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My Profile
Retro-retrospection - 2008-10-06
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1:23 p.m. - 2003-06-20
I don't know why I love her (him) like I do All the changes you put me through Take my money, my cigarettes I haven't seen the worst of it yet I wanna know that you'll tell me I love to stay Take me to the river, drop me in the water Take me to the river, dip me in the water Washing me down, washing me down I don't know why you treat me so bad Think of all the things we could have had Love is an ocean that I can't forget My sweet sixteen I would never regret I wanna know that you'll tell me I love to stay Take me to the river, drop me in the water Push me in the river, dip me in the water Washing me down, washing me Hug me, squeeze me, love me, tease me Till I can't, till I can't, till I can't take no more of it Take me to the water, drop me in the river Push me in the water, drop me in the river Washing me down, washing me down I don't know why I love you like I do All the troubles you put me through Sixteen candles there on my wall And here am I the biggest fool of them all I wanna know that you'll tell me I love to stay Take me to the river and drop me in the water Dip me in the river, drop me in the water Washing me down, washing me down. - Talking Heads And so, I went to the river. Maybe there was a Virginia Woolf element to it. I wasn't consciously thinking of putting rocks in my pockets. But I may have been thinking of it down deep. Yet I did not go to the river to die. At the hardest times of my life I've always gone to water. Yesterday was certainly one of those. After three of the shittiest days ever, I woke up yesterday stone cold sober. Didn't even have a hangover. I read and re-read all those wonderful heartening notes and letters and cried some thinking about how I wail what a cold place the world is and yet here was proof there IS warmth, there IS compassion, there IS kindness, there IS love. It helped immeasurably. Thank you. I took Deb's wise advice and asked myself what I wanted to do. What was it I wanted? WHO did I want and was it worth it? What I could accept and what I could not. I thought it all out. And then I waited. He came home. The battle began. It wasn't nasty, but it was probably the most honest fight we've ever had. I marched right into his 'Don't Go There' place and made my stand. His definition of "being good" and MY definition of "being good" were light years apart. His Clinton defense was specious. There are plenty of ways to betray one's partner without pronging someone. In fact, if he'd gone middle aged stupid and put the wood to some big titty 19 year old I could have handled it better. But no, he'd been carrying on this flirty-birty "friendship" with a wretched man-eating Chihuahua for over a year now. I've had to sit by, heartsick and helpless while she played my bedazzled moron husband like a bonita. Reeling him in to be Husband #4 (!!!!!) while she was cocking secret snooks at me behind his back. Mike's a grown man and responsible for his actions. But I tell you what, this bitch had him snowed but good. What the hell did HE know? I was his first and only girlfriend. He'd never caught the attention of someone like her before. Someone so evil and sly that she could make him believe that she was all gooey and helpless, and pump him full of that ego massaging poison which made him the hero and ME the bad guy. Even and above my own hurt and fear and anger, I was furious that my husband was being played as such a sucker. He was behaving like a fresh from the world GI being hustled by a Vietnamese B girl crooning, "Oh me so horny, love you long time." That he could BE SO STUPID infuriated me. I gave him more credit than that. I gave him some glaring home truths. About us. About what he'd been doing. About that pint-sized Zsa-Zsa Gabor and what she was REALLY like and his place in her upwardly mobile schemes. Then when I was done and he'd said his piece and we'd gone back and forth enough, I left. I'd lanced the boil that had been festering for more than a year, but the doing of it left me weaker and sicker than ever. I needed healing. I needed to be clean. I went to the river. I sat and cried and watched the water rumble by. The current is bad right there. Not terribly deep, but swift and rocky and deceptively strong. After about an hour of being mosquito bait, I took the junk from my pockets and put it on a rock by the shore path. Then in all my clothes I waded in. June it may be, but that water was COLD. The current almost pulled me off my feet so I found a slower place in the lee of some boulders and sat down up to my neck. I took off my clogs and used them to pour that icy water over my head until my scalp was as numb as the rest of me. It may sound crazy, I was freezing cold, covered with silt and rock slime, up to my neck in turbulent water, and goodness knows I'd ruined my favorite clogs and my new leather belt, but I felt good. The river gave me back to myself. All the shit I'd been drowning in washed away. I was me again. Clearer and stronger than I'd felt in a long, long time. Water does that for me. It's my element and from it I take my strength. When I was ready, I sloshed back home. Home to face whatever was waiting for me there. And no matter what it was I knew I could survive it. Well? Are you going to leave us hanging? WHAT HAPPENED???? He apologized. Well and truly he apologized. With the right words and for the correct things. The depth of his understanding was matched by the breadth of his remorse. I forgave him. Yeah, he fucked up big time. He hurt me in places I didn't know could hurt. He made a fool of me and an even bigger fool of himself. A lot of women would think I'm crazy. That I was dumb and naive and the worst sort of anti-feminist. Yet, I was no sniveling doormat grateful and relieved because HE wasn't going to leave ME. Not a smitch of the wreck I've been for the last few days was left. I gave it all to the river. I know who I am and what I am made of. I forgave him because I wanted to. Because we have a life together. Because you don't throw away 22 years over something as dumb as an infatuation with a snake charmer. Because there'd have to be a lot more taking away before the foundation of our marriage crumbled and the whole thing tumbled down. Because even while he's been bedazzled and thinking with his little head, not his big one, he never stopped gassing my car and taking me to the movies and all the rest of the everyday Mike stuff that says, "I love you."
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