Marilyn Monroe, Destiny and Jail

Marilyn Monroe said it, "I'm selfish impatient and a little insecure.  I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."  There is so much wisdom to that. Why are we so quick to put a gun to the head of our relationships and blow them away when people are at their worst?  More specifically, why have I always done this.  Could it be I have an amazingly low threshold for pain and nonsense these days?

Somewhere along the journey, I worked my way up the cynical ladder to eventually become the full embodiment of a jaded woman, unable to trust or extend myself beyond a safe boundary. Just read through the annals of ex-husbands past and you should be able to understand how I got there. But with this last devastating end - I had crawled down off that ladder, and handed it all over.  Here you go, here is my heart.  Here is my faith.  Here is my future, our future - take it and let's build a life together. I trusted him as an old soul with a sixth sense.  A wise person, a strategic thinker and a loving boyfriend.

But behind it all, there was a dark side.  The moon went from full and glorious to total eclipse over the course of one evening. There was duplicity, there was ugliness, there was ego and struggle for power and it was me who couldn't handle him at his worst. Forget about how we were at our best.  The dark shadow of that lunar relationship eclipse crushed my world.  I have been sitting still now for nearly two months. Waiting for a time when my heart would feel whole enough to have a conversation with another man - much less, God help me, a relationship.

I've been hanging out on the back row, more like the nose bleed section of Match.Com.  Letting people filter through with their underwhelming attempts at cracking my shell.  It has provided some much needed humor during a dark time.  I love it when Match sees my inactivity and tries to encourage me with juicy tidbits about a potential hand selected candidate they wish me to meet.  I mean, who could resist when they advise me, "you both fancy felines, like you  - he's not a smoker and he enjoys bowling." Well, there you have it.

I've been working on my Masters Degree in  being alone. I've climbed upon the large platform that is built out of confusion and angst instead of scaling back up that jaded ladder. I have launched my spirit off this platform and allowed it to come back to me with renewed intention and belief. I wish to be without a relationship, not out of fear but because I am enthralled with the changes I'm seeing in me.  There is meditation, exercise, clearing alcohol from my system, weight loss, and an awareness that I am standing at the crucible that is my destiny. This is my test. The universe is guiding me. It's as if I can feel the hands of generations past, all the way to the beginning of time, nudging me forward, patting me on the back and in some cases, embracing me with their light and energy.

That's not to say if the universe decides to throw the perfect man at me, I'll walk away. No, no, silly thought, no.  If that happens, I will dive in to the deep end, knowing I don't know how to swim but trusting a strong set of arms to shore me up.  I love the line from the book, Eat Pray Love, when Liz is told she doesn't need a man, she needs a champion.  I suspect there is a dearth of true champions at this stage of the game but I cannot, ney, will not settle for anything less. For not only will I be continuing to leap off of platforms, I will be doing it with all of my kids depending upon me as their sole provider for the next two and a half years.

Mr. Sunshine was sentenced on Monday. He's going to be going away for thirty months to a federal minimum security camp. We are devastated, reeling, shocked and somewhat numb. I am hoping with all this jumping, leaping and soaring I've been doing during my alone time, my cape is ready.  Thus, if a man intrepidly seeks to enter my life, he had better come equipped with his own cape, a championship belt, or a shit load of trophies for character, stamina, and the ability to talk me down from the occasional platform, or dare I say, ledge.  And in return, he will deserve me at my best, which I don't mind saying will be a life beyond his wildest dreams.

The Wedded Rocks

The 'Wedded Rocks' (Meoto-Iwa) or ‘Husband and Wife Rocks’ are named after two Japanese Shinto deities, Izanagi and Izanami. Representing their enduring union is a heavy rope of rice straw, or shimenawa, which joins them. Like many married couples, they've weathered their share of storms. Together they sit in the sea near the shore of Ise, Japan. 

I guess that's what I've been missing.  A heavy rope of rice straw.

Breathtaking.

Love and Marriage - Hope and Heartbreak

Writing about all the good guys my girlfriends have married has set my mind on a quest. Exactly how does one know when they’ve found a Cary Grant and are not instead being fooled by an Archibald Leach in costume? I’m also pondering how all these marriages last when we, as the human species, have our good qualities our not so good, rather ugly stuff that surfaces now and then.

I wrote my “good guy” post to offer hope to my girlfriend who has been struggling with defining the need for a man in her life. I wanted her to see all the good in the world and convince her she deserved the same. Instead, she read it and cried – and it wasn’t a good kind of cry, it was the other one. This is my second effort with a little more heartfelt honesty and a lot less spiritual, universal froo froo.

How do all of my happily married friends handle it when they have a bad fight or wake up each morning to the same guy with messy hair and bad breath? How does all this happily ever after fit into reality? In other words, how do they fucking do it?

I recently realized almost every couple I know who have been married for 25 plus years are of the Catholic faith. Is it religious belief that holds them together? I suppose fear of the Pope or burning in hell has saved quite a few marriages but I don’t think that’s the answer I’m seeking.

I was married to one of the good guys and I left him. I was bored out of my mind, dying on the vine and eager for more out of life. My good guy wasn’t good enough.

Before Seinfeld, we were all expected to stay with our partners for better or worse. Seinfeld spoofed the impetuous, relative ease with which we tend to hastily declare - NEXT. His character sacrificed a plethora of seemingly perfect love interests based upon trivial infractions such as not tasting his apple pie, being liked by his parents, laughing strangely, having man hands or the eternally classic, eating her peas one at a time.

I have to admit I turned down a second date with a guy once because I knew I could never live with that annoying laugh.

A little online research led me to find the following "official" list of reasons when it’s time to call it quits:

1. You can't be yourself with your partner.
2. You feel that the relationship is smothering you emotionally, socially, or spiritually.
3. You sense there are differences in values, beliefs, and life goals.
4. One of you is moving a distance away.
5. You find yourself outgrowing the person.
6. You're in an emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive relationship.

Thank heavens we have an official list but what happens when your boyfriend’s hot temper scares you but he’s not emotionally abusive or what do you do if your kids don’t get along? What if during a fight, one person is allowed to say enough is enough but when the other person doesn’t want to pick up the phone to talk, they are accused of immature behavior. Is this trivial, like eating your peas one at a time or is it more like peas and carrots, which contrary to Forest Gump, really don't belong together. In other words, is this enough to break-up?

Blended family issues are not discussed in the reasons to break up I found online. What happens when you’re asked to leave in the middle of a date because his daughter is having an issue; yet he refuses to sit in the back seat when she’s dealing with her emotionally distraught son. Or, he speaks up, telling her children what he thinks of their behavior while she has chosen to remain quiet and non confrontational about all the head games his kids are playing.

And what if we just don’t have enough patience to stay calm and work through contention, preferring instead to walk away from someone that may very well be one of the good ones? As for my girlfriend, I understand why she’s enduring such an arduous task, convincing herself of the need for a man in her life. When you live a life filled with work, kids and bouts of enormous stress, it is challenging to add someone to that. But it takes an effort of Herculean proportion to want them to stick around when their ugly stuff surfaces.

It begs the question, is it worth it? Does she want the better and the worse? What if the good guy she finds decides he doesn’t want the better if he has to deal with the worse? What if they are both too independent to really allow someone into their lives? And by “allow”, I mean willing to change behaviors that hurt them, drop the baggage being carried in from previous relationships and work together to achieve mutual goals.

That’s it. That’s what my successfully married friends have figured out.

It takes work.

And work takes desire.

Do those of us that are still single, dumping people in a Seinfeld-esque manner, want to remain carefree, fun-loving people who will never live the lives our parents lived?

Or do we desire a life-long relationship where work and a healthy dose of patience is required?

Well, my friend…do we?

Shit Creek - It's Not Just a Tourist Attraction

I suppose I should give you fair warning at this juncture.

Because we are irreparably, irrevocably and irreversibly tied together through our kids, there will NEVER be a conclusion to the Mr. Sunshine (with much more than a chance of pain) postings.

There seems to be no end to the insanity, or as I like to call it exceptional blogger-fodder.

There is no and has never been any child support between us, we share joint custody. I'm certain that's why we get along so well. However, there are bills that come which need to be shared. These are expenses relating to education, medical, extra curricular activities, etc. For the most part, we have always reconciled these balances and paid our equal share to the other.

About a year ago, I noticed Mr. Sunshine was experiencing a sudden change in his financial status. The kids were talking of these awesome, amazing and quite expensive things dad was buying them. I was hoping he hadn't fallen back into the old habits of spending on credit and pretending to be something he was not.

Then the really big purchases materialized - a $90,000 lot to build a home, paid in cash, an engagement ring and a car for the fiance, paid in cash, and a three week cruise to the Mediterranean, you guessed it, paid in cash.

Mr. Sunshine couldn't have reestablished his credit by that much, that fast. The dude must be pulling in some ginormous chunks of moolah. When I asked him, he told me he was running an Ebay business on the side and had stumbled upon a great opportunity. Within six months or so, he left his "real" job, once again to pursue his dreams of being the proprietor of his very own entrepreneurial enterprise.

This was not unexpected, who would work if they didn't have to? Good for him.  You go, Mr. Sunshine!

Then that freakish little devil that occasionally appears on my shoulder thought - I could be a greedy, money-grubbing ex wife and go after him for child support since he so obviously far exceeded my level of income but it was just a fleeting fantasy.  The better part of me, the chubby, diaper-wearing, cherub that has to counter balance the devil gave it a resounding "Nah".

Good thing I didn't. Turns out, that "great opportunity" he had stumbled upon involved taking inventory from his employer and selling it to a wholesaler overseas. Apparently HIS freakish little devil was a better negotiator.

As the story unfolded, or as he tells it - he left the employer, stopped running the Ebay operation and started his new Ebay business, which is similar to the other one but without all the stealing, fraud and stuff. He left without being caught and thought all was well and right with the world until he received notice that he would be facing federal charges, damages in excess of half a million and possible jail time.  Oops.


Now Lord knows, I'm a reasonable woman.  When he came over to tell me all this - out of fear it would hit the press and I would find out anyway - my main concern was for him. Nobody wants to see the father of their children go to jail. When he was pulling in the big bucks, I was happy because I knew the kids would always be taken care of.  I was equally as devastated to learn - he was now so far up shit creek, he might never be found again.

Mr. Sunshine's confession had occurred in late summer, just before the kids were to start school.  In an effort to ease his burdens, I covered all the back to school expenses along with paying some medical bills that included counseling for The Commando. I told him he could pay me in increments if it would help. If I had enough money to cover all those expenses without hurting my own cash flow, I would have done so, but alas, I'm blogging for free, ya know. Girlfriend hasn't been optioned for a book, well at least not yet anyway.

Last week, needing money to pay some bills, I asked him if he could just pay me something towards the balance owed. He refused to pay me anything, saying he did not agree with the counseling charges.

In his opinion, The Commando is fine, doesn't need any counseling.

Okay, then just pay me for the educational expenses and we can deal with the rest later.

No.  Unless you agree to drop the other charges entirely, I won't pay you anything.

Look, if you're hurting for money, I understand.  Just give me $200, less than half the educational cost.

No. Listen, AN- GE -LA, I will not pay you anything!  I made you an offer and you turned it down so you will get nothing. No soup for you. Next!

I then reminded him of all the health insurance premiums I had been covering at no cost to him, along with tons of other things I've let slide all in the name of sweet peace and harmony.  I told him if he forces my hand and I have to take him to court, it would be a substantial amount of money. If you will simply show me you are a man of your word and you will honor your obligations to your children, I will continue to work with you but you gotta give me something.

I don't think I need to tell you his answer.

I met with an attorney yesterday and we're moving ahead. The total amount he owes me exceeds $8,000.  I am hoping to receive a judgment and then attach a lien to that expensive piece of land before the court orders him to sell it for remuneration to his employer.

I am broken-hearted over the loss.  We have lost our ability to hang out together and show mutual respect and appreciation in front of our kids. We are taking that precious gift away from them. I am saddened but I believe all will prevail.  One day, everyone will know what went on and each of us, Sunshine and I, will have to be accountable to our children for our actions.

I do hope for the best and I pray everyday that he won't go to jail. I hated it when he pretended to be something he was not in front of the kids. "Daddy is going to get elected and change the world", he would say as he headed off for the results of another failed election.  Like many other 11 year old boys, The Commando still believes his dad has super powers.

Now, I wish he truly did too.

Mr. Sunshine (Part Five) - The Reformation and Resolution

He came back to me, changed and seemingly broken. He appeared to be coming out of his self-imposed delusions and moving toward the honest, somewhat shocking realization of who he really was. He would not consider himself a failure but he had failed, in so many, many ways.

He no longer wanted the hot, sexy young sales girl. He wanted a life with me. He wanted to be a father. He wanted to start going to church, to get a "real" job, to finally be a man and oh by the way, in order to accomplish all of this, we would need to move to Wisconsin.

While the thought had certainly never entered my mind that I might one day be living in Wisconsin. We were losing the house anyway. I had shut down the business and filed bankruptcy on the remaining debt. I didn't really like my new job and I was restless. We had visited Milwaukee many times to see his mom. It seemed like a city on the verge of cool; well at least much more on the verge than Oklahoma City was at that time. Why the hell not, let's do it!

We moved in August of 2000. It was glorious, fresh and new. It smelled clean and crisp; fall, my favorite season, was already in the air. Those first few months were exciting as we searched for a place to live, settled #1 Son into his freshman year of high school and began to explore our new surroundings. Mr. Sunshine had landed that "real" job for a national company, no less.  It took me a few months to find work back in my field. We were on our way, at the dawn of a new life. Time to rebuild.

When December rolled around, we had our first big snow storm. I had seen snow before, but never anything as beautiful as that. The entire place looked like a giant Christmas painting or Hallmark card. I bought snow boots for everyone and it continued to snow. We frolicked around in it and it continued to snow. We made snowmen and had snowball fights and it continued to snow. We went sledding and it continued to snow. By month end, we had received an all time, record breaking snow for the month of December - a whopping 52 inches.

It is the perfect metaphor for how my life with Mr. Sunshine evolved and eventually ended. Some snow is good; in fact, it can be great - a helluva fun ride but 52 inches in one month can put a damper on things.

Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The reformation of Mr. Sunshine With a Chance of Pain had begun. He started to dabble in politics, his first love and perhaps his only true passion in life (besides his children).  Within two years he was heading up statewide committees, running for county and statewide elected office, volunteering for national senate campaigns, pursuing a Political Science degree at night and making a name for himself among the most conservative of the ultra-conservative-elite.

Taxes are three times as high in Wisconsin as they were in Oklahoma so I was proud of him for his fiscally conservative position; however, he couldn't hang with the big dogs without drinking from their water bowls, much like those poor souls who drank the Kool Aid in Guyana. (Yes, I intended to portray it in such a shocking context.)

Our fundamental belief systems began to sharply contrast. Soon, I found myself on the receiving end of many a diatribe over such things as abortion, gay marriage and family values, you know - things like infidelity and divorce, which a few of my friends were going through at the time.

"You shouldn't hang out with them" he would say, "They are a bad influence". After a long pause the only thing I could think to say was:

Excuse me, but have we met?

In November of 2001 I found I was pregnant again.  He was, believe it or not, a top notch partner during the pregnancy. He had to be when they put me down to bed rest. But after the babies came and the stress of two premature infants became apparent, he was again skipping out the door for work, night classes and political commitments. When someone suggested he run for office, he had to go back and fix an itsy, bitty, teeny, weeny little mistake.

I will never forget the shock and romanticism of it all when he came home from work on my birthday, handed me a gift box and said something to the tune of well, we've had three kids together, we might as well get married now.

The son of a bitch bought me an engagement ring on my birthday to get out of having to buy me a present.

The girls had been born in May, this was August.  We were married the following June.  There I was in the bathroom, crying so hard, knowing I didn't want to be married to him, knowing I would have to wait many years for him to truly grow up, but telling myself - I want to put the bow on this package and make it legitimate.

I wanted to share the last name of my children and I didn't want to have to explain why mommy and daddy were never married.  I walked down that aisle. If you look closely at the photo of me from Mr. Sunshine-Part One, you can see my red nose and red, squinty eyes, swollen shut from the profuse emotion; yet also, perfectly matching my red dress. Does anyone still question why I selected red as an articulation of my bridal bliss?

There were many interesting things that happened from June of 2003 to November of 2004 when I decided to leave him for good. At the height of his political involvement, he was spending most of his time volunteering for the Tim Michels campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Russ Feingold. I was invited to attend some events for the staff and volunteers at the Michels' home. It was difficult for me to sit and listen to them go on and on and on about abortion, knowing the man sitting next to me had paid for the abortion of the drug addicted whore he had knocked up.

Let's suffice it to say, I wasn't invited to many more events.  They could smell a social liberal at fifty paces.

Then there was the time they all went out after some rally or something and one of the young paid staffer girls got so drunk, Mr. Sunshine brought her home, carried her into our house, while she was kissing on his face and neck and put her to bed on our couch.  That was a tough one to explain to the nanny the next morning.  "Oh, don't mind her, my husband brought her home last night."

After that, I checked Mr. Sunshine's email on a regular basis and found he had quite the emotional affair (that's all I can prove) with a another young volunteer who was incensed that he had stood her up at a fund raising event he had promised to attend.  As I recall, he missed the event because I forced him to accompany us to my annual company picnic. I didn't feel comfortable keeping up with two babies and a four year old by myself.

It didn't make sense to me why he said he couldn't come with us. Why was a campaign event more important. Then I understood, he wasn't just showing up to support the candidate, if you know what I mean.

In late October, I came home from an overnight business trip to Chicago and woke up the next morning to discover another woman's panties in my bed.  Actually, I didn't discover them, one of my toddler twins had picked them up and placed them on her head.  I grabbed them, checked the size (small, not me) the label (Calvin Klein) again, not me and the smell (most certainly used and NOT BY ME).

Twin was immediately scrubbed down similar to that of a potential hazardous waste exposure.

All of that nonsense aside, I still wasn't totally done until I realized the guy was never going to work a real job, live real life, be a real husband - no matter what I did.  He had been laid off by the big national company when they noticed his head was in the political clouds instead of with them. He had not found a new job, opting instead to start his own consulting firm and supplement his income from county or state elected positions.

All of this cost money. He had cashed out everything from his job, borrowed money on our house and put us in debt, again to the point where we didn't have enough money coming in to cover the bills. When there was no more credit to be extended, he went to his mom and asked her to finance some home improvements, selecting the colors and fixtures behind my back.

I came home from work one night to see carpet torn out, cabinets demolished and new items slated to go back in, which I had previously objected to.  Said objections were not solely a cost issue - I hated the idea of pedestal sinks when you have no cabinetry - where's a girl supposed to put her shit?

It was a life changing moment. I sat at the edge of my bed, looked at the debris around me and felt as if Cher had suddenly walked up to me, slapped me across the face and said, "Snap out of it".

Thanks Cher. You were right. I am 41 years old, I make a good salary.  It was a revelation, a resolution and a glory hallelujah, I was unquestionably resolved. I could support myself and my children without him, I had to if I wanted to survive.

Just as I felt on my wedding day, I was done, so very, very done. However, this time it was "real".

Mr. Sunshine (Part Four) - Diapers, Dirty Deals and Denial

I

It's been one day in blog time but two years have transpired for the protagonist of our story.

The Commando had arrived, in spite of a tough pregnancy replete with daily shots of heparin to prevent another blood clot, preclamsia near the end of the term and a sudden drop in his heart rate during delivery, forcing the doctor to slap an oxygen mask on me while manually repositioning the bun by means of inserting his entire arm into my oven.

It would be too difficult, too drawn-out and too much life to accurately epitomize if I were to write in copious detail of all that had unfolded, or perhaps unraveled during those two years. I feel I must abridge and again, edit the hell out of it, in order to avoid a Mr. Sunshine (Part Twenty-Six).

We sold one house, designed and built a new one and then gave it back to the lender when our business was failing. Mr. Sunshine and his brother-in-law (The Anti-Christ) had convinced me to quit my job and finance a start-up home improvement operation. Wait, that sounds too legitimate. It was actually a window and siding company, a tin man operation with Mr. Sunshine handling the marketing, the Anti-Christ heading up sales/production and me, bringing considerable cash, excellent credit, accounting/business savvy and my baby to work with me every day.

At first, all was as advertised. The business pulled in ridiculous amounts of profit. Within three months, my two partners were each requiring new cars, cell phone accounts, gasoline credit cards and cash advances on jobs they had sold. Mr. Sunshine needed it to cover our household expenses while the Anti-Christ was feeding his ever present, ravenous gambling addiction.

Within six months, we were falling behind - taking profit from completed jobs to buy materials for new customer's homes. I would express my concerns. I would show them the books, the projections, the bills, the supplier accounts that had been shut off and in return, they would walk me to the large white grease board in the office and point out all the thousands of dollars we had coming in. "You worry to much......you don't understand how THIS business works....it's not like the work you used to do.....one or two more jobs and we're back on top", they would say; and then, the Anti-Christ would tell me he needed another cash advance.

At one point, I clearly remember having no money and no diapers. Mr. Sunshine sold a job that day and asked the customer for a $5,000 cash advance. He told her it was standard operating procedure and would be used to purchase the supplies needed for her work. It was really used to catch us up on our mortgage, buy food and stock up on those ever important diapers. Desperate times, they were indeed. 

We clung for life, managing to complete our jobs, keep the customers happy and somehow stave off that ever present wolf at the door. We were in deep, or more accurately, I was in deep, to the tune of around $350,000 in business credit/supplier accounts that had been extended. I was scared but with each walk to the while board, I would manage to pull from my strength and fight. After all, we were building a life for our little makeshift family and we were in it together.

I trusted Mr. Sunshine to always be at my side, to battle with me, to be my shield against the fear and my net for the inevitable fall. I never trusted the Anti-Christ. I knew he would one day run us into the ground and seal the coffin with one final bitter nail. The person I should have trusted, didn't yet have my trust. I knew exactly how this scenario was about to unfold and yet, I didn't trust myself.  I ignored my instincts.  Call it survival, call it denial, call it impetuous, reckless and mad. Go ahead, I can take it.

When we had been in business for nearly a year, I suspected some of Mr. Sunshine's late night sales calls were not what they appeared. I checked his voice mail and intercepted a lengthy, gushy message from his girlfriend, the hot, young, sexy sales girl who came to our office one day to sell us, you guessed it, advertising, of all things. Sounds vaguely familiar.

She had enormous fake boobs and a tight, slim belly that hadn't recently given birth. I gathered up his things that night, placed them in the foyer and told him he had one week to be out. Then the next morning, I went to the office.

Word had spread and the news was out before I got there. Mr. Sunshine's sister had been working as our receptionist, she was the first person I saw as I walked in the door. I said nothing, choosing to go straight to my office and begin the end. The end of everything. The sister tried to talk to me, the Anti-Christ tried to talk, Mr. Sunshine even tried to open a discussion. The only person I listened to that morning, finally, at long last,  was myself.

Later that afternoon, I made the mistake of listening to our Telemarketing Manager as she bared her soul to me, telling me of other infidelities she witnessed and even aided by allowing her home to be used as a place for Mr. Sunshine to have sex with an underage employee, high school drop out, druggie (but hot) girl he had knocked up a few months before. Sunshine, of course, denies the baby was his, noting how this girl had slept with loads and loads of guys.

"Let me see if I've got this right, you slept with a drug addicted whore, did not use a condom, paid for her abortion, then brought your stinky ass, infected-with-God-knows-what penis home to me?" Wham! That's the sound it made when I slapped him with all of my pinned up forbearance. I must be the luckiest girl alive to have made it out of that without a permanent STD or HIV reminder. Thank you sweet Jesus. On second thought, I don't think Jesus was having any part of this.

I know, I know, at this point you're thinking - this is the abridged version? But wait, there's more.

(To be continued.....)

Mr. Sunshine (Part Three) - Impervious but not Impregnable

All frolicking, cougar antics and underage drinking references aside, I embarked upon my next journey. After our infamous night out, we began to flirt while simultaneously conducting business. I opt to refer to it as multi-tasking.

In short order, Mr. Sunshine was booted out of his brother's house for arguing with the live-in, pregnant girlfriend-in-law. I don't know exactly WHAT he said to provoke the violence but I do know she socked him a good one, breaking his watch as he put his arm up to defend the intended target, his face.

He advised me of the situation and told me he was sleeping on the floor of the "office", which essentially consisted of the space next door above the garage in the eclectic low rent neighborhood in which they lived.

Being the compassionate, somewhat outrageously amorous, most certainly older and thereby more experienced divorcee I was - I obviously invited him to rent my spare bedroom.

Sing it with me.....

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know (Wo, wo, wo)
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
(Hey, hey, hey...hey, hey, hey)

Honest engines - I willingly admit, I am editing out the imprudent details and freely using the creative licensing bestowed upon me when I became a blogger, purely for the sake of a good blog job; whatever, however, whenever, oh my God never, the deed was done. He became my roommate, my lover, my business partner and eventually, the father of my children.

After nearly a year, we had developed what I could only refer to as a relationship clinging to it's life by means of artificial life support.  Yes, when my dad was dying, he overcame his fear of hospitals and rescued me from the Woodstocking vigil our family had insisted upon by taking me upstairs to look at the newborn babies.  Yes, when my dad died, he overcame his fear of funerals and arrived in support of me - seeing a lifeless body for the first time in his life and yes, he was too young, too inexperienced and had too many fears to overcome to be with a woman like me.

Getting kicked out of his brother's house for provoking a pregnant woman to a state of insanity and malevolent fury should have been a sign. I was exposing #1 Son (now between the ages of 10-11) to a person of questionable influence. I had a professional career to consider, as well as family and friends who were interrogating me as to who/what this thing, this presence, this young man who was obviously beneath me, was doing in my life.

The person I was then would say: None of it mattered because my heart, mind, body and soul had ascended into his pretend world, believing he was some sort of intellectual savant who would one day transform his words into reality, his Anthony Robbins inspired goals into reality and his reality would one day be a reality - for real.

The person I am today would say: I was craving attention from someone who was exciting, challenging, aloof, distraught, salacious, perplexing, decisive, resourceful, hungry, ambitious and everything else one would want after coming out of a marriage with boring Mr. Dependable and a sexual awakening with Mr. Plentiful. I wanted more. But, I momentarily lapsed and forgot to stop, reflect and take a look at what I actually desired and rightfully deserved.

I was beginning to awaken from the delusion, question the reality and apprehend the absurdity of it all when I was given a healthy dose of  "Surprise, guess what, you're not in charge here". I had collapsed in my office, unable to breath, pulse and blood pressure weakening - I was rushed to the hospital. They couldn't get an IV in my arm as my veins had started to collapse. I had experienced a pulmonary embolism or blood clot to my lungs. Most people simply fall over and die - but not me, I was wheeled to the emergency room while hearing and seeing my dad in a way that is difficult to explain.

I didn't "see" him like he was standing in front of me in a visceral sense.  I saw him inside of me, while I was outside of me. He told me to relax and not be afraid for I would not be with him now, i.e., I would not be dying today.

One month later, I conceived my second son. The doc had told me I would be off the birth control pill immediately. It was the only plausible explanation for a blood clot in a woman of my age who didn't smoke. My apologies doc, sorry you wasted all your time and resources on that medical degree. For you see, this one, you will never be able to explain. He didn't know what was supposed to happen in my life, what was going on behind the scenes - so to speak. He wasn't aware of the second son, who was preparing to come to me. He didn't know there was a powerful soul who created this blood-clot-ruse that threatened my life.

I am comfortable calling it a ruse or perhaps a manipulated destiny.  I had previously been diagnosed as infertile after seven agonizing years of yearning, pining and praying for a baby with Mr. Dependable. The myriad of tests had soundly concluded, they all said it. They all agreed. It was not him, it was me.  Regretfully, the likelihood of you getting pregnant would be about the same as electing a black man to be President of the United States. Enough said........that will never happen.

The birth control pills were later recommended by the gyno purely as a measure to lessen the emotions, length, intensity, cramps and other accoutrements that hobnob with a woman's menstrual cycle.

I was impervious to reason, impervious to judgment, impervious to influenced or persuasion. But, as it turns out - I was not impregnable after all.  The Commando was on his way. Now what do I do?

(To be continued....) 

Mr. Sunshine (Part Two) - Balls, Beers and Cougars

I suppose one could say I was a cougar before cougar's were dernier cri. Though technically I don't think you can be a cougar while still in your thirties, I was more likely a Puma.

I was 33 and recently divorced from Mr. Dependable. As you might surmise, the pendulum, known as my love life, is swinging back from the boring, predictability of my last marriage, rendering me susceptible to seek out a thrill this time around.

The thrill arrived in the form of a tall, dark haired, articulate, disarmingly optimistic salesman who called on me to pitch advertising space in a local business publication owned by his brother. I had been snarky with him when I agreed to the appointment, apprising him of my tight schedule and granting him a mere 15 minute audience with me. I honestly don't know why I was so brash and nervy but the confidence had intrigued him.

Our 15 minute meeting promptly became an hour and not once had he mentioned the impetus for our get together. There was no sales pitch, no polished presentation, no glossy subscriber stats or rate sheets tucked nicely into an embossed folder. We were too caught up in our rapport and mutual attraction to notice. Lunch time came to pass and I was hungry - for food - and for more conversation with this well dressed, handsome peddler of advertising. I invited him to join me for lunch wherein we continued to divulge our life stories over the next two hours.

At the end of this prolonged business meeting-turned-date, I agreed to purchase ad space sans the presentation. Apparently, I was sold on much more than advertising.

The following Friday he stopped by at the end of the day to drop off a proof of the ad I had purchased. To this day, he denies the conspicuous, intentional timing. I knew he was coming so I had worn a tight fitting sweater, shortish skirt and flirty sandals. Mind you, I managed to maintain my archetypal professional flare with this ensemble. Mama didn't raise no trollop.

So I'm thinking, get on with it already. Gheesh man, you obviously came here to ask me out. What's wrong with you? Maybe I should drop a hint, tell him I'm free tonight or maybe I should take off one of these flirty sandals and club him over the head with it. He begins to wrap up the meeting and I realize he's not going to do it. He doesn't strike me as the shy type; in fact, he is bursting with the very confidence that would later become our unraveling. I'll be damned if I'm going to waste a perfectly sexy, yet demure outfit. I've been looking forward to this all day, so here I go:

Zen: Listen, I don't have any plans tonight - would you like to grab a drink with me?

Sunshine: (pause, insert sound of cricket here) I am embarrassed to admit this but my brother hasn't paid me yet, I am basically working for him for free to help him get this publication off the ground, I don't have any money to go out.

Zen: Oh, is that all? Whew, what a relief - I thought perhaps you might be gay.

Sunshine: Yeah, a lot of people think I'm gay - I think because I dress and groom myself well and I have this peculiar accent from Wisconsin.

Zen: So, you are straight and available. I can live with the accent. Do you want to have a drink? It's my treat, I asked YOU out.

Sunshine: (pause, insert sound of cricket here)

Zen: Now what?

Sunshine: How old do you think I am?

Zen: I don't know, I hadn't really thought about it. I would guess around my age, late twenties, early thirties. Are we playing a game, is it my turn? How old do you think I am?

Sunshine: I figured you to be mid to late twenties.

Zen: I like that answer. Let's go get that drink now.

Sunshine: I can't. I'm not 21 yet. My birthday is next month, I will be legal then.


Zen: (cricket)

Zen: (more cricket)

Zen: (plague of locusts)

Zen: Now I really need that drink. Grab your things and follow me.

We walked a few blocks to a local trendy bar/restaurant/pool hall. I knew the owner and was therefore able to get past the front door without a check of our ID's. Once inside, we made our way upstairs to play a game of pool.

Zen: I'll go grab the balls and the beer junior. You wait here.

Sunshine: What do you want me to do while I'm waiting.

Zen: Why don't you just stand there and look cute.

That's the story of a lovely lady,
who was busy with a child of her very own.
Her life was full,
but marriage had been in vain.
The last one was annoyingly dull.

Till the one day when the lady met this fella,
and she knew that he was somewhat of a mess.
Her heart had overruled her brain.
She didn't yet know about the excess,
or the life of Mr. Sunshine with a chance of pain.

(To be continued....)

Strike Three - Meet Mr. Sunshine With a Chance of Pain

This time around I stepped up to the plate knowing I was going to strike out, thus I chose to go down looking - scoring a backwards "K" on marriage number three. I watched the ball whiz past me without one consideration of taking a swing at it. Actually, I knew no matter how good the pitch or perfect the swing, this was not going to be a home run, double, single or even a fielder's choice. Perhaps I could have connected for a sacrifice fly but I didn't; for when you hit the ball on a sacrifice, you are still out.

I locked myself in my hotel bathroom to avoid making eye contact with my girlfriends. These two had traveled from Oklahoma and Texas to support me and I was hiding from them. I didn't want them to see I had cried off my carefully applied wedding makeup. I didn't want them to hear me and bang on the door. I didn't want them to realize how much I didn't want to get married that day. I was afraid they would encourage me to suck it up, get dressed and get out there. After nearly seven years with this man, I was done, so very, very done on the day we got married.

This is the story of Mr. Sunshine with a Chance of Pain.

Mr. Sunshine seemed to have his feet planted firmly upon God's green earth but as I began to really know him, I realized his head was spending far too much time in the clouds and his vision was always marred by the bright, golden sphere he so often seemed to be chasing. As interpreted by this rendering, he would clench his fists and don a briefcase, preferring to make his mark by making a million or making a name for himself rather than making a living.

My mom, God rest her soul, was the first person to see this. She came to visit us the week we got married. She watched him practically skip out the door one morning while whistling a happy little tune. He was leaving us with three young kids and a house full of boxes. We had just moved into our new home days before. There were projects everywhere, babies crying, madness and mayhem; yet, off he bounced to his sales job saying something about making the world a better place one sale at a time.

Mom turned to me in her dry but always pleasantly blunt tone and said, "who's he think he's foolin' with that shit?" God how I miss that woman's way with words.

She was right. I knew it and eventually even he came to admit it. It was all an act to cover up one scared, insecure young man who seemed to suddenly wake up and find himself with three kids, a wife, a house, an enormous pile of bills and not a chance of sun in sight.

(To be Continued)

Mr. Dependable (Part Five) - Out of the Ashes Comes New Life

This is the how the Alfred P. Murrah federal building looked on the morning of April 19, 1995, prior to 9:02am.

This photo could also easily represent my life at the time; neat and orderly, shiny and functional, everything happening according to plan.

But sometimes, the unexpected happens.


This is how the Alfred P. Murrah federal building looked after 9:02am of the same day. The unexpected had happened. The most unthinkable, unexpected happening anyone could have possibly imagined. After that day, nothing would be the same.

This is also what happened to my life. It blew up. I spent six months feeling as if I had been gutted. I encountered the unexpected and I faced the winds of change, taking me from the person I thought I was to the root of the person I am now and nothing would be the same.


This is the site of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building today, fourteen years later. It is a peaceful place, as calm as the waters of the reflecting pond. It represents those we lost, those who survived and those who came to help, to rescue and to recover.

Hearts were broken, blood was shed, our home was invaded by terror, lives were forever changed. But out of the devastation came humanity, out of the destruction came strength, out of the chaos came charity and out of the ashes came a kindred fortitude to not let this insidious act prevent us from once again finding peace and new life within our hearts.

**********************************************************

Mr. Dependable was devastated when I left him nearly two years later. We had continued to work hard to put the pieces back in place but no matter how hard we tried, the pieces simply didn't fit together anymore. A few years later, he found the perfect woman for him, he found his Ms. Dependable.

#1 son visited them one summer when he was around 15. He returned home telling me how alike they were, two big recliners, a large screen TV and a massive movie collection was all they needed. Then #1 son asked me why/how I had married him. You are so different, he said - I can't imagine how that could have worked.

Mr. Plentiful's wife eventually found out about our affair. They went through a rough patch but managed to pull it out. His daughters, who were preschool age at the time are now both in college. Our paths occasionally cross. He seems to be doing well.

I had an opportunity a few years back to ask him what it all had meant. A part of me retrospectively viewed him as a predator. He seized an opportunity, noticing an impressionable, vulnerable, somewhat naive, easy target. He assured me that was not the case, promising his words and actions were from his heart. He confessed having loved me then and continuing to love me throughout the years. I share the same feelings for him and probably always will.


As for me, I am free and I am not afraid. My hair went from stick straight to curly, seemingly overnight, as if to usher in the person I would eventually become. I am unconventional yet traditional, wildly abandoned yet grounded, sexy in a natural way, self-supporting, self-loving and self-taught. I have risen to the top of my industry and now I am imagining and pursuing a life I have always known would be my destiny.

I am a writer.




(Just to keep you begging for more - up next: Strike Three - Meet Mr. Sunshine With a Chance of Pain (Part One)!

Mr. Dependable (Part Four) - We're not in Kansas Anymore

I flew to Houston, a married woman, to be with my impending lover, a married man, two months after meeting him in New York. His letters had continued to arrive, sweeping me out of my reality and into his world, a world awash in ethereal colors and sensual pleasures.

The letters were innocent at first but gradually increased in intention and intensity. When the wind blew across his face, he would imagine it had just arrived from Oklahoma where it had blown through my hair. He wrote about business and baseball games but ever so delicately, interspersed throughout, were the carefully planted seeds, waiting to take root in me.

A month earlier, I had given a detailed account of the entire experience to Mr. Dependable. I told him of feeling vulnerable and having this man with a strong shoulder and tender, compassionate heart reach out to me. I told him of all the savory new tastes that seemed to still linger on my palate. I spoke of being enraptured by the city, the people, the excitement but mostly by this man who was able to cry with me.

I felt I was withering away, twisted, calloused and dying like a knotted vine, never to be unraveled again. I had set my sexuality aside, trading it in for a stable life. And yet, after New York, after the bombing, I could imagine new life; efflorescence was possible.

I pleaded with him to understand how the experience had changed me. We desperately wanted our marriage to work and we both felt this was going to be the catalyst for our new life. We could start taking small trips together, figure out what's wrong with us - see a counselor, go out to dinner, read some books, show some emotion, drink wine, be angry, make a decision, do something spontaneous, have sex for more than five seconds.

While he had declined my previous attempts to get him away from the TV and out on the town or to visit the much needed limp-schnoodle doc, he now seemed to understand our marriage depended on it. Keep in mind this was before all the hubbub concerning E.D. There was no Viagra or Cialis. Bob Dole had not yet made commercials about it. It was on the down low. A man was on his own to figure such things out and a wife was expected to be supportive and understanding.

Suddenly wife was awakened and horny so off to the counselor and Urologist we went.

The results came in with nothing permanently broken, thank God. Mr. Dependable simply had a wee problem with P.E. (and I'm not talking about 8th grade gym class). Both head doc and penis doc recommended the same protocol. He needed to desensitize himself by buffing the bat, you know, chafing the carrot, often, at frequent intervals, repeatedly.

Oh, that's all. Piece of cake, right?

Wrong.

Apparently when you're raised in Topeka Kansas, you are taught not to do such things. In his defense, I suppose it must have been really hard (or lack thereof) for him. While he seemed to embrace the opportunity to take our marriage to the next level, he must have been feeling rather emasculated by it all. I mean what husband wants their wife to essentially say, I want you to be more like him. He tried, God love him, he tried - but it was not to be. The course had been set.

Please don't think I did what I'm about to tell you because Mr. Dependable couldn't satisfy me sexually. This is a blog, there is not enough space in all the blogosphere to adequately explain why it happened. Further, I am not going to go into all the flowery details of the encounters because I am choosing not to glorify them and because I don't want this blog to turn into some pseudo paperback light-porn romance fiction.

I questioned myself, my God, my best girlfriend and Mr. Plentiful extensively before deciding to meet him in Houston. His reply, "I love witnessing the emergence of the total woman inside you. It is a most exciting and beautiful thing, and just thinking of it makes me yearn to see you fulfilled. If we are careful and thoughtful, I see only good coming from our having met. If it is at times frustrating or even torturous, that is to be expected, is it not? Would we all be better off not having been born because we knew someday we would die? I would love to continue our relationship within the constraints of our current situations until one of us decides that the pain outweighs the joy, if ever that should occur. I doubt, and certainly hope, it never will."

So, the little Okie girl flew off to Houston and began a six month affair. Before it ended, I would travel to see him in New York, Dallas and finally, in Boston. All the while, I remained twisted up inside that volatile vortex, thrust violently about, hoping to be thrown but then getting sucked up again. Like some floating piece of matter, I was an inhabitant of two worlds, side by side, each breathing a life of its own, their boundaries blurring and overlapping occasionally. One inhaled, the other exhaled. My reality was defined as I zoomed into one of them, that world becoming paramount, then logic was turned upside down as the other world expanded and engulfed me, defining a new reality.

.......to be continued (for the last time, I promise).

Mr. Dependable (Part Three) - The Answer is Blowing in the Wind

On my first day back to work in Oklahoma City, I received a letter from him. Yes, it was an actual letter. He had an email account but as yet, I didn't. He recounted how emotional it was for him to meet me, saying he had a "wonderful memory, as fresh as spring, and as full of promise as the bud on his tulip plant, but the next thing he knew, the bud was gone". He went on to tell me how my "gorgeous smile was burning a hole in his mind" and how pleased he was if he was able to make my life just a little better, as I had done for him.

I had arrived home from New York feeling as if I had returned from a finishing school meant to usher me through adolescence into womanhood. I had tasted the best New York had to offer in food, wine and a remarkable man who seemed to know no emotional constraints when it came to me. After our night together, sleeping in his arms - I had awoke feeling awkward, confused and out of place. He sensed this and knew I needed him to go.

Class that day seemed to drag on beyond any reasonable tolerance of pain and all I could think of was what the hell I had just done. Mr. Plentiful insisted we have lunch, just the two of us, cutting LA Girl out of our plans. I can't resist the obvious connection to symbolism when I tell you we went to a deli and I ordered chicken noodle soup.

Oh great power of chicken noodle soup, please give me comfort as I attempt to sort this mess out.

This beautiful man then took my hand, began to cry and subsequently pour his heart out to me in a way that even chicken noodle soup couldn't protect me. It was all about how much he loved his wife life, but meeting me had shifted the ground beneath his feet. Sound familiar, yes?

The rest of our week was spent dutifully finishing our work, continuing our (my) education in culinary edification and enjoying his gentle nudges to bring me to his bed. My convictions were strong and in spite of the seemingly surreal urges to devour him, I stayed true to my beliefs by remembering my happy, simple, (yet becoming aware of) incredibly boring life back home. Truly, the only thing that saved me at the height of desperation was remembering, "I'm not that kind of girl".

His letter closed with these thoughts, "It hurt me to think about what you were going through those first few days. I hope that now you're back home you can carry on with renewed strength and perspective. I'll be thinking of you as the leaves unfold." I called him and left a message on his pager (sounds so funny to say that now), thanking him for the kind thoughts.

Over the next four weeks, I received many letters from him, sometimes one per day, sometimes two or three per week, sometimes less. Meanwhile, I was staring down the barrel of my marriage and questioning what was happening to me as the winds were beginning to blow.

Anyone who has ever lived or visited Oklahoma knows a little something about the winds. Rogers & Hammerstein had it right when they wrote, "the winds come sweeping down the plains". On a normal day, you can't wear a short, pleated skirt; unless of course you want to invite your neighbors to the promised land. On a windy day, you are unable to host a backyard fete without engineering a devise to fasten your guests plates to the table.

Then there's the really impressive winds that occasionally whisk through. The 70 mile per hour, blow your windows out, winds. The winds that were gusting up inside of me, changing everything I knew to be true about myself, were more on the scale of those produced by an F5-Gary England-"Folks this is serious"-Tornado.

I was inside the vortex of that mother fucking tempest, swirling about tumultuously, trying to remain a good girl, a good wife. Hoping this was just a flirtation, a phase, an innocent, tender twister that would gently touch the earth, blow a few leaves around, then pick up again, leaving no damages or even a trace that it had been there at all.

I decided the only way to free myself was to tell my husband what was happening.

.......to be continued

Mr. Dependable (Part Two) - Okie in the City

By now, you must be wondering, how did we go from happy simple life to earth shattering loss of life in one post and we're still not done? These things take time to unfold Grasshopper.

Three days after the Murrah building disaster, I was on my way to the Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City. I had driven to the airport in and amongst the largest funeral procession I had ever seen. Everyone in the city was driving slowly, with their headlights on during the day. Arriving at the airport gate, I sat across from Charles Gibson and others who had been there for the national coverage. I wasn't excited to see them; in fact, I barely looked up but I could feel them staring at me. I had picked up a newspaper with the photo of the fireman holding the baby. It was the first time I had seen it and I was crying.

I was heading to New York City for a week-long class. The class had been scheduled months prior. It was the last class I needed to finish up an important credential in my field. I sat in my window seat, gripping the newspaper, unable to take my eyes off that photo and still hearing the cries of those anguished parents in my head.

New York City is my city. I have had a mad crush on it from the first moment I arrived at the age of 17. This extraordinary city has always loved me and taken care of me in a way that makes me certain it is or once was my home. How else could you explain a group of high school students roaming the streets all day and night, with no supervision, during a decade when the city was dirty, seedy, full of potential harm. Yet, there we were, innocent and naive, happily skipping our way through the city, left to our own devices by the young chaperon teacher who wanted to be rid of us. We drank, we danced, we saw our first porn movie (if you can call 'Deep Throat' porn) and we were safe.

During subsequent visits to the big apple, I noticed I had developed an uncanny ability to know exactly where I was within the city grid. I never needed a map, I knew the city intrinsically. This is the same girl who could get turned around inside an office building or lost in my own neighborhood. I could hoof myself uptown, downtown, midtown and back again. I mastered the subways and knew how to aggressively flag down a familiar yellow cab. The little Okie girl was no more.....

.......or so I thought.

Arriving there in April of 1995, I quickly realized I wasn't going to escape the devastation back home. New York was mourning with me. It was everywhere, the flags solemnly waiving from their half-poled postures, crowds gathered around TV's to see the latest developments and the people in my class, warmly embracing me, allowing me to labor through my tears. I worked in a case study group, consisting of six, mostly locals, one other girl from LA and me. From the moment our group took shape, I sensed him. On more than one occasion, I found him gazing sympathetically at me with small tears in the corners of his big, brown eyes.

Mr. Big has already been spoken for so I shall refer to my new friend as Mr. Plentiful. By day two, LA Girl, Mr. Plentiful and I had formed an alliance against the other three whine bag, idiots in our group. We spent every evening together exploring the culinary world through the most amazing restaurants. They introduced me to food and wine I had never experienced. Occasionally, I would transcend into the present moment with them and find myself smiling or even laughing. It delighted them to cheer me up. I felt they had devised a happy plan and I was their happy target.

By mid week, I realized I had been captivated by this devastatingly charming, successful man. He shared the details of his life with me, beautiful country home on top of a hill in South Salem, two young daughters, a wife of 15 years, a beach house in the Hamptons. He spoke of his garden with three kinds of swiss chard, eggplant, serrano peppers, arugula, beans and squash. Grass so lush and baby leaves on the trees so soft and tender they were edible. The forsythia was beginning to fade but the dogwoods were in full bloom and the raspberries and blueberries were popping out buds near the evergreens he had dug up in Vermont.

There were paths he had cleared for his girls to run through the woods, chasing butterflies while delightfully bumping into each other. He picked morel mushrooms along the wooded path, thought they were hard to see through the dappled sunlight. He had a watercress plant as large as a queen size bed. I wasn't sure what a watercress was. At the time we met, his tulip garden had just started to open, casting the first shades of spring throughout this idyllic country setting complete with goats, horses and sheep. I was mesmerized, imagining a life so unlike my own. He must be the happiest person I had ever met. He had it all.

But he wanted more.

Walking me back to my room after one of our evenings out with LA Girl, he asked if he could come in and hold me, telling me he had been yearning to scoop me up in his arms all week. He promised me there would be nothing else. He sensed my need to have someone wrap themselves around me and let me grieve. I opened my door for him. He took my hand, led me to a comfy chair in the corner, pulled me into his lap and held me, gently rocking me and stroking my hair until I fell asleep.

The little Okie girl was still very much present, ripe for the pickin' and in way over her head.

To be continued......

Strike Two - Meet Mr. Dependable (Part One)

It had been six years since I last stood at this plate, aka altar. I am nervous but confident, feeling lucky. The pitch is a fastball, straight as an arrow. I swing and connect, right in the sweet spot. That ball is going, going, going.....holy shit, the winds have suddenly and without warning, shifted direction, carrying my sure fire home run hit into foul territory. I am devastated. This time I was certain I had it right.

I had gravitated to the soft place I found in this man with a pure and true heart after my experience with Mr. Personality. Like an overzealous pendulum, swinging wildly from one extreme to the other, there seemed to be no stopping in the middle for me. The hard lesson learned as I walked away nearly ten years later is there ain't a damn thing you can do to control the wind.

This is the story of Mr. Dependable.

Who can explain why we are attracted to people at different times in our lives? Anyone? Bueller?

Even now, this one is troublesome for me to process. It's no sweat to explain why you left a sociopathic deviant. But how does one explain leaving a man who is, by all quantifiable measurements, the salt of the earth?

He looked exactly like this. Well, maybe not exactly like this but he was adorable in a fun, green, true to his colors kinda way.

Mr. Dependable grew up in Kansas. I'm fairly certain Kermit was from Kansas as well. I'm talking white picket fence, sports playing, church goin', drug free, hard working, simple life, Kansas. Yes, when I met him I questioned how I could possibly fit into this Norman Rockwell painting and yes, I painted myself into it anyway; as usual, with vivid detail and very large brush strokes. After all, I now had a son to think of.

*********Side Note**************

This is my first mention of #1 Son. I realize you're wondering where he came from. Rest easy, he is not the devil spawn of Mr. Personality. More to follow on the origin of #1 Son in later posts.

**********End Side Note*********

The first five years of our marriage was replete with building a house, buying a dog and spending most of our weekends covered in the red dirt of Oklahoma while working in the yard or watching #1 Son play baseball. Mr. Dependable, staying true to his steadfast moniker, even coached the team. He was a baseball player in college, a darn good one. He loved the game and he passed that love on to me. My life was wholesome, sweet and simple, much like me. (don't laugh - I really was back then.)

We went to church every time the church doors opened, we taught Sunday school, served on committees and volunteered for vacation bible school. I sang in the choir. Eventually, I became the Director of Sunday School, as a do-gooder, not as a paid-staffer. Each and every Sunday after church, we would head straight to his parents house for a lovingly prepared meal with homemade rolls and chocolate cake for dessert. This was followed by a ritualistic nap (me) while grandma entertained #1 son, grandpa read the paper and Mr. Dependable disappeared into the telly, as only he could.

We rarely deviated from this schedule, there were no vacations or nights on the town and I didn't care. I had everything I desired; until that is, the winds shifted.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah federal office building in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City. On that day I was eight miles away on the 10th floor of an office building, I stood helplessly watching from my window as the cloud of dirty, black smoke billowed like a dark angel, engulfing the city. I knew the surface between my feet had shifted. I had no idea my life and everything I knew to be true about myself, the very essence of me, was about to shift as well.

It seemed as if the news choppers were there within minutes. Gathered around the conference table, in deaf-like silence, we watched with trepidation as the camera swung around to the front of the building. It was gone, the entire front of that building was gone. The steel frame was exposed and shredded, suspended in air where the pancaked rubble of the other half of the building now lay in front of it. Paperwork that had just been sitting on a desk, waiting for someone to file, was now swirling in and around fragments of office chairs, cubicles, concrete and the bodies that once held the life, dreams and hope of 168 men, women and children.

It was the children we couldn't bare. We knew there was a daycare in that building. When a child dies, you mourn for the child but you agonize for the people left behind. They were there - these people - pleading and praying, begging and bartering, shoving themselves into the police who stood firm to protect them, screaming for the babies they had dropped off only moments before. I will never forget the sound of those guttural, dissonant wails. By this time I was there, within a few blocks of the building and I heard it. The disharmony assaulted me. Unrelenting, deep and inarticulate; yet, you instinctively knew what the sound meant. My heart, the heart of a mother, wanted to implode at the sound of those screams. All I could think of was #1 Son.

Strike One - Meet Mr. Personality

I step up to the plate for the first pitch. It's a swing and a miss. My heart was all in. It was a powerful swing filled with every bit of gumption, gusto and gutsy determination I had but it was not to be - for the ball was the nastiest curve ball you have ever seen.

At the age of 20, my first marriage was strike one. However, switching sports analogies to golf, I think it might be more appropriate to call it a mulligan.

A mulligan is when you get to pretend you didn't just hit the ball two feet in front of the tee. That shot is forever erased, it didn't happen. You pull another ball from your pocket, place it on the tee and give it another good hard whack. I have grown accustomed to saying my first marriage was a mulligan for it really shouldn't count against me. But you be the judge.

I met Mr. Personality at the age of 16. Introduced by a friend who worked with him at the local movie theater. He was the original all American boy next door. His eyes were an ashen blue, perfectly translucent. He had a smile that made all the girls blush as was evidenced by the fact that every girl in the city either knew him or knew OF him. His personality defined him, it was bigger than all of Oklahoma and Texas combined. I later came to discover that big ol' personality of his was the very definition of a Criminal Personality as a DSM-III-R Antisocial, Narcissistic, Borderline, and Histrionic Personality Disorder.

Turns out, criminals are pretty darn friendly, that's how they get away with all that shit. Who knew?

But my oh my, he did look good. Exactly like this, cowboy hat and all.

Crying my eyes out while walking down the isle should have been a clue but I was too young, too impressionable and too screwed up to know better. I lost my virginity to Mr. Personality so in my fucked up brain, it seemed like I had to marry him; plus, he was the prize and I was determined to win. I had invested too much of myself into this man to lose to one of the other girls in the legion of fans he pursued during our four years of adolescent dating bliss. The guy was teeming with teen skanks who all wanted him.

By pure happenstance, I stumbled upon one of these girls while taking a potty break at the local Godfather's Pizza. I was with four of my best buds, cruising the strip, drinking beer we bought with our fake ID's, the ushe for a Friday night in the big OKC. I was safely sequestered in a restroom stall when I heard one of my girlfriends asking a supposedly innocent, irreverent Mormon girl who she was dating. This seemed odd to me because at the time, I didn't know we had Mormons in Oklahoma.

My friend had noticed the initials dangling from this fallen, wayward Mormon girl's neck (remember drops anyone?). When she said his name, I emerged from the stall with fury in my eyes, slamming the door in perfect harmony with the infantile angst that surged through my veins. Adding insult to injury - she knew who I was yet I had no clue of her existence. Perhaps she had been locked away in the temple while I was traveling to Ms. Pac Man tournaments with him.

In short order we formed a sinister plan to drive to his place of work and confront him as a unified, pissed-off girlfriend front. We arrived at the Hertz Rent-A-Car parking lot around 11:00pm. He saw my car and came running across the lot to greet me. Just as we had planned, she jumped from the back seat, threw the drop in his face, told him she would be praying for him or some stupid shit like that while I said fuck you and the ostrich skin boots you rode in on.

Mormon girl and I were officially best friends. The next day, we both went back to him.

Two years and two failed pregnancies later, I failed to recognize two fundamental truths (me good - him bad), I married him in March of 1984. We were divorced by October of that same year.

Proving the old adage, you never really know someone until you live with them, I quickly discovered he was involved in a gambling/credit card fraud ring. Conveniently, the credit card and occasional insurance fraud supplemented the gambling losses. Inconveniently, I was smart enough to notice when a boat appeared in our driveway with no indication of a purchase.

I thought I had made it pretty clear I had no interest in the life of a prison wife but the shenanigans continued. A new bedroom set here, a lawnmower there. Plus, other aspects of the aforementioned personality disorder were starting to become painfully clear and hideously ugly. He became increasingly controlling, physically holding me down so I couldn't walk away from him, threatening to hurt me if I were to leave him. It was Sleeping with the Enemy sicko, sadistic shit.

It all culminated on my birthday in August when I got a knock at the window which had previously been slammed shut on my common sense. An embarrassing birthday celebratory dinner, credit card confiscated; he told me we had to make a run for it. I refused. He went to the bathroom and never came back. I went home to pack.

Just to be certain I would never don his door again, I was handed an extra heavy, heaping dose of wake-the-fuck-up. He came home before I had finished packing and proceeded to beat me with one of the items I had removed from the wall - a string art piece I had undoubtedly made in junior high school. It was mounted to a sturdy piece of wood with lovely beveled edges, perfect for hitting someone over the head until they almost lost consciousness.

I know it wasn't really art but at the age of 20 I was glad to have anything to hang on those stark, bare white walls of that place he called a home.

I still have that string art piece, though it is tucked away with other relics and no longer displayed in my home. I believe it saved my life. Within six months of our divorce, he went to prison for murdering his bookie. I later discovered he had secretly secured a large life insurance policy on yours truly. Apparently, I was to be the next pawn in an insurance scam.

Looking back through the eyes of the woman I have become, I can find no other words to explain the lessons better than that of John Mayer in his song, Daughters:

Fathers be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers, who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters too

Give your daughters the privilege of knowing how truly powerful they are.