Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations (20 page)

No joke.

And her friends cheered and whooped.

She giggled maniacally
,
half from enjoyment and half from the delirium of not knowing what
the hell else to do.

The Brute then flipped her upside down and
simulated oral sex on her while her pack of lion friends encouraged
her to return the favor. She did, tentatively, and the crowd roared
and hollered and the dollar bills rained down. This went on for
another five or ten minutes.

Ragdoll "lucky lady"
,
complete with beet red embarrassed cheeks
,
was
tossed and pretzeled into various positions and dry humped
on stage for everyone to see. Whose satisfaction is that for, one
wonders? Who is really being objectified? Who is coming out on top?

I'm no prude
,
but I was terrified that he would pick me next.
It flooded my
basement, sure. And I'd be happier than hell if the cast of
Magic
Mike
dry humped me.
And
it was entertaining. But there was
nothing
empowering
about it. I wasn't buying that old lie.

And while poor
,
uneasy ragdoll probably would have preferred
not
to be
molested in a public arena, her wild friends - buying into the hype -
egged her on. And so it is with the fallacy of "getting one's
groove back."
Yes, it is absolutely possible to enjoy a
healthy, physical relationship with no strings attached
,
but that's not what I
see
.
I see women doing what
they
think
will make them feel more alive and more whol
e,
but still defining their wholeness and happiness by the
attention of men and the value they put on their bodies.

I'm seeing us accepting sub-par sex and not
speaking up because we don't want to hurt men's egos. I'm seeing
neglecting our jobs as mothers to pursue the wild side we never got
out of our systems ten years ago when it wouldn't have looked like
desperate insecurity.

Look, I am not coming from a place of piety,
here. The only reason I "have it together" is because I
don't have the option not to. I'm like an addict who just left rehab
and is only sober because there was no liquor at the treatment
center. Now I'm out and really only able to maintain sobriety because
I simply don't leave the house.

I socialize with one man aside from Chris.

One.

And he is a member of my single parent co-op and
we have no sexual tension. He is safe.

But I dated
for
a minute. Sex
was readily available, but as soon as I realized
I wasn't dealing with a partner interested in my pleasure and my
experienc
e,
I shut the house
down.

It's been hard getting to the point where my
opinion of myself is the only one that matters. But it's been worth
it.

And lonely single mamas, I've said it once and
I'll say it again, take a moment and fucking
be
lonely. You
deserve it. It won't kill you. There's a prize at the bottom.

What it
will
do, however, is force you to
spend time with yourself and your thoughts and your feelings. You
will have to start answering the "whys."

Why do I feel like I need male attention to feel
whole? Why am I not enough on my own?

Date yourself.

And if you're going to the strip club, gimmie a
call, I'll roll with yo
u…

Today it
Hurts

I can't
remember the last time I cried
,
but I cried today because my youngest child turned
seven yesterda
y,
and her
father didn't call.
I wasn't expecting a gift. I wasn't expecting
a card. But phone calls are free
,
and she didn't get one.

He hasn't spoken to his children since January
,
but he has an outdated picture of them as his Facebook cover photo.

He hasn't spoken to them since
January
.

They don't even notice.

The kids don't even
notice
that he is
missing.

They don't talk about him. They never mention
him. He has disappeared.

And I am so angry my chest hurts.

I never thought he would be this bad.

I never thought he would be a deadbeat.

No child support, no letters, no phone calls, no
visits but one to the beach for pictures with his kids. That is not
love.

No one can tell me he loves his kids.

If you are his friend or relative and you believe
that he does
,
you are
delusional and you are an enabling asshole.

He uses his kids to give himself depth, to help
him look human.

In his mind, they exist to serve him and to
benefit him.

He does nothing.

He is nothing.

Most day
s,
divorce is not so bad.

Some days it's paradise.

But today it hurts.

Robot

I'm
a robot-alien hybrid.

I'm still really sad about my ex-husband not
calling our daughter on her birthday
,
and it hurts in my chest. My chest is tight. And I'm so
compartmentalized and emotionally static, generally, that actual
feelings always feel new.
Tight chest, hard to breathe, general
bad feeling all over body.
Can't identify. No vocabulary...

Emotional pain always takes me by surprise
,
like it's my first time in this body
,
or it's my
first time
on
Earth or something.

Which is fitting
,
because when I was
23-months-old,
I asked my mom if she was supposed to help me get back to my
own planet.

Maybe baby Jessica knows something I don't.

Swallowed

Today is eating me. I
am being swallowed.

I have obsessive
-c
ompulsive
tendencies.

In my teens
, I
could spend several hours in my closet making sure the colors of my
garments were evenly distributed and the hangers were evenly spaced.
As a married woman, I could spend hours making sure the breakfast
foods were on the correct shelf and the canned goods labels were
facing out. When I got my life back, when I started regaining
control, these tendencies faded. But today it's all back.
My
throat is closing. My pulse is racing. I am fantasizing self-harm.

I want to numb it
,
so I want alcohol or a cheeseburger. I want to turn over
tables and throw plates. Everywhere I turn is a massive, ugly,
unfinished mess.

Many of these messes are unfinished because of
money. The single parent bullshit in my face again.

Thirty bucks to finish this project. Fifty for
that one.

Money I didn't have at the time that I naively
thought would appear later. But it never does.

Someone always needs a pack of underwear, or we
need laundry detergent, or gas in the car, or something. And the
projects pile up.

And what was once a fifty dollar problem, when
added to all the other fifty dollar problems, is now a thousand
dollar problem. And they are everywhere, stifling my ability to
function efficiently.

I cannot stand it.

And that's just the tasks I have to
look
at.

There are another dozen things I have to do. I
have to sit down and shut them all up
,
and be on hol
d,
and
break up fights while I sit and get this shit done.

Right
now
,
I wish they would vanish for a little while. They are so young and
they don't know anything. They are not helpful. I
have
to stop
to feed, to soothe, to break up a fight, to listen to
a story.

If I could just turn them off for 24 hours...

I am drowning today.

In my head all I can hear is

help help help help help help help help help
help help help
.

I have to abandon yet another ravenous project to
fix dinner.

Just
thinking
about it makes me want to
fling this laptop across the fucking room.

The things people take for granted.

24 hours and $500 would
save
me right
now...

Just 24 childless hours and $500.

Probably less...

I don't know what I'm supposed to do now.

I sort of want to bang my head against something
until I knock myself out.
I also want to lock myself in my room
and lock the kids outside so they don't talk to me.

I want to get in the car and leave them behind
and just get lost.

Can't do any of those things.

So, with a lump in my chest I will make the
fucking dinner.
I will leave the living room a mess.

I will lock myself in my room and pray they don't
ask me for anything.

I will curse at my ex-husband in my mind for
making me have to do everything on my own.

I will mentally flip the bird at the cost of
after
-school care m
aking it
nearly impossible for me to earn a sustainable living.

And tomorrow I will get up and do my best
…
a
gain.

Because that's all I can do.

And it's pretty evident that my best is not even
close to enough.
The
Natural

Hear ye!
Hear ye!
I am here to publicly admit that I bought the red
lipstick and still haven’t worn it. I am also here to publicly
announce that it doesn’t matter anyway.

All my lif
e,
I’ve been a low-key girl. As far as beauty regimens go, I tried
not to be socially offensive in either the body hair or aroma, b
ut
that was about as far as it went.

Not wearing makeup, as far as I know, has never
been a hurdle or roadblock in my getting what I nee
d,
but I thought, up until a week ago, that I would somehow be left
behind if I didn’t hop on the train.

I’m 31 years old. At some point, I should
put on a little rouge, right?

My naked face became even more of a problem when
I thought, incorrectly, that I wanted to start dating again. Online
dating sort of “happened” while I was busy in the
marriage pit. Scrutinizing selfies and condensing the breadth of your
personality into a couple of catchy paragraphs is hell.
I feel
like I need a Public Relations degree to get through it.

And it made me feel inadequate. All of it.

I could never tell how much of it was just the
“real me” and how much of it was me “letting myself
go.” I took it to my newest council member, Jenn, who slowly
but steadily friendshipped her way into my heart. Jenn usually
listens
to me and
sees
me so I knew she’d
give me sound advice.

And sure enough she did:

“Here’s the litmus test: Do you feel
more or less energized when you put makeup on?”

Less. Way less.

As a matter of fac
t,
I feel like a fraud, or like a person in a chicken suit;
it’s
that
uncomfortable.

I let a friend drag me to the department store
for a makeover once. She gave me blue eyeshadow and cherry-red
porn-glossy lipstick. I posted a picture to Facebook as evidence of
my wearing red lipstick
, but I
immediately washed it off because I don’t know who that is.
Objectively, she looked good, bu
t she ain’t me.

Naturally, I got a lot of Facebook
catcalls
from that picture. And
that’s…
nice… I guess…

But I’m okay with not being known for being
hot anymore. Me “feeling good about myself” means making
my friends laugh, writing something smart, my kids telling me they
are proud of me, my hair being more curly than fuzzy, wearing a cute
dress. Putting on makeup does not make me feel good about myself. It
is what it is. I’m not going to beat myself up over it. Sure
,
this probably rules out my chances of dating some hot beefcake, but I
don’t really care.

As Jenn The Wise also said, it’s just not
the time for me to stop what I’m doing and put myself on
display. My heart and my passion are in rebuilding my Self. My head
is down. I’m working out a plan. I have an agenda. And maybe
the right one will see that.

And rather than me primping and posing for him
,
I’ll look up, wipe my brow, and he’ll be there: a
stowaway who jumped on the train because he wanted to go where I’m
going. He’ll want to be part of my circus.

Or maybe he won’t. And maybe I’ll die
loveless…

But either way, I don’t think my fate will
be determined by red lipstick.

Do-Over

I suddenly realized that I really have an
itchy desire to travel the world.
I am fully aware of the fact
that I now have three children.
But, I'm going to find a way to
do it anyway. Maybe if I get a job that lets me travel and I can drag
them with me.
I don't know.
It's a lofty dream right
now.
But I applied to college. I'm going to go back and, just,
start there.
Trust

It
has been recently brought to my attention that not trusting someone
who considers you a friend is apparently offensive.

I'm sorr
y, and
it's nothing personal, but I
don't trust anybody.

It's not that I have been burned or hurt so many
times that I
no longer
trust. I just don't trust in the
first place. I know that seems sad
,
but listen for a second.

I think people generally operate under the
premise of "I will trust you until I have a reason not to."
I'm the opposite. I need a reason
to
trust you. Otherwise
you float in amiable neutrality. Not suspicion or contempt. Just
neutrality. I don't think you're going to
rob
or
maim
me. I don't assume you're a
villain
. I just
also
don't
assume you're a saint. But here's the meat n' potatoes, y'all.