breakups

Here We Go Again or Not

Posted on by tresswann

Well, tonight we were supposed to be taking the youngest and his fiancee out to dinner to celebrate their engagement.  We couldn’t go to the engagement party as it was at his ex’s and I believe I wasn’t invited.  He is not allowed to drive and the kids said they could get him a ride.  I was really looking forward to celebrating this moment in family life.  I was reflecting while I was at work how lucky I was.  I never had children of my own and I have come to love his two and believe they love me.  I never thought I would have a moment like this.  We had made reservations at a very nice restaurant.  I wore my new Calvin Klein outfit – beige and white sheath with gold accents and a subtle gold shimmer shrug.  Ok, I had on the ugly shoes.  But  I did feel nice.  My manager told me she loved the dress and I looked thin in it.  Ironically, I am down to the same weight I was when my father died and he went to jail 12 years ago.  Funny what time does to bodies.  Then, everyone was worried about how thin and drawn I looked.  He used to worry when I visited him in jail that I looked like a junkie because I was drawn.  12 years forward and I have middle age splodge at the same weight.

I have been thinking he was off again for a few weeks.  Not in a big way but just enough.  He sounded wrong this afternoon on the phone and I didn’t want to believe that he would do something on such an important night.  Swore when I got in that all was OK.   I was going along with it until I asked him for change for the restaurant tip. I had given him a twenty last Friday for a hair cut he didn’t get, plus he had some more cash in case he needed to come pick me up at work.  Tonight he had $11 dollars.  I texted son and fiancee that dinner was cancelled, cancelled the restaurant too.  In the old days, I would have gone along with it.  I texted his sister and asked for help.  Specifically I told her he had been drinking again; I believe probation will come either tonight or tomorrow and he will breath positive.  He is not allowed to drink on probation and I have an order of protection that he can’t drink when he’s with me.  Almost three years ago we had a stay away order which I didn’t want.  If he violates, that goes back into effect.  I didn’t want it then and I don’t want it now.  I am NOT a victim.  As usual, sis has not come through.  When this stuff happens, he’s not her family, he’s mine.

I have learned that it’s useless to talk to him when he’s like this but this time I have taped some of it.  I missed the truly nasty bits.  He is saying he doesn’t care and when he is straight he says that is the problem, he doesn’t care when he drinks.  He has come so far to have this slip up.  We have been having fun and doing things together.

I am in much worse condition now than when this whole mess started.  He literally helps me out of the bath at night.  He ties my shoes for me.  He helps me come home from work when it’s late or hot or I am too fatigued.  We have been making a beautiful garden.  This week he had to put my hair up for me because I was too weak.  He liked my Paint Night painting.  We laughed I am better than a first grader in art but not a fifth grader.paint night June 2015

I can’t and won’t go back to the way we used to live.  I literally had to take my pocketbook into the bathroom with me if I got up in the middle of the night.

I have taken the weekend, Friday and Monday off.  This costs me as I am a consultant and don’t get paid.  We were going to redo my home office and had bought the paint.  We bought a new TV that could be used in here too.  Obviously, it’s not going to happen.

And I am devastated and heartbroken.  Not eating, so will go below my “junkie” weight.  Last time he was arrested, I lost 6 pounds in two days.  Guess I’ll do what I usually do to medicate myself – read novels, write and make things but no bubble baths.  I hate being resilient but guess it’s what saves me all the time.

Bell Bottom Blues

Posted on by tresswann

I started thinking about Bell bottom blues after I referred to it in a blog about the death of an ex.  Song was on my brain so I got the Ipod out at work today and blasted it.  Howled in my mind.

I always referenced it for breakups.

I never wanted to fade away and apparently I didn’t. We have run out of days.  And I never ever wanted to crawl across the floor to anyone or beg. “I don’t want to lose this feeling”  I listened to the words today with a whole different slant.  I always thought of it from my perspective.  I never thought about it from the ones I left, it was always about me.

And in your heart I want to stay, I guess I did. It’s odd to think of someone loving me like that after all this time.  They always stayed in my heart.  I may not have loved them but I went out with a guy who said once you had slept with someone more than once they were part of your life, like it or not.  By the way, aside from my first husband, he’s the only one who doesn’t speak to me.

“You won’t find a better loser”  I have done that well.

My favorite part was always “don’t be surprised if you find me with another lover” .  It’s what I always wanted. I felt it was the ultimate f.u. and the horse you came in on. And Joebe found me with a few lovers after. Isn’t it the fantasy?  I survived,  I am over you and look how well I did.  I swapped you out.  It’s part of being a better loser.

But Joebe and I have run out of days.  And I ran out of them with Bobby and Richard too.  I wanted them to see me, see that I had made it to the other side as it were.  I guess they did, too.  Richard, I saw again.  Ran into him and disappeared for a few days together and realized what’s done is done.  He tried to call me before he died.  I didn’t take the call and chastised a friend who knew us both for giving up my number.  When I found out he had died, of cancer, before he was 40, I was glad that I had not taken the call.  “No regrets, coyote.”  What would we have said?  Who was sorry?  The outcome would always have been the same, the relationship was dead.  But wouldn’t it have been great to run across him with another lover and me with another one and feel all’s right with the world.

Bobby, I never saw again.  I used to look for him in the New York streets.  He died of AIDS before we were thirty.  He was the one when I have been to therapy and they say well who was the one that you coulda wouda married?  Well, aside from the fact that he was gay, we had the best time.  It was that young in New York kind of thing, hipsters before there were hipsters.  Doing all the cool stuff and wearing all the cool stuff.  He left me for a guy.  I didn’t know it  at the time.  His family blamed his death on me.  I couldn’t, didn’t keep him from himself.

I have always wanted to get to the end of the chapter, see the summer rerun and find out what really happened.  I realized when I was 18, life wasn’t really like that.  Still I keep on hoping and every once in awhile you get one of those moments of clarity.  I am approaching one now.  Maybe there’s a reason why we are not supposed to.  This is hard.  This is not satisfying and full of sunshine.

You did make me cry.  There are no more days.  It’s time to say goodbye.  And it really is, and the irony is on me.