Time Heals Everything

This whole breakup thing is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I guess I’ve been a little detached of late. I’ll admit it’s been fun playing the role of the glamorous divorcee, much easier than playing myself right now but the reality is beginning to sink in and it’s not such fun anymore.

The web is full of advice on how to get you through your breakup. Doesn’t matter who’s giving it There seems to be an inordinate amount of 19 years old out there giving advice on how to get past a breakup. MY GOD! I remember how painful everything seemed at that age and how much the world revolved around you and how each new love, was the great love, no matter if it lasted a week or a weekend. How I made it 41 without ever having a tragic breakup I’ll never know. Dumb luck or lack of commitment? 

So it seems there are natural steps of grieving that one has to go through after the death of a significant relationship. And also some pretty clear steps one has to work through to move forward. I thought somehow I was a little further ahead. To be honest, I’d been mentally preparing myself to leave my relationship for a long time. Months? Years? Hard to pinpoint the exact date? The first time he disappeared on me for days without calling and I realized what loving someone that still had a drug addiction really mean? Over the years, he grew stronger, he tackled his demons one by one and the disappearances became less frequent but somehow more unsettling when I’d live six months or more without a glimmer of trouble and then suddenly he’d be on his way home from work and never appear for two days. Was he dead this time? Did he have a seizure behind the wheel? An awful uncertain way to live but when 99% is so right and so easy, it’s disturbing what we’ll put up with in that other 1%. 

So I thought I was further past it, when he broke it off I was ready to be free. However, today the awful reality of what that meant began to dawn on me. Now, if you don’t like to hear spoiled people whining, please skip ahead to the next paragraph, if  you care to indulge the self-indulgent than by all means, read on. I’ve become accustomed to a certain standard of living. We have a lovely home in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. (San Francisco), with a huge backyard on a private street, high up on a hill (no view though). We own property in Hawaii (in which all my money is annoyingly and illiquidly tied up right now).  I drive a moderately fabulous car (BMW 325ci - I’m not really a car person but it feels so nice to slip behind the wheel), we entertain, love fine wine, travel infrequently but when we do we stay in the best hotels and I wouldn’t be caught dead in Economy for a long flight. My mother always said I had champagne taste on a beer budget but thanks to Dear’s income and mine combined - depending on the year - we’d often had a champagne budget to go with our taste. However, I make about a third of what he does and now I’m faced with the crashing reality that I’m going to go from penthouse to chicken coop since rents are astronomical right now (higher than a mortgage). Now don’t get me wrong, I make a lot of money. Enough to keep 6 families of migrant workers in comfort for many years, yet somehow I never seem to have a penny. It’s tied up in paying off back taxes and a very pricey trip to Peru last fall (that was supposed to be a big surprise and “Thank You” to Dear for letting me take two years off from work to write a mystery novel). And it’s those two years off, that we’re both still trying to financially recover from. I just didn’t expect to be thrust out on life’s mercy. Do they give food stamps to people who make 6 figures?

So all today I fretted and worried and got more and more anxious about what comes next. I don’t expect to be living in the same style as our home with it’s steel faced fireplace, Wolf stove, grand piano and slate shower. All I want is a place that feels like home. My own place where I can start creating the next stage of my life. Where I can figure out who I am again (and have lots of sex), with parking  (I’m the world’s worst parker), allows cats and walking distance to friends and a cool neighborhood. Not too much to ask, I hope. 

So I was in the middle of this muddle and got home tonight in quite a frenzy that such a place didn’t exist and even if it did, I wouldn’t be able to make it on my own. It was in the midst of that mindset that I came home to a barren cupboard. My natural reaction, when faced with dining alone would be to order out (I love to cook for others but I don’t find inspiration for cooking for one) however I knew I’d need every penny (literally- I’m rolling change every spare chance I get).  So I thought, what the hell, I’ll make meatloaf and really stretch my dimes.

So I headed out to store to get what I needed.This is when my night turned suddenly horrific. I wasn’t in the store two minutes when I ran into Dear. I was shocked. He and Twitch were shacking up on the other side of town. What was he doing here? Granted, it was the best supermarket in town but it was OUR market by OUR house. And then I realized that HE must be there as well. I can’t accurately describe the host of emotions that coursed through me. My face froze and it felt like the floor had collapsed from under me. Dear, seeing my distress, assured me they were going, that it wouldn’t happen again and left the store. I rushed around trying to get my few measly purchases and forcing my mind off the fact that that horrible, horrible person was in MY store. And then it happened, I turned down the wrong aisle and there HE was standing at the register. He saw me and I saw me. I felt time freeze and then my body took over without thought. I knew my first reaction was to scream out at him across the store “HOMEWRECKER!! HOME-WRECK-ER!!!” and through my peanut butter at him or smack him in the head with my umbrella, however, good sense took over or more likely panic, blinding panic and I threw my basket on the floor (breaking four tiles, I later found out), rushed out of the store, rain slashing down, got behind the wheel and drove home in the same manner of frantic hysteria Lana Turner so accurately portrayed in “The Bad and The Beautiful”. I was beyond rational thought. I was pure emotion and it raged and heaved out of me.

It was all suddenly, painfully too much. I could deal with that awful, hideous person stealing my husband and my home and my life but I couldn’t have him steal my supermarket.

And worst than all of that. I realized today that I’ve lost my future. The future that we created together. One dream at a time. Little dreams and compromises, over time weaving a history that worked for us. Was it all I dreamed my life would be? It was parts. And the parts he loved, that weren’t spun from my dreams, felt at home because we were working on creating this road together. Suddenly, I have no road. The future history I’ve spun myself is no longer a dream I can dream. So how long before I start spinning new dreams for myself? And will I ever feel trusting enough to so tightly entwine my dreams with another’s?

I hope so. 

 

Sex Alert #1 - Latin Boy with crazy roommates

So I’ve just had my first post breakup sex (unless you count that blowjob I got from our drunken friend at our other friends housewarming party - which I’m not). So tonight I went over to this boy’s place and had a quickie. It would have been a longie but his roommates who were supposed to have left for Hawaii were still there stalking up and down the halls, counting the doorknobs or something. My rebound lover apparantly attracts guys who are having their first post breakup fuck and I could see why. Totally adorable, 30, hot smooth little number with a waist I could get my hands around, a priceless ass I have yet to explore and a nice fat cock that he used quite brilliantly. The whole thing lasted probably 30 minutes tops but once the roommates are really gone, we hope to have a much longer, louder repeat.  He was exactly the right guy to get my engines going again. Sexy, sane and sweet with a certain quirkiness to him that made him very appealing. I don’t usually ever find I want to do repeats from the internet but I’d gladly get to know him better or just let him rim and fuck me again. I’m trying to set a new precedent by making my sexual encounters more quality oriented than some of the compromises I ended up in during and before my relationship. No more compromises.  

Open a New Window

If you had the opportunity to change your life, would you? Or do we become too entrenched in the “almost” and “good-enough” and stop yearning for the “could be”? If someone opened a trapdoor for you, would you jump?

I did.

Now, I’m not brave and I’ve been known to be less than practically perfect but sometimes enough IS enough.

Just to get you quickly up to speed.

Two weeks ago, my much adored and emotionally stunted husband of 6 years announced he was having an affair. Now this declaration should have come as no revelation to me (for chris sakes his mother caught on before I did). I’m actually a little disappointed in myself for living up to the stereotype of the long suffering wife who just didn’t want to know what was going on under his very nose. But we see what we want to see. And boy, did I not want to see to my partner leave me for an older and less attractive weasel of a worm.

Now, I know that in this modern day, it’s extremely old-fashioned of me to expect a marriage (of homosexuals, no less) to remain true in the physical sense. I mean, come on, there are just too many tasty looking pastries at the buffet not to be tempted to stick a cannoli in your mouth every once in a while. And we’ve certainly had more than our share of trysts, flings, recreational pursuits and/or gentleman callers but the one thing that was verboten was emotional entanglement. I mean honestly, when a guy’s sticks his dick in your ass without so much as a “how’d ye do” you don’t really worry about it becoming a lingering sort of thing (though you would kinda like to have it last long enough to at least meet your needs).

I adore my husband. I thought he was the great love of my life and I know he feels the same about me but to be honest the bloom had rubbed off the rose of our relationship and some black spots had started to appear on the petals. And thus, we were primed for a pear-shaped poser with an understanding ear to, over time, erode the solid foundation of our happy home. I’ll call this home-wrecker, Twitch, after the unpleasant habit his lower lip has of curling up on the right side in a manner seen in nine out of ten stool pigeons and fences. Twitch had a happy home as well with a besmittem and blindered boyfriend who was also wrecked by the revelation that anyone else would actually want his old wreck.

When Dear (not my husband’s real name) confessed that he was in a tizzy and felt he had to reveal his guilty secret, it was mostly to ease his conscience and from a naïve hope that somehow all four of us could be bosom pals while they continued their ball banging business. It also turned out that Dear had grown quite close to Mortimer (not Twitch’s boyfriends real name) and was feeling extra guilty of his doubled-ended betrayal and yet on the flip side, couldn’t bear the thought that Twitch and Mortimer were continuing to have sex (a thought I found equally repulsive but for different reasons). So my husband pulled the ripcord and everything not tied down came loose.

When I suggested to Dear that it might be in the best interest of our relationship moving forward, that he leave Twitch behind (a request also placed by poor Mortimer), the thought of parting was too much for this two-bit Homeo and Juliet. I spent the worse part of a weekend consoling Dear over the loss of his great love and closest friend. It was a performance worthy of Bernhardt with histrionics and vomiting (and I’m the one that used to be on the stage!!!##!#). Dear is the only person I know who could turn himself into the starring role of all our scenes. I never once got the chance to play the victim as I was too busy peeling him off the ceiling. The tragic high point of the weekend was when the star crossed lovers said their final goodbyes, returning each others personal effects and, one presumed, locks of hair. They swore they would never, ever, ever see each other again. I drove around the block for two hours and only good sense and bad timing kept me from accidentally running Twitch down.

So the next morning, Dear gets up early and I know he’s sneaking off to go meet Twitch at the gym. He’s acting like he’s getting away with something but I wasn’t born yesterday. Now Mortimer also wasn’t born yesterday (or the day before yesterday) so when he sees Twitch slithering out of the house with his gym bag at 4:30am he hits the roof and throws Twitch out of the house and his possessions out the window. (How I wished I’d been there.) That afternoon Dear goes to his therapist for the first time IN A YEAR (like that’s really going to help) and comes home all excited saying he’s got all sorts of things he’s got to write down and then he sits me down, says he’s got big news and then he dumps me.

Did you ever have one of those moments where you were convinced you didn’t hear things quite right? Like your brain and your ears were on a time delay? Then it all kicks back in and I’m like “You’re dumping ME? YOU’RE dumping ME??!?” The audacity of this decision was too much for me. Something in me snapped. I started to cry and once again he out did me and I just sat back, his head resting on my knee, eyes streaming, heaving sobs and I looked at him and I thought who is this person? Either I’m dealing with a crazy person, the world’s biggest child, a midlife crisis gone awry or an emotionally stunted individual but any which way I just couldn’t do it anymore. And with that realization I felt a great sense of loss but a bigger sense of relief.

Within minutes, as expected, he was wailing about how he’d just made the biggest mistake of his life. Well, duh! How do you dare weigh a 6 year relationship based in reality against 9 months of fantasy and sneaking around? Though I adore my ex-husband he has been a challenge over the years in many ways (more on that some other day). I knew we could get past this whole silly affair thing even if the dumping me had come as a huge slap in the face, but I also knew I didn’t want to return to the highs and lows of his emotional roller coaster or the endless nights when I paced the house while he’d disappeared on a drug-fueled bender.

Enough Was Enough. I adore him, I love him and I loved the good parts of our life and had suffered through the bad parts because I thought, well, that’s what you do. Relationships are hard work but you’re both working toward a common goal. But somewhere along the line our goals had changed. I still wanted the same things but he’d decided he’d rather trade our “good friends and conversation dinner-party/home body and gardening/close-knit family” existence for some tragic mid-life fumbling grasp at a return to “fun”. He’s the one that broke up with me but I’m the one that’s making sure he sticks to the deal. I  don’t know what comes next but I know what I’ve had and it’s no longer “good-enough”. Once that trapdoor is opened is it the brave ones or the foolish ones who take the leap? Only the time will tell.