Tag: marriage

Leap
Autobiography · Personal Development · Relationships

Leap

Ruby Pipes7 Comments

They’re coming. Due dates and anniversaries. Reminders of where we were this time last year. What changes. What doesn’t. I ask Tanya to talk me down and she refuses. Tells me that I can’t shy away from the person I am anymore. It’s time.

She tells me I’ve been trying to squash it out. Ignore it. Pretend it doesn’t wrap itself around my heart and squeeze. Tells me she’s been hearing the words between the lines for years now and she’s tired of me not listening. I’m reminded of the time Chuck asked me if I ever had maternal instincts and I flinched, held my breath, gave the answer I felt was right, even though it wasn’t honest. “No. Never.”

And I leave the room when they’re talking about babies. Ignore the swelling bellies of those closest to me and work hard to build up excitement instead of jealousy. I think about holding my nephews. Burying my face in the smell of them and knowing they’re mine even though they’re not. Tell myself being close is enough. I get this part of life by proxy and that has to be okay. Things are different than I thought they’d be, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t all beautiful and lovely. It’s not that I’m not happy, it’s that there is an ache in the bittersweet.

I think about the year spent planning to get pregnant. About the appointments with a midwife and giving up caffeine. Therapy and tracking everything. I try to not resent Mason for leaving me. Try to be glad I’m not bound to him eternally by a child he wasn’t ready for or maybe just didn’t want in all honesty.

My mother drove me to my first therapy appointment after Mason and I split up. I don’t remember if it was before or after he’d officially asked me for a divorce, but it doesn’t matter. I knew on the winter solstice of 2015 that my marriage was over. In the car my mom started talking about family friends and their new baby. I thought about the life he promised then denied me. Thought about how hard I’d tried to convince myself I didn’t want it anyway. I’d rather travel, write, keep my freedom. Keep my marriage happy. Keep everything the way it was. Hold on to anything. But in a moment of clarity I realized it was all bullshit. That I do want to be a mother. The world calls me. So I sobbed. In my mom’s car with her staring wide-eyed at me. The only time I ever showed any of myself honestly during the course of my divorce. Transparent heartache for the life I’d no longer be living. Not out of missing Mason, but out of missing what I thought the two of us would make together. A life. A family.

But the strings I tied to him are coming back to me. And I get to tie them to whoever I want. I have the option to tie them to nobody. The bell that called is still calling me. And I don’t have to be dishonest or feel guilty. I’m still dreaming the same dreams and now all I’m counting on is me.
Photo courtesy of Gabriel Garcia Marengo.

Rest
Mental Health · Personal Development · Relationships

Rest

Ruby Pipes13 Comments

He sleeps in bed as I stay up writing. I can feel my stomach churning over the familiarity of it. Wondering if curling up on the floor and sobbing is what’s next. This is too much like it used to be. But I can catch myself on the edge of it now. Talk myself back down gently. Coax back in the breathing. Anxiety that is bubbling purely out of habit. A reminder that I’ve been scared of showing myself for so long that I don’t remember what it’s like to be seen. Held. And he rubs my head and tells me he doesn’t want my feelings to be ignored for his comfort. He wants me to speak honestly. Radically. Tells me my hurt is never an inconvenience. He asks if I need him and I finally have the nerve to say, “Yes. Please.”

Nadine tells me it’s okay to not know how to be okay. That this, as with everything, takes practice. I learned how to be broken. Became exceptionally good at thinking I needed fixing. That I was secretly unlovable and it was only a matter of time before everyone figured that out. Before those I cared about truly saw me and exited my life accordingly. A lifetime devoted to perpetuating the idea that other people somehow know what they’re doing and that I am doing this all wrong.

Close to midnight a stranger from the Internet parks in front of my duplex. I usher her inside and give her the tour of my new apartment. Pour a glass of water for each of us and go sit on the patio. The warm night air clinging to our shoulders and shrinking the space between us. We live in different worlds. Separated by years and lives of doing it all different. But in this city, on this day we both just needed someone to sit and talk with. Human interaction. A hug. Someone to laugh with about how ridiculous it is that life is so hard to live. A reminder that none of us do this uniquely. That none of us do this alone.

At lunch days later a friend I managed to keep after the divorce asks me if he can tell me a secret. “None of us know what we’re doing. There is no right way to live.” And we talk about how we fumble along and find good people to share it with.

That night I whisper into Andrew’s chest that I’m afraid I’m going to make the same mistakes I made before. That I will get wrapped up in feeling like I’m not enough and eventually exhaust him. Tell him I’m afraid I’ll need more than he can give and he’ll start to feel helpless. I replay every relationship I’ve ever been in. I relive my entire marriage in an instant. But he does not flinch. Just pulls me close and says, “I’m not going to let that happen.” And bit by bit I start to believe him. And bit by bit I start to see myself as the people around me see me. And bit by bit life turns back into an adventure rather than only misery.

Photo courtesy of Samuel Zeller.

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.