Please Excuse Me While I Let It Out

Last week a reader emailed to ask why she hadn't seen photos of Clyde lately. Perhaps she missed some of the posts about the divorce. I explained to her what had happened.  


I have this photograph of Clyde with Bonnie, who went mysteriously missing in the spring of 2010. Clyde is now nearly 14. 

I dust this photo every week, but I don't allow myself to look at anything but the frame most times. I just can't do it without breaking down. I keep thinking that over time I will find the fortitude to smile at this image. But I can tell that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

If you're squeamish about things, or juiced up for a saccharine-sweet post about everything pretty, head on out of here now.

I can't hold it in anymore. I have to put it someplace. And I'm going to begin right here.

***

Oct. 24, 2011: I got up and told myself not to look around me as I went through an abbreviated morning routine and took my shower. I ate some yogurt with a plastic spoon so there wouldn't be dirty dishes, and told myself not to look at the kitchen I decorated while I ate it. 


The neighbors had all come over, one by one, the night before. We had hugged and cried and said our goodbyes. I miss them very much. I knew I couldn't see them that morning, and get emotional all over again, and still make that long drive. 

I tended to Emily, still cloistered in the guest room. (I hear now she's all over the house seeking attention, watching TV with them. So I guess it was the dogs that frightened her. I am glad that she has come out of her self-imposed exile. Even if it wasn't for me. But another woman I've never met.) 

I fed her, gave her water and her medication, petted her and told her how very much I loved her. And that her dad (who I knew she loved) would be there soon to be with her. I told her I'd miss her and would never forget her. I turned and walked out the guest room door and told myself I didn't have time to fall apart.

I let the dogs out for the very last time, and told myself to avert my eyes from my beautiful gardens and pond and pavilion. 

I should have had my usual cereal and left a dirty bowl and spoon, I realize now. 

I got the dogs in the car and hoped we'd make it to Tulsa in one piece. I talked to them and tried to make it sound like a giant adventure, as the dogs have never been in the car very long. Certainly not all day. 


They had been on an emotional roller coaster for a long time, just as I had. They clung to me all the way here.

They knew something was amiss because we had slept on my ex-husband's sectional in his man-cave living room the night before. Because the furniture we were taking was long gone on a big truck headed to Oklahoma. 

I couldn't bring myself to sleep in the bed we had once shared. I'd been sleeping on the guest room bed for months. Nope, the man-cave sectional would have to suffice. So we snuggled up together under an afghan there for our last night in our home.

I got lost a couple of times during the drive. I'm not good with directions. I didn't let myself cry as I drove farther and farther away. Just as I didn't allow myself to look back at my house, my beloved home, not one time as I put my Pathfinder in reverse. And left part of my life and a pretty good-sized chunk of my heart behind.

I made it to Tulsa without incident. My kids came out the door to greet me. They were still painting on the little blue house. It was the first time for me to see it in person. I was so grateful I had someplace to go. Someplace to hide. I put a smile on my face and, a dog under each arm, walked through the five rooms of our new home.

Over time, I unpacked and smiled at the antics of my grandchildren and enjoyed time with my daughters. I arranged the furniture and prettied up the place. I went out to lunch with my girls, telling them how great it was to see them whenever I wanted. And it was, it is, great. 

I wrote every day in this blog, and you all were so proud of me. You praised me for my courage and told me to forget about him. He wasn't worth my tears, you told me. Just move forward. I tried so hard not to let anyone down.

***

I want to tell you something. When I left that house for that other woman to come live in, I left the sliver of my Dove soap in the soap holder in the shower. I left my razor I shaved with on the side of the tub. I left some of my Suave shampoo there too. 

I did not clean the house. I have never in my life vacated a house without cleaning it spic and span. Until then. I left dust bunnies and dirty floors, and told myself it was her problem now. 

I hoped she would have to be the one to move my sliver of soap. To throw my razor and shampoo in the trash. And to realize she was taking over my home while she did it.

I hoped she would have to take the trash to the curb that held my things. I wanted her to think of me while she tried to wash the last vestiges of me away. And become the new woman of the house.

But later I learned they had a housekeeper come in and do all that. So she didn't have to touch one thing that had touched me. I was sad about that. Mean Girl's Club, come sign me up.

I wanted her to realize that she was taking another woman's house away from her. That she was taking her from her neighbors and friends and cats and gardens. That it hurt something fierce. And it would be a very long time that the wound would bleed. It still has a band-aid on it, by the way. 

He had replaced me years before I knew about it. He had had many women, he boasted to me before he went to live with her in the apartment they'd gotten. 

On the Sunday afternoon before he was to move in with her on Tuesday, our first court date, he nonchalantly told me he was going to JCPenneys to pick up a few things for their apartment. He didn't come home until very late. 

I laid awake in my garden room, worried he had been in an accident. I almost called the police. I told myself that was crazy, worrying about a man that had left to shop for his mistress. 

What would I say to the police? "Please look to see if there's been any car accidents involving a fire engine red Audi? My husband went out to shop for his new home for he and his mistress, and he didn't come home once the stores were closed?"

All the same, when he came in, I was a trembling wreck. He said he'd just been driving around, thinking about things. "This is hard on me, you know," he told me in all sincerity, then went to bed.  

It didn't seem so hard on him when he got up in my face over and over and told me how his lady friend tasted. I put my hands over my ears, but he just said it louder. He wanted it to hurt. And it did. 

It sliced me open and it sucked me dry. And he smiled when I cried. He said he liked to watch me cry. 

He never cried. How can you never cry?

Now please excuse me while I go hold my dogs and let it flow. And then I'm going to dry my tears and commence working on my pillows.

***

You know, writing all that felt pretty damned good, if you want to know the truth. I may just write some more later.

I want to say that I really do want the best for my ex-husband. I truly wish him happiness.


At the very same time, I want to have someone else hold him while I go up to him and pound on his chest. And ask him why, why, why???

Yes, there have been emails that have been nasty and vindictive on my part. I won't claim there haven't. But I am trying to meet this with something akin to grace as time wears on.  


I hope none of this makes anyone uncomfortable. For that was not my intention.

I just have to put this someplace for safekeeping while I let myself mourn. I can see that pushing the thoughts and memories away are not going to work. They are forcefully pushing themselves out anyway. And right now I just don't know what else to do with them.