or deleted. I just changed computers, recently, too, so they might not be there."
This was, in part, true. I did have them in text – i.e. I had copied them into a word document – but I was not about to do that bellydancer any favors, especially when it was her anonymous emailer husband who had helped me in so many ways during the divorce.
He looked slightly disappointed, but said, "Oh, okay."
Me, tired, still hoping to fend off this latest request with kindness: "I’ll check my work computer on Monday," I said. I had no intention of doing so; I had copies of everything. But I just wanted to make this go away.
"You can’t check it from home or anything...?" he replied. To his credit, he was being cordial, but he had finally pushed me past my position on Indifference Corner. Now, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
"Look, D," I said politely. "This is a big ask you’re making here. I am happy to investigate whether I have them, as a favor to you, but that’s it."
"Okay, I understand, thank you," he said. But that wasn't enough for me. I had to keep going; now I was getting riled up.
"Great timing, by the way," I couldn’t help but throw in. He looked at me questioningly. "You know, there’s nothing more I like after a tough week like this than to get requests from Sally." Yep, I had jaywalked from Indifference Corner over to Sarcasm Street.
He was as chagrined as he knows how to be. "Oh. Crap. I’m sorry, you’re right. Geez."
He was being surprisingly non-confrontational, and that made me nervous.
Which is why his next requests were out-of-this-world batshit crazy, given what I had just said to him.
"By the way," he said, "Sally would like to meet up with you sometime soon to talk about Little One, and them spending time together when I have Little One," he said.
Now, this was not a surprise, as it was something we’d talked about before. I'd been doing my best to fend off her involvement with Little One by pushing off the inevitable. I hated thinking about her spending time with Little One. And D knew this. Again, I had to applaud him for his timing. Idiot.
"I understand," I said evenly, and slightly condescendingly. "I think it will be good for her and I to meet, since I have some rather big concerns about her character, given what happened last year. I mean, I do feel like I need to understand how much of that duplicity she was responsible for." To be honest, at this moment I wasn’t even sure that I did, but I knew this would a) make him squirm, and b) put off the discussion with her even longer.
He started to looked cornered and slightly defensive. "She doesn’t want to talk about that," he said quickly, and firmly.
Now, you have to understand my reaction. SHE doesn’t want to talk about THAT? Seriously? The woman who was texting my husband – sexting, I guess they call it – who was having intimate relations in my house with him, who made our divorce the shitstorm it became, whose husband was so pissed that he brought ME into HER divorce – really, SHE doesn’t want to talk about THAT?
You don’t say.
"Really," I stated, managing to keep most of the sarcasm out of my voice.
“Nope, she doesn’t,” he replied, completely serious. “She wants to focus on the now, and on her interactions with Little One, and with reassuring you that she will be a positive presence in Little One’s life.”
“Well.” I started to say something, then changed direction. “D, while I can understand why she might not want to have that conversation, I believe it’s important, since it informs me on who she is, what her level of responsibility is, what her character is. I don’t see how we can get away from talking about that.”
“Well, that’s not what she wants to talk about,” he replied.
Having walked up Sarcasm Street, I was now firmly on Victory Lane. “You know, that’s so interesting to me,” I replied. (We were having this entire discussion in polite, how’s the weather, modulated voices, with Little One playing in the room. It was at moments like this that I realized how far we’d come.) “It’s so interesting to me because, on the one hand, she wants me to provide her with documentation which led me to understand how you two were fluttering around behind my back, and on the other hand, she doesn’t want to discuss what those documents told me or what they mean.” I looked him in the eye. “You can see where that presents a rather distinct disconnect for me.”
He blinked. Like, his whole body blinked, not just his eyes. I had him, and he knew it.
And then, I finally realized, without any doubt: he’s been lying to Sally this whole time.
It was him, lying to both of us last year, and she really isn’t the villain after all. Dumb asses, all of us.
He remained silent, only nodding in agreement. So I asked him, “How much was she involved in all the lying and irresponsibility last year? How much does she know?”
His response was indirect, but told me everything. “She doesn’t know that you haven’t wanted her to see Little One.”
Oh my god, I thought. His whole relationship with her really IS predicated on lies. Oh, man, is she in for a ride. He had told her only that she couldn’t spend time with Little One because it wasn’t working time-wise, or because it was “too soon for Little One to see him with someone else.”
He had not told her that he had agreed, last November, in writing, to not have her anywhere near Little One until he and I had renegotiated a new understanding.
Wow. One wonders what else she didn’t know.
“I had a feeling that was the case,” I replied. On the outside, I was stoic. “So, like I said, I’m happy to have that talk with her, but it’s going to HAVE to involve some discussion of what happened last year. I’m not out to get you – I’m not out for vengeance. But it’s important for me to distinguish who she is, because right now I still have some pretty grave reservations about her, given her behavior last fall.”
He nodded, saying only, “I understand.” We then discussed a bit of why he wanted this conversation to happen, and how her kids would be involved with time spent with Little One. At one point, he actually said the words, “I have no desire to be around her kids at all. It’s just not going to happen.” I asked him if that was because of her own divorce proceedings, and he replied, “No, not really, sort of.” Yeeeeaah, okay.
Finally, I laid out what I needed as succinctly as I could: “If you, and Sally, want to spend time together with Little One, you need to create a structure for that time. And that structure has to be a responsible one, and it has to be adhered to. I want the both of you to understand this going in, and I want you to both be completely transparent with me about the time that is spent with Little One, what happens, who’s there, and have absolutely no lying about any element of it." D had started to tear up, but I had to keep going. I was almost done. "Last year only taught me that the two of you together are irresponsible, hurtful, and duplicitous. So I’d like you both to work to change that perception for me. Good?”
He nodded, as now he was crying in that way he does when he’s made to remember the bad things he’s done.
I was stunned that he had asked for the emails, even more that he thought he could get away with telling me that Sally didn’t want to “talk about what happened last year and wanted to focus on the now.” Sadly, however stunned I was, I was not surprised.
Of course, you have to understand by now, I’m no sucker. All I could think after he left was, Sure, buddy, I’ll send her those emails. I’ll just give her the URL to this blog and let her find them. And a myriad of other new discoveries.
You may have noticed that I didn’t exactly say “no” to him when he asked me for those emails. I waited to do that, a few days later, as if I had gone to work, checked my Outlook, and discovered, “Aw, shucks, I really don’t have those pieces of evidence anymore. Oops, sorry, bellydancer!”
What I did was, I casually told him, one night when he was dropping off Little One, “I don’t have those emails anymore.” He looked startled, then composed himself enough to say, “Oh, okay. Thanks for checking.”
Can you believe that this was NOT the last time he’d go and ask me for those emails?
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
35. Piercings, Patriotism, and Pride, Oh My
It was July 4, and it was my first post-divorced Independence Day. [Insert divorce joke here, go ahead.] As such, there was the "who gets Little One" question to consider. While I had spelled out the answer to this precise question in the parenting plan I'd spent months, and thousands of dollars, crafting, D almost never followed it. And that was fine with me - that meant that Little One was almost always with me. That was exactly how I liked it, and really how I needed it.
On this particular holiday, D offered to take Little One in the morning to go swimming at his apartment complex, and then he'd bring her back to my house for her nap. Then, that evening, we'd go - together - to our town's local fireworks display, hoping that Little One could make it to the late 10pm start time.
The first big revelation on this fine holiday came when I went to drop off Little One at D's house that morning. This is exactly how it went down. I know this because I wrote it down word-for-word, laughing and squelching my nausea even as I typed it.
D: "Little One and I were swimming the other day and she was wondering what I had on me. Because I got some more piercings, you know."
Me: [swallow] "Oh?"
D: "Yeah, you know, my nipples. So she was wondering what they were."
Me: [Complete and total poker face intact, showing no emotion or reaction.] "Oh? And what did you tell her?"
D: "I told her they were like earrings, but in a different place."
Me: [At this point, not sure whether I want to guffaw or throw up.] "Ok. Well, gotta go. See you two later."
I said goodbye to Little One, and turned. All I could think was, I need get out the door. Go down the stairs, go around the corner, show no emotion. Show no reaction as I get in my car and swiftly drive away. Then I pulled over and called three people, one of whom said, "No straight man over 40 gets his nipples pierced!!"
Precisely. Happy Independence Day, wheeee!
I had a good time regaling my new crew of friends with this story. My older friends already knew that D had a Prince Albert piercing, and a couple of tattoos, in addition to some ear piercings that (shockingly) had just become used again after years of atrophy. It was like his hard-edged, smoldery, bad-boy rebel was re-emerging...just in the body of a middle-aged man.
Ew.
Later that day, he dropped off Little One, and I made as little eye contact as possible. I really struggled with what to say, and then decided that saying nothing was the best possible option. I knew that what D had told me, and the way in which he'd told me, were both fashioned to get a rise out of me. And so I gave him nothing, and it felt good.
7:00 rolled around, and D came back over to the house to begin our "Family Fourth" outing. (I really just wanted Little One to have a nice evening with the two of us; she'd lately become keenly aware that there were very few times that the three of us were together, and she seemed to be looking for three-time. I wanted to give her that.)
Alas, on this night, it was not going to happen, which leads to big revelation #2 of the day. When D dropped came in, he was being, well, a temperamental douchebag. Critical of Little One and her every attempt to interact with either of us. Snapping at me or her for anything we said. Chewing the inside of his cheek. Pacing.
Knowing this mood of his - but now knowing that I had nothing to do with it, because really, I had no control over this guy, never had - I thought I'd just ignore it and let it pass. (While this was my best coping strategy, I also knew that this was hard for him, because I was no longer doing the "D, what's wrong? What can I do to help? Can I fix it?" routine that I'd become so accustomed to. Nope, this time around, I was letting him do his thing, waiting for him on the other side. But this time, he never got there. So I pushed a little.)
"Little One," I said, "Come say goodbye to Daddy, honey. He's got to go." I looked at D, who was looking at me with an absolutely amazed stare of wonder.
"What?" he said.
"I think Daddy's got to go, Little One," I continued, in the nicest, most regretful voice I could conjure. I looked at D, trying to silently convey the real meaning behind what I was saying.
Miraculously, he got it. And he at least had the grace to look chagrined.
"Mom's right," said D. "I have to go."
Little One looked at both of us. I feared that she might get frustrated about the fireworks, but she simply looked back and forth at both of us, looking kindly at her, and said, "Okay. Bye, Daddy."
He looked as shocked as I felt. Could it be that our three-year-old already knew how to manage him and his moods? Ugh. In that moment, and in many moments before and since, I hated him for that, for being the kind of father whose kid was going to have to "manage" him. What a prick.
But in this moment, Little One was watching carefully. So I escorted D to the door, smiled as he ambled out, still looking shocked. I felt proud of myself for being able to so quickly and covertly subvert his moodiness and its impact on me and my kid. I wished him good-night, then played with Little One until it was her bedtime. When the fireworks started up down the hill, booming and shaking the house, she didn't wake, and I didn't regret my decision to "suggest" that D leave.
No, not at all. Not on any level.
On this particular holiday, D offered to take Little One in the morning to go swimming at his apartment complex, and then he'd bring her back to my house for her nap. Then, that evening, we'd go - together - to our town's local fireworks display, hoping that Little One could make it to the late 10pm start time.
The first big revelation on this fine holiday came when I went to drop off Little One at D's house that morning. This is exactly how it went down. I know this because I wrote it down word-for-word, laughing and squelching my nausea even as I typed it.
D: "Little One and I were swimming the other day and she was wondering what I had on me. Because I got some more piercings, you know."
Me: [swallow] "Oh?"
D: "Yeah, you know, my nipples. So she was wondering what they were."
Me: [Complete and total poker face intact, showing no emotion or reaction.] "Oh? And what did you tell her?"
D: "I told her they were like earrings, but in a different place."
Me: [At this point, not sure whether I want to guffaw or throw up.] "Ok. Well, gotta go. See you two later."
I said goodbye to Little One, and turned. All I could think was, I need get out the door. Go down the stairs, go around the corner, show no emotion. Show no reaction as I get in my car and swiftly drive away. Then I pulled over and called three people, one of whom said, "No straight man over 40 gets his nipples pierced!!"
Precisely. Happy Independence Day, wheeee!
I had a good time regaling my new crew of friends with this story. My older friends already knew that D had a Prince Albert piercing, and a couple of tattoos, in addition to some ear piercings that (shockingly) had just become used again after years of atrophy. It was like his hard-edged, smoldery, bad-boy rebel was re-emerging...just in the body of a middle-aged man.
Ew.
Later that day, he dropped off Little One, and I made as little eye contact as possible. I really struggled with what to say, and then decided that saying nothing was the best possible option. I knew that what D had told me, and the way in which he'd told me, were both fashioned to get a rise out of me. And so I gave him nothing, and it felt good.
7:00 rolled around, and D came back over to the house to begin our "Family Fourth" outing. (I really just wanted Little One to have a nice evening with the two of us; she'd lately become keenly aware that there were very few times that the three of us were together, and she seemed to be looking for three-time. I wanted to give her that.)
Alas, on this night, it was not going to happen, which leads to big revelation #2 of the day. When D dropped came in, he was being, well, a temperamental douchebag. Critical of Little One and her every attempt to interact with either of us. Snapping at me or her for anything we said. Chewing the inside of his cheek. Pacing.
Knowing this mood of his - but now knowing that I had nothing to do with it, because really, I had no control over this guy, never had - I thought I'd just ignore it and let it pass. (While this was my best coping strategy, I also knew that this was hard for him, because I was no longer doing the "D, what's wrong? What can I do to help? Can I fix it?" routine that I'd become so accustomed to. Nope, this time around, I was letting him do his thing, waiting for him on the other side. But this time, he never got there. So I pushed a little.)
"Little One," I said, "Come say goodbye to Daddy, honey. He's got to go." I looked at D, who was looking at me with an absolutely amazed stare of wonder.
"What?" he said.
"I think Daddy's got to go, Little One," I continued, in the nicest, most regretful voice I could conjure. I looked at D, trying to silently convey the real meaning behind what I was saying.
Miraculously, he got it. And he at least had the grace to look chagrined.
"Mom's right," said D. "I have to go."
Little One looked at both of us. I feared that she might get frustrated about the fireworks, but she simply looked back and forth at both of us, looking kindly at her, and said, "Okay. Bye, Daddy."
He looked as shocked as I felt. Could it be that our three-year-old already knew how to manage him and his moods? Ugh. In that moment, and in many moments before and since, I hated him for that, for being the kind of father whose kid was going to have to "manage" him. What a prick.
But in this moment, Little One was watching carefully. So I escorted D to the door, smiled as he ambled out, still looking shocked. I felt proud of myself for being able to so quickly and covertly subvert his moodiness and its impact on me and my kid. I wished him good-night, then played with Little One until it was her bedtime. When the fireworks started up down the hill, booming and shaking the house, she didn't wake, and I didn't regret my decision to "suggest" that D leave.
No, not at all. Not on any level.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
34. June-uary Party
Up here in these parts, we have all kinds of names for the months we think should be nicer to us than they actually are. Take June, for example. As I may have mentioned at least twice, June is my birthday month. Therefore, it is special and sacred to me. Ergo, the weather must be nice.
Mother Nature, however, has a different idea during this time of year, most years. And so June has become "June-uary." The locals find it funny, until about the third week of the month, when they all start to bemoan their soggy existences, cry, and plot new lives in California which never actually happen.
When I returned from the East Coast Roadtrip Adventure, with my defensiveness mostly gone and my senses returned, I came back to some piss-poor weather. All through May, and into early June, the weather could only be described as nondescript. That is: it was gray, mid-50s to low-60s, and it didn't do much of anything except sit there. For weeks.
Well, fuck you, weather, I thought. I'm throwing myself a goddamn party this year. No, it's not a special birthday in terms of numbers or anything. But it's my first solo birthday in years, so get in line and get behind me because it's gonna be outdoors, yeah, that's right.
Here I was, at a rather inelegant, albeit empowered, place in my personal development. During the 6 months of downtime I gave myself post-divorce - and coming out of that successful 10-day journey up the East Coast, complete with facing my extended family - I had suddenly come to discover that I actually had some real power over my existence. And I could change many things about it, not just The One Big Thing.
As I sat in my house, the one I'd bought with D, there were many quiet moments, where I would just sit in my living room and listen - and I would hear only the electronic drone of Little One's monitor, and perhaps my kitty cleaning herself. And that was all. It was the most pure, most beautiful silence I could have conjured, and it helped me heal. There was no more D crashing through the halls, slamming doors, hitting walls, punching desks, throwing bottles. The black hole that I had so tried to keep from sucking up everything I cared about was no longer the center of gravity in my existence.
The biggest surprise was that I wasn't scared to be alone anymore.
Still, I felt a bit foolish, honestly, about throwing myself a party. I mean, I love cake, and I love presents, and certainly I love having them both in my honor. Another year, I might have thought my party-throwing tacky. Not this year. Hells, no, I was going to have a real party. And D was coming. That's right. I was going to invite that bastard, plus everyone we knew, and they could all see how things had played out. (I also knew that Little One would question why he wasn't there, so I figured, why not just bring him along.) And no, Sally would not be invited. I mean, I'm not a masochist.
So yeah, I still had the chip(s) on my shoulder. I admit it. But I had a lot to prove, mostly to myself, and I still cared a lot about what other people thought of me.
On the day of my party, we had our first sunny day in over four weeks. Four weeks! The temperature quickly rose to 70, and the flowers in the yard raced each other to bloom. And when dozens of people showed up at my house, played in my yard, celebrated my birthday with me, and made me feel like I might just be likable - I know, I know - it felt like the sun had decided to appear just for me, as a sign or something. As in, The sun's back out, so shine, lady, shine.
Okay, I thought. I will. And so began my journey to having a social life. I started to creep out of the quiet cave I'd carved out during the marriage and through the divorce. This birthday party, this crazy idea I'd had where I'd invite people and they would actually show up - that was the first step. Somehow, during my marriage, I'd become convinced that no one would want to hang out with me. Like, ever. So the fact that so many people came to my party was the first chink in that "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna eat some worms" armor.
Nobody at the party knew, but the truth was, the fact they'd all just showed up was the biggest present they could have given me. I was starting to make friends again. Like, real friends - not just people I would hang out with at work, but friends.
And D was well-behaved. That was the other present, having him there, and showing everyone - and myself - that we were all better off for the divorce. And hey, if anyone at the party thought that D was NUTS to have let me go, well - I wouldn't argue with them, certainly. But I needed them all to know that I was finally starting to see my way to real happiness. These people cared about me. I was astounded - I had friends.
So by the time August rolled around, I had plenty of people to tell about D's newest hijinks. What a maroon. But we'll get to that soon.
Mother Nature, however, has a different idea during this time of year, most years. And so June has become "June-uary." The locals find it funny, until about the third week of the month, when they all start to bemoan their soggy existences, cry, and plot new lives in California which never actually happen.
When I returned from the East Coast Roadtrip Adventure, with my defensiveness mostly gone and my senses returned, I came back to some piss-poor weather. All through May, and into early June, the weather could only be described as nondescript. That is: it was gray, mid-50s to low-60s, and it didn't do much of anything except sit there. For weeks.
Well, fuck you, weather, I thought. I'm throwing myself a goddamn party this year. No, it's not a special birthday in terms of numbers or anything. But it's my first solo birthday in years, so get in line and get behind me because it's gonna be outdoors, yeah, that's right.
Here I was, at a rather inelegant, albeit empowered, place in my personal development. During the 6 months of downtime I gave myself post-divorce - and coming out of that successful 10-day journey up the East Coast, complete with facing my extended family - I had suddenly come to discover that I actually had some real power over my existence. And I could change many things about it, not just The One Big Thing.
As I sat in my house, the one I'd bought with D, there were many quiet moments, where I would just sit in my living room and listen - and I would hear only the electronic drone of Little One's monitor, and perhaps my kitty cleaning herself. And that was all. It was the most pure, most beautiful silence I could have conjured, and it helped me heal. There was no more D crashing through the halls, slamming doors, hitting walls, punching desks, throwing bottles. The black hole that I had so tried to keep from sucking up everything I cared about was no longer the center of gravity in my existence.
The biggest surprise was that I wasn't scared to be alone anymore.
Still, I felt a bit foolish, honestly, about throwing myself a party. I mean, I love cake, and I love presents, and certainly I love having them both in my honor. Another year, I might have thought my party-throwing tacky. Not this year. Hells, no, I was going to have a real party. And D was coming. That's right. I was going to invite that bastard, plus everyone we knew, and they could all see how things had played out. (I also knew that Little One would question why he wasn't there, so I figured, why not just bring him along.) And no, Sally would not be invited. I mean, I'm not a masochist.
So yeah, I still had the chip(s) on my shoulder. I admit it. But I had a lot to prove, mostly to myself, and I still cared a lot about what other people thought of me.
On the day of my party, we had our first sunny day in over four weeks. Four weeks! The temperature quickly rose to 70, and the flowers in the yard raced each other to bloom. And when dozens of people showed up at my house, played in my yard, celebrated my birthday with me, and made me feel like I might just be likable - I know, I know - it felt like the sun had decided to appear just for me, as a sign or something. As in, The sun's back out, so shine, lady, shine.
Okay, I thought. I will. And so began my journey to having a social life. I started to creep out of the quiet cave I'd carved out during the marriage and through the divorce. This birthday party, this crazy idea I'd had where I'd invite people and they would actually show up - that was the first step. Somehow, during my marriage, I'd become convinced that no one would want to hang out with me. Like, ever. So the fact that so many people came to my party was the first chink in that "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna eat some worms" armor.
Nobody at the party knew, but the truth was, the fact they'd all just showed up was the biggest present they could have given me. I was starting to make friends again. Like, real friends - not just people I would hang out with at work, but friends.
And D was well-behaved. That was the other present, having him there, and showing everyone - and myself - that we were all better off for the divorce. And hey, if anyone at the party thought that D was NUTS to have let me go, well - I wouldn't argue with them, certainly. But I needed them all to know that I was finally starting to see my way to real happiness. These people cared about me. I was astounded - I had friends.
So by the time August rolled around, I had plenty of people to tell about D's newest hijinks. What a maroon. But we'll get to that soon.
Friday, March 18, 2011
33. The Reckoning (Part 2: The Deluge)
I have a large family, and most of them I don't see more than once a decade or so. (Except on Facebook.) This is not by design, it's simply a matter of distance: I moved West, they stayed East. I travel, they don't. When I travel, I don't always visit where they are. And so on.
For this grand event that I was attending in upstate New York - my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary, at a restaurant right on the Hudson River - I would be seeing nearly everyone who I'd ever really counted as family on my mother's side. That would be, oh, about 80-100 people in one place. About half of them had been at my wedding. And none of them - save two cousins, my mother's first cousins - had ever been divorced.
That put me in the 2% error band. Excellent.
There was one person missing, and that was my grandmother. For years, she'd been my biggest fan. And she'd died about a year before I'd filed for divorce. To be brutally honest, I was so keen to please her, I never really entertained the possibility of divorce until several months after her death.
I was nervous. We got there fairly early, so I'd be greeting everyone as they came in. My cousins were throwing the party, and I LOVE my cousins. They are a big part of my childhood, and I just adore them. So I was just going to have to have fun, no matter what. Then I realized what an asshole I was being, thinking only about me and how people would react to me.
Ultimately, what it came down to was, I had to get the hell over my big bad self. This was a party for my aunt and uncle, and I just needed to get a grip. So I did. But I still felt like I was poised for battle, ever vigilant, in case someone felt the need to judge.
I focused conversations on Little One. When people would ask me how I was doing, I'd say, "Great! And Little One is just fantastic." Pointing to her would invariably keep the conversation away from what I really didn't want to talk about: I had failed to keep my marriage together. They would judge me, I knew they would. Hell, judging is like a spectator sport in the Northeast. If you're not judgmental, you're just plain wrong.
And yet - there was something extremely liberating about just going balls-out in the face of it all. Part of me - this previously quiet, strong, let-it-all-hang-out side which I had narrowed down to the tiniest speck of my married existence - really wanted to just yell, "I'M FINE!!". I wanted them to know that I was just peachy, thankyouverymuch, and Little One and I were much better off without D.
Can you smell the defensiveness? It oozed out of me. So much so, that when one of the two divorcee cousins above said something she thought was supportive ("I know it can be really tough, I feel like I failed at my marriage") - what I said was, "Well, unfortunately, I couldn't change the fact that D is an alcoholic, and so I try not to feel like I failed." I cringe even now, knowing that it was all kinds of the wrong thing to say to her. I had worried myself into this constant state of rawness, and it was doing me absolutely no good.
Through the course of the day, though, I started to remember that I was among friends here. I got down off my defensive post, and started to breathe a little. No one treated me any differently. No one pointed at me and whispered at the pariah in the room. Other than simply asking me, "How're you doing?", they didn't treat me any differently than I remembered. My daughter was charming the crap out of everyone, dancing like a maniac on the dance floor with her older second cousins. And when I finally realized that I was actually having fun - for real, not just because I was intent on doing it to show everyone I was just peachy - I could feel my shoulders drop, and I could relax. My family are good people, and I was reminded of this fact again and again throughout the day.
I went outside for a few minutes, to enjoy the view from this particular restaurant. It sat perched on the Hudson, overlooking the cliffs and perilous roads across the river. Brown water swirled around the based of the rocky coast, and suddenly from the north came a huge military transport plane, a C-5, flying low down the river. It was enormous, and grand, and for a moment, I thought, I had to go get D and show him, he'll love this - and then I remembered.
This would continue to be a theme that would play out over time - allowing the black and white parts of the marriage and divorce to merge into varying shades of gray. But in this moment, realizing D wasn't with me, the moment became one of complete liberation. I stood there alone, and I watched that plane fly down the whole damn river till I couldn't see it anymore.
Because I could.
For this grand event that I was attending in upstate New York - my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary, at a restaurant right on the Hudson River - I would be seeing nearly everyone who I'd ever really counted as family on my mother's side. That would be, oh, about 80-100 people in one place. About half of them had been at my wedding. And none of them - save two cousins, my mother's first cousins - had ever been divorced.
That put me in the 2% error band. Excellent.
There was one person missing, and that was my grandmother. For years, she'd been my biggest fan. And she'd died about a year before I'd filed for divorce. To be brutally honest, I was so keen to please her, I never really entertained the possibility of divorce until several months after her death.
I was nervous. We got there fairly early, so I'd be greeting everyone as they came in. My cousins were throwing the party, and I LOVE my cousins. They are a big part of my childhood, and I just adore them. So I was just going to have to have fun, no matter what. Then I realized what an asshole I was being, thinking only about me and how people would react to me.
Ultimately, what it came down to was, I had to get the hell over my big bad self. This was a party for my aunt and uncle, and I just needed to get a grip. So I did. But I still felt like I was poised for battle, ever vigilant, in case someone felt the need to judge.
I focused conversations on Little One. When people would ask me how I was doing, I'd say, "Great! And Little One is just fantastic." Pointing to her would invariably keep the conversation away from what I really didn't want to talk about: I had failed to keep my marriage together. They would judge me, I knew they would. Hell, judging is like a spectator sport in the Northeast. If you're not judgmental, you're just plain wrong.
And yet - there was something extremely liberating about just going balls-out in the face of it all. Part of me - this previously quiet, strong, let-it-all-hang-out side which I had narrowed down to the tiniest speck of my married existence - really wanted to just yell, "I'M FINE!!". I wanted them to know that I was just peachy, thankyouverymuch, and Little One and I were much better off without D.
Can you smell the defensiveness? It oozed out of me. So much so, that when one of the two divorcee cousins above said something she thought was supportive ("I know it can be really tough, I feel like I failed at my marriage") - what I said was, "Well, unfortunately, I couldn't change the fact that D is an alcoholic, and so I try not to feel like I failed." I cringe even now, knowing that it was all kinds of the wrong thing to say to her. I had worried myself into this constant state of rawness, and it was doing me absolutely no good.
Through the course of the day, though, I started to remember that I was among friends here. I got down off my defensive post, and started to breathe a little. No one treated me any differently. No one pointed at me and whispered at the pariah in the room. Other than simply asking me, "How're you doing?", they didn't treat me any differently than I remembered. My daughter was charming the crap out of everyone, dancing like a maniac on the dance floor with her older second cousins. And when I finally realized that I was actually having fun - for real, not just because I was intent on doing it to show everyone I was just peachy - I could feel my shoulders drop, and I could relax. My family are good people, and I was reminded of this fact again and again throughout the day.
I went outside for a few minutes, to enjoy the view from this particular restaurant. It sat perched on the Hudson, overlooking the cliffs and perilous roads across the river. Brown water swirled around the based of the rocky coast, and suddenly from the north came a huge military transport plane, a C-5, flying low down the river. It was enormous, and grand, and for a moment, I thought, I had to go get D and show him, he'll love this - and then I remembered.
This would continue to be a theme that would play out over time - allowing the black and white parts of the marriage and divorce to merge into varying shades of gray. But in this moment, realizing D wasn't with me, the moment became one of complete liberation. I stood there alone, and I watched that plane fly down the whole damn river till I couldn't see it anymore.
Because I could.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
32. The Reckoning (Part 1: The Setup)
[Hello, all. I've been dating, and trying to put this whole "divorce thing" behind me. Turns out, that's not so easily done. And so I return to this saga in the hope that I will cast out these remaining demons. Bear with me, Dear Readers.]
As you know if you have read, like, any of this blog (including the title), Facebook has been a constant presence in this story. Before, during, and after the divorce, Facebook became the pivot point for many of the interesting twists and turns.
There is one particular knife twist, which is what happened when Facebook changed some of its settings, and how information was displayed to your Facebook friends. This was roughly, oh, October of 2009. We suddenly went from simple status updates to things called "news feeds." News feeds contained information about things you'd recently done. "Penelope B. is now friends with Jackie O." That sort of thing. It was magical. (Not really, but then again I've never really understood why Facebook feels the need to tinker. Alas, I am no Zuckerberg.)
In November of 2009, during the week of the big "Don Jeremy Fake Facebook Account and Ensuing Discovery of the Affair" affair, I suddenly decided I was going to change my relationship status, and fuck all to D if he noticed. Well, he didn't.
Unfortunately, many, many of my relatives did. Because now, the "News Feed" (and - this was certainly news) read:
"Penelope B. is now single." [heart]
Did I know this at the time? Nope. The way I discovered this was when my mother called me to ask why my cousin had just called my aunt, with the question, "Is Penelope getting a divorce?" This question, unfortunately, came as a great surprise to my aunt. Which, by the way, came as a great surprise to me, since my mom had told me she would take care of telling her sister (said aunt). Long story short, yeah, that hadn't happened.
But Facebook's news feeds sure did! Oh boy, did they ever. And so this is how most of my extended family - the very people whose opinions of this entire matter mattered most - found out that I was getting a divorce.
By a fucking Facebook news feed. Oh, Facebook. You are a fickle bitch. While I quickly deleted the post once I knew it existed, the damage had been done. A couple dozen of my most important family members had found out about my divorce from a news feed. [Give me a moment here to, again, hang my head in shame.]
I knew them all well enough to know that they'd forgive me for it. What they'd have a harder time with was trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me. And these folks were all waiting for me - all 50 or 60 of them, at one big, giant party - in upstate New York. As we made our way up the coast, I became more and more agitated. The text message from Mr. Anonymous had reminded me that, even thousands of miles away, I was still beholden to the reality that I had divorced my husband. And this, Dear Readers, was something that just simply isn't. Done. In. My. Family.
So, we drove. Little One was a dream, my mother was understanding. I was simply panicked.
As you know if you have read, like, any of this blog (including the title), Facebook has been a constant presence in this story. Before, during, and after the divorce, Facebook became the pivot point for many of the interesting twists and turns.
There is one particular knife twist, which is what happened when Facebook changed some of its settings, and how information was displayed to your Facebook friends. This was roughly, oh, October of 2009. We suddenly went from simple status updates to things called "news feeds." News feeds contained information about things you'd recently done. "Penelope B. is now friends with Jackie O." That sort of thing. It was magical. (Not really, but then again I've never really understood why Facebook feels the need to tinker. Alas, I am no Zuckerberg.)
In November of 2009, during the week of the big "Don Jeremy Fake Facebook Account and Ensuing Discovery of the Affair" affair, I suddenly decided I was going to change my relationship status, and fuck all to D if he noticed. Well, he didn't.
Unfortunately, many, many of my relatives did. Because now, the "News Feed" (and - this was certainly news) read:
"Penelope B. is now single." [heart]
Did I know this at the time? Nope. The way I discovered this was when my mother called me to ask why my cousin had just called my aunt, with the question, "Is Penelope getting a divorce?" This question, unfortunately, came as a great surprise to my aunt. Which, by the way, came as a great surprise to me, since my mom had told me she would take care of telling her sister (said aunt). Long story short, yeah, that hadn't happened.
But Facebook's news feeds sure did! Oh boy, did they ever. And so this is how most of my extended family - the very people whose opinions of this entire matter mattered most - found out that I was getting a divorce.
By a fucking Facebook news feed. Oh, Facebook. You are a fickle bitch. While I quickly deleted the post once I knew it existed, the damage had been done. A couple dozen of my most important family members had found out about my divorce from a news feed. [Give me a moment here to, again, hang my head in shame.]
I knew them all well enough to know that they'd forgive me for it. What they'd have a harder time with was trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me. And these folks were all waiting for me - all 50 or 60 of them, at one big, giant party - in upstate New York. As we made our way up the coast, I became more and more agitated. The text message from Mr. Anonymous had reminded me that, even thousands of miles away, I was still beholden to the reality that I had divorced my husband. And this, Dear Readers, was something that just simply isn't. Done. In. My. Family.
So, we drove. Little One was a dream, my mother was understanding. I was simply panicked.
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