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.