A few nights ago I was out to dinner with a friend, a new friend with whom I had built a unique and powerful relationship very quickly. Against the din of a coincident party of engineers from my workplace we had a serious conversation about needs and expectations. I knew there was a disconnect and it had not been fully worked out. Short version, like many single women my age she is looking for someone to settle with but not settle for, whereas as we all know I am not that person for anyone at this time, besides which I will not give up my little gekko. I'm not smart enough to live little lies, and I had to know if she was truly all right with me and my life as it is. She'd had a few weeks to think about it as we explored one another, and the answer was now pretty clear.
As we found gentle ways to articulate what was happening, my phone started going off. My ex was entering one of her periodic depression-panics and texting things that to anyone else would look suicidal. My friend told me not to ignore it; and I tried to be encouraging and affirming though I didn't want to, as I was busy with something important.
In time I drove away slowly, my heart breaking a little bit, the tears of a man who is sometimes a little too much in touch with his emotions obscuring my vision. I did not want to deal with someone whom I knew would be "fine" in the morning. But a word I hadn't seen before came across the little screen -- "help" -- and I decided to err on the side of caution.
The house was dark and locked but I had a key and found her sobbing in the shower, sobbing about how hard it was, how she hadn't signed up for this, going to school at 52 so she could get a low-wage job at H&R Block, how she missed hugs, she used to get them from the children all day, but she lost that job, and her sons are never around, they hate coming home, her father was dead, her mother a reclusive psychopath, I hated her, she hated being all alone in this big huge house, the dark time of year was coming on with its low sun and those holidays, how was she going to get through the holidays with no family, and so on and on. I sat with her and got wet and cried too, cried for her considerable pain and also for the pain of things I could not tell her.
As time goes on there is more and more I can not tell her.
I wrapped her in towels and used the hot air gun and a brush to dry her hair, lovingly straightening out all the tangles until her hair was warm and dry and smooth, as I used to do in happier times, as her grandmother used to do when she was little; and I lay down with her and let her fall asleep in my arms, and when she was snoring gently, I extracted myself and padded out of the house and let many kinds of grief pour itself out as I drove away slowly, my heart still broken a little bit, my vision still obscured.
At dinner I had told my friend -- I hope she is still my friend -- about the drama of baseless suspicions my wife filled our camp with at Burning Man in 2010, and about one of the beautiful women she had seen embrace me at random moments, who told me at some point that week that my wife was giving off such a toxic vibe she had to keep a physical distance from her; and my dinner partner said, quite impassioned, that my wife was losing her husband, seeing him embrace beautiful women, watching her marriage crumble around her, that she was an entitled to as much "toxic vibe" as she damn well pleased.
And she was damn right about that.
I love directness and fearlessness and smarts coupled with judgment and with paying attention.
While saying something, talking with my hands as I somehow learned to do over the past decade or so, I hit my wine glass, and an hour later we were still able to laugh at the slow motion that followed, her eyes widening, the glass toppling this way and then that and heading for the floor, my hands making a dash to rescue and somehow, miraculously, catching it while a crimson cascade washed over the edge and crashed against the floorboards. I donated my linen napkin to the clean-up, and the waiter brought more. We were all glad we weren't cleaning up broken crystal.
I love giving impressions, true or false, of being all coordinated.
I love being told the mistakes I've made, not with an intense sarcasm, but with a pretty smile that covers a heart also breaking.
I don't love falling in love enough to make it a practice. It just sort of happens, when various elements intersect, and not very often; or so I presume, but I've not been single much. What I do know is that it need not push other loves away. Not in my case, anyway; never did. And what hurt wasn't the loss of a woman who knew I had come to love her in my way. What hurt was the hurt I knew she was feeling upon discovering that my way of loving could not suit her.
I drove home at two in the morning having loved and failed two women who loved me. But the waves of feeling disrupted waters that are remarkably calm; calmer waters of another love, of a woman I have not failed. And so, between waves of discouragement, I was encouraged.
It seems I'll be knocking wine glasses over for awhile yet, but it also seems I will be catching them somewhere in their fall, so that they don't shatter but only suffer some loss. Let's hope so, anyway. And meanwhile, I have much to be thankful for in this journey, and y'all know what for.
14 comments:
Wow, what an awesome essay this is, Don. Just amazing.
--Paula
Near poetic
Seriously. Does this kind of writing just happen to you?
Yeah, I was headed for bed and at the last minute decided to write about recent stuff. So glad I did too because then I was awake for a delightful late-night phone call from an ex wife. :-P
Sad, hopeful, real, beautiful. You made me cry.
This is beautiful and powerful.
But where did you get the idea that you have to be perfect not to fail a woman.
Never mind: I know. We give you that idea, through our ready disappointment. It's all a vestige of that prince and princess rescue thing.
Or that's part of it.
I'm reading again, some 20 years later, Sam Keen's Fire in the Belly. In some ways it seems even more relevant to me than it did before.
We women are neither as powerful nor as frail as we seem. Wait: we are both as powerful and as frail as we seem. My guess, the same is true for you.
This story and your situation give me such ambivalent feelings. I've been distraught after being dumped from a much less lengthy or committed relationship, I know how devastating it can be for a while, but the bathetic -- pardon the pun -- drama of weeping in the shower, etc., makes me recoil.
I have known so many people who were bottomless pits of needy drama. Some of them disguised it as aggression and shrieking, meant to paralyze those around into compliance, others were more reminiscent of your ex; I remember a woman friend who kept drinking on top of Prozac and calling me at ten at night to sob about a relationship that had ended two years before. A very smart guy -- "brightest in his graduating class" -- who drove me off with jealousy and then alternated shouting on my lawn with extravagant gifts left at the door. At some point I encouraged all these people by wanting to be the one who fixed life for them; what a heady prospect! -- and at some point I realized there would never be an end to the drama because that's what they do.
Though you write with vivid immediacy and over time you've drawn the situation with nuance and detail, I know there's much here I don't understand. Still... at some point, your ex is going to have to own her own life. As long as she knows that crying in the shower will bring you riding back... but you know that, don't you?
I do know that but the thing is, she's cried out before and seen no response. She couldn't know I would be outside her bedroom door listening to the sobbing. Being alone is one of the things she does. But so is a use of emotion to control the people around her. She learned it from her mother, I guess, who when she was young was far less subtle in that the police often got involved ... And there is another string of justifications on my part.
Well, my self-interest is in keeping her from collapse while our children rely so much on her guidance which, though I've painted an unpretty picture, is usually very sound.
I resonate with that very last para. The Unit Formerly Known As Spousal has always found drama to be effective. To give him creds, he's trying to get away from that manipulative technique, but it's fairly ingrained. These days I give in to it only minimally when it seems as tho his drama may seep into and thus harm our children's well-being.
I will chime in here to say that I have witnessed some of this myself from the lady in question, but I have also witnessed her near magical touch with children, mine in particular. I can believe that her guidance is till quite sound.
There is a very shiny side to this coin to go along with the darker side.
Evocative writing and very, very good.
@Don: "She couldn't know I would be outside her bedroom door listening to the sobbing."
Maybe.
The tears I have experienced are a manipulation and the manipulators I've known must play to an audience.
"The tears I have experienced...
Begging the question of whether you were meant to experience them.
Not all the tears I shed are intended to be seen. Most of _mine_, in fact, cause me mortification if they are witnessed. They happen because my emotion is so strong that I cannot contain it.
Nevertheless, I have certainly seen people using tears as an attempt to get sympathy, or even get someone sensitive to give in.
As children we learn crying can be effective. As we grow older, hopefully we are taught better ways to communicate needs, wants, desires. As women, we unfortunately learn there are men willing to give us whatever we ask for when we weep. Well, maybe not *whatever*, but at least become soft and sympathetic, which may be all she wants. If a woman does not feel empowered, resorting to tears may be her best recourse.
Or it just hurts and so you cry.
That's right. It hurts a lot. She cries a lot. I don't believe any of it is for effect.
Post a Comment