Category: Marriage

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the greatest

We used to listen to a Cat Power’s album over and over in bed

We started making love to it and then eventually we would fall asleep to it

Lately I’ve been skipping over this one song when I hear it

Not wanting to face what feelings I might encounter

But the other day it came on and I let it play

And it occurred to me I never listened to the words before

Once I wanted to be the greatest, she says

The greatest of what I wondered

The greatest of all time

The greatest to conquer

The greatest singer

The greatest writer

Once I thought you were my greatest lover

I thought you were the love to end all loves

You brought me to my knees

You ended me with one look

I surrendered to you

No wind or waterfall could stall me, she says

And I thought, I would have given anything for you

I was the greatest fighter for you

I gave up many things

I thought I was fighting for something

I thought I was doing what anyone would do for love

And then came the rush of the flood, she says

And then came the surrender, I thought

But I was not a failure, no

I gave up on something that wasn’t working

But I fought for what I thought was right

And if it were right

I would have kept fighting

Now I’m fighting for myself 

Stars at night turned deep to dust, she says

I could follow the glimmering night sky until it lead me nowhere

You were no North Star

No galaxy of wonder

You were a blinding dust bowl 

A mirage of sparkles

That would only swallow anyone who dared to come too close

Melt me down, she says

I slowly became a puddle of myself

A shallow pool of has-been strength and tenacity

I no longer knew my mind or my soul

Into big black armour, she says

How long before you showed your true colors

I rose my white flag proudly 

And then I ran with it

Whipping in the wind like a sail

Leave no trace of grace, she says

And you didn’t

Just in your honor, she sings

In your honor, I thought

There is no honor in deceit

There is no honor in your actions

There is nothing honorable about that

About you

But this?

The ending of something that was not meant to be

That is honorable

That is brave

That is the greatest 

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Cold Coffee

Just after sunrise

Cold morning filling the small space 

A sweatshirt for you

I like the chill in my bones

Hot coffee

Favorite cups

Mine was a gift from you

Just an arms length away

I felt you like you were up against me

My favorite time

Sleepy eyes for you

Sometimes we talked

I liked the in between spaces better

No noise, just knowing

I knew

I always knew

I thought I knew

I didn’t know

I didn’t know I didn’t know

I did

Coffees gone cold

You thought I should have dealt with losing you better

My favorite mornings I share with my thoughts only

I don’t want to do it over

I wouldn’t change what you did

I would change what I did

Can you trust someone too much

Can you miss them and know that they don’t belong in your better world

It wasn’t better 

It wasn’t the best

It’s for the best now

Do you remember me

I made you a book of poetry

I did whatever it took

I made love to you like I was making it for the first time

I thought you opened my world up

You were blowing it apart

Bit by bit

Small parts at a time

I didn’t notice

You wouldn’t do that to me

If you remembered me

You must think I’m someone else

If I can have the same from you…

That was what we vowed

You don’t remember

You’re not holding up your part

Your words are no good here anymore

Cold coffee

I stare at an empty space across from me

No one took your seat

I’m still waiting for the person that was honest

Taking me a while to admit

She never existed

Afraid it says more about me than you

Afraid I ran into raging waters without a life vest

Knowing I couldn’t swim that well

Thinking I could learn along the way

I thought I could learn along the way

Perhaps I thought you would teach me

Perhaps I thought you brought a raft big enough for two

Take me back

To before the mornings were my favorite part

So I can choose a different time of day

When the light isn’t so beautiful

When the world isn’t so quiet

So bare

So showing

When thoughts and faces are less exposed

When they are pure and clean before they are tarnished by the day ahead 

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The Storm and the Heartbreak

And then the rain came

And then the thunder boomed

And we were like two lightening bolts of electricity in the same night sky

Battling over who was brighter

And who had a better chance of catching something on fire

And then the truth came out

And then the hurt rushed in

And then the past was suddenly much further in the past than it had been a moment ago

And then the rain came

And then the floods swept through

And then you were looking at a future that didn’t include me

And then the thunder boomed

And we were like two lightening bolts of electricity in the same night sky

Battling over who was brighter

And who had a better chance of catching something on fire

And then the wind picked up

And it blew everything apart

You were over there

I was over here

And our commitment was to the west

Our devotion was to the east

And our trust was up north

And our love was down south 

And then the rain came

And the rivers overflowed

And they brought debris

Broken boats and picket fences

Front doors and window frames

Promises and vows

Hope, laughter, certainty

And then we were swimming among everything we ever wanted

And struggling to stay afloat

Trying to grab a hold of something familiar

To keep us above the water

Trying to help each other but we just kept pushing each other under

And then our lungs filled up

And then everything got blurry

And then everything got black

And then the rain came

And we were two lightening bolts of electricity in the same night sky

Battling over who was brighter

And who had a better chance of catching on fire

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All the Days

Today I am happy

Today you have not crossed my mind hardly once

I say hardly because you are still embedded in the back of my subconscious 

Only a little though

I think about you hardly at all

Except for the days that I wake up thinking about you

Which aren’t many

But some

And I am at peace

Aside from the days that I am burning with hurt

Those are the days that I hate you

But then there are days that I think of you fondly

And I am grateful for you

But that is only on the days that I do not feel used

And taken advantage of

I am good

On the days that I’m not bad

And I only miss you on the days that I don’t not miss you

And I only crave your attention on days when I’m feeling insecure

But I only feel insecure on the days that I don’t feel lucky that I only wasted 6 years on you and not 20

And on the days I don’t fantasize about the life I want to live and smile to nobody but myself

Those are the only days I feel low

Because on other days I am so lifted I could fly

Because there were days you weighed me down

I might even say most days

So now-a-days I am light as a feather

And people tell me I don’t have the look of someone going through a hard time

And I say that is because sometimes the hard time is what makes everything better

And the other day someone told me I looked great

And I said I guess divorce looks good on me

Because some days I can feel sad about what happened

But I am not sad

There are days that I feel angry

But I am not angry

There are times that I feel devastated

But I try to keep those to just moments

And those moments are becoming far and few between

Because between the days that I might feel like I can’t process the way my life has changed

Are days that I breathe a sigh of relief 

And that breath gets me through the day

And on to the next day

And on to the next

I remember the day we met

And I remember the day I thought this was it

And then there’s the day I knew this was ending

And somewhere in between were days of amazing and days of misery

Days where I thought you were crazy

And some days I thought I was delusional 

And I can’t forget about the days we talked about a family

There were so many days I thought you made me a better person

But on other days we brought out the worst in each other

And yesterday I thought about you every time I was in the car

And today I did the same

But tomorrow I might forget I ever loved you at all

Because there was a day you made a decision that changed our trajectory 

And that day was a terrible day

But it wasn’t the worst day of my life 

I’ve had many days that were worse than that

I wonder what that day was like for you

There are days I think, you weren’t the worst thing that happened to me

But as the days go on I’m realizing you weren’t the best either

And in 100 days from now I bet I will feel less bitter

And 200 days from now I might feel less pain

And in 365 days this is going to feel more like a memory 

And less like it feels on this day

Which is like I’m on a carousel 

Slowly spinning around with every emotion moving up and down in a consistent flow 

Today you told me you still think of me

And it made me cry

Because it’s easy to assume that on the day to day, you don’t think of me at all

But you said you think of me all the time

That’s pretty frequently

Is it safe to say I probably cross your mind everyday 

There are days that I think about myself more than I think I about you

And those are joyful thoughts

And they get me through the day

And on to the next day

And every day is a new day

And that gets me through the day too

And on to the next day

And on to the next 

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A Dangerous Current

You are a dangerously tempting current 

Swimming with you pulls me too far out

Swimming against you is impossible 

And the moon will only light the way 

Until the clouds roll in

And they will roll in

I believed in you until I didn’t

Trust was unwavering until it wasn’t

You were a soft place to land

Until you turned to stone

Cracks in your pavement should have been a warning

There’s been trouble here before

But I had a steady place to plant my feet

And your eyes were kind

I remember when you asked me

Will you do whatever it takes

You asked me

My response was my punishment

I let go of the wind 

And held onto your coattails

You sang songs to lure me in

And then scolded me for singing along

You stand next to me now

There’s a lot behind your eyes

That I can’t see anymore

I hear words in a language I can’t speak

You’re at a distance I will never reach

I wouldn’t dare take the chance

You’re in a world that does not look safe to me

Dark shadows fly around you

And I pray they don’t get too close

But I fear they have already gotten what they came for

You were the sunshine

You were warm and all encompassing 

But you were broken in a way I couldn’t understand

Your bits and pieces too heavy for me to lift

Your cracks so big I fell in

Landed in the middle of the ocean

And when I finally got sight of the shore

The current kept pushing me back out

And back out

And back out

You knew I would tire out

You knew I wasn’t strong enough to keep going

So I let my flailing arms and legs rest

And I laid on my back

Felt the water tickle my ears and sides of my face 

As I rose and sank with the motion of the water

And just as I gave in

I was set free 

You say my poetry is too depressing

Here is a happy ending for you

I am more in love with myself than

I ever was with you

I met someone so trustworthy

So loyal

So uplifting

So passionate

She isn’t condescending

Or judgmental

She is a much better lover than you

And she will never abandon me for someone else

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The Liberating Divorce

You know what’s amazing and liberating about getting a divorce? Realizing you just spent the last 6 years trying to be loved by someone and now the only person that you want to love you is YOU. It is the most free I have ever felt. And honestly, the most loved.  I believe it is something that goes for the most part unnoticed, the losing of yourself for a relationship. It’s not entirely conscious. But there were definitely moments I had throughout my marriage where I thought, this isn’t what I want to do, this doesn’t feel right, I’m not speaking up, am I sacrificing too much? am I giving too much away? am I losing myself? I battled a little over how I let that happen. How did I, a woman who has always been independent and strong willed, let herself go like that? How did I give myself up so easily?

I started to believe I needed my marriage. I needed it more than I needed myself. And that is bullshit. Nobody needs anybody. What I needed was to re-center myself or maybe I was never that centered to begin with. I struggled my whole life with depression. I grew up in a violent, abusive home. My parents both dealt with drug addictions. I watched my father abuse my mother and my sisters and I watched my mother take it and allow it in silence. I was never shown the love I needed from either of my parents. So it has taken me a while to truly gather myself into what I would consider the best version of who I could be. I haven’t had the best examples. I never would have guessed it would take the end of what I thought was my most significant relationship in order for me to find that. But when you really give something your all, and I truly and literally gave it my all, only to watch it dissolve right in front of your face, it wakes you the fuck up. 

For the first time in my life I am adventurous and I’m adventurous on my own. For the first time in my life I am truly confident and I’m confident on my own. For the first time I am happy, content, grounded, centered and fulfilled. I feel less alone than I ever have and more connected than I ever have. I am paying attention to my body and listening to what it needs, and how it feels. I am honoring my emotions. I am nurturing friendships that have been neglected. I am so present, and aware. When my marriage ended I felt like something had been taken away from me, but now I realize I have received more than I lost. The end of my marriage was hard and it was difficult but it would be a shame to focus on that and miss out on all the beauty that is around me and within me. 

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Finding What Was Not Lost

I am going home. I never thought I would say it much less be happy about it. I am happy. I am even excited. I left Massachusetts thinking I would never come back. People were always saying, “Worst case scenario, you come back.” To which I replied, “Worst case scenario the motor home blows up.” I knew I wasn’t coming back. I left believing I needed to find a place where I belonged, a place I fit in and a place where I was surrounded by my kind of people. I left thinking I would find myself. In this new found place of belonging I would be more confident, more carefree, more open and more honest. It would be the kind of place I had been imagining. First, I would travel around until I stumbled upon it like accidentally bumping into your soulmate, the way it happens in the movies. In my travels I would conquer my fears, relinquish my struggle with change and squash my reliance on consistency.  I would strengthen my marriage because, who could fight in the presence of such natural wonders? Without the weight of everyday responsibilities and stressors, what marriage wouldn’t thrive? I was convinced that the journey would bring us so close that when we settled in this unfamiliar, match made in heaven home, we would be new and improved versions of our former selves. That was the goal. That was the plan. It wasn’t too high of an expectation, was it?

I left on an adventure with my wife in a 31ft motorhome pointed west. I spent an obscene amount of money on hiking clothes and gear that I never once would have considered buying or wearing. The first hike in my new clothes made me feel like a foreigner in a new country. Actually, it was like walking around in a super woman costume yet everyone knew it wasn’t Halloween and I wasn’t a superhero. I thought for sure it was obvious that I was a first time Merrill boot trotting, North Face pants wearing, Camelback carrying kind of girl. I felt ridiculous and giddy.

My fear of heights made me hesitant and nervous, which was in full effect when I approached signs reading, NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THOSE WITH A FEAR OF HIEGHTS.  I was the person they were referring too. That was me! My immediate reaction was to stop and say to myself, ‘see I shouldn’t do this!’  There was literally a sign telling me so. I thought for sure that would be my out. Nevertheless my legs kept pushing forward.

My first taste of exposure left me shaky and slightly light headed. Each hike after that got steeper, scarier and more challenging. Each time, I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. Each time, I was sure it was a terrible idea. Each time, I thought, ‘this hike I am not prepared for.’ Each time, I asked, just how steep is steep? How strenuous is strenuous? How difficult is difficult? Each time, I did it anyway. I stayed close to inside walls, held tight to support chains, looked straight ahead of me, and never looked down or up. I talked to myself constantly. I reminded myself that I was in control of my body (despite the fact that my hands were shaking and my legs were trembling). I was not going to fall unless I let go, walked off, or did something really, really stupid.

I felt comfort in my wife’s fearlessness and in the people around me doing the same thing with confidence.  I didn’t let myself say ‘no,’ or think about it too long before I started moving forward. I just did it. I went for it. I even found myself encouraging other hikers who looked terrified. If I could do it, anyone could. I laughed when someone commented on how calm I seemed. I was scared shitless but I transfered my anxiety into determination. When I made it to the top, the reward for the treturous and tremor producing climb was absolute elation. It was the most powerful, most deserved and most fulfilling deep breath my lungs have ever experienced. And the view wasn’t bad either.

The beautiful scenery of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park and even the peaks of the Canadian Rockies, could not change the fact that I was unhappy, and struggling from a damaged childhood, to which my marriage was reaping the consequences. That’s the tricky thing about problems, they are still there even with a change of scenery. You can drive two thousand miles and the only thing that changes is where you are on the map. You bring all your shit with you. And if you are in my situation you also happen to be cramming it into a 200 square foot box on wheels.  A shitty attitude, hyper sensitivity, and lack of communication and understanding can fill a small space till it is bursting at the seems. It creates a thickness in the air even the mountain air can’t clear. I didn’t necessarily think a road trip would cure the issues in my marriage. I thought they would dwindle down a bit and mellow out because we were mellowed out. Not so much. What we really needed was more along the lines of intense couples therapy, somewhere in the realm of ten thousand dollars, by a bestselling world renowned author and psychologist.  Seriously, we took a detour to Colorado and it seriously cost a shitload. We spent a grueling several days with a guy I both hated and admired for his no bullshit cut throat approach to figuring out what the hell is wrong with you. And he makes it very clear that there is something very wrong with YOU. And YOU are the problem. And your marriage WILL fail if YOU don’t fess up to just how fucked up you really are.

The benefits of those visits took a little while to present themselves. But, ultimately what was made very clear was that there was nothing wrong with our marriage, there was something wrong with each of us. Overtime I realized that I was becoming more considerate, selfless and caring. These are attributes I would have argued I already demonstrated when in reality I was selfish, always wanting, grabbing, taking, deflecting, pullling and pushing. I was in this incredibly well made disguise. A disguise unknown even to myself. It was time to take off the mask. I believe being in the motor home away from everyone we knew helped too. In the moment it felt like an impossible situation, but it forced us to confront our problems head on in present time. We had no out. In such a small space there is no place to hide, no rugs to shove our problems under and no closet to stuff the skeletons into.

The ironic thing about leaving in search of something better is that you never find it, and that is because you are looking in the wrong spot. You think you are going to suddenly stumble upon this “thing,” like a tree root lifted up from the ground you don’t notice until you are almost head over heals. Everything you “find” from your self discovery adventure has been inside of you all along. You realize that the things you thought you were looking for are not things at all. They are revelations. These revelations reveal themselves as a better understanding of what it means to give things up, to start over, to be afraid and go for it anyway, and to not only get out of your comfort zone, but to shatter it until it is unrecognizable. It’s realizing that YOU are the reason your marriage is shit and YOU can change it. It’s finding out that you can not only get by with less, but also get a lot further, faster. It’s letting go of the should haves and supposed to’s. It’s discovering you are stronger, both physicallly and mentally, than you ever realized. It’s learning that you don’t need to react all the damn time. It’s accepting and being just as excited about your path leading you home as you were about it leading you away. All of these revelations were there all along, they were just tucked away deep inside a corner of my universe collecting dust, waiting to be cleaned off and let out into the world breathing in fresh mountain air and running wild.

 

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Coffee or Tea?

I look forward to my coffee in the morning. I admittedly still hit snooze for usually an hour, but the only thing that truly gets my ass out of bed is knowing I can have a cup of coffee. It wasn’t always this way, as I loved the smell, but I couldn’t stand the taste. I used to have coffee envy; driving to work in the morning and seeing fellow commuters in their car with their travel mug filled with coffee, made me envious. Coffee is one of those things that people long for, can’t wait for, can’t function without. It wakes them up, puts them in check, gets things started for them. I wanted to be a part of that world.

My world, up to this point, revolved around tea. I grew up with it, and was surrounded by it. Every woman in my family drank tea as if it were water. Every day, all day. When they wanted to relax, when they wanted to talk, when they wanted to decompress they had tea. When they were thirsty, they did not grab a glass of water, they made a cup of tea. I even remember drinking a very milky, watered down tea in my bottle as I laid down on the floor watching late morning cartoons. Tea was more than a caffeinated beverage. It meant something to my family. It was a symbol of our connection. Nine out of 10 times when I walked into my grandparents house,  my grandfather would be sitting at the kitchen window with a cup of tea in front of him. Before I could shut the door behind me, he would already be up to put the water on for me. When my Nana would play poker with my sister and me, she would hide good cards under the table with one hand, while holding a cup of tea with the other. When we would go through her tins of jewelry with hopes she would let us take a piece home, we had a cup of tea. When my aunt would come for a visit and we would sit around the table doodling on random scraps of paper, we had a cup of tea. When me and my sisters needed to talk or wanted some company, we would have a cup of tea.

After dinner we would clean up and have a cup of tea. Putting the water on was exciting, similar to the way people get excited about putting the game on. When we were all living at home, we would get into our pajamas and have a cup of tea in the kitchen when the house had gotten quiet. Dad had gone to bed, and mom would be in the living room falling asleep to the tv. It was without exaggeration, our favorite activity.  When our favorite tv shows were on we would get in our comfy clothes, and put the water on. We had it timed perfectly so we were all sitting on the couch with tea in hand when the show started. Sometimes I would drink tea because I just had nothing else to do, or because I was hungry but couldn’t decide what I wanted, When a sister said, “do you want a cup of tea?”, it meant so much more. It meant do you want to talk? Do you want to be by my side? It meant we were sharing this life together. It was a good moment in a life that was filled with many bad ones. It was a saving grace. It was a comfort like no other. That cup of tea had healing power. The space  between the first dip of the tea bag and the last sip was untouchable. It was safe, it was quiet, it was laughter, and it was tears. Sometimes it was silent, and sometimes it was non stop chatter. Sometimes it was sharing a happy story, and sometimes it was wallowing in depression. That cup of tea was the only constant. It was there to celebrate birthdays and aid in the devastation of losing a grandparent. It made life more livable. 

Now that I am older, life and tea have changed a little. I no longer live with my sisters, for one, and I have become the coffee loving adult I always wanted to be.  Life is funny the way all the little things you once enjoyed are either gone, or enjoyed differently. Everything takes on a new meaning. I still enjoy a cup of tea when I visit with my sisters, but it isn’t as frequent. There are so many more facets of life that just weren’t there before. My sisters are no longer the only shoulders I have to lean on. That cup of tea is no longer my only saving grace, it’s been replaced with a paycheck, a massage, a glass of wine, a vacation, or a night out with my wife. It doesn’t hold as much weight as it used to. It makes me wonder, am I losing an important part of my life? Am I letting go of my roots? Have I lost sight of the important things, the simple things, the things that didn’t have to do with bills, appointments, and work? Was I letting my cup of comfort be replaced with a cup of necessity? The tea has physically changed too, just as I have. With my new found knowledge of the effects of sugar and dairy, it’s typically black or herbal. The sweet milkiness has vanished. I guess my tea has grown up too.