Tag: divorce

Closing
Autobiography · Relationships

Closing

Ruby Pipes6 Comments

In the envelope went a selection of Christmas cards addressed to the two of us. Several pictures. A couple love notes. The boarding pass from the plane I took from Oakland to Seattle. Random keepsakes collected over the years. My passport. A necklace, my sobriety ring, and my wedding set. And, of course, the certified copies of our marriage and divorce certificates. I closed the clasp and brought it to my parents’ house. Asked my mom to put it in the safe deposit box and that was it. An entire life with someone distilled down to a manila envelope to be tucked into a vault and possibly never brought out again.

I asked Mason if we had any other business after the final check was mailed. After the phone plan was broken up. After the car keys were exchanged. Part of me wanted him to say yes, even though I knew we didn’t have anything left to sort out, nothing to discuss. I just wanted him to tell me he wasn’t ready for me to leave his life yet. But he didn’t. Another time I wanted him to show up, but couldn’t bring myself to ask. A beautifully distilled example of our entire relationship. Neither of us ever being able to ask for what we need. Separated by more than space and time. There was always a wall between us. Something to keep ourselves out and the other person in. Or maybe it was the other way around. It doesn’t matter now, does it?

So this is what it feels like to close off a section of your life. To remember a time with someone, but to know it will never be repeated. There are no second chances here. We do not recycle and come back. It’s over. And that’s just the kind of thing we have to let ourselves believe. We have to hold on to. We have to learn to need. This is moving on.

Andrew pulls his car up next to mine, Astronautalis’ “Guard the Flame” blaring out the windows. I climb inside and we both sing as loud as we can, “Fuck it, if I was that smart, I’d never learned your name…” The music dies and we breathe in deep in unison. Wait, wait, wait. Scream. The sun beats down hard on my face. “One hand strikes the match. One hand guards the flame.” He reaches across the center console of the car and puts his hand in mine. We’re alive.

It’s waking up from something. Breaking out of the sludge I’d been encased in for years. The one that always made me feel broken and afraid. The one that, for whatever reason, my marriage learned to perpetuate. The constant nervous aching of not being enough for someone. Of letting them down. Of losing. Of quitting. Of giving up. I don’t know how we fell into that pattern and I wish we never did. But we did. And that was it.

And here we are. Cut loose. I’m standing in a crowd screaming. My hands are in the air. And for the first time in a long time I am not afraid of being undeserving. I am powerful and lovable and strong. I am unafraid of love because I know how it feels to lose it and how it feels to find it again. How it feels to have it find you. How it feels to be in it with someone who sees you and isn’t afraid of what they’re seeing.

Autobiography · Mental Health · Relationships

Move

Ruby Pipes8 Comments
"run" © telmo32, 2010. CC BY-ND 2.0.
“run” © telmo32, 2010. CC BY-ND 2.0.

On Sunday, August 2, 2015 a man threw himself from the building my apartment faced. I didn’t see it, but it didn’t matter. The seed was planted. I’d stand at my window and stare up at his balcony, imagining myself crawling over its cool railing. Every building and overpass became a jumping off point. I was ready.

Mason held me close to his chest and cried quietly. Whispered weak words about how I promised never to leave. So I started going to therapy twice a week. I saw a psychiatrist for the first time in my life. I quit my job and had serious talks about hospitalization. Every night I had to text my therapist to let him know I was still breathing. Anything to keep my feet on the ground beneath me.

Nadine and I took long walks around the lake and didn’t say much of anything. She just held a safe space for me. Let me know it was okay to not be okay. Let me know how much she loved–still loves–me.

By the end of October we’d moved out of that building, out of that city full of skyscrapers I couldn’t help but imagine myself climbing. More and different medications. New therapist. New psychiatrist. I kept trying, but I was still slipping. Changing places didn’t change anything. We both knew it wouldn’t, but what else were we supposed to be trying?

In December I moved back to my hometown. Alone. I slept in my parent’s spare room. And in mid-February I was finally cut loose by the words, “I want a divorce.” Found an apartment. Kept making weekly trips back down to Portland to see my therapist. Checked in every four weeks for medication management. Slowly started building a foundation without Mason. Tried to learn how to keep my head above water with no one to help me swim.

It’s amazing what you find yourself capable of when you have no other options.

No other options. I’d always believed I had an out. Always assumed eventually I would give into the call of balconies. The allure of tall buildings. But the medication was starting to work. And my therapist believed in me. And I reached out to my family. And I finally didn’t feel like a burden in my own home. My feet remained strong under me.

For whatever reason, it stopped feeling like everything was my fault. I was a victim of poor brain chemistry. There was nothing wrong with me. The world began engaging me. It was straight up terrifying. Strange things happen when you start to believe in your own abilities. You start catching yourself thinking that the difficult things in life are not caused by your short-comings.

Fell into a relationship. Climbed back out again. Kept telling myself that this new life wouldn’t be like the last one. It would be better. Strong and stable. That this time I really would learn to do it different. It was time to row the boat ashore. Time to prove it.

I am not in the in-betweens anymore. Not caught up in a rebound. Not waiting for my now ex-husband to finally show up on my porch and beg for me back. Not hoping I could somehow get pieces of my old life into my reality. Now I’m in it. Committed. This is the new normal now.

And so my medication management gets transferred from a psychiatrist to my primary care physician. And my therapist tells me it’s time to start thinking about what “long-term maintenance” is going to look like. And for the first time in my life, the people around me are telling me that I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. And I believe them. I believe me. I got this.

At a Target I try on a shirt that doesn’t fit me and I do not blame my body, I blame the clothing. That’s when it occurs to me that I am not the person I used to be. Not at all. Not in the least. Because I used to know I was broken. Unlovable and worthless. I used to know I was staying alive as a favor to those around me. But that wasn’t it, was it?

No.

As we drive to dinner my new partner plays me “Teleprompters” by The Uncluded. And Kimya Dawson is singing to me, “I say these messages to you, but now I need to hear them to. I am beautiful. I am powerful. I am strong. And I am loveable.” And for whatever reason I believe her. I know her. I feel her. And it is not dependant on what my lover thinks about me. It is not hinging on how good of a writer I am. Or how often I call my parents. Or what I see in the mirror or where I’ve been or what I do. It is not something I have to fight to earn. It’s just true.

“I am beautiful. I am powerful. I am strong. And I am loveable.”

I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you said it to me. I’m sorry you left before I learned it. But I am not sorry that it turned out this way. I’m not sorry for the road we had to take to get here. We couldn’t have done it any other way, right?

My counterpart reaches across the car and squeezes my leg and I don’t want to be anywhere else. I don’t want to be anyone else. I just want to drive with him and be exactly who I am.

At the stoplight he leans over to kiss me. He whispers he loves me while hovering a quarter of an inch from my face. And I do not question it. I do not wonder why. I just think, “Yes. I want to live my life like this.” Yes. I want to live my life.

Autobiography · Mental Health · Personal Development · Relationships

Revival

Ruby Pipes8 Comments

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“tide” © snarl , 2005. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Strangers. Our eyes met and I flashed a smile. The earth was magnetic, chest light and fluttering. He was at once my roots and wings. The world melted and there he stood. Alone. Spotlit. Deafening.

And I find myself having trouble writing about him. About the angles of his body complimenting my curves perfectly. The way we dissolve into giggle fits just by exchanging glances. How his hand regularly reaches for mine, like he needs to be touching me to be sure I’m there. That this is real. That we exist. Here. Together. Finally.

I catch myself wondering if I ought to be jaded. How the broken promise of forever-love should leave me unbelieving. Instead I let him put his hands on either side of my face and kiss me deeply upon greeting. I let my knees get weak and my face to ache from smiling.

There is nothing wrong with inviting love back in.

In the morning he gets up for work and leaves me sleeping. Twisting in the sheets that belong to him. Hours later I climb into the shower. The smell of his shampoo engulfing me in the steam. I breathe deep and boggle at my good fortune of just existing.

He is the first one from the new time. From the beginning years. The first one to meet me after the medication is settled. After I rediscover my own spine and plant my own feet. He is the first one to only see the scars and hear the stories. To not have the memory of the woman I used to be. To not remember how empty I seemed.

We recreate ourselves through others, don’t we? And this time I know how I want to do things differently. So when we’re scared we tell each other, just like when we’re pleased. I stand firm on what’s important to me. I make time to see my friends. I keep writing. I talk to my family. I remember to believe there is nothing wrong with me.

Really believe.

This man does not know the way I pulled my knees to my chest and sobbed about living. He does not know the suffering. And I can see it in the way he looks at me. I am not broken or fragile. I am not a time bomb, a loose cannon. I am not the person I used to be. I’m… Happy. Grateful. Ecstatic and thriving.