The Missing

So this night I  write of what I've missed, the missing moments, the missing memories, what I deserved but never got.

I missed the smiling photos, full of the resonance of truth and a genuine gratitude. I missed the moments of him putting his hand on my belly, the smiling when he found out we were pregnant again. I missed the sad clingings to one another after the loss of our daughters. I missed the pride on his face when we became a family at our wedding. I missed those Kodak moments, you know the ones...the ones where we talk about "our design style", "our favorite vacation spot", "our movie night".
It looks as though I missed out on a life, the one I wanted, the one I worked so hard for. I missed out on those happy and sad moments, all the moments you're supposed to get, good and bad, all the moments that remind you that life is not spent alone, in solitude.

He never laughed with me during family moments, the ones you're supposed to carry in your heart forever. I never got the moments when we cry at the birth of our new child, or embrace at the sound of his first word. He didn't hug me when my eldest graduated, didn't go with us when we moved him to college. He didn't help me after my surgery, instead put on headphones and ignored my pleading for help and painkillers. I don't understand. I cannot. I will not. I got nothing out of this. The worst part is that I did nothing about it. Does that mean I got what I deserve? I kept thinking it would get better. I kept thinking that something would trigger an emotion, evoke a response, conjure up a feeling. Think of every moment you've shared with another, good or bad, and think of how connected you felt at that moment. I have none in my memory.
I have finally reached that point where I can't even watch an HGTV show without being sad that I'm not a part of the family looking for a new home, or renovating their backyard. As silly as it sounds, that's the life I wanted, and still want. What can I possibly have to look forward to now? I missed out on all of it. No home movies, no family outings, no cozy nights on the couch. I have to start over. How???

I see so much pain in this world, and I find myself feeling envy toward those less fortunate. Many time they have someone, a "someone" to share in their struggle, to hold them at night, to lean on. I have no one. I made a huge mistake and it's too late and now I'm too old to start over. I can't stay. I'm afraid to go. I am so sad and so full of questions and statements and regret. I need so badly for him to hear me, but he has nothing but contempt for me. Nothing but disgust, and I have no idea why. I can't figure it out and it's so difficult.

I live with a person who only acknowledges me if I speak over and over again, only answers a questions if I ask over and over again, and then only gives cryptic answers. I can't get a full response, can't get a decision. I can't ask about a parking ticket because he won't answer me. Meanwhile, my life hangs in the balance, dangling like raw meat awaiting the lions. I can't afford to leave, I can't afford to stay. I have no currency with which to live. None financial, none emotional. I simply wait. I sit, I lay, I cry, I stand, I drive, I speak. Alone.

Lucid

I'm still awake. I'm lucid, sobbing, sniffling. I'm a wreck, as is usually the case at night. I feel like I'm nauseous, dizzy, aching and everything in between. I try to rest. My throat hurts. My eyes burn. My skull feels like it's caving in like wet paper mache. I can't feel my fingertips as I type this now, this memoir of a sad, lonely woman with no hope for a normal life. That almost looks funny as I read it back to myself. Pretty corny. Yet, sadly, true.

Watching Vanilla Ice flip houses isn't helping me fall asleep. It just reminds me, as he pressure-washes the chemicals off the concrete, erasing the damage, that I am expendable. I guess I always was. I hate to beat a dead horse, but there isn't much one can do in this situation BUT relive details over and over. I pick apart every mistake I am responsible for, reasoning that it would not be cause for me to cheat or leave. I don't ask for much and I can put up with quite a bit. I'm socially active enough that I can talk, drink and dance my way into forgetting most things that are not acceptable in a relationship. I guess I never thought that I'd have to walk away for some of those things. I always figured that I would prevail in the end, that I'd show them. We'd last. He'd love me the way I needed to be loved. I really did. I have no idea what I was thinking and I really feel genuine concern for those around me who believe they have something special. It's not that they don't, it's just that special is something you think you have NOW. The only time a person looks back and says it was special is if the person is still with them, or has died. No one looks back after being heartbroken and says, "It was such a special relationship that we had." No one.

How could they? I mean, if it's over and they're still alive, somebody got hurt. Special doesn't break your heart, shred your ego apart and humiliate you. Special sticks around, chooses you first, makes you their priority. Special needs you, appreciates you, forgives you and adores you.

Erasure

So, it's night again. On this night, I feel like I want to write in a subdued blue-type color, like the deep color of the sky in summer at midnight. I'm remembering summer nights right now. I'm remembering all the memories and experiences I now have to try to erase, delete, from my psyche.


I'm on Facebook and I get messages from people who like to "dabble". They share with me who my ex is friends with now, who they heard he's chatting with. We're still living together, we're not even divorced, but he's moved on. I have too, but in the sense of realizing that I was not good enough. THAT type of "moved on".
I go through my photos, carefully and thoughtfully removing his name from them, "untagging" him so that my image will no longer appear in his online albums. He has erased me, so why should anyone see me? Why would anyone want to see me. I don't matter. I never did.


To erase yourself from the world of another is a daunting task. It's dark. It's embarrassing. It's sorrowful and it's infuriating. I feel like if I don't do it, he will. I am incredibly self-punishing, so it seems to fit. As I carefully look at each photo, I ponder whether this will hurt him, my removing myself. I wonder if I will ever put the photos back, if he will ever request that I do. I look through the travel and vacation photos, thinking about whether this one or that one will matter to him, whether the experiences mattered. I don't believe so. In my heart, it feels like I'm disappearing from existence in his world. And no one in his world, including him, gives a shit.


I have a habit of getting rid of photos with a man if he's mistreated me, yet somehow, removing photos from a marriages seems wrong. I don't know whether this is the right decision, I just feel like no one cares if I exist, so why not go away? I just don't see the point of sticking around so I can be the joke. I am the joke. I don't want to be the joke anymore.


I want to meet someone. I want to have romance and chemistry. I want someone to see right into me, to see my fears, my dreams, my aspirations, once stolen by another. I want someone to know that I ache, I mourn, I feel loss. I have empathy and sadness for those in need, in pain, in isolation. I want to reach out and nurture those people, yet I have nothing for myself. I just feel hollow. I want someone to fill the space with smiles and joy. I just want to feel again. I know what I want, need and can take on. I know what I can give, offer and promise for another day. I have things inside that can change another. I need someone to decide I'm worthy, that I am worth the risk. That I am no risk at all. That I am a gem, a treasure, a joy.


What I want is to wake up and have what I lost, only with someone to whom I matter. I don't want to wait. I am impatient. I don't have much time. What I want is what I didn't get the last time. I just want peace.

Between

I once heard, and then heard again and again throughout my young adult life, that if someone can come between you and your love, there was nothing between you to begin with. Is that what it was? Was it simply a worthless waste of time, destroyed because you let someone else come in between us? What was it? I'm laying here, reminding myself that 3 days ago I felt stronger. I know it's a work in progress. I am aware that it will take time. I am impatient. I want to find someone. I have spent so much time on this thing I thought we had. I was ready. I came into a space where, most days anyway, I felt comfortable, if not a little disappointed. I had someone. MY someone. No one else's; just mine. No matter what, I had a SOMEONE to counter my ME.


I don't want to begin again. I don't want to start over. I don't want to get to know a new someone. I want you to rewind time and take away what you did, what you said. I want you to rewind time and feel what you were supposed to feel, what I deserved from you, what I wanted from you. I just wanted to "be". I wanted to grow and change together, to learn to fit like puzzle pieces, to adjust, to share, to join. I had no illusions about what people are when they marry. You don't wake up and become better, but I believe, at your best, you learn and grow and become a part of what you promised you already were. I have friends who seem so happy, so grateful, so joined and so special. I thought that if I didn't have it at first, it was worthy and fully capable of growing in that direction. I thought, at the very least, that you found me to be someone special for you. I really thought I was and it made me very happy. I felt like of all the people in the world, I was the one who made the grumpy, tough guy feel important and loved. I thought that in your eyes I was perfect, for you. Just a little strange, but just perfect for you. I thought that our few similarities could grow. I thought we could see the world together, could experience new things together.


I guess I just really wanted a partner in crime. Yet you continued to push me further and further away, finally choosing to dismiss me for others. Between me and you, it changed. Between me and you, she came. Between me and you, you inserted your ego, your lack of interest, your lack of love. You came in between us. You did it deliberately and carefully, knowingly and cruelly. You did what you wanted and in the end you will lose, but for now, I'm the one who suffers. I suffer because I spent my love, my life, my tears, my sweat, my heart and soul on this thing. I am spent. I am bankrupt, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically. I lose for now because I emptied my account while you filled yours. And no matter what the fuck more "together" people say, it fucking sucks.

Quickie

Why did I do it? Why did I let my guard down. I've always told friends that the moment you start to drift away from the one who's broken your heart, the person stops on by, committing himself fully to fucking with your mind. I cannot, cannot, cannot believe that I even, for one swift moment, a breath, a heartbeat, let this person make me feel anything short of contempt.
I do well with contempt. It suits me. I do it well. I'm great at bitter, phenomenal at vengeful. It's my thing, not letting go, not accepting the truth, even when it screws me over or slaps me in the face. Not even when it humiliates me in front of those I love, cherish and respect.
I'm also good at kicking myself when I'm down. I'm great at reminding myself that I ignored my gut once again, only to discover I'm my own worst enemy.
Geez.

From This Day...Backward

I can't imagine how I got here. I knew we were different, opposites even. I knew it would be a struggle. I knew I am a control freak. I knew I like it how I like it. I knew he was hard-headed and anti-social in many ways. But here, now, it's OVER. No matter what movie-ending I thought could happen, it's OVER. No happy ending. I didn't prevail. Love didn't prevail. Our family didn't prevail. WE didn't prevail.

Even now, I'm going over the few truly good and many disappointing memories, wondering how I covered the discontent with the clinging-on to the few fun times where I made him smile, and knew it was organic, real, ME. All I can think of now is that I was not enough. I was never enough. I went in a loser. I remember laughs on vacations, the rare hug that he actually meant. I remember the constant feeling that I was not good enough, knowing full-well that I was. And am. I am. I'm intelligent and boisterous. I'm adventurous, a lover of life and art and music and film and travel. I like to laugh. I like to flirt and smile. I love, love, love to entertain people with food and drink, movies and games.

Still, today, on THIS day, the day I decided that it's really OVER, I feel...
Burned. Crushed. Shattered. Flustered. Broken. Beaten. Battered. Humiliated. Embarrassed. Inadequate. Sorry. Shameful. Cold. Lonely. Bewildered. Taken aback. Alone. Spent. Abandoned. I feel...like...nothing.

There is, like in a bad novel, an empty pit, a hole, inside my chest, where my heart and soul once resided. They were kidnapped by a person who was shy but had this amazing smile. When he smiled at me, I felt like there could really "be" something between us. I felt like, with all our individual faults, we fit. Two people, wanting the kind of family neither had been raised in, just wanting to carve out a simple life. Beware. "Simple" is a very subjective word. To one, it means a small space in which to live, a few friends and fewer real plans. Few dreams. Few expectations. Few ambitions. To another, it means simple clothing, simple events, simple goals. To yet another, it means simple, true, organic belief in one's dreams. Simply. A. Belief.

I don't know how, now that it's over, everyone saw this coming but me. I think that a single-race guy can meet a mixed-race girl with a child and make a real go at it. I think it's possible for people from completely different backgrounds to connect and love and live and laugh and feel. I wonder if it's me. Am I not inspiring enough? Am I not perfect enough? I know my faults and flaws. I married him despite his. I just didn't think that one day, he'd become so low, so indifferent, so unsettled, so unhappy, that it would all come down to ME. Just ME.

And here I sit, just ME. Me and my place, which will inevitably belong to someone else, as I stumble out into the world, a single mother once again, this time armed with the cynicism of 13+ years of a very different life. I have no idea what will happen, but I've lived in this place just short of 18 years. I know nothing else. I slowly made it the home I never had. It has all the touches of a simple (that word) yet inviting place. Living by modest means, one learns to add things one likes in a slow, methodical progression. I spent years hating what I couldn't improve in this property. Now that I face the possibility of giving it up, I love it. I took it for granted, like a lover one thinks can "always be better", and now, full of regret, I look around. I see these walls, now painted a little more nicely; the carpet, newer yet over time stained much like the old one; the curtains, so much more sophisticated than the ones in place when I moved in; the first new furniture either of us ever bought: couch, ottoman, chair, bookcases. I ponder which he'll take and which I'll take and which we'll fight over. The bed, perhaps? The bed, costing the price of a small "starter" car, with its memory foam, massage feature and movable head and foot sectors, is a dream, no pun intended. I have never, NEVEr slept so deeply and soundly.

They say that when someone dies, whether it was expected or not, the grieving process is the same. I could say I knew this would happen, but I didn't. I grew up staring wide-eyed at the silver screen, dreaming of handsome men who'd whisk me away and make life wonderful, men who would stare deeply into my eyes, compliment my smile, call me lovely and witty. I hoped he would turn out to feel that way about me, at least some of the time. What I did know is that he didn't. Still, I thought he would. You hear these stories of old-school marriages and arranged marriages, where they say they "learned to love" or "grew to love". Perhaps we didn't wait long enough. Perhaps I was too impatient. Maybe he just loves someone else. And so, the sorrow is immense and deep, stabbing at me intermittently as I try to blink away tears brought on by such silly things as TLC's "What Not To Wear". I try to tuck my little guy into my bed, telling him Dad and I both love him and Dad is just staying at Papa's for a night or two. He knows what's going on. Still, I am trying, after all the arguing in front of the kids (or in the next room, same difference) to just once, just once, be calm and not fall apart. It seeps into my chest and spreads, hot like brandy, choking up into my throat.

I feel afraid of the world for the first time in my life. I have always been the adventurous child in my family. Called "different", "strange", "weird" (that one mostly by my in-laws), I have always dreamed of living in Italy, visiting France, seeing Ireland. I aspired, even as a child, to become a Nomad of sorts, flitting from here to there, meeting new and exciting people, learning new cultures and languages, and finding ME. The ME that he doesn't love. The ME that thought someone would love ME for ME. Didn't happen. I know, I know...I still have time to do those things, but somehow, the idea of adventures while young, or with a loving partner, just seems closer to what I'd imagined. Although people consider me to be independent, I really crave companionship. I can be alone, sure, but I prefer a partner in crime. Gettin' into trouble is just more fun when you use the buddy system!

And now, here I am. I can only say this: I brought this person into my son's life. I lost 2 babies with this person. I had my body sewn shut in order to give this person a baby. And sadly, ultimately, it meant everything to ME. And nothing to him.