Fresh Waves

Every line, my hurt. Every verse, your excuses. Every note, a fly on the wall. Every chorus a fresh wave of pain. Every song is about us. I hear it all. I feel it all. Every rise. Every fall. You carry on. You didn't miss a beat. Your ignorance - your bliss. I'm hurt & making angry playlists. You had me. I gave you me so quickly. You made me believe. When I resisted you persisted. You wanted me to need you. You needed me to want you. Now you're through. Why didn't I see? It was only late at night when you craved me. It was only after last call when you sought me. It was only closing time when you loved me. Nothing you said was misread. You just mislead. I'm not me when there's you.

I found myself. See! I'm right here!

Well, hello there! Where have I been you ask? I've been growing a set! In January I finally had built up enough testicular fortitude (so to speak) to leave my husband. I hated him. I had for years. I was property. I was controlled. I was the provider. Forced to believe his beliefs. Live his lies. Make excuses for him. Betray trusts & friendships to try to maximize the benefits to him of schemes or games. There was nothing there anymore but he would never let me leave. He didn't even like me anymore. He couldn't stand to be in the same room with me yet his ego would not allow him to let me walk away. He sees it as some sort of failure on his part to own me and it is a major insubordination to this day. He was and is still evil & bitter that his free ride is over & he has no control over me anymore. Now he has to work & retrain a new someone. I could talk for days about the games he has played, the torture he has inflicted, the money he has cost me, the mental toll, the stress, the property he has stolen & sold or destroyed. I am still watched & stalked so he can feel he knows what I'm up to. He's sure there was/is someone else (not true). To the point he rented a place just blocks from me. There are some things that should be illegal in a contested dissolution of marriage such as this. For all intents and purposes I am no longer a spouse but a victim. But worse than that, the irreparable mental & emotional damage he has done & continues to do to our daughter. I just wanted out. I have played by the rules and time & time again things are going in my favor. That's not to say I'm winning. There are no winners and I have lost so much. If I had known at the beginning how badly he wanted & has succeeded in damaging my relationship with my child, I don't know if I would have had the courage to walk away. I have custody. I have the home that I have always paid for, along with every joint bill that was always around. I still have to pay for his health insurance and auto insurance to protect myself. I don't complain to my child. I don't bring her in to any conversation. He continues to have inappropriate discussions with her or talks poorly & untruthfully about me. He is on his fifth 'new mom' for her. I have yet to introduce her to anyone (there is no one) even my male friends. And I wouldn't. For a long time. He quizzes her about my comings & goings. He calls or texts her constantly even while she is in school. She reports all of our conversations. He prompts her to question me about things then she reports my answers back to him. He twists & spins everything I say to her until it sounds like Conspiracy Theory-level propaganda that she eats up. He buys her bright & shiny objects to win her favor. She has no rules when she is with him. She doesn't believe he physically harmed me (which is how I finally was able to force him out of my home 4 months after the date of separation). She is 90% in his corner. I do still have moments with her and catch glimpses of the daughter that I have always raised to know right from wrong and to be a good person no matter what. I carry on now strictly for those brief moments. I don't try to sway her. I have to let her figure out for herself who is acting like a parent. I pray one day she will realize that mainly I did this for her. The older she got, the more I saw him exerting the same tactics on her that he did to get control of me. Every nice action on his part comes at such a high price. You're not even aware how high until you try to have your own opinion or basic rights. All I can do, all I know to do is continue to tell her: 'I love you so much that I'm allowing you to hate me'. Am I doing right by her in this? I don't know. I hope so. It may be months, or even years before she can see beyond her own new found greed for material things and excessive liberties but I have to stay true to what I am sure is the proper way to behave as a good human being. I'm beyond stating the obvious to her or proving him wrong or reminding her of her own fear of him just a few short months ago. She believes what is most beneficial to her right now. She's confused and being spoiled with attention from him that has never been available to her before. Who am I to take that away from her when she has obviously been craving it.

If you are a spouse that dreams of breaking away from a marriage you don't want to be in, no matter the obstacle or reason...just know that despite all the pain and drama and saga and heartache that I have gone through & continue to experience to gain my freedom....I have NEVER been happier. This was a 13+ year marriage. I did not make this decision overnight and I told no one of my problems behind closed doors. The shock & awe wave is still ongoing. Some are skeptcial, others now see the old me they knew before I was married. The ones you need in your life will always be there even if you fell away from them. You are entitled to your own life. Whether you stay or go, I believe in you. I had to learn to believe in myself and I'm so glad I did. I AM worthy. I DO have value.

On the other side of that is the spouse being left: All I'm saying is that if you are the ousted spouse and you are reading this, please realize that every mean word or action on your part has a Butterfly Effect that will be felt in someones heart & mind for far longer than you feel anger about the situation. Please just be human. A person's free will is exactly that. A child is not a pawn. A child is not to be used as your spy. A child should never be a messenger or questioned about the other home life. It's enough of an adjustment on them as it is. Your respectful silence can speak volumes in such a sensitive matter as divorce.

While I was sleeping

WOW! What happened? I can't really remember when I decided I was going to be a blogger but it must have been about a year ago. No one was reading me. No one was commenting on me. No one cared. It even got to the point that I didn't care either. If no one was going to read it then I wasn't going to write it. As you can see, my postings are few and with great amounts of time between them.

I haven't signed on it about a month now and have jumped from about 195 views, mostly belonging to me, to over 11,000.

I demand a recount! Surely this is a counting error. Or is it a sign that I should get back to the task at hand? I'm leaning towards a mixture of the two. I like to write even when I have nothing of significance to say, like today. But I also am not foolish. Am I to believe that 11,000 people viewed/read my blog and not a single one of them liked it enough to comment or follow it?

Are you one of the thousands of people that have been here before? Who are you? Why did you choose me? Are you going to come back? Do you have anything to say for yourself? Don't you want to argue with me or tell me how brilliant I am?

I just want to know where this unexpected but much appreciated boost came from. If nothing else, please offer me up your best guess!

Other than this surprise, there is a lot going on with me lately. Some good, some not so great. I'm still married for the time being and I'm ok with it, today. Ask tomorrow and it's a crapshoot how I will reply.

I'm happy to post daily if I know what you want to hear and that someone is interested. I have a hole in my life right now and could use some virtual banter to keep me sane(ish).

Holy Asphalt Pi

For many years I have been begging my husband to meet my friends so he could see that there was nothing funny going on, be more social, participate in extended family events, take vacations……..and always met with what I call 'EPIC FAILURE'.

Turns out, they were really answered prayers that I did not pray for. People, there is a GOD and he has a wicked sense of humor.

Having to leave for a business trip and yet again encountering the silent treatment, the obvious hatred for everything I am oozing from his stare, the mean mumbled comments that always get more vile the closer an imagined date of wrong looms, I had had enough.

I usually ignore, ignore, ignore. For the good of mankind. You should thank me really. If I poke the bear, he takes a bite out of anyone he sees. The entire world becomes 'Innocent Bystander'.

Well, that's not really true. Anyone within a one mile radius of his couch is at immediate risk. Outside that area, you are safe unless you sell weed or overpriced sporting goods that do little more than catch dust bunnies. He will leave his enclosure for his benefit. He'll drive 300 miles for a day hunting trip because if he catches/kills something, that can feed his family (this has never happened) but he will not drive 3 miles so that we can have something other than the 2 restaurants that are in the 'Asphalt Pi'.

Any-hoo….I blew up, right in front of the kid that I tell myself daily I talk all this shit for. I lost it. I said things I should have said YEARS ago. And I didn't stop either. I kept on til I was crying, the kid was crying and he was so speechless he ran out of blame to lay on me. I soothed the kid as much as I could but the kid is old enough now that most of what I said was just obvious-unspoken so it was only shocking that I spoke them. That situation as good as I could get it, I left for a week.

My parting shot was to clue him in on the fact that although I've always believed I could not support my lifestyle and keep the home I love by myself, that it had finally dawned on me that…..I HAVE BEEN DOING IT FINANCIALLY BY MYSELF FOREVER !!! Of course he used his argument that his money bought this this this or that but when I say I'd had enough of keeping the Peace, I meant it. I informed him that I had already checked into several factors and regardless of many factors, I could put him out on his ass and probably would when I got back but I needed someone to feed the kid and dogs.

As a side note: Yes, he has purchased most of our big ticket items. He waits for some sort of windfall like a dead family member or a nice profit on some illegal transaction and then bails us out of the jam that he put us in in the first place by not working and apparently I'm supposed to buy him a cape & some tights and be forever indebted while slaving daily to pay the boring old monthly bills.

We have almost this same argument quarterly. I know it word for word. I know how to start it, fire it up, put it out and end it. He always says he'll work on yada yada jealousy yada control issues yada yada social skills yada but we all know that doesn't happen because he's still 'Asphalt Pi' and I'm 'Short-Leash'. But this time even felt different although I couldn't say exactly why outside of my giving voice to my recently developed (but still under construction) testicular fortitude.

While I was gone, he was burning up my phone but I would only talk to him briefly once a day about home/child/pet subjects. If he began to stray to an off-limits topic, I hung up and put him on ignore til the next day. If he hijacked my kid's phone while we were talking….same thing. The kid would just call me when he wasn't around. Kid rocks by the way.

When I got back he wanted to "talk". Not yell, not argue and I didn't have to say a word. He had had an epiphany. (Insert ROFL here). He had sought out an old friend that is or used to be a marriage counselor and talked to him for hours about our problems. This alone is freaky since we are both such very private people.

He complained that he has asked (see: told) me for years to be his best friend but I refused to be his friend at all. Completely true. He laid it all out for this guy and the guy listened for a long time and at the end told him: You're an asshole. Why would she be your friend if you won't allow her to have friends outside the home? You're not a good friend to anyone. Even your friends hate you. I don't blame her for wanting you out. I'm surprised she has stayed this long.

Of course, those are my words but that's what I heard. Someone other than me finally told him what a jerk he was. Someone he trusted and respected called him out. It didn't matter that I had told him all this for years, I guess he needed to hear it from a strong male figure in his life.

That's all well and good but he seems to really have heard it this time because even when I told him that I don't know if I love him anymore and I don't know that I want to work things out he said that was fine but he was going to change. This in itself is a HUGE change.

Granted, it has only been 5 days but I keep waking up in Stepfordville and its scaring the hell out of me. I don't like it. I don't like that not only is he now willing to go anywhere/everywhere with me…..he WANTS to go. And now that I have girlfriend-in-town events to attend soon, he is begging me to allow him to go. This is a girl that he wrongly does not (did not?) approve of. He feels (felt?) she was giving me the tools to cheat (long story but not the case). I reminded him of this and he said he owes me and her an apology and he really wants to get to know her because he sees now how much I need her and want her in my life.

Pardon me while I return my breakfast the hard way.

I said NO! HELL FUCK NO! But he is determined to change my mind. He wants to go so that he can get to know my other friends. He won't bother me at all, he will take the kid home early so I can stay and get wasted. He wants to apologize to my friend for assuming the worst about her even when I told him how wrong he was.

I'm having family issues in my hometown. He has always sworn to never set foot in this town and has kept his word for close to two decades. When I informed him that I may have to go home for a few days, he started looking into hotels for US to stay at.

Omgomgomgomngomgomgomg. Make it stop. I can't handle this.

I have built a life for myself around his controlling ways. I have found the loopholes in his insanity and used them to my advantage. I have surrounded myself with people who enjoy my part-time friendship. I am the girl with the invisible husband. It's a running joke. Lots of people in my life don't even believe I really have a husband. We make up careers for him that keeps him away on business or joke his identity is a secret because he's deep in the CIA or some bullshit. I love my part-time life. I have made it work for me. I own it.

Now he wants in. Be careful what you ask for people. I am not sure how this will go but as of this moment, I am promising you that he will not be allowed to attend my friend's homecoming and if he goes with me for the family issue, he's not going to be allowed to touch the radio during the road trip portion.

I was going to put his picture on the back of milk cartons but I don't really want to find him. I'm not sure his kind shows up in photographs anyway since when I describe him to most they think I'm making up all the horror stories and he's just Urban Legend.

But the kid is enjoying the body snatcher that is currently inhabiting his human vessel shell so what do I do? Do I make it work for the kid knowing that I drive my own happiness vehicle and will be fine either way or do I work to discover the antidote to Ward Cleaver-ism then kick him out to jump start my desire to become one of those women that you can smell the single-mom desperation on?

Thoughts?

Am I a Muse for all Mankind?

Here's what I don't understand about me: EVERYTHING!

I'm a train wreck trying to juggle knives while drinking lemonade upside down balanced on a rubber ball moving uphill in every direction. One slip-up and its curtains! Yet, I go on. I get out of bed every day and head to a job I don't understand or like and I'm happy to do it since it gets me out of a house that I can't bear to give up but can't stand to be in.

I can never just "be".

That brief sentence sums up my entire existence. I would say that it is a passing phase but I have felt this way 24/7 for at least the last 3 to 4 years. It has gotten so bad that I spend my days quoting & relating to song lyrics, TV/movie quotes and passages in books. I never claim ownership of the material I use but I don't always disclose the source or announce that a source was used. Lately I'm convinced that every song was written with me in mind somehow. It's not always a painful lyric, sometimes it's fun or sexy but I just think it's twisted that I've become so separated from my true reality that I'm living this secret life and enjoying it much more than I ever enjoyed my real life.

If you find something very profound in my writings, chances are good that it's not mine. However, I do experience moments of brilliance so don't count me out completely. My writings really seem to spill effortlessly when I'm full of angst and it's a fresh hurt. I could write for hours on end when I'm wounded. These moments tend to only occur when I cannot write, of course. So next able opportunity, I try to recall the feelings of injustice and translate it to written word but it never holds its power and I end up hitting 'delete' and not posting anything at all.

I beat myself up over this all the time. I want to write. I want the confidence to write and not give a fuck what anyone thinks. I want total strangers to read what I post and comment on it. I want someone to pretend to understand this complex, contradictory, insecure person I have helplessly watched myself become. If I'm crazy but self-aware that I'm crazy, am I still crazy? If I try to contain my numerous neuroses to only derail my own mental stability, am I still considered high-maintenance?

I'm told I come off as a loner and I like this perception that people seem to have of me. But, why? Why do they think this about me? I do put off the "I don't give a shit about other people" vibe and for the most part that's true but it's not like it's in some gamma-ray form and every time I blink I ostracize another human from my life.

I'll let you in on a secret though,…show me a loner and I'll show you a person who has tried to put herself out there on numerous occasions only to continually be disappointed by people and her own inability to conform or blend. No one really wants to be alone or be a loner but sometimes it becomes necessary for self-preservation even if you are not sure what self needs to be preserved.

Here are the "Me's" that currently co-exist in my forefront and are at war with each other:

Spouse: I have been with you for half my life now and allowed you to make me a passenger on your path into nothingness. I have allowed you almost complete control. I no longer enjoy this role. The times are no longer measured in bad or good, just as time. That is not enough for me anymore. You see my new outlook as proof of some imagined indiscretion or affair. Just another reason for you to irrationally justify your lack of trust or discouragement of friendships. What has happened is that I have grown up and realized I want more for myself and child than you care to strive for. Every time I decide I have had enough, I let you convince me otherwise. You know me too well. You know that I cannot bear to "talk through" things with you since it is and always will be the same argument no matter the starting point. I do not like to repeat myself. In order to make the conflict go away, I cave. Every time. You know this, you depend on this. This is your glue right now. It's all you have over me anymore. Any other man would let me go or walk away himself but not you. You have it too good. When's the last time we depended on you? I think our marriage is coming to a close and you will never admit defeat. As the breadwinner of the family, I still have convinced myself that I can't do it on my own. In reality, it will not be pleasant for me or my child but I am already managing the financial aspect alone. I bear the burden of the steady paycheck, the healthcare, the retirement plan. I do not want to give up my home. This is what has kept me with you to this point. I now realize that in order to save myself and our child, I will have to make extreme materialistic sacrifices to get away from you. I am not sure when or how this will happen but I do know its coming. Even I have a breaking point and I am already shattered. It will not take much for the implosion. I think I just recently proved that to you.

Friend: I am a special kind of friend. If you have read previous postings or can reach logical conclusions as to what I say in the paragraph above, you will know that I am not the friend you call to hang out with. I am not the friend that comes to Happy Hours or parties. I will gladly meet and or enjoy your family & friends but I do not want to be a group friend. Sex and the City is just a show. Those people don't really exist; they just like to think that they do. Our relationship will be odd and only a true friend can maintain a friendship with me. It is not easy. It will almost seem like an affair. As if we are sneaking around to speak to each other. Some of my friends will be around for life yet I have never met them in person and have no intention of doing so (and no, they are not people I met online). As a friend, I am a shoulder. I am a vault. I will not sugarcoat things and I will not back down. If you ask my opinion, you will get it. I am honest to a fault. But as my friend, you can do no wrong in my eyes. As long as you are not punching babies in the face for fun (this visual scenario, courtesy of a friend), I will support you in every way. I will not agree with you or sympathize with you just to spare your feelings. If you are doing something wrong, I will voice my concerns but in the end, I will be on your side. As my friend you will find that I can speak at length on almost any subject but not in a better-than-you way. I am just as enthusiastic to learn from your experiences as to tell you about my own. But beware, to this day I have never fully opened up to another human. If you gather the maybe 5 friends I have trusted the most over my life so far, you will still not have a complete picture of me. I just can't. I'm sorry. You are free to opine on any information that I disclose and you can glean quite a bit of information for the things that I do not disclose but never ask for information that I did not offer. I will shut down and hide away in myself. It's what I know. It's what I do. If I consider you more than an acquaintance or pseudo-friend, then I love you completely and unconditionally. I need the same in return.

I do believe in unconditional love. Not in a marriage, not as a parent, not as a daughter, not as a sister but as a friend. I am just now beginning to understand the necessity in my life for friends. I am so glad the few friendships I have bothered to cultivate are still growing. I expect over the next few months or years I will be asking a lot of these relationships as I will just be learning what it means to be free but still having limits. Please stay with me on my journey.

I could go on and on for days but my freedom is coming to a close so now I go home and face the battle that lay ahead. During my writings today, something came up on the home front. It is a bridge I have crossed many times before. I really thought I was past this issue. Why am I such a fool to believe that people can change if they want to? I don't think that's true. Prove me wrong. I believe the best in people who I know are inherently bad. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. It takes a lot to run out of chances with me. Knowing all this, why do I constantly forget that "good guys finish last"?

When Gnomes Attack

I didn't have time to write yesterday and I don't have alot of time today so I will just ponder a little. Feel free to remind me of horrors that may not have kept me awake yet....

Does anyone else out there wonder if those creepy little yard gnomes come alive at night and peek in your windows? They must. Those strange noises we hear can't always be branches hitting the window or the house "settling"!

What else could they possibly be smiling all day about if they are not spending their evening watching you do things you only do when you think you're alone?

When Toy Story came out everyone thought it was so cute and it really was a great movie but also very disturbing.

Think about it: you're sleeping and you're toys are plotting an attack. For now they are warring against the neighbors toys but what happens when you throw away one of their best friends?

What happens if they call a truce with the neighbor toys and decide to mutiny?

Where does that leave us?

(Insert random Jason Mraz-ism here) What if the one curly fry in the box of the regular is living in the fast food bag making friends with the ketchup and salt?

And don't get me started on trees! We've all seen Poltergeist and that killed a generations affection for clowns with good reason but did the colleges see a drop in enrollment for degrees in Horticultural or Arborist studies?

My "real" fear is not that odd. I'm afraid of Palmetto bugs. I'm not overly girly in my fear of bugs, I mean, I don't like them but usually I ignore them like they ignore me. I may cower and whine if it's a hurty-me bug but I don't lose it. Not so with the Palmetto. There are several varieties of this disgusting creature, some fly, some hiss, some spit, some shoot deadly darts from the freaky hairs on their oddly muscular legs (I'm almost positive this is true) & some click but all are BIG & UGLY and MEAN looking. They are not regular roaches. Your exterminator will even tell you that you will still see some no matter how much he sprays. They come indoors after a hard rain or a really humid day. They will be dying from the poison but it takes forever and this whole time I think they are looking for me. My fear of them is so paralyzing that even a dead one sends me running. You would think I would easily be able to grab a shoe and squash it and go about my business but noooooo.....I can't even kill them. You know why? They CRUNCH!! I can't deal with the noise. Just the other night everyone was asleep and I was quietly reading and I heard "it". The fact that you can HEAR them walking on walls or a floor and instantly know what it is is terrifying!

Usually I would scream bloody murder until my spouse or child came to save me but at this hour they would be angry and probably throw the invader at me just for shits & giggles. They do that sort of crap all the time.

So I kept my eyes and ears peeled til I spotted the dragon sized bug casually hanging out above the doorway. I watched for what seemed like hours and the fucker was not moving. He's got me trapped in my living room. I can't risk running thru the door right under where he is loitering cuz I just know that's what he wants me to do. Then he will POUNCE on me and touch me and be on me and oh my god!!! ....yuck yuck yuck...

I can't even talk about this anymore! Let's move on....

We hear about people with phobias that sound so bizarre to us but I'm sure that each and every one of them is the result of a bad experience. Let's take a look at some, all we can really do is say "What the French, Toast?!" and move on:

• Aulophobia- Fear of flutes (I have no comment)
• Barophobia- Fear of gravity (Is there another option?)
• Chaetophobia- Fear of hair (I actually suffer from a mild version of this, long story..)
• Dendrophobia- Fear of trees (Blame Poltergist)
• Epistemophobia- Fear of knowledge (I know these people!)
• Gnosiophobia- Fear of knowledge (There's 2 names for this one cuz these guys named themselves and were too scared to learn that there was already a name for it)
• Helmintophobia- Fear of being infested with worms (This just seems like common sense to have. I'm guilty for sure!!)
• Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- Fear of long words (Surely this is just a cruel joke, right?)
• Levophobia- Fear of objects to the left side of the body (This explains why Zoolander couldn't go left)
• Ophthalmophobia- Fear of opening one’s eyes
• Panophobia- Fear of everything
• Phobophobia- Fear of fear

Where is Home?

Cornbread & Buttermilk in an ice cold glass! Pure Bliss. I'm sure this sounds odd to most but for me, it takes me straight into a time warp right back to my childhood. Since I come from a broken home, as a child that resulted in a very nomadic life for my sister and I, but all within a 30 mile radius on Planet Alabama. Between my mother's family, father's family & stepmother's family, aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends we never tired of our scenery since we spent so much time at so many homes. No matter where I lived or slept, home base was always my great-grandparents house. Even though my great-grandmother has been gone for over 20 years and my great-grandfather is trapped in his own mind living in a nursing home, I still consider this the only true home I have ever known. My great-grandmother always was and always will be the most influential person in my life. There is not a day that passes that I don't think of her and wonder what she thinks of me and the decisions I have made in my life. I still cry for her. I own a great home but it's in a town I have never considered mine. Although I have been here for 20 years I still don't feel as if this is where I belong. I even still feel a strong resentment towards my mother for the selfish reasons she brought us here. It's a buried and diluted feeling since I try to balance it with the fact that I would not know the people I know and love now and I wouldn't have my child, but it's there. If we had stayed, I might have a child but it wouldn't be the one I have now and this Sweet Child o' Mine is my reason for living most days. Over these years, I would spend every school break & summers doing my Alabama shuffle and this is when I felt alive. During my turbulent early teen years, I spent a year living with family there. Even now, every vacation or 3 day weekend I try to make my way home. Time has not been kind to my extended family. Divorce, death, marriages, bad decisions, and moves have caused a greater distance between us than just miles. I try to do my part to stay involved with everyone even if it is just once every few years. My love for these people has never wavered and I hope theirs for me hasn't either. I know that most people want to go home or revisit their childhoods. Some of the places on my "home map" have changed so much over the years that I don't recognize them or feel a connection anymore but my memories remain and that will have to be enough. I don't really know where I'm going with this post or where I wanted to go. I'm not happy with it. I don't feel good about it. I don't know what you can take from it. I have so much I want to say and could say. I don't know where to start or how to make you appreciate the complicated yet simplistic dynamics of my humble beginnings. All I can say is that I am the result of 40-50 people that had a hand in my upbringing and I wouldn't change that for the world.