After work, I'm pulling into the driveway, her minivan's gone. My eyes go dinnerplates, my heart is in my throat and my mind is scrambling everything I can pull off before she gets home. Should I play guitar, should I run to the bar and hook up with my buddies, should I watch porn? Can I take my guitar and some porn to the bar? One question: how much time? I call her cell. "Hey Sweetie, what're you guys up to?...Oh yeah? The pool? No, I'm kinda beat. Want me to start dinner? Okay. Love you. Bye." Yes...Yesyesyesyes! An hour! An entire hour to myself! The world is my oyster. Hmmmm...
And so goes the story of a suburban family man (though not often enough) that I'm sure we've all experienced. It's not that we don't love them. Maybe we love them too much. We give and give as husbands, fathers, lovers, hug providers, Mr. Fix-its, and boo-boo kissers. It's easy to lose yourself. We've been house broken and domesticated to the point we've forgotten how to burp and curse. Slowly over the years we disappear. I haven't seen Tim in a long time. I vaguely recall him. My friends still tell stories about him. But, my name is Honey or Daddy and I miss Tim. So, an hour of selfishness goes a long way until BAM! It's over.
The most beautiful, powerful, stable marble pillar. Polished, immaculate, looked upon with love. You admire it when you get a chance. But, we're all running at a breakneck pace. It started one day, in one unseen corner, the tiniest piece broke away. Little by little this amazing love you'd built is eroding. Patch here, patch there while it's falling apart in front of you're eyes. Greet it with care, then concern, then frustration and finally anger. Day breaks and a beautiful sun smiles down on your immaculately polished pile of rubble and dust. You kiss your kids goodbye and assure them everything will be alright. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. Give her one last cold stare, hang your head and close the door.
I had ten days for my non-existent lawyer to respond to her very real one. I had nine hundred dollars and two suitcases to my name. Hi Mom. Hi Dad. I'm home. It's safe to say I wasn't prepared. I zombied my way through work, consoled my parents consoling of me, drank myself silly and put my parents to bed like I would my own children. Finally, alone time. I put my days on the backburner so I'd have the energy I needed to repair myself. This wasn't intentional. Like most guys I can't let a problem fester. The dishwashers not draining? On it. Leak in the roof? Done. Remodel the kitchen? Let me get my tools. It's reflex. This time my tools were good music and alcohol. Shaken with ice and a little time, I can crawl inside my head and tinker about.
Over a period of time I developed a "mantra chant method" for dealing with issues I couldn't accept. This started with "It's okay Tim. It's okay Tim." etc. Over and over until I'd cried my eyes out and let the memories wash over me. Maybe, I was enjoying the pain. Maybe I'm so perverse and full of self loathing, I enjoyed it. After all, I was raised Roman Catholic. And if given the opportunity to kick the shit out of myself, oh brother, lets get some ball bats. I'll meet ya behind the tool shed. It hurt. It helped. I woke up in the morning and took a deep breath. The first breath I'd had in me for what felt like years. I may have even smiled. Lets try that again.
That night, alone pacing my parents garage, I found my place to say "She's not mine anymore. She's not mine anymore." until I achieved my end result. This time I attained something new. I kept the feeling of relief and satisfaction although, when I woke to recall the night, a stone sat in my path. It read "I don't belong to her anymore. I don't belong to her anymore. She doesn't own me anymore. She can't control me anymore." I read that stone. I chanted that stone. I went to that stone, reached out and rolled it away. In that moment everything changed. My wife, my love, my "if we weren't meant for each other, we weren't meant for anyone", everything I'd given, everything stolen from me, all the hurt, all the hate simply rolled away.
Healing sucks. It especially sucks for man's men. We don't ask for help. We don't share our feelings (unless we're drunk). We don't cry. We don't beg. We can't. If we aren't strong who's going to be? We have a power and a purpose. So, men don't cry. Period. Fucking period. But, we have to. Everyone has to. It's human nature. Your body creates tears the same way it creates sperm and sweat. It's a natural response and a bodily function. Work hard, you're going to sweat. Sex, you're going to complete (sometimes sooner, sometimes later). Hurt, you need to cry it out. For your own good. I'd prefer to get off every now and then as opposed to being bedridden with blue balls. On the same token, I'd prefer to cry it all out (in complete privacy of course) to harboring the pain. It'll come out eventually anyway. You're at a party with friends, the anger makes you have a few to many, you get comfortable then you burst into tears in front of thirty people who tell you about it the next day over the phone. As if you need anymore humiliation. So, get it out of yourself in advance. So, yeah, I'm right. Throw away the "pathetic loser" concept. Cry it out. Cry until your ducts are dry. Sob until you can't breathe. You don't have to look in the mirror to see your sniveling face. But, you can cry over your kids. You can cry over your losses. You can cry over all your wasted efforts in trying to resuscitate a dead situation. And, yes, you can cry about how much you still love her. And hate her. And still can't stop being in love with her. So turn on some '80s Chicago or Air Supply or whatever sappy nonsense appeals to you and open the floodgates. Cry it out. Tomorrow is waiting for you. Yep, healing sucks. But, there are rewards.
My "still" wife and I have become friends. We talk more now then we ever did. Our divorce will work out amicably eventually. She and her boyfriend met my girlfriend the other day. I'm having dinner with my girlfriends "still" husband this week. Maybe I'm just lucky. (Well, I know that's not true. You should gamble against me sometime. I'll make you rich.) Maybe we all are grieving in our own way well enough to be close in the aftermath. Best of all, I now found the perfect amount of alone time. When I see my children we do whatever we want on our own terms. I have the time to miss them and plan fun things for our next rendezvous. When I'm with them I enjoy them and think of what I'll read next when they're with their mom. Or who I'll visit. Or what I have to accomplish this week. And then I can take a deep breath and sigh it away because I may very well have time to do it all. It wasn't easy. I'm fairly certain everyone in our situation is an alcoholic at this point. We are, the lot of us, pretending to be adults. But, I feel thirty something going on eighteen again. I wouldn't change it for the world. The kids in our situation now have more love and more people in their life to love them. They may have lost their dad in the house but, they gained so much. It's all far from over. There's still some discomfort, a little pain. But, from what I thought divorce would be, I am blessed. I managed to win it all. And we all deserve to. There is a new dawn.
So, I dare you to try and hold on. Bottle up the pain. Don't give yourself the proper confrontation. Try to preserve the night. That sun's coming up anyway. You have a choice to make. Will you bask in it's glory or find yourself scurrying from shadow to shadow. I prefer the light. In that light I dance through my days and float through my nights. All because I let myself forgive myself. Now I've given you my story. Thoughts, comments, hate spews and accolades are equally welcome. We all have a story to share. I'm all ears (and eyes).
