Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations (5 page)

Let me give you a clear picture of what I am
feeling right now. My marriage was something like this:

Let’s say I'm on the beach with a friend,
and in the distance
I see
a really
beautiful island. In my head, I visualize myself living on that
island paradise in a really cute bikini, sipping drinks out of
coconuts and basking in the sun. So I start to swim out to it.

My friends warn me,

“Do you have any supplies? What is out
there? Do you have bug spray? Is there food? Do you even know how to
build a fire? You don't know anything about that island!”

I ignore them. I’m swimming out to that
island. It looks awesome.

As I get closer, I realize the island is really
dirty. I reach it and can hear the wild cries of unknown animals. It
appears there are no fruit bearing trees. I can see snakes and
spiders in the brush.

I turn and look back toward the beach I came
from.

It’s far. I have been swimming for a long
time. I’m tired and I’m already here. I figure I’ll
just hang out for a while, gather my strength and then leave again.

But days turn into weeks and weeks into months
and into years. Wild beasts can attack at any moment so I have to be
alert, but eventually learn how to protect myself from them. I learn
to build fires. I forage for nourishment.

I learn to survive.

I start talking to myself – replacing any
needs for actual human interaction. I'm on the verge of losing my
sanity.

Now ten years have passed. I have been wearing
the same tattered remains of cloth for the entire decade. I am
malnourished
;
a mere shell of who I used
to be. I am hardened. I am bruised. I have infected sores. I am
tired
of fighting snakes. I am
tired
of roasting tarantulas for
food. I cannot stand one more day on this stupid island. Even if the
swim
kills
me, I am going back to the beach I came from.

I swim through the shark-infested waters back to
the beach to find my old friends. Everyone is so clean and so plump
from food. They have enjoyed full spectrum of the richness of life.
They have homes. They have affection. They have clean clothes. They
wear shoes.

Suddenly, I feel extremely foolish.

I left civilization for that
bullshit,
for
a
fantasy
, and meanwhile, I could have had all this!? What was
I thinking!?

Friends answer, “You were really determined
to live on that tropical island
. W
e
tried to warn you
–
holy God, you look like shit.”

I’m completely dazed. Ten years gone.

I have forgotten how to be among people. I have
forgotten how to care about the way I look. I only needed to know how
to avoid death. I forgot how to use a fork. I have been so
isolated
that I
am now an alien
.
I’m
unable
to understand human interactions,
but
desperate to experience them and
also
terrified.

That was my marriage. It was complete hell. But I
had been there for so long and had adapted so well I didn’t
realize quite how bad it was until I left. And it’s not some
terrible thing that just
happened
to me – like a car
accident, or cancer. It’s a hell I
chose.
I walked
right into it. I signed the papers. I was
at
the party. And
I was looking right at it, cringing “shit, that looks pretty
treacherous,” and still did not turn back from it.

Why?

And then Mother’s Day comes around and I
know I need to remember that three amazing little souls chose me as
their mother and I am so blessed and so honored that I get to have
them as my students and teachers for a while. But it’s hard to
compartmentalize the joy from the shame, and the grieving of the time
lost and the things I have given up.

And the things I may never have
–
like a relationship or marriage based on love and respect
;
not fear and pride.

I was simply too proud to admit I’d made a
mistake. It was an emotionally expensive mistake and I can’t
get that time back. But anyway, it is Monday I am finally done
grieving. I was not at the cookouts or playdates. I spent the week
crying in my shower. But then I spent Sunday cleaning out the things
I don’t need. Removing the items that no longer serve me.

Awkward

Just when you think you're over the hump your
ex-husband walks in with a Brazilian woman.

I haven't had a week this emotionally challenging
since the garbage can incident.

It all started last Friday when I ran to my kids'
grandma's house to drop off the little one to play with her cousins.
His car pulls up. Another car pulls up behind. And in it is a tiny,
moderately attractive Brazilian woman in yoga gear.

Hmm...

They come in. She is completely unable to make
eye contact and Johnny tries to make a combination version of himself
and make small talk.

Then the
Brazilian
asks my daughter
the
most irritating question:

"Can I touch your hair?"

Excellent.

I feel my throat closing and my heart pounding
and my cheeks hot.

I leave.

Five to ten minutes later, I am fine.

I rationalize my feelings.

I am not jealous, necessarily.

My ex-husband is in that yoga world. Every woman
he meets is going to be much smaller than me and more flexible. I am
not even attracted to him anymore. I do not want him back.

But, it's irritating that I put in ten years of
drama and another woman might reap the benefits. He might be a better
husband to someone else.

As a matter of fact, he
probably
will
. The unfairness of it all is disgusting.

Later, when I compulsively asked him about her,
he snapped, "you won't approve of anyone I date until you're
dating someone."

"No, I won't approve of anyone you date
because I am here washing
thirty pounds
of YOUR KIDS' LAUNDRY, scraping together change and lugging laundry
baskets and pissy sheets up and down the stairs, while you get to
have the time to date someone just because you're too incompetent to
raise the kids yourself."

He accused me of being childish.

I pointed out that if the tables were turned,
he'd be just as affected.

He insisted he would not.

Then I did something I am not at all proud of.

I told him I slept with someone else since we've
been apart. I will not share whether or not that is true. It was not
my finest moment, and that is exactly my point.

He and I still have our hooks in each other and
we completely bring out the absolute worst in each other. We have way
too many years of resentment and we simply cannot
see
each
other. All we see is the last ten years. We see all the insults, all
the fights, all the neglect.

When people asked me why I didn't move back home
I felt really noble in my answer. He and I "got along well"
and it's what's best for the kids.

I think every person getting divorced believes
they are the exception to the rule.

We are better than that. No vile courtroom
battles for us. How immature!

Fuck that. I wish I'd moved home. I still wish I
was back home.

The problem with staying close to your ex is that
you are still sewn into their life.

My social circle consists of his mom, his sister,
and one of his friends who recently confessed she hooked up with him
before she met me.

Fucking outstanding.

And since the largest connecting factor in all
three of these friendships is the fact that we are both in
his
life he is often the topic of discussion.

I am sick to death of him. I am sick of talking
about him. I am sick of complaining about him. I am sick of seeing
him.

My job (oh yeah, I got a job, more on that later)
is isolating so I don't meet anyone else.

On one hand, I like having other single-mom
friends. On another, I can't handle any more female energy in my
life.

Well-meaning
female
friends with bucket loads of advice about how I should handle him.

Really?

Is that all I am? Kids and him?

Either we talk about kids or we talk about him.
Do we not have interests?

It's like blow after blow after blow lately. And
the re-ignition of the fact that we still
affect
each other
just fueled our most base and demonic selves.

After learning of my possible tryst with someone
other than himself, he went into a short depression, unable to focus.
I loved it.

Then I asked him about a discipline issue with
our son and he pointed out that he thinks it's because I am a bad
mom. Ouch.

And funny, I know it's not true. But it still
hurts and he knows it. That's why he said it.

And I know that he believes he has the right and
freedom to date and sleep with whomever and I don't. Hearing that I
possibly slept with someone else would emotionally kill him. That's
why I said it.

It's this constant back-and-forth emotional
stabbing. We are both highly skilled and
well
trained.

We lull each other into a false sense of safety.
We get a little friendly. We have some laughs. We start to think "oh
yeah, we are friends. We can do this."

And then WHAM! Emotional assault. And one of us
is left bleeding.

You can almost feel the anger like a disease. He
is miserable so he infects me with it. I try to pretend I am not
infected so I can trick him into thinking he's gotten away with it
and then TAG! You're it!

It's exhausting. And it's boring. The whole thing
has gotten so, so boring.

I am not one of these people who likes to roll
around in misery. I am ready to move on.

But the community I've created is, like, addicted
to it.

I need a vacation.

Homesick

When I first left Mobile, Alabama
at
eighteen
to live in Tampa I could have never predicted that I
would want to run back home so much. I am so homesick. I haven't been
home in a year.
Usually around the year-away-from-home mark I
become so nostalgic it is unbearable.
I may be romanticizing
because life is so shitty right now but whatever. I miss my mom and
my sister and my grandma. I miss azaleas and oak trees. I miss
southern accents and smiling at strangers.
I want to go home.

Rollercoaster –
July 2011

I quit.

I just quit.

If I’d taken the time to read a
post-divorce self-help book like a normal divorced person I would
have probably learned all about the rollercoaster.

One week you’re all “BEING SINGLE IS
AWESOME! WHY WOULD ANYONE GET MARRIED!?”

The next week you’re like “being
single sucks, I wanna get married…today…to anyone with
a pulse.”

There are two Jessicas occupying my thoughts.

There is the one who watches the Bachelorette,
cries during romantic comedies and is already planning her next
wedding. You know, the
real
one for the
real
marriage – the first was a run-through.

The other keeps reminding sappy Jessica that
after the bachelorette party and the wedding – the thing no
rom-com ever dares tackle – is the actual
relationship
with another human being.

That
part I’m still a little
gun-shy about.

It’s all so much work – my eyes are
literally rolling just thinking about all the damn work. The
ego-stroking, the negotiating, the (gulp) compromising. No!!!

Seriously I am shuddering!!!!

For a second I thought I was ready to dip m’toe
in the dating pool. I set up accounts on three dating sites. None
went well. On the first I met one guy, Zack, who within two weeks was
chastising me for not calling when I said I was going to call.

FAIL.

On the second I was contacted by a man whose
profile pics were his various mug shots. Aside from that Romeo were
the dozens of men who messaged me to find out “what I was
lookin’ for tonight.”

NOPE!

The intelligent matching system over at the third
dating website had me regularly matched with men who tighten their
belts
below
their asses, pose for pictures crouched down
next to their rims and are “lookkn fo dem SeXY Azz biG BoOtyy
HoEzz”

What!!? Noooo!!!

So I quit. I just quit. I am officially turning
the part of my brain that craves companionship
off
for
the next decade or so.

I hate rollercoasters. I hate feeling hopeful
about dating and then remembering that I have three kids and am
therefore a single man-repellant. I still have such a long way to go
on my own. I have to keep reminding myself what my goals were for
this year.

Me

Me
Me

Me

and me.

A lone wolf.

….but
I am
starting to get lonely..

I think this is the perfect scenario:

Single man, no kids (and therefore no babymama),
lives in a different state, flies in once a month for a long weekend,
we rent a room on the beach, have awesome hotel sex (because it’s
always better somewhere other than your bed) and then on Monday I am
back to real life. No cleaning up his dishes. No fighting over the
remote. I don’t really want the whole cake – I just want
to lick off the frosting.

There. Solved.

Fear
Single momhood has rendered me androphobic.
It is completely irrational. I can step outside myself and recognize
intellectually how unhealthy it is. But it’s there nonetheless.

At some point in the demise of my marriage, my
subconscious decided that if I had not been so obsessed with male
attention/acceptance I would not have been in that ridiculous
marriage in the first place. And a switch flipped. The pendulum has
swung very, very far in the other direction and I am starting to
believe I am being controlled by my fear. I have hit a wall and I am
at war with myself.