There's Gotta be More to Life

I just keep getting this “there’s gotta be more to life” kinda feeling. I want so much more than what I have right now. And I don’t mean material things. Last week I read an article in the local paper about a couple in my area, who have been married for 41 years. They have visited every state park in PA three times. All 120 of them. The article mentions how they planned to go see some of the beautiful fall foliage in northern PA this past weekend. And it made me think how I would like to have someone to go on a three-day weekend excursion to tap maple syrup in Vermont, take a spontaneous trip to Niagara Falls, or make plans to visit every state in the US or take a cross-country trip together. Sure, I can do these things by myself or with a friend, but some things are just more fun if you are with that special someone. I think one of the things that helps me to disconnect from Flaco is that he was no more willing to do those things with me than I am willing to go do them alone. Taking a vacation by myself is not something I would relish doing. Experiences are so much better when you can reminisce about them with someone else. I am living a life of suspended animation. I am alive and breathing, but I am not able to do the kinds of things I would like to do for a host of reasons. And my short foray into the dating world has not encouraged me to believe that the kind of life I dream of will ever come true. There are more friends-with-benefits guys out there than there are decent, kind, honest guys (I’m sure if I were a man, I could be saying the same thing about women). The kind of husband I would want to have probably only exists in my mind and in the 1950’s. Probably only in my mind. How did society get so completely screwed up? Men my age are like little children – they play games all day and live with their parents. No, not all men, I agree, but, a great many.

 

Meanwhile, I hang on to the very last shred of hope I have left. It’s glimmering promise always dances just out of reach and some days the oppressive malice of the world seems sure to crush me and grind me under. Flaco has gotten himself in trouble with the law and in an attempt to manipulate me into helping him he told me he wanted to get back together. In the beginning, right after he left, this is all I wanted to hear him say. And I warned him, all those months ago, that he had a short window of time to make an attempt to reconcile our differences and issues. But this was a very small window and once it closed it would remain closed. Very recently, I have emotionally gotten to the point where I refuse to let him hurt me anymore. As if his leaving wasn’t enough, over the past eight months he has said cruel things like, “If we had had a baby together I would not have left,” “How would you feel if I had a baby with someone else?” “How would you feel if I got married to someone else?” This, in addition to other humiliating comments and situations, has shown me a side of the man I loved with all I had, that I absolutely despise. And this latest blatant attempt to manipulate me has only solidified my “we are never, ever, ever getting back together” stance. Oh, but it still hurts like a mother! How could someone be so selfish? He actually told me he was furious with me when a few weeks ago, right after he got in trouble, he called me at midnight to ask me to go with him to City Hall the next morning at 8 am to help him figure this whole situation out. I refused and I had good reason to refuse. Not only am I no longer his loving wife (at least not in the real sense, legally we are still married, but as soon as I have the dinero that will no longer be the case), but I still had a child living with me at that time. Plus, I start work at 8:30 am and I am not about to lose my job for him and his problems. I suppose he thought that if I would say “yes” and take him back, that I would then take care of his problem. My response was simple. If he was sincere in his desire to rekindle the waning connection between us, we would attend couples therapy and work on the issues together and slowly progress. I let him know that I was still really hurt and I quite simply do not trust him, so it would take time for those wounds to heal and it would not be easy. But, I also let him know without a doubt, I was not going to help him with his legal issue. It was something he did on his own and something he would have to deal with on his own. He ended the conversation by saying, “Fine, then you do your thing and I will do my thing and we’ll see how it goes.” In other words, “I don’t want you if you won’t do this for me.” And I wonder, did he ever really love me?

My therapist thinks I am not taking care of myself emotionally. He thinks I have too many unmet emotional needs. I don’t know what he expects me to do with this information. I can’t manufacture an intimate relationship with someone. I am feeling a little more lonely now that the house is empty, but I tell myself this is temporary, since I have already been called for one placement and one respite (neither panned out). Most days I can still believe that something good is just around the corner, just waiting to pop up into my life. But, last week (it doesn’t help that I was PMS-ing with mega cramps and whatnot) it wasn’t so easy to sell myself on the whole sunshine-after-the-storm line. I feel that prick of bitterness beginning to take hold deep inside of me. Tuesday, before Flaco’s latest shenanigans, I was visiting with my pastor and his wife. Another church member was there with her little girl and she gleefully showed me three ultrasound pictures – she is pregnant again. I oo-ed and ahh-ed appropriately. Most of the time I’m better about stuff like that. But, it still burns, it still pricks and hurts. I try to stamp it out as quickly as possible, but I have never been very good a lying to myself. It effing sucks. I’m supposed to be better at this, I’m supposed to realize that God works in mysterious ways. Why He gives a baby to a 17 year old who then shakes, throws, and pushes the baby down a ramp in a stroller for it to fall out on the sidewalk (this happened this past week at Reading High school – the baby was 4 months old) but denies someone like me a baby, is beyond my comprehension. I don’t let myself go down that very slippery slope. For a long time, I was so angry at God for my inability to conceive and I know that is not healthy, but sometimes that feeling just springs back up in me. And I feel the bitterness and rage eating me from the inside out. It’s fire burns me and it’s acerbic acid consumes my heart and soul. I don’t want to live that way. I want to live in a land full of sunshine and rainbows and kittens – but right now my reality is one of pain and disappointment. Last week I am just really feeling like my life has been chewed up by a shredding machine and what pieces are left to me are not enough to make a whole person. The same night Flaco tried to use getting back together as a reason for me to handle his problem, another blast for the recent past popped up. I knew him through my neighbors and we had been starting a little friendship this past spring. Almost as soon as it began, it was over. He text me and told me I had the wrong idea, he wasn’t interested in anything serious because he just got out of a bad relationship. He basically was only interested in a friends-with-benefits kind of situation. So, I quickly wrote him off and pretty much ignored him. Well, Tuesday night he came back. He basically thought he would give it one more shot and wanted to know if I wanted to give it a try. Really?! This is the “better” thing I have been waiting for? Uh….. No. I told him I respect myself and I demand respect from someone else. A friends-with-benefits situation is not respectful and I am unequivocally not interested at all ever. It curdles my insides to think that not once, but twice, he took me for “that” kind of woman. As I told a friend of mine, I feel just about ready to start ripping off the balls of any man I meet. My therapist doesn’t think I should let it bother me. I’m about ready to tell him where to get off too. His malarkey only makes me feel worse about things. My last appointment, I went in there in pretty good spirits, only to have them dashed all to hell because he thinks I’m more screwed up than I am. Let me tell you something pal, anyone who has been through the kinds of things I have in the short time that they have occurred, would be a little on edge. The fact that I can keep my shit in order, that I am still a productive member of society and not a total basket case, is a testament to my faith and sheer stubborn endurance. So, if I get a little touchy when some douchebag thinks I’m gonna just roll over and be their fuck buddy, I think I earned that right a little bit here. I didn’t punch him in the face like I wanted to, so give me some credit!

I was all set to send an email to my family caseworker telling her I wanted to be considered for a placement for legal risk or adoption. I wrote the email and had a friend proofread it and everything. Then, something held me back from sending it. I don’t know what it was, but I just got the feeling I should let some dust settle before I send that email. Maybe it’s God trying to get me to do things His way. Good luck Charlie, I’m always more like a bull in a china shop when it comes to acting on a decision I have made. The second most dangerous thought process for me to engage in, after the “why” questions, is what is the meaning of all of this? It is similar to the why question. Why is this happening? But, it’s also me trying to rationalize the irrational. There might not be a grand scheme to this year of hell. I guess to make myself feel better, I try to find a reason why this is happening – like a lesson hidden in the chapters of a child’s book, there must be something I am meant to learn and understand through all of this. Certainly, just hunkering down and enduring it all with teeth gritted and fists clenched can’t be the meaning of it all. So, right now I plan on waiting until my family caseworker comes out to my house the end of November for my annual review and then we can discuss the decision I have made. In the mean time, I am hoping to get a placement for a younger child sooner rather than later. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other; keep getting up no matter how many times I get knocked down…….