Monday, January 30, 2006
a puppy
Amanda will be ten in November. I know that seems like a long time from now, but seeing as I don't have the best instincts when it comes to picking gifts for my children, I figure now is as good a time as any to start brainstorming.
Yes, I know Trin and Emilee have birthdays in May.
Shut up.
Anyway, it occurred to me that Amanda may finally be old enough for a dog.
Not like a big ass dog, but something little. But not a chiuaua... er... chiwawa... (thank goodness for spell checker!) chihuahua. I don't much care for them. I don't want some little thing that will yip because I want her to be able to keep it inside most of the time.
I started looking online and found some great adoption sites for saved dogs in my general area. At first I just assumed that all places were going to more or less be the same and I needed to just find a breed I liked and then pick a place. But, with a little clicking, I found all kinds of gnarly disgusting pictures of mutilated animals being raised by so-called "breeders" and buckets of animal carcasses and collars embedded in poor animal necks... It was awful.
There are horror stories every where.
Poor animals.
So, I am thinking that I should probably look into adopting a small rescued dog for Amanda and my only real stipulations will be that it is a young adult, housebroken (as in doesn't use my home for a bathroom and that it doesn't chew all our shit to hell and back) and able to be around kids.
Someone asked me yesterday if I wanted a "Fraser Dog" and I am thinking no. I don't want something that is going to bounce off the damn walls. I have three kids for that.
You know what I want? I want the older dog from Lady and the Tramp. You know, the one with the Scottish accent? Yup, I want him.
Amanda just loves animals. Not in a "hug him and squeeze him and love him" way either. She really wants to be a vet. She goes and helps Fairy out at the vet clinic where she works every other Saturday. She loves all animals and I think that having one as a companion will be good for her. Plus I think that she is finally old enough to handle the responsibility of caring for one.
So, dear readers, tell me about your dogs. Tell me the good and the bad. I have until November to pick something or change my mind and buy her Jesse McCartney instead...
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Fun With Fours
Four jobs that you've had:
~I worked in several restaurants doing hostessing, bussing tables, cashiering (is that a word?), waiting tables (which I suck at... I can't ever seem to balance all the crap you need to carry. I once dropped the same tray four times before they had someone else take it.) and I did room service. Room service was where I made the most money.
~I once folded sheets for hotels from 11pm until 4am in a laundry matt. The job sucked but the pay was awesome and I can fold sheets like nobody's business.
~I assembled the Sunday newspaper in a tiny building for ten bucks an hour. The job was easy as shit. My brother and I did it together and always brought a radio.
~I ran a daycare for a church for almost two years.
Four movies you could watch over and over:
~Anne Of Green Gables
~Count Of Monte Cristo
~Robin Hood (the Disney version)
~The Matchmaker
Four places you've lived:
~Na'alehu, Hawaii
~Port Aransas, Texas
~Phoenix, Arizona
~Boone, North Carolina
Four tv shows you love have to watch:
~ Grey's Anatomy
~ Desperate Housewives
~ Gilmore Girls
~ and most recently, Love Monkey (ok, come on Tom Cavanagh is hot and the show has a TON of kick ass music and great dialogue!)
Four of your favorite books:
~ Walk In My Soul by Lucia St. Clair Robson
~ Memnoch The Devil by Anne Rice
~ Season of Passage and The Immortal by Christopher Pike
~ Three Sisters trilogy by Nora Roberts
Four places you have been on vacation:
~I went to Dallas last year...
~I go to Port Aransas frequently...
~I visit family in Dallas...
~That's it. I don't go on vacation often I guess.
Four websites you visit daily:
only four? fuck...
~ MooCow
~ Hot Toddy
~ Desolation Angel
~ Dooce
Four of your favorite foods:
~yogurt with granola bars broken up in it
~Pasta... all pasta
~chicken
~cereal (Special K, vanilla almond)
Four places you would rather be right now:
~Under Matthew McConaughey
~Accepting my huge check for winning the lottery
~Instructing my new maid on how I like my laundry folded
~Laying on a beach
Four bloggers you are tagging:
who to tag...
~Lola
~Tux Baby
~The Girl
~Yoda
Friday, January 27, 2006
I bought a new car yesterday.
As most of you know, I have been trying to find a car to buy for about two years. Last year, instead of buying one, I ended up sticking my tax return in the bank and giving myself a financial safety net and some traveling money. I never found that perfect car.
But three days ago, dear readers, I found it.
You can click here to see more photos.
I hopped a ride with my co-worker to Houston since she was going to visit family anyway. And let me tell ya'll, the drive to Houston from San Antonio is quite possibly the most boring drive ever.
Ever.
There is nothing.
The most exciting thing I saw during those three hours were some oil rigs.
It was flat and yucky and boring.
Even if you drive from San Antonio to Dallas, you get to go through Marble Falls which is gorgeous.
There weren't even cows. I live in TEXAS! There weren't even cows.
When I drive to work in the mornings, I see cattle and horses and goats. I don't think I saw any animals. The landscape must have bored them to death.
Anyway, the man I bought my car from is awesome. I highly recommend that you contact him the next time you are in the market for a car. He's a wholesaler and I got a kick ass deal. Let's just say that what I talked him down to would normally be considered a good sized down payment rather than the full price of the vehicle.
This morning when I pulled into the parking lot and the salesmen started mulling around asking questions, they were very impressed at the price. But fuck, I've been playing this game for a long time. If I can't get a car for wholesale price then what the hell am I doing here?
Anyway, I met a friend and fellow blogger after I got the car so we could go out for Chinese and say hey to each other.
We sat in this restaurant discussing things that you need to be several tables away from other people in order to discuss. It was fucking awesome. At one point, this family came in and sat like four tables over from us. They ordered their drinks and then moved to a table at the front of the restaurant.
I'd like to think that was because of us.
Because it would be so very "delinquent".
My friend swears she has the most perfect of men for me. I am waiting for pictures. I should be in Houston again in April so maybe *hint* she will invite him too...
(Speaking of men, Teacher boy called me Tuesday... said he would call again this weekend. I'll elaborate further in another post.)
Anyway, Hot Toddy left this comment on my post yesterday: My wish for you is that she will reach out to you in some amazing way so that you will know you are loved.
I wanted so badly to have her with me yesterday. She totally would have went. And then she would have done something crazy like buying me dolphin seat covers... I kept thinking maybe she was with me and looking for something to make me feel like she was...
Then, when I met up with my friend in Houston, she is standing behind the car checking it out and
she says "Hey. Aren't you going to be 26 this year?"
I said "Yup."
she says "and today is the 26th?"
I said "Yes..."
She points at the license plate on the back of the car and she says "Then I guess you were meant to have this car since there is a '26' on the license plate."
When I looked at it, my heart skipped a beat. Not only was there a '26' but...
Thursday, January 26, 2006
I miss you.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Acrophobic Humpday: The I'm So Tired Edition
Oh man, I am all blogged out. I feel like someone who was starving and then gorged on food. This past weekend I was without the internet from the time I left work Friday until I got back Monday morning.
No email, no statcounter, nothing.
Ok, did you catch that? No. Stat. Counter.
The horror.
Anyway, I had been mentally working on my story of NY all weekend in my head and then once I got started, I couldn't stop and now I am just plain pooped.
Theme this week? Finish this sentence "I am so tired of..."
That was weird.
I just had a really bad dejavu. Like I had already written this, new template and all...
I'm sorry...
What?
Points?
You want to know about points?
Yeah, I thought you might.
A few of my favorites from the last two weeks...
Some of you had very interesting wishes...
"Sometimes I wish I could..."
...Wallow In Sex Houses Every Sunday! - Yoda (10 points)
...Show Kate In Private... - RHSP (10 points because I am an attention whore)
...Sustain Kindness You Display In Virtually Everything - Grend
...Get Really Old Whiskey Lickety-split - Grend (20 points, great words "lickety-split"? oh yeah!)
...drive really eratically at men - Lola (don't we all? 10 points)
...Tell Everyone Little Elves Power Our Repressed Thoughts - crazysilver (10 points for being completely out there! lol)
...Let each acrophobic vault extemporaneously. - browser58 (10 points and welcome!)
...perpetrate unfathomable ruin leaving only Indomitable nature. - karamia (10 points, check you out with the big words!)
...Win Everlasting Boy Sex To Enjoy Richly - cherish (you and I both sugar, 10 points)
...Grab Right Under My Penis- Yeah! - Tuxbaby (your penis huh? lmao, 10 points)
And last week:
"Oh my god, you did not just..."
...Ponder On Intelligence Not Tit Size - devilgyrl (welcome and here is your first 10 points)
...Fart Again 'Cause I Am Livid! - crazysilver (are you living with my oldest daughter? lol 10 points... too bad I have to take them back with the next one)
...Work Him Exhausted, Even Lethargic! - crazysilver (-10 points. Yup, that's right. No points for you :P j/k)
...Cluck, Howl AND Moo----Post-coital! - daisyduke (10 points for working postcoital into an acro)
...order ordinary pig swill?? - browser58 (10 points for "swill")
...Cry "HOO-RAH" As Sex Ensued
...Brag About Getting Elvis Laid?!??
...Say That Umpires Party In Drag?!?? - Tuxbaby (much better than the cross bow one! 10 points for Umps in drag and another 1o points for getting Elvis laid and 5 points for "Hoo-RAH")
...Melt Under Naked Curvaceous Hips... - Jim C (niiiice, 10 points)
...Make Orgasms Instant, Satisfying, Titillating - The Girl (again, niiiice, 10 here too)
and lastly, another five for Cherish for forever making us think of "orgasm repeatedly" when we think of the word ORANGE.
Click here for the totals.
Don't know what Acrophobia is? Well, click that button and find out.
Then you can play with us.
You know you want to.
History Lesson #4
Ok, below this post is a mess of History Lessons and some of you are getting all confused and emailing me asking me what the hell is going on.
I know I normally post these in order from top to bottom. However, I am writing as I go this time (which I usually don't do) so I am posting them as I write. This means that the one at the bottom is first.
OR, I will just list them here and you can click in order, if you are so inclined.
I am hoping to wrap them up by tonight. There are still at least two more for this story. In the mean time, here they are, in order:
Falling In Lust
Being Together
Wasting Time Illusions Shattered
Making Promises Independence The Man From My Dreams (this one has a first part and if you want to read it, there is a "previous" link at the beginning of the entry)
Reconciliation
Nothing Changes
Unfettered
EDITED: These are done and I am SORRY for the confusion of their listing order. Now, if you click on the first one, there will be a "next" at the bottom of each and you can "next" your way through to the end.
Thanks for reading and for the comments and the emails :)
~K Labels: History Lesson
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
History Lesson #4 (Unfettered)
From the time that I had been nineteen, I had been having these little weird bouts of pain in my stomach and they had gotten so much worse. From the age of nineteen until twenty one, I had undergone so many medical tests. I spent tons of time in and out of hospitals with doctors poking and prodding and guessing. When I was twenty one my doctor told me that he thought I had colon cancer. He said that all the symptoms I had been experiencing pointed in that direction and while it was rare in people who were my age, it was not unheard of.
Cancer.
I couldn't have cancer. I was twenty one.
And another set of tests was ran and I tried not to worry myself to death. I cried every night trying not to think about what would happen to my girls if I wasn't there with them. When the doctor came in and said he was wrong, I left and I didn't go back. I was done with doctors and tests and I didn't give two shits about ever seeing another paper covered table for the rest of my life.
The pain I was having in the beginning wasn't awful, it started as a minor and sporadic discomfort and then became a frequent and major discomfort and eventually, it became unbearable. I couldn't get out of bed when it hit.
Back to the doctor at NY's insistance.
I was diagnosed with Endometriosis when I was twenty two.
What should have been an hour and a half surgery took four and a half hours. It took them four and a half hours to burn it all off. Waking up from that surgery, I was in the most pain I had ever been in.
Ever.
I spent three days in bed. I could barely move. And I needed help to get up to go to the bathroom and then I needed help to get back into bed when I was finished.
But then I was ok for a few months. When the pain from the surgery cleared up, I thought I was cured.
I hadn't looked anything up online so I had no idea that the chances of it coming back full force were fairly high.
I went back to work and back to life.
A few months later, I noticed that I was having pain after sex. I made excuses at first, blamed it on the position or whatever. But then, it got worse and with it, the pain came back. And it came back much worse than it had been.
I spent the better part of a year on pain medication. All the time. Every day. I woke up in the middle of the night and took it and took it in the morning and all day. My doctors had to continuously switch my pills so I wouldn't get hooked on them. I took the maximum dosage and I took it as many times as I was allowed to a day. I was burning through pains meds like they were tic-tacs.
I was a zombie.
The second surgery wasn't as bad as the first. It was shorter and less painful. The doctors said that they couldn't believe how fast it had come back and with such force. It was a quick fix. I was in pain again before I had even finished the prescription medication that they gave me after the surgery. My stitches weren't even out and I could feel it coming back.
I had no energy and my thoughts were fuzzy. I couldn't drive and I was gaining a lot of weight because I had to eat to take the meds and I was taking a lot of meds and by proxy eating much more than I usually did. I had to sit down the whole time I was at work, I never remembered anything and I couldn't play with my kids.
I hated it.
And all of a sudden NY thought I was having an affair. Logically, since I wasn't having sex with him I must have been having sex with someone. It didn't matter that when we did have sex, I cried afterwards. Or that I had been diagnosed with endo. In his eyes, I was cheating. He even went so far as to accuse me of cheating on him with Veronique.
I didn't care.
Or I couldn't care.
I was in so much pain all the time. I couldn't remember anything. I missed my kids being in plays at school, I couldn't help with homework. I went to see Emilee in a food parade in school and couldn't even stand there and watch for more than ten minutes before I was in so much pain I thought I would pass out.
So, I did my homework. I researched everything I could about endometriosis. I read medical articles and stories from other women who had it. I read everything.
I read about treatments. There weren't many options. Basically, I could be put on the first two weeks of birth control pills all the time. It would keep my body from having a period and hopefully keep my body from trying to expel the cells, causing my pain. They also wanted me to start taking male hormones.
No.
No, I wasn't going to do it because I had already read that the success rate was slim and I didn't want all of the side effects that came with the hormones. And considering how fast and hard it came back after my surgeries, I knew that it wouldn't help. There was only one other solution: a hysterectomy.
I went to see my doctor and he told me no way. No way was he going to give a twenty three year old a hysterectomy. Was I crazy? No. So, I "fired" him and started doctor shopping. I literally broke out the San Antonio phone book and started with "A" and worked my way down. I could usually rule out a doctor very quickly.
Do you take my insurance?
No.
Ok, thanks.
And if I made it past the insurance question, most doctors had a moral issue giving chics my age a hysterectomy despite the disease. I found one but we found out later that he didn't take my insurance after all. He offered to do it for cash but I couldn't come up with the money. I felt like one of those chics trying to get an illegal abortion back in the fifties.
All the while NY and I are drifting. Between my job and the pain pills and my obsession with getting the hysterectomy, we barely saw each other. I was willing to sacrifice our relationship to get my life back. And for someone who wanted so badly for me to understand and accept his problems, he wasn't very interested in mine. He was still harping on our completely nonexistent sex life like I was doing it on purpose. And he was still positive that I was having an affair.
Maybe it sounds cold but I didn't care.
I had to find some way to get my life back. I hated the pills almost as much as I hated the pain. I hated that I had already missed a year of my life and I wasn't going to miss another year. I was putting my feelings ahead of his, my wants ahead of his and if he didn't understand and support me, then oh fucking well. I couldn't be in pain any more. I would have done anything to get my life back including losing him.
Weeks went by with me searching for a new doctor and I was running low on pills. I went in for a check up and my doctor had been called into emergency surgery and they asked if I minded seeing someone else. I didn't care since I had already fired him anyway. So, I ended up seeing the doctor that had delivered Emilee years before. I had switched after she was born because he wasn't very personable and if you are going to be all up in my nether regions, well by golly you had better be pleasant to be around.
He reviewed my history with me. He couldn't believe I had been on pain pills for over a year at such a high dosage. And I snapped back that if the other doctor would just give me the goddamned hysterectomy, I wouldn't have to be any more. He asked why the other doctor wouldn't and I told him that it was because of my age. And you know what he said? "I'll do the surgery. Can you come in next week?"
My mouth fell open and he looked at me and he suddenly looked really uncomfortable, like he had just been nice on accident.
"Seriously?"
He shifted in his seat, "I don't see why not. You have already had three kids and I am assuming you had your tubes tied to prevent having any more, so that isn't an issue. I see here that your ovaries haven't been affected too badly yet and that they took out your fallopian tubes during the second laparoscopy due to their extensive damage. Hopefully we can just take out your uterus and leave your ovaries and you should be fine."
And I am sitting there, on the paper covered table, crying.
I mean, this man who delivered my second daughter is basically telling me that he can give me my life back. I wanted to get up and hug him and tell him he was the fucking king of my world but the crying made him really uncomfortable and he got up and made his way out of the room telling the nurse to schedule my hysterectomy for a week from Tuesday.
I was on cloud fucking nine.
My life could be normal again. It had been so long since I had even had a pain free day, never mind a normal week. I could sweep my floors and pick my kids up and run if I wanted to.
I got home and told NY and he just sort of shrugged and I knew that we were damaged beyond repair. Too far apart. The boys were gone again to their mom's and he had pretty much moved into their room. No huge fight, no nasty words, just indifference. We had both needed too much from the other and neither of us had realized it until it was too late. His self esteem was in the shitter and I didn't even notice. I needed his support and his help and he didn't notice.
We really were bad at being in love with each other.
I had the surgery and I remember when I woke up I was in less pain than I had been in the entire previous year. The nurse came in and showed me how to give myself morphine and I was like whatever honey, I want to get up! I feel fucking fantastic. She was pretty sure I had already dipped into the morphine.
The next day, they took the morphine away and gave me more pain pills to add to my collection at home. I never took them. My stomach was a mess of stitches and I had just had major surgery and I felt fucking awesome.
Awesome.
They let me leave the next day and I went home and cleaned my entire kitchen while NY slept until one thirty that afternoon. He'd had another night of video games. When he got up, we fought. All of the anger and resentment we had stored up for each other came to the surface. He knocked me down. I remember when I hit the couch with my stomach, I thought to myself that he had better not fuck up my surgery. When I hit the floor and heard my daughters screaming, it was over. I wouldn't put my kids through what I had been through as a child. They wouldn't relive my past.
I left.
I went to my mothers and stayed the night and came home the next day and told him he had to move. It was August 5th 2003. I told him he could stay until October when the lease was up and that would give him enough time to find a place. But when October came, I was moving and we would not be together. He started packing that night and he loaded up his Mustang and drove back to New York the next day.
He hates me now. He told me on the phone that he hates me, that I gave up on us. He says I should have tried harder and that he wanted to fix it and that we could have fixed it if we had tried harder. He says we will never be friends and that I used him. He says I got pregnant on purpose and that I only had Trin so that I could use him as a paycheck.
He also admitted that he had been cheating on me from the second month we were together and the only time he wasn't seeing someone else was when we moved into the last house together. The girl that was shot by her husband? NY and her had been sleeping together.
He said when we got back together that he was really trying. That he wanted to make it work but that my heart was never in it. That I never forgave him and that I was never serious about us making it work. Maybe he is right.
All I know is that when we were together I wasn't happy. I spent too much time alone, too much time questioning whether we were all in or not. I never felt like we were a "we". It always seemed like he would leave at any moment over any argument.
We were just two pieces of a puzzle that didn't fit, no matter how many different ways we tried to force it.Labels: History Lesson
History Lesson #4 (Nothing Changes)
We moved back in together within a month of his getting laid off from work. I didn't want him to move back to New York because I wanted him to be around for Trin and because I still cared about him. So when he moved in with me, it was under the pretense that it was temporary. Just until he found another job and then he and the boys would move back to San Antonio or he would buy a house in the town where I lived.
He was being compensated from his old job and with that and the money I was making, we were fine. We got a bigger place and I hated the drive but I loved the house. Everyone seemed happy.
But, it wasn't the same... whatever "the same" was...
We were great initially, mad in love. But then the fireworks wore off enough for us to fall back into routine. He tried more this time, but I didn't want to hear the excuses. I didn't want to hear about how his staying up all night was because of his being bi-polar or manic depressive. I didn't want excuses. I had gotten those from AZ in spades. I didn't want another addiction (whether it was to meds or drugs) and I didn't want more moodswings. I wanted stability and security more than anything and he was rocking the boat. High days and low days, happy days and sad days. He would spend the whole night on the computer playing games promising that he would come to bed in a few minutes. I was flashing back to the past and seeing it repeat itself.
I wanted him to be that guy he was when I wasn't his or when he wanted me. I didn't want the guy who played video games and chainsmoked. I didn't want the guy who sat in front of the computer for hours and blew off the stuff around the house he had promised to do.
I didn't want to try so hard this time.
I mean, I knew that relationships were work, but it seemed like ours was always work.
For Triniti's first birthday, I was having a party for her and Emilee at the ranch where I was working. They had this entire area set off in the middle of nowhere. It had store fronts for the tourists, a jukebox and a covered party area. Next to it was an arena where we kept a couple of calves and some sheep. The calves were used for this game where they tie a little ribbon on their tale and kids chase the calves to get the ribbon and then win a prize.
Anyway, the ranch where I worked was shooting their commercial that weekend and had asked if they could shoot the birthday party for part of the commercial. Considering that they wouldn't charge me for the use of the space, I quickly agreed. I invited pretty much every kid in Emilee's grade and everyone I knew. I stressed about the party knowing that there would be camera crews there. I wanted to make sure I had enough food, enough games, enough goody bags, enough help, etc.
For some reason, the morning of the party, NY and I got into an argument. I don't even remember what it was about, but we just got pissed at each other. Chances are that it was a combination of me stressing about the party and him not wanting to see all the people that would be there. He didn't like my friends and he hated my family.
As the morning progressed, he wasn't doing anything to help me get everything loaded into the car and the kids were running crazy around the house and I finally snapped at him. He had been bitching about my family being there and how he didn't want to be around them so I just told him to stay home. I told him that in fact it would be easier for me if he just didn't come at all.
He got all pissed and started yelling at me about how I wasn't going to keep him from his daughter's first birthday party. I told him that he could just stay home. This was a huge deal. There were going to be a ton of people that I worked with there and he certainly wasn't going to go to my job and embarrass me by being an asshole and since he hadn't helped with anything the whole time anyway that it was just a better idea.
After I said that, I went into our walk in closet to grab some party stuff that I had in there and when I turned around he grabbed me.
It was really fast.
He never hit me, he just grabbed me and slammed me into the wall and put his hands around my neck. A few seconds later, my feet weren't on the ground any more and I couldn't breathe. I remember that I was clawing at his hands, his arms, anything I could reach because I couldn't breathe. Everything started to go out of focus and I saw black and that was when he dropped me on the floor and walked out.
I kept thinking that I didn't have time to cry. I kept cursing myself for crying about it. I didn't have time because the party was going to start soon.
He had hit me once before and scared the shit out of me a few times by acting like he would hit me. But getting the air choked out of me had been really scary. But I couldn't think about it. I had too much to do, too much riding on that afternoon, too many people waiting for me. I loaded up the car and the kids and he and I headed into town. He didn't say anything. He didn't apologize, he didn't try and rationalize it. He just sat there and looked out the window while I drove us to the ranch.
After I had everything set up, I went up to the main house of the ranch to get the ice cream and caked from the fridge and one of the chics I worked with was there. She asked me what the hell had happened to my neck. I hadn't even looked. I think I told her that one of the kids had grabbed me too hard from behind... but when I saw it myself in the mirror, I knew that there was no way anyone would believe that. My neck was bruised everywhere. An idiot would have known what happened. It looked horrible. I ended up tying a bandana around my neck to hide the bruises.
Later on when I was sitting with my mom, she mentioned that she was surprised that NY had come to the party and that he was actually being agreeable. She referenced the party I had the year before for Emilee which he didn't even show up to (even though we were living together at the time and he had said he would) and said that this was much better than the year before.
Ironically, it was much worse.
next...Labels: History Lesson
History Lesson #4 (Reconciliation)
Remember how you guys were emailing me after you read about The Man From My Dreams (Dreamboy)? And I told ya'll that you had read the best parts and it didn't end well?
Well, it didn't end well.
You see, when I started to see Dreamboy he made it expressly clear that he didn't picture himself getting into another relationship after the train wreck that he had just gotten out of. So, we were going to basically have a friend with benefits type of relationship. I was completely cool with that since I was still fairly fresh from my own break up and I wasn't looking to replay any of the previous two years.
But then, he changed his mind. Not long after we became intimate, he started talking about us moving in together. I was too damaged for that. I was too afraid to move in with someone new. I know that now, but when he asked me and felt the wave of panic wash over me, I had no idea why I was reacting that way. I thought it meant that I didn't care about him, I thought it was my mind's way of telling me that I was making a mistake in being with him.
You know when you read that romance book and you are screaming at the heroine that she is a moron for walking away from Mr. Perfect because she is scared? Yeah. I was the scared heroine. I really cared about Dreamboy and he was an awesome person, but he moved too fast for me and I was so broken that I ran away, scared.
And I didn't do it in the best of ways.
I didn't call and tell him that I wasn't ready or that he was moving to fast, I blew him off. It was such a horrible thing to do, such a shitty way to treat someone and he didn't deserve it. He was being honest and open and he was such a nice guy and I just blew him off.
I avoided most of his calls and became incredibly unavailable.
I started looking for a new job. Trin was a few months old and I needed to get back into the world of full time employment. And to show you what a doll Dreamboy was, when ever I had an interview, he would come by and leave me flowers and wish me luck.
At the same time, NY had admitted that he was not over me. He said that he knew he had fucked up and that he didn't know why so he had went to a shrink and they told him he was bi-polar and manic depressive.
They put him on meds and he was in counseling.
And he wanted me back. Or so he said...
"I am just hurt that another man may have your heart when I am seeking the help that I needed for so long, yet you don't want to see it. Kate, I love you dearly and always will. And I hate myself right now for being abnormal, being a freak, because if I was normal I would have made you happier than you could ever imagine, get that house on the beach, import some dolphins, have Lucia St. Clair Robson and Christopher Pike give you writing tips, and buy you notebook paper every morning with purple lilacs on them so you could write.. and make you fettuccini alfredo with broccoli everyday for lunch, even though it makes me hurl. I'd book our wedding in Hawaii on the beach... anything and everything that I know about you I would do... and I would never get tired of learning more....
I'm sorry Kate, my last email was just hurt, hurt that I could mean so little to you now, hurt that it was all because of an illness that I hate about myself... an illness that made me lose the woman I would walk across the desert with no water for.
I apologize for that email... I said some assuming things due to my heartache... and thought that maybe if we didn't speak or see much of one another the hurt would pass like it has done with you... but I think it would only make it worse, because I can still see every hair on your head and how it dances on your face first thing in the morning when you breathe..."
Yeah.
See? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. He was suddenly there, every day. He was being that guy again, the one that I had fallen for. Geez, he was saying things like I can still see every hair on your head and how it dances on your face first thing in the morning when you breathe. Remember that thing about the attraction and the chemistry? It was even harder to be around him when he was begging me to take him back and saying everything I had wanted to hear.
Again.
He would lean over to take Triniti from me and just breathe on my neck and I had to back away. The tiny and seemingly insignificant things that got under my skin. He took all of us to the Pumpkin Patch thing and the kids had such a blast. I had been so broke for so long that I was just happy to see the girls being able to run around and take pony rides and eat candied apples.
It was like he was standing in front of me saying look, here is the family that you want, take it. And I wanted to but he had already burned me and I had to keep reminding myself not to touch him again. He had already seared off too much of my heart.
I got a job. Oh god, I was so happy to have a job again. There are only so many months you can sit idle. I am not the kind of girl who can stay home all day. I need to work.
But the hours were going to be tricky until I could get Trin into daycare. And there he was. Offering to help, offering to stay with the girls so I could work. And I decided to accept his help. On one hand I thought that I deserved it, deserved to have him be there and help me after all the time I had been there for him and with him. On the other hand, Dreamboy was making all of the same offers to help, all the same gestures and yet I wasn't seeing him.
Is it being sucked back into that comfort zone rather than trying something new?
Maybe.
But whatever it was, NY won.
I had to leave for work at 6am and he offered to stay the night and keep the kids the next day. It's no problem Kate, I'll sleep on the couch and the kids and I will have a blast tomorrow.
Harmless.
Only it wasn't.
Kids are in bed, baby is asleep and he and I are sitting on the couch watching a movie. And that magnetism, that pull. Damn that pull. And it was like he knew, he knew I wanted his hands on me.
I got up to go to bed and he asked me to wait.
Then he was there, two inches from my skin. Standing just. close. enough. to speed my heart up and render me tongue tied.
Just wait a minute.
He didn't do anything, he just stood there, looking into my eyes.
Then, as slowly as you can possibly imagine, he reached up and touched my hair. He brushed it back and then slowly, god everything was so slow, he trailed his fingers down my neck and to my shoulder.
I was holding my breath because I knew he was about to kiss me and if he wasn't then I didn't want to breathe because I couldn't stand to have him that close to me and not have him touch me.
Then he did that thing that you only see in movies. He pulled me to him and instead of kissing me, he kissed my neck. From one side to the other. I am just willing myself to stay standing. And he is saying things. Things like how he missed me and how I was beautiful and how he loved me so much and please give him another chance, it would be better this time, he wouldn't mess it up this time, he needed me.
And I can't breathe because he is slowly kissing me everywhere.
He had this ability to torture you. To drive you mad with the lightest of touches and he used it on me that night. He had me in bed and he was making me crazy and then he stopped.
He stopped.
And then he sat up and said he couldn't.
I can't do this with you Kate. I can't be with you and know that you don't love me. I can only do this if you say you love me. It has to mean something.
Yeah, he was good.
He moved back in with me two weeks later.
next...Labels: History Lesson
Monday, January 23, 2006
History Lesson #4 (Independence)
I knew in the back of my mind that it wasn't going to work. Maybe it was my belief that made it so, but I couldn't help it. My relationship with him was like a roller coaster. Up and down up and down, happy and sad and good and bad. I never felt like we were all in and that we would work through anything. It always felt like he was only with me when it was convenient and the rest of the time he was ready to bail.
He had second thoughts around November. He left a post it note pad on the counter when he went to work with two numbers on it. Both were abortion clinics. He came home for lunch looking really down and depressed. He said we couldn't do it. We couldn't afford it, we weren't stable enough. He could have said anything, I had decided when I started my car in the parking lot that day that I was having a baby. I would do it alone if I needed to, but I was doing it.
I told him as much.
He wasn't happy any more.
Christmas Eve of 2001 was the most miserable of Christmas Eves. We fought for hours. Never yelling. Just calm horrible arguing. Saying awful things to and about each other. There was lots of crying. I went to the bathroom and when I came out he had the box with all of the cards and letters we had given to each other. All the pictures we had taken together and he was feeding them all, one at a time, to the fire. I ran over and pulled a few things out and took what I had saved away. He could be so mean sometimes. Just plain mean.
I slept on the floor in the living room that night. For the few hours of sleep that I managed and the next morning the kids came down to open gifts and see what Santa had brought and I was so drained and so sad. It was one of those times where you have to put on a good face for your kids and be miserable inside.
I knew that day that I was going to leave him.
When he apologized Christmas night, I forgave him. But I wouldn't spend another Christmas exhausted and pretending to be happy.
I withdrew and he noticed. He went out of his way to show me he was sorry. He bought roses and baby rattles and jewelry. He said all of the right things and he did all of the right things and I am sure he was pulling out his what women want book at night and wondering why I wasn't responding the way I had before.
The reason was simple.
I didn't believe him any more. It was all fluff. All of the things he had said to me and that I had believed were just lines, just persuasions to keep me there. And he was just barely feeding me enough of them to keep me from leaving. It wasn't love for him, it was a game. And while I had been his, while I had loved him and wanted him and stayed with him, he had regarded me as a plaything. Something that he could control and placate as necessary. He didn't love me, at least not the way I wanted to be loved.
So, I played along. I kept the peace. I lost my job and got another and pretended that everything was ok. No one knew I was pregnant. At work, I wore a vest and I was five months along before my coworkers started asking questions. That was right around the time that Emilee told my mom on the phone that she was going to have a baby brother or sister.
The thing about it was that I had managed to locate my spine and I wasn't that girl who wanted to hide from everything. I ignored my mother and her underlying tones of disappointment. I was getting my own place in April.
I had an ace up my sleeve. I knew when I filed my taxes that I would be getting about four grand back. NY knew that too but he thought I was still waiting on my last W2. However, in March my money was nicely deposited into a bank account and I was looking for a place to live. In March, I told him I was leaving him. I doubt he was surprised since we had fallen back into another slump and were merely coexisting anyway. He pulled further away. He was doubtful that I would leave since I had already said I was going to twice and stayed. It was just my crying wolf as far as he was concerned. At least until all of my things were boxed up and loaded into the back of a truck. Then it was pretty serious and he wouldn't speak to me.
I was almost seven months pregnant and unemployed when I rented a three bedroom place in a small town near San Antonio. With barely any furniture and only four thousand dollars to my name, I left him and any security that I had with him. I worked out a deal to have Ruthie move in and my mom and her husband would pay three hundred dollars a month to me for letting her stay there.
I knew I couldn't get a job outside of my home. No one hires a chic that is months away from popping out a baby. My old job begged me to come back but the drive was too far for the money. So I was very careful. I only bought what we had to have and paid the bills. That was it. It was a difficult transition at first because when NY and I were together we made really good money and now I was broke. But it was a small price to pay for my independence.
I sent him a letter. How old fashioned huh? My computer hadn't been unpacked yet and I wanted to keep in contact. He didn't respond. I started going to the doctor regularly and getting my check ups and they weren't good. Trin went an entire month without gaining any weight. They were saying she may have a vitamin deficiency disorder. They were saying they would need to take her early and that she may have problems. In short they were scaring me to death. I emailed him and he was ugly and mean.
He accused me of having someone else's child and said that he more or less wanted nothing to do with me until he had a paternity test. And how I would be humiliated and feel like the whore that I basically was when I stood in court and heard that it wasn't even his child. He was mean. And I was so emotional that it cut me to the bone to read his words.
The doctors kept saying it wasn't any better and I was freaking out. I called Tempest and cried on her shoulder. My baby wasn't ok. How was that even possible? I didn't know until after Trin was born but Tempest contacted NY and told him what a phenomenal ass he was being and that I wasn't trying to get attention or whatever the hell it was that he thought but rather that it was all true and that I was scared shitless.
A few days later, I got an email from him. He said he was sorry and skeptical but that he wanted to be there for me and the baby. He wanted to know how she was and how I was and he wanted to help. And he did. He decided he wanted to be there when she was born, much to my mother's disbelief and horror. She had let on that she never liked him months before and the idea of sharing the delivery room with him was... less than appealing.
He and I talked about names but he basically knew that it was my call considering that he was pulling the I'm-not-sure-if-it's-mine card. I chose Trinity because it means third in a set of three which was perfect for both of us. I changed the Y to an I because Amanda has three A's and Emilee has three E's and now Triniti would have three I's. It all balanced out and made sense to me. And so Triniti it was.
And she was fine.
All six pounds and eight ounces of her.
She came into my world absolutely perfect. And she was my last as they rolled me off into surgery minutes after she was born to tie my tubes. I was officially out of the baby making business.
I started working shortly after she was born, doing anything I could get my hands on. I cleaned houses and did paperwork for the computer-impaired. I was trying to make as much as I could while still being at home with Trin. NY visited frequently and spent a lot of time with Trin. WE didn't discuss money. I was waiting for the paternity test results before I asked for help financially. I'm stubborn like that.
So he hung out a lot, especially while the boys were in New York for the summer. He helped out with the girls and kept me company and we were friends. I truly believe that we could have been good friends.
Now, you have to read this story before I continue. It happened here, in the middle of NY's story.
next...Labels: History Lesson
History Lesson #4 (Making Promises)
I did not want to be pregnant.
I had decided after Emilee that I wasn't going to have any more kids.
But that aside, I did not want to be pregnant with his child. I wanted to walk out that door and never have to look at him again.
My first thought was to terminate the pregnancy. I am prochoice, so I don't have issues with abortion. I thought I could have an abortion and then never even tell him.
But I couldn't. And it had absolutely nothing to do with him.
I can't explain the feeling and I think the only way you can have it is to be a mother. I was sitting in my car after having gotten a definitive pregnancy test (to over ride the two red lines on the stick) and I just knew I was going to have it.
I remember sitting there, putting my keys in the ignition of my Mazda and then just having this wave of perfect calm wash over me as I knew. I was going to have another child.
I waited to tell him.
It was hard because we had started speaking again. We weren't sleeping in the same room or anything, but we were talking. His parents were coming into town to bring his boys back and I was trying to make myself scarce so as not to interfere. NY wasn't around much while his parents were there. He took off most nights and went out and left his parents and his boys there. I remember thinking that was so tacky seeing as how he rarely saw his folks and his sons had been gone for a few months.
The benefit to him not being around much was that I got to hang out with the boys. NY took off one night around six and the boys and I and his parents all watched Independence Day. I remember the movie because I had just gotten it on discount and the boys hadn't seen it yet. I grabbed some pillows and threw them on the floor and his youngest snuggled right up to me. I had coffee with his mom and chatted with his dad and we all got along very well. But when NY came in, I took myself upstairs and got out of their way. And not in a snotty-I'm-not-talking-to-your-son kind of way but rather in a your-parents-are-here-and-want-to-spend-time-with-all-of-you kind of way.
I came downstairs one morning before I left for work and NY had left a photo on the counter of himself and the chic he had been cheating on me with. It had been taken at a club that NY and I had went to and had our picture taken at. A five dollar Polaroid. I had the exact same picture of he and I, the exact same look on his face. I only looked at it for a moment because I knew he had left it there on purpose and I would be damned before I let him get to me. So, I got my coffee and went to the couch where I said good morning to his mother. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his father go and pick up the picture and take it into what had been mine and NY's room and put it under the pillow. A few minutes later I overheard his dad tell him that he shouldn't leave things like that just laying around. I wanted to hug his dad for trying to keep my feelings from being hurt.
That night I didn't have to work. I went to a movie and then came home and went to bed. At four o'clock that morning, I heard someone open the door to the bedroom and I snuck a peak with my eye barely open. NY was standing in the doorway just staring at me. I closed my eye and waited for him to leave but he just stayed there. Minutes went by and finally I opened my eyes and let him know I was awake. He asked if he could come in and I said ok. He came and sat on the side of the bed. His parents didn't know I had come back and he thought I hadn't come home. He said he had been worried and in being worried had realized how much I meant to him. He was sorry. He was so sorry.
I missed my girls. I wanted them home. I was so confused about what was the right thing to do. I was pregnant and he had no idea. My kids, the most important things in my world were hours away from me and I missed them so much. I told him I was still planning on moving but since the house I was waiting for wasn't ready yet that I was going to bring the girls home. I asked him if I could depend on him to help with the girls and that I would in return keep the boys while he worked. We agreed to be civil to one another. And we were much better at being friends then we were at being lovers.
My girls came home and I moved back downstairs. Most nights he stayed on the couch and I took the bed. Sometimes we slept in the bed together but nothing happened. Then he came home and told me that he thought his new girl friend was pregnant. He said that she was complaining about being sick and saying she was late. Irony huh? Not two weeks later they found out that she wasn't and they broke up.
It was weird. He was looking at me like that again. Like he wanted to marry me and ravage me at the same time. I tried to just stay away from him as much as it was possible. I couldn't touch him. If that isn't a testament to how much chemistry he and I had, I don't know what is. When he walked towards me, I couldn't breathe. When he touched me, anywhere, I couldn't move. If he had told me that it was because of a witch doctor and a spell, I would have believed him. If he got into bed with me, I couldn't sleep. I could close my eyes and count the particles of air that were between our bodies and feel the pull he had on me. Being near him made my skin tingle. I would lay there awake and tortured.
We hit a good patch after he and "Ronica" split up. He was setting it up to where he and I were constantly hanging out by way of taking the kids for pizza or the movies or anything as long as he could include all of us. The kids were jazzed. We hadn't had that much "family" time in a long time. So, it came to be that I told him I was pregnant. I had put the little pregnancy stick thingy into a ziplock bag and I took it out of the box it was in and sat on the bed with him after I had put the kids to bed. I didn't screw around. I handed him the bag and said "I'm pregnant."
Oh he didn't miss a beat. He acted like this was the big magical thing that would fix our world. This was the ultimate band aid for our relationship. We were going to have a baby. All would be right in the world again, we could make it now. And you know what? That is pretty much exactly what a knocked up chic wants to hear. When you are the most scared you want to hear someone say everything is going to be all right. Suddenly I was in his arms and he was peppering me with kisses and telling me he loved me and how he was so excited.
We both chose to ignore the big problems, to forget that the last few months had happened. He called his parents and told them that they would have another grandchild and they were so excited. His mom called me and thanked me for giving him another chance and said that she thought this baby is exactly what we needed. She sent me flowers. I didn't tell my family.
A few weeks later, we were laying in bed, both thinking the other is asleep, completely consumed by our own thoughts when he said my name.
"Yeah?"
"I want to marry you."
Even now replaying those words in my mind make my stomach flip a little. Those are big words to me, they are important words, those are words I don't fool around with. When I get married, whenever it may be, it will be the most serious of decisions. I don't intend to get divorced, I don't intend to marry with an "out".
I didn't say anything and neither did he. Minutes crept by. Then he slid his hand over and took mine.
"This isn't how I wanted to ask. I have been planning on how to ask you for so long. I wanted to do it at Seaworld, with the dolphins and the kids. I will wait and do it again."
Again, nothing. I wasn't sure what to say. Did I want to marry this guy? Did I want to answer yes because he had asked or because I meant it. I wanted to answer yes because I wanted it all to be perfect. And I guess I kept telling myself that if I just tried that it would be.
"Kate?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, aren't you going to say anything? I want to marry you."
I kissed him. And I cried. And we took that as a yes. For the time being.
next...Labels: History Lesson
History Lesson #4 (Shattered)
Everything was so much better after that night. All of sudden he saw me again. I wasn't some random roommate any more. I was that chic he loved and he kissed me in the kitchen and came to bed and watched movies with me. You see, it wasn't always bad. There had been glimmers of hope through out. Times when he walked up and kissed me for no reason or told me I looked pretty. Tiny little reminders that he did love me on some level. I was certain that I had made the right decision. A month went by, maybe more and we were good.
I walked into the house at 1am and he was asleep on the couch. He looked good sleeping on the couch, but besides that he looked like he had been waiting for me which made me happy. I went and set my stuff down on the bar and then went into the kitchen so I could get a glass of water.
Then, I heard this sound.
I had no idea what it was but it sounded like someone had left a game boy on. I stood still trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Then, NY sat up on the couch and grabbed his cell phone (the source of the noise) and ran up the stairs, two at a time.
I didn't think he even knew I was home.
I finished my water and then went upstairs to change and go to bed. Two thirds of the way up the stairs and I hear him, "look, I can't talk right now, she's here...."
I stopped.
"I said I would call you. No! Look, I can't talk, she is home, she'll hear me."
Oh bet your ass I will.
I walked into the girls room and opened the door to the closet where he was hiding like the sniveling shit that he was.
"Who are you talking to?" I demanded from him.
"I have to go," he said and turned his phone off.
And then, do you know what he did? He actually tried to play it off like he hadn't just been caught red handed.
"Just a friend."
"A friend?" I said to his back as he walked out of the girls room and down the stairs, me on his heels. "Are you fucking kidding me NY? A friend? A friend you have to hide in the closet to talk to? Who you can't talk to because I am home?"
"Well, fuck Kate! I knew you would freak out and get all jealous!"
"What the fuck ever! Who is she? Who the hell were you talking to?"
Ok, I know that looks all stereotypical chic right there with the who is she? But, c'mon.
He ignored me. He went and sat on the couch and started watching tv. Which I of course turned off, raring to fight. Funny thing is that I wanted to be wrong. I was begging to lose. I wanted him to stand up and have some beyond brilliant explanation. I thought that the more I pushed and the more I bitched that he would just admit the truth which had to be way less awful than what I was thinking.
He ignored me. Every question was met with this icy look and no response. Finally, I just asked the question that I wanted him to deny more than anything I had ever wanted.
"Are you sleeping with her?"
This is where he should have said no. He should have vehemently denied the accusation with all of his being. If he didn't answer another of my questions, that should have been the one that he answered.
He said nothing.
I felt my heart just fall.
There is no reason to say nothing.
None.
I exploded because I already knew that he was.
"ANSWER ME DAMNIT!"
"Yes. Yes, I am sleeping with her." All calmly. Hands folded in his lap. Looking at me like you asked for it.
I felt like I had just been kicked in the stomach.
The next thing I know, the cigarettes, the lighter and ashtray I had been holding were flying at his head. The ashtray actually hit him so go me. He was suddenly Mr. Rational. He looked at me like I was a three year old throwing a tantrum because I couldn't have a piece of candy. Like there was no validity in my actions and I was freaking out for no reason.
"God Kate, come on."
Come on? It was that condescending tone, those four patronizing words that pissed me off.
I went into the kitchen seething with anger and picked up his cell phone. And threw it, like it was the winning ball and I just needed one more strike, at the brick fireplace. Where it shattered into many little tiny cell phone pieces.
Then I went into the bathroom and threw up.
The first three days hurt the most. Someone has stung your heart, your soul and you are swollen and in such pain. My insides hurt so much. And it is so hard to be angry at someone who you love. It's like being put on a rack and having your legs pulled towards hate and your arms pulled towards love. It hurts so much.
Maybe I hadn't been perfect but I hadn't done anything to deserve it. I had loved him. I had spent my time and my energy on our family. I hadn't even thought about being with anyone else and here he was sleeping with someone else while he touched my hair and told me he loved me.
After a week, I was just in a daze. Denial. I was pretending he didn't exist again, only this time I was making plans to leave him. I was packing and trying to find another place to live.
I sent my girls away.
Since I have been a mother I have rarely spent one night away from my daughters. But the vibe in the house was so bad, so very very bad. I asked my mom to take the girls while I packed and moved. She said ok. My brother was on leave from the Navy and he went to. They took the girls to the Ranch for three weeks.
I buried myself in work. I worked more than a hundred hours a week. I took graveyard shifts and trip shifts and anything they would give me. I went home and slept for a few hours and then went back to work. He and I saw each other, but not often and I didn't speak to him. In fact, I had decided he wasn't there and so, he wasn't. If he talked to me or looked at me, I left the room.
His kids weren't back and mine were gone so neither of us had any reason to be there. I tried to stay gone as much as possible when he was home and when I couldn't be gone, I stayed upstairs, in the girls room.
Then, an odd thing happened.
I missed my period. Which was doubly odd since I was on the pill.
A quick pregnancy test and there are two lines instead of one and everything changes.
Pregnant.
I can.not. be pregnant. Except that I was.
Someone had shuffled the cards and dealt me a new hand.
next...Labels: History Lesson
History Lesson #4 (Illusions)
He walked in one night while I was sleeping. I am a light sleeper and just having him stand in the doorway woke me. I looked over at him and he asked if I was awake. I said sure and what was up. He walked over and stood by the bed.
Didn't sit, stood.
I sat up and knew in my gut something was bad. He hemmed and hawed and eventually came out with it.
"This isn't going to work, I don't love you."
I don't love you.
I kept trying to replay that in my head until it meant something else.
"You don't love me? What the fuck is that? What the hell do you mean?"
"I just... I just don't love you. This isn't going to work."
And then he walked out of the room and went back downstairs.
My sister was staying with us so I wasn't about to go down after him and create some nasty screaming match in the middle of the night. So, I laid there. I cried and tossed and turned. Then, I got up the next morning and went to work, sufficiently numb.
There were two or three days where he and I didn't speak to each other, didn't acknowledge the other's existence. He spent almost every hour I was at home at work and only came home to sleep. Ruthie was there helping with the girls so he wasn't really needed.
Exactly three days after he broke my heart, he called me at work. One of the chics I worked with came over and handed me the work phone and then took the girls I was supervising outside so I could talk.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Can we just talk? Can you meet me when you get off work? I just want to talk. You don't have to say yes now, just think about it and then meet me [address] if you can. Please Kate, I just want to talk to you."
I stood there just holding the receiver. Why did he want to talk? He said he didn't love me. What more is there to talk about?
I finished up at work with all the women there asking me what I was going to do.
"I don't know."
I didn't know.
He had gotten a hotel room a few miles from our place. I called Ruthie and asked if she would watch the girls so I could go talk to him. She said yes. I parked in the parking lot outside the hotel at 12:20am. And just sat in my car. At 12:45am I went inside and got the room number from the attendant. I took the elevator up and then found room 120. I was going to knock and then just sat down on the floor in front of the room and cried. I didn't know what I wanted from him so I am not sure that I knew why I was crying. But I sat there until 1:30am and just cried. Then I got up and went down the hall to the phone. I was going to call him and tell him I wasn't coming from the hallway.
He didn't answer.
I had considered two scenes playing out. Either (1.) he was going to apologize and we were going to try and work things out or (2.) he wanted to talk about how we were going to divvy everything up and one of us move. Suddenly a third option presented itself. Was he actually sick enough to do it? Would he set me up to walk in on him and someone else? Could he?
I went back downstairs and finagled a key out of the attendant saying that I had locked myself out of the room and he was asleep. She gave me one. Then back in the elevator and back to room 120. I stopped and briefly thought about just leaving. Better not to know. Then, I said fuck it and opened the door.
There was music. God, why was there music? My heart was beating so loudly that I could hear it. The room was lovely. There were two bedrooms. The bedroom on the left was open and there was a huge king sized bed in it, completely made up. I made my way to the bedroom on the right, where the door was pulled shut. That's where the music was coming from. I pushed the door open and saw NY passed out on one of the queen beds. The music was the alarm clock going off. Letting out the breath I had been holding, I went and sat on the bed next his and look at him.
I still loved him. I didn't understand it, but I guess we never do understand why we love who we love. I got up and went to wander the hotel room and calm down. That was when I saw them. The post it notes scattered through out the hotel room. I randomly walked from one to the next and saw the little four line poems written on each piece. There was a bottle of my favorite wine on the coffee table, lingerie hanging in the bathroom, candles, massage oil... the works.
I made a decision right then. You see, I could have left and spared my heart. He had backtracked to the seduction/infatuation place, he was Mr. Charming all over again and I had the ability to leave and not let him woo me again. Or, I could go in there and wake him up and try again. And since I loved him, I went with the latter of the two.
I went into the room and sat down on the bed and woke him up. He sat up and immediately looked at the alarm clock that was blaring and cursed. He was so pissed that he had slept. He asked if I had seen everything and I played dumb.
"Good!" he said. "Good, go outside."
No. No, I wasn't going outside. No. We needed to talk. And we did. We sat on opposite queen sized beds and talked. He said he was sorry. He didn't know what the hell was wrong with him. He did, does, love me. He can't lose me. Please, please accept my apology. Please? And since I already knew I would, I did.
He ushered me out the door and made me wait five minutes before he came and opened it. Then he went to the bedroom to wait for his Mr. Charming sex. Which he got.
We stuck a band-aid on our relationship and ignored the infection.
next...Labels: History Lesson
History Lesson #4 (Wasting Time)
At first living together wasn't bad. We were both busy. He was working and I was getting the house put together and looking for a job. The apartment was adorable and there was a park and several pools so I was having a blast with the kids. I wasn't in a huge hurry to find a job since I had been working since he moved there and I was enjoying spending some time with the kids. It was also kind of fun to do the whole "housewife" thing. I was making dinners and reading bedtime stories and I wasn't cramped for time. Moving meant that all my friends were left behind so NY and the kids had my undivided attention.
About a month after the move, he and I had a "serious talk" about how I needed to move my ass and get a job. Seems he didn't appreciate my "procrastinating". Never mind that I had sent out my resume all over the place. I told him that I was looking but I hadn't realized that we were having money issues. I was a little bitter that he had no problem taking two months before he started working with me paying for everything but we had barely been moved in a month and suddenly I am a freeloader.
I interviewed for a gig the next week. And got it. It came to be one of the best jobs I have ever had. There were issues with the hours. NY had wanted me to get a night job. One where I stayed with the kids during the day and asked "would you like fries with that?" during the evening. This job would be mostly 4pm-12am shifts on weeknights and then 8am to 12am shifts on Saturday and Sunday. That's right, sixteen hours. So, I had to get a sitter to cover the time between my leaving at 3pm and his getting home around 6pm. I always cooked dinner before I left and stuck it in the microwave/oven for him to heat up when he got home.
You would have thought that this would have been perfect, that my going back to work would have solved all of our money issues and we would have went back to Happy Land. I thought it was. I was happy. I worked hard and I made great money. My kids had everything they needed and a lot that they wanted. But, I was so busy that I didn't notice at first how much NY had pulled back. I had adjusted to his computer/games time. I knew he would be up half the night playing video games or chatting or whatever the hell he did and I just got used to spending the evenings I had at home either with the kids or by myself. I had a lot of alone time, so I wrote. I wrote in my journal, worked on my poetry, started new stories. My computer was in a box in the storage area since he had wanted his out and mine put up so I wrote on paper.
I never hid the things I wrote. I always put my journals and books in the closet in a box. I never felt like I had to hide them. Until he found them. He found my thoughts and my fantasies and my fictions and he spent an evening reading them while he drank and when I got home from work he spent the rest of the evening belittling me and my ideas. The writing which he had encouraged months before he now considered wrong. He demanded to know who I was writing about, thinking every male character in my stories was based on someone I was seeing behind his back. I was shocked.
He became more withdrawn. He would stay at work later, think of reasons to go in on the weekends and he started to go out with his friends more. Never once did he want to get a sitter so that we could go out. He always said I wouldn't have a good time with them or it was just the guys. I can only think of maybe one or two times that this really bothered me, mostly I was just happy that I could get on the phone with Tempest or The Cake Lady for a few hours without having him sit there and eavesdrop. We were growing further apart and neither of us was trying to fix it.
One afternoon I was checking my email on his computer when I found something. He and I both used the same Outlook Express to check our email. His email account was above mine just like this picture:
Anyway, I was sitting there reading my email and his popped up with a little (1) beside it and I clicked it. I don't know why, it hadn't been my intention to snoop. I could say that I just wanted to know what was going on in his world since it seemed so far removed from mine but that would just be an excuse. I snooped.
I clicked on his Inbox and saw that the email was from one of the people he worked with. I knew this because many months before he had been chatting with her on MSN messenger. Her name was like chattybubble18 or something idiotic like that. Anyway, I saw the email address and the subject line said something like "bad pics of me". I figured I would peek and see what she looked like. Well, she looked naked. There were two shots and neither showed her face.
My heart sped up because for the first time in the year that he and I had been together, I thought he was cheating on me. I did what any irrational chic would do and I called and confronted him. And he did what any cheater would do and lied to me. He told me that it was just an email from some porn site.
I packed up clothes and loaded the girls into my car (the boys were in New York with their mom for the Summer) and took off for the coast. I didn't tell him I was leaving and I didn't tell him where I was going or how long I would be gone. We stayed for one night. Tempest and I sat in a bar and drank margaritas while weird guys hit on us and I asked her what the hell I had done with my life. I was in a loveless relationship. Hell, I was practically in a relationshipless relationship. We were like roommates. Roommates who didn't really like each other. We practically needed our own rooms.
When I got home very late the next night I was locked out. I am standing outside at like one o'clock in the morning and he has deadbolted me out of the house. And he isn't waking up when I knock. I ended up having to jimmy open a window to get in.
At first he was defensive, he said I had no right to say anything since he had seen an email I had written to my friend James in England telling him how upset I was in my relationship. he said I gave my heart to someone else and that was worse than the pics. He accused me of cheating on him with someone I still to this day have not met in person.
Then he apologized. He admitted that the pics were from his secretary. And swore he wasn't sleeping with her and that the pictures had been a misunderstanding and that he had told her it was very inappropriate for her to send them and that I had seen them, blah blah blah. It was all lies. Maybe I believed him, maybe not. But I accepted it and we moved on. Actually, we moved no where. We stayed in the same stagnant pond of a relationship that we had been decaying in for a year.
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Labels: History Lesson
History Lesson #4 (Being Together)
We wanted to be together. That was all either of us could think about. How could we close this gap in between New York and Texas. We decided that he should move to Texas. Exactly one month after our trip to the beach NY pulled into my driveway with a U-Haul and his two sons.
His oldest son is three years older than Amanda, his younger son is Emilee's age. The three younger kids weren't in school yet but his older son was in first grade.
NY didn't have a job lined up when he moved so I was the only one working. I didn't care though, I was happy to do it. I was working three different jobs but the time seemed to fly since I was so happy.
He opened doors for me, danced with me in the kitchen, played with the kids outside. He made me happy and because he made me happy, I fell in love. I loved him for how happy he made me, how good he was to my girls and his boys and for how much my life had improved since we had gotten together.
The "honeymoon" was over about two months into the relationship. His other side started to come out. Suddenly, he wasn't coming to bed with me anymore. He would stay up on the computer all night. I would wake up at three in the morning and he would still be out there. He'd be playing SIMS and saying he was looking for a job. I told myself that once he started working it would go back to normal.
You see, when I had found him, I barely got online anymore. There didn't seem to be a reason. Sure, I checked my email and when he was using his computer I would hop online for a few minutes on mine, but I was finished chatting away the night.
And now that he was staying up all night, he wasn't getting up in the morning any more. He expected his oldest son to get himself up and on the bus. Almost every morning, I would get up with him and help him pick out clothes and make sure he had all of his stuff for school while NY slept in the other room. I was shocked that he considered a child of seven old enough to get himself up and to school unaided. My kids hadn't started school but I know my mom got us up until we were in our teens.
He did get a job a few months after we moved in together. It was, of course, in San Antonio which at the time was a forty five minute drive or so. He didn't care, he was from New York, apparently this was nothing compared to commutes he had before. I was just glad he would be working so that we could go back to normal. We didn't.
He still stayed up half the night fucking around on the computer. Then he would over sleep and be late for work. Instead of blaming this on the fact that he stayed up all night, he blamed it on the drive. He said it was too much driving and it was making him tired. He said we needed to move to San Antonio so he could be closer to his job. I said ok since I was still hoping we could go back to how everything had been when we first moved in together.
Before we moved, he told me about this girl that worked in the factory at the plant where he worked (he was in payroll and human resources). He said he was concerned about her because her husband was hitting her. He said she had come and talked to him and he had encouraged her to leave him. She had said she was scared that he would find her and their kids. I told him that I thought it was awesome that he was trying to help her get away from her husband since he was abusing her.
Then, he comes home early a few weeks later. He opened the door and set his stuff down. I was vacuuming or something in the living room when he came in. He looked in my eyes and crossed the room and just hugged me. He stood there and held me for like ten minutes and didn't say anything. When he let go, he was crying. I had no idea what was going on. He told me that the girl had tried to leave, she had went to pack all of her things and her husband shot her and a cop and killed them both. He said that he wasn't going to take me, the kids, any of it for granted any more, that he loved me and he was going to pay more attention to all of us.
And he did, for a little while.
It was about a month before we found a three bedroom apartment in San Antonio. I had been packing for weeks and getting utilities turned off or scheduling them to be moved to the new place. Then, all of a sudden, he says maybe we shouldn't move in to the apartment together. Maybe I should stay and he and the boys should move. I was devastated. I mean, I knew that everything hadn't been perfect, but I thought it was because he was stressed about working and now "driving". But the fact of the matter was that I had to move. It was too late to change my mind. We had our first huge fight. One of those fights where you yell while you cry. It ended with him apologizing, saying he was just scared and that he hadn't wanted to take me away from my family.
He moved before I did. He took his clothes and some of his toiletries and then drove into San Antonio and left me to pack up all of my stuff and the kids stuff and the rest of his stuff. He said he wanted to stay at the apartment since it was closer to work and since I wasn't working anymore, I would have plenty of time to move everything. I wasn't mad that I was left to do the work. I am the kind of person who would rather do the work myself then have to come back and do it again. What hurt me was that it didn't feel like he and I were an us. It was always separate. We weren't moving together. He was moving and then I was moving with the kids. It was all very blasé.
But I cooperated. I didn't want to cause an argument over something so minor.
A week or so after he "moved" I had the kids and I moved in. It was after the kids and I had gotten there that the first sign I had made a mistake came to light. The place we had rented was a two story town house. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and the living room, wet bar, kitchen, laundry room, third bedroom and second bathroom were downstairs. He wanted to put the boys downstairs and all the men in the house would have the downstairs bathroom. The girls were in the room next to ours upstairs. This being decided, all the kids ran upstairs to check things out. When they ran back down, NY stopped them and proceeded to tell them that this was his house and that they weren't to mess it up. Basically there were two points to this little chat with the kids. The first was that they were more or less guests here and that he wouldn't tolerate any messes. The second was this was his house. As in, not Kate's. He wanted to make sure everyone, myself included, understood that.
I remember standing there, next to the carpeted stairs of my new home wanting to pack everything and leave. Who does that? Who takes the fun out of moving into *our* new home and squashes it? This wasn't what I wanted for my girls or myself. You know when you were a kid and you went to a friend's house for a sleep over? And it sounded like so much fun the whole week while you planned but then you got there and suddenly you wanted to leave. It wasn't your house. You wanted to call your mom and ask her to come get you and you felt like crying because you had made the wrong choice? That was how I felt. But it was too late to change my mind and I was too old to call my mom.
next...Labels: History Lesson
