Tag: divorce

The Dance

How long have we been dancing the dance?  Do you remember?  I think the real dancing started about four years ago.  To be fair and completely honest, the dancing was always there.  It was in the background at times, but it was always there.

You do know the dancing I’m talking about, right?  It’s what has become our traditional relationship dance.  I think we unknowingly started this dance; it wasn’t intentional.  We did what we needed to do to, right?  Is that how you remember the dance starting?  There were times family interfered with our relationship.  We each pacified the other.  I know I felt stuck in the middle and I’m sure you did as well.  Looking back, I wish we would have had the ability to cope with the interference and stop the dancing.  But we danced around the problems, hoping they would just disappear.  While it wasn’t always looming over our shoulders, the dancing was still happening in the background; waiting for a weak moment to speed up the tempo, to make one of us feel weak, vulnerable, unsettled.  We did the best we could, right?

I think there was a time, and it probably was about four years ago, where the dancing pattern we are in now started.  I would talk to you about needing help with decisions, kids, money, day to day stuff.  I would talk, you would listen.  I would get frustrated and stop talking.  You waited me out, at least that’s how I felt/feel.  You waited until I could no longer take the awkward silence, the no talking.  I would break my silence, and everything would eventually go back to our normal dancing.  It’s odd now that I think about it.  I couldn’t stand living in the awkward silence, so I broke.  But there was still silence, just a different kind of silence.  It was the silent song of our dance. Our dancing pattern happened when, like every three or six months?  The dance always started and ended the same way. I feel like I tried over and over again.  Do you feel that way?  Like you tried over and over again?  I guess it doesn’t matter. 

We are still dancing.  Now we dance around each other.  We dance around talking, touching, feeling.  What happens when the dance ends? What happens when one of us stops dancing?  What if it’s you?  What if it’s me?  Does it look different or feel different?

Do we continue to live in the comfortable uncomfortableness that surrounds us daily because living in the comfortable uncomfortableness is easier than moving our lives into the unknown uncomfortableness.  Is that anyway to live?  How do we continue to avoid what is right in front of our faces? 

I feel like you are living in the shadows of the three wise monkeys; see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.  If you turn a blind eye to what is happening to us, you don’t have to worry about anything.  If you refuse to hear what I am saying over and over, you don’t have to worry about anything.  If you refuse to speak to me about what is happening to us, you don’t have to worry about anything. 

But I have a question.

What happens when one of us steps off the dance floor?

scaredconfusedterrified

We dance around the inevitable. It’s happening. It’s slowly and painfully happening. It’s unwinding around us. I have played my part, you have played yours. We are both liable for very different reasons. Blame will be placed, rocks will be thrown. I will take the brunt of it, that’s OK. I have a strong back. I have been carrying the weight for a very long time. I have caused you pain, just a different pain than you caused me. No one is innocent, just remember that.

We can’t continue to live in the dysfunctional discomfort. No one could, and no one should. If you had to chose, do you chose the discomfort that is comfortable and familiar or do you chose the unknown discomfort that is scary and new? It’s quite the choice I have presented, isn’t it? Do our worlds stop and end without “us” being “us”?

We always knew there were cracks in the foundation. Two very young people from dysfunctional families did the best they could with the tools they were given. The cracks continued. If we are honest, brutally honest, did we think we would really make it? And if you answered yes, I would like to know your reasons. I would like to know what you see differently

I can only speak for me. I will not speak for you. I have spoken for you for almost 30 years and you let me. Why did you let me? I just needed your words, YOUR MOTHERFUCKING WORDS!!!!!!!!!!!! How many times have I asked, begged, pleaded for words? Words other than I don’t know. Because right now, in this moment I don’t know either. I just don’t know.

I know I will not go back to status quo. I can’t. We both want, need and deserve more out of life than simply existing.

Silence

The silence is deafening.  Do you hear it?

The silence screams the truth.  Do you hear it?

The silence speaks what I can’t.  Do you hear it?

The silence speaks what you can’t.  Do you hear it?

The silence speaks because we won’t.  Do you hear it?

The silence is calling us.  Do you hear it?

The silence is a friend telling me to stay.  Do you hear it?

The silence is a friend telling me to go.  Do you hear it?

The silence is telling you something. What do you hear?

Food, please and thank you

So, it’s 10:00 AM.  I have been at work since about 7:30 AM.  I have checked my email.  Nothing there for me to do.  I put six bottles of water in the conference room refrigerator.  I took two letters to the mailbox and put the flag up.  There have been no phone calls to answer.  I have heard one of the “professionals” in the office being passive aggressive and complaining about the temperature of the office (that person has a thermostat in their office).  I know one female and two males have gone potty.  I have shuffled and reshuffled the same papers around my desk about four times.  I have organized the wheat thins that I am eating into pairs.  I have hated myself 127,568 times for my many faults.  I am currently considering getting more wheat thins to eat, because……………why not.  If I do get more wheat thins, I will be able to hate myself like 54,789 more times before noon.  At noon it’s lunch time.  I have fresh, local black raspberries (my favorite) and vanilla Greek yogurt.  Totally healthy and good for me.  And as I eat that, I will PROMISE myself that this is it.  This is the time I make the change.  The time is now.  Stop procrastinating and making excuses.  How do I know that will happen?  Because it happens every day, at least once a day.  And then the rest of the day I eat my feelings, I eat my mistakes, I eat my unhappiness, I eat my loneliness, I eat my excuses, I eat my fear, I eat my inadequacies.  I eat.  The way I see my current situation, there is no reason not to eat.  I find my comfort eating, I find a long-lost friend eating, I find my emotional support when I eat, I find everything I need when eat.  Food isn’t going to leave me. I can’t disappoint food, I can’t hurt food.  Food gives my fat suit.  I have and will continue to pay dearly for that fat suit.  It will help me shut people out, let people see what they want, let people think what they want.  With my fat suit on, no one is going to get close enough to see the real me, to see the truth no one wants to see.  And, so you are aware, I did not get more wheat thins to eat.  I got goldfish.  I ate them in pairs.  

 

Maybe

Maybe if I was younger

Maybe if I was skinnier

Maybe if I was prettier

Maybe if I was blonde

Maybe if I had big boobs

Maybe if I had thin thighs

Maybe if I had a flat stomach

Maybe if I had no cellulite

Maybe if I cleaned more

Maybe if I cooked more

Maybe if I laughed more

Maybe if I cried more

Maybe if I cared more

Maybe if I made more money

Maybe if I loved more

Maybe if I talked less

Maybe if I complained less

Maybe if I spent less

Maybe if I laughed less

Maybe if I cried less

Maybe if I loved less

Maybe if I cared less

Maybe if I changed all of me

Maybe then…

We just exist

The alcohol calls to me

The pills call to me

To stop the pain

To stop the sadness

To stop the fear

We dance around the truth

We dance around each other

Not knowing what to say or what to do

We don’t talk

We don’t touch

We just exist

Afraid of the truth

Afraid of the pain

Afraid of the sadness

How long do we just exist

I don’t know

When do you know when it’s over? How will I know when it’s over?

I knew that when I married him that he wasn’t a communicator. But I loved him, so I worked with it. It was hard. Decisions we should have been making together were made by me. Discussions that needed to be had, were had by me alone. We fought about it.

When you are young and married, you really don’t fight fair. I know I didn’t. I was taught to use guilt, be mean and nasty. Let it get ugly. I did that to him many times.

He never learned how to fight, he also never learned how to communicate growing up. His dad was a wonderfully, mild mannered soul. His mom ran the house and everyone in it. She put the fear of God in everyone. If she liked you, you were good. If she didn’t, you were screwed. And she could turn on a dime. You never knew what her mood would be. I don’t know what it was like for him to grow up like that. He has talked about some of it, but not all of it. I know it impacted him and how he deals with relationships or doesn’t deal with relationships.

What I can’t get past, is that we have spent the last 35 years together. Over half our lives. We have gone through sooooooooooooooooo many of life’s ups and downs together. I thought we always came out closer, stronger. Maybe I was wrong. I don’t want to be wrong. I am very afraid I was wrong.

I need, want and deserve someone that will share their thoughts and feelings with me and listen to mine. I want that to be him. I don’t think he wants it to be me.

I have felt so alone for a long time. I ignored it. I didn’t want it to be real. How can the man I love make me feel so………….worthless? Is it the years of being together? Is it boredom? Is it complacency? I am far from perfect. I try to keep things new and interesting. I try and tell him I find him attractive and I want him, do things he likes. I try. I ask what else I can do. His normal answer for any question – I don’t know.

I can’t keep living with I don’t know. He has to know something, right? He has to know if he wants me or not, right? He has to know if he loves me or not, right? He has to know, right?

So many memories wrapped up in what was us. Will there still be an us?

Why doesn’t he fight for me?

Am I not worth fighting for?

Why doesn’t he want a future with me?

Has the past been that awful with me?

I wish I knew what was in his head. I wish I knew what he was thinking. I wish I wasn’t so incredibly sad, hurt, raw, brokenhearted…….

Will we make it?

I don’t know.

A Letter to “DAD”

Dear Dad,

Just wanted to drop you a line to thank you for the birthday card. I am a bit confused about the passive aggressive note written inside, “I was there Thursday to see you.  Should have known.”  I do know you stopped by my place of employment on Thursday because, well I was there.  I actually drove a friend’s car and was basically on the look out for you.  Why?  Because last year when you showed up at work out of the blue on my birthday, it ruined my day.  I can’t say for certain, but I’m thinking it’s probably been a solid 30+ years since I’ve a) gotten a birthday card from you and b) saw you on my birthday.  I want to say I’m sorry for this, but I’m not going to.  I think I will start at the beginning and give you MY point of view.  That might clear some things up.

To say I remember a lot from my early days would be a lie.  Not sure how it is for other people but I just don’t have the memories.  I obviously know that you and mom were married, but I don’t have a clue of the actual date.  I was born 3/14/1970.  I was the second girl in the family.  The first was my sister, she was from a previous marriage of mom’s.  Technically, she is my half-sister, but we consider each other sisters.  None of that half shit applies.  At some point, if I have this right, legal paperwork had to be completed because when I was born, mom was still married to her first husband (I think).  I only found that out when I was moving out and saw a document that listed my name as Baby Girl (insert last name of mom’s first husband here).  I don’t know if that meant you had to actually adopt me to get your last name or what the deal was. Again, I can only assume it was at this time that you also adopted my older sister because we had the same last name growing up. This also meant you had to pay child support on two kids when the divorce happened. I think I was 5 when you divorced.

There are plenty of photo albums for me to look at from my birth through today. Luckily, mom took and kept pictures of everything. Honestly, you are cut out of some, but not all of them. There are also home movies with you in them, but I don’t remember those moments. I do want to share my very first memory of you. I am thinking I was like 3-4. Living in the house on Walnut. I can picture literally everything in that house. Not sure how I remember that and not other details. Anyway, it was bath time for me. You were in the bathroom with me. On the ledge around the tub was a bottle of Mr. Bubbles. Who didn’t have Mr. Bubbles growing up?! Unfortunately, my skin was sensitive to Mr. Bubbles. To be more specific my little girl private parts were very sensitive to Mr. Bubbles. I remember you putting me in the tub and I freaked out, kicking and screaming – CAUSE IT HURT. Mom hears the commotion from another room and comes into the bathroom. I’m still freaking out and accidentally hit you in the groin area. Your reaction was to then kick me in my groin area. That is my first memory of you.

Fast-forward a few years. The divorce has happened, and there is a visitation policy in place. Please remember I am telling this from MY side, as a little kid going through it. I feel like there might have been a year or so before visitation began, but I’m not sure. I remember each time you had a Saturday visit, and you actually showed up, I was always scared. Not scared of you, as much of scared and afraid of where you lived at the time and what we were going to do. We were basically strangers.  It seemed to me that you moved around quite a bit. Not that it wasn’t clean or anything like that. Just always different. I remember different woman you lived with throughout the years. I remember having to go visit your parents, my biological grandparents. They terrified me. I didn’t know these people. They weren’t part of my life, at all. I remember the bathroom in their house scared me. I really have no idea why. I hated when I had to do the visitation without my sister.  Having her with me gave me something familiar and comfortable.  

As I got older, the visits were few and far between. I remember waiting in the driveway for you to pick me up and you never showing up. NOT COOL.  I remember we always went to Pizza Hut to eat. I also remember throwing up the same night there was a visit. Mom always blamed the Pizza Hut, but it wasn’t that. I was so stressed and worked up over the visit it made me physically sick.  All the questions that were asked and knowing that there was always tension between you and mom made things so hard for me.

There came a point where I really didn’t think much about not having someone to call “dad”. I had other fabulous male role models in my life and I was very fortunate to have them.

At some point around 16-17 years of age, I had a steady boyfriend (the boy I would eventually marry and raise 3 kids with). He had a kind of normal family. Mom, dad and kids. I felt guilty for not having a relationship with you. So I started to stop by your house to see you or should I say you and your new wife and her kids. It was odd. I never felt comfortable. But I tried. I think for about a year. It just got too strange. You knew nothing about me. What’s my favorite color, my favorite food, what color was my first prom dress, my second prom dress? And what was the deal when you decided to buy me a car? I don’t remember exactly what it was, a big old 1950’s something. Was it neat – yes. Was it strange of you to do – yes. I show up to see you and you tell me you bought me this car and I had to help pay insurance, maintenance, etc. What? I am not out of school with my first job. I already have a car that I am paying for. I think that is the point I stopped visiting. You sold the car, and that was it for a very long time.

Again, fast forward to maybe 20 some years ago. I’m at work and you decide to stop in. Very awkward. You did this a few times over a few years. What I remember is you bringing me healthy snacks to try because, well because I was fat. Wait – now you’re concerned about me and my health? Then there was the time you stopped in and wanted me to sign a paper because you and your wife were adopting a baby girl. As you explained to me, as her sister I would be signing the paper to promise to be a part of her life and help her live a life through God. (I wish you could see the puzzled look on my face right now). WTF? I did not sign the paper and I’m sure I didn’t see you again until three years ago. That was the time I saw you at a local eatery, said hi to you and you didn’t know who I was. Your wife did, but never bothered to clue you in. It was my mistake for saying hi. It was my mistake for inviting you to my home the next day to meet my kids, who you never met before. I should have kept the door closed. Not long after this you stopped at work a few times when you were going to the VA Hospital. You told me you were working with someone regarding your issues. Typically, at some point during the visits you always mentioned how hard it was to see me as a kid, how hard mom made it, how you didn’t have money to fight, how you missed out on my life, and so many other things. And some how I always ended up comforting you. Telling you it was OK, telling you it wasn’t your fault.  But that’s me, I’m a caretaker at heart.

Now I will explain what I know about you and what you went through. You were in Vietnam and you were a Prisoner of War. You lived through 14 months of hell as a POW. You were released May of 1969. I was born March of 1970. When you were released you were messed up. Who wouldn’t be? You returned to a nation that didn’t treat you well. You did not get the help you needed. You turned to weed. I don’t know if there were other drugs, but I know there was weed. I know this was a bone of contention between you and mom and from what I was told, a big reason for the divorce. She needed you to stop and you couldn’t or didn’t. I just have to add, that to this day I cringe anytime I smell patchouli oil. I hate that smell with every ounce of my being. I found out years later you used that to cover the smell of the weed. You were in a very serious car. I would have been like 19 or 20. Mom took me and my sister to see you. Your injuries were very serious and you were in ICU. Your parents and mom got into a fight and we left. I think your wife called occasionally with updates on your condition and I kind of remember talking to you on the phone. At some point you move to Delaware with your wife. You still visited the area because your parents and brother still live here. Last year you and your wife moved back to the area to be closer to the VA Hospital. Which leads us back to last year and you stopping at my work on my birthday to drop off a card.

Here are my questions/comments:

Throughout my childhood, you lived maybe 10-15 miles away. Why couldn’t you show up at a game? Your parents lived about 5 miles away. Where were they when I had a track meet or a basketball game? Were you in the stands when I graduated? It was open to the public. Why did you not reach out to me and tell me that because you are a veteran I could have gone to college for a very reduced fee? Did you know I wanted to be a teacher? When my favorite person in the world passed away, Nana, did you bother to reach out to me? I have gone through some hellish life experiences. All of which you knew about. Some were very public and were HORRID. Did I miss the call or card from you then? Did you forget where I work (which I have worked at the same place for 30 years)? When you saw in the local news that one of my children was diagnosed with a chronic illness, did you reach out and see how we were doing?

I get the situation wasn’t ideal, I get you have/had issues I know nothing about. But those issues aren’t mine to carry. I have dealt with questioning why you wouldn’t want to be part of my life. What did I do to make you not want to be part of my life. I realize that it’s not me, it’s you. I was a kid, you were the adult. I am no longer holding onto the guilt or responsibility.

Please know I was taken care of, I was loved and I still am. I am proud of the person I am and it is because of the people who were and still are in my life.

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