Let’s Talk About the Serious Stuff: Cheating

One of my favorite feelings is that slight boozy walk. When you first stand and your toes feel leaden with cement, but your legs are oozing with jelly. I felt that as I stood and walked to my computer, the remnants of my margarita in my glass from dinner. Liquor always goes straight to my feet. As I had eaten my dinner drowning out the sound of Bakugan playing On Demand around me I kept thinking about Sellabit Mum‘s post from this morning.

What would my worst memory be?

The obvious comes to mind, but I’m saving that for a special occasion.

My mind jumps flipping through years of images, cataloged in increasing suppression to downright disassociation and I stumble upon one and linger. You see I remember in photos. I see events unfold like a movie reel and capture them as a series of often blurry Polaroids. Makes it hard to remember details, but if I can see it I can usual feel it.

I came home from school one day, it was high school. My junior year. As I walked through my parent’s door I heard crying coming from their bedroom. I walked in to see my mother sobbing, holding scissors and cutting holes through all of my father’s boxers. Upon his desk was hundreds of shredded pieces of papers, of photos, of boxer shorts with a hole haphazardly cut in a strategic spot.

My mother sat there, red faced and tear stained, wielding these scissors. I can still see her in perfect clarity. See the desk. The mess. I was able to quickly surmise the situation as this was hardly the first time my father had cheated on my mother, nor was it the last.

In 1993 I had come home from the third grade to a similar scene except that time my father had moved out. Gotten an apartment I never saw, purchased furniture that now lives in their home as a constant reminder of those months. Those months my mother didn’t go to work, but cried. I would go to the dollar store and purchase her plastic magnetic picture frames and glossy dollar store cards of cats to cheer her up. I had no idea what was wrong. Where he was, why she was so sad. This time I knew. I knew so well, what was happening.

Most of my friends had divorced parents. A fact that constantly shocks my husband who grew up knowing no one. For me divorce was common place. Weekend fathers, absent fathers, sad mothers, step parents. I had seen the whole lot through my friends, but I never could imagine that these things could unfold in my life. As I watched her cry I thought only selfish thoughts. How this would affect me. If truly this has been my fault as he so frequently threatened in their arguments. And worst of all I blamed her. For not being good enough to keep him. For some how being faulty, for being leavable, cheatable, weak.

You see it had to be her fault. He wouldn’t leave if she was enough.

When I cheated on my boyfriend Matt, the first time, I tried to explain myself to him. He had found out while I was cross-country in Germany writing long tear stained emails and chain smoking cigarettes at 17 trying pleading begging him to forgive me. To understand me. I cited my father’s treatment of my mother. Clearly, it was genetic. Clearly, I had been taught wrong. I was taught love was arguments, and sex was something you did for lust and never, not ever love. I thought that for many reasons. I never mentioned that he was not enough. That he couldn’t keep up with me, sustain me, interest me.

I still claim, like Ross, that we had been on a break when I slept with Jesse while my friends were in the next room. One of which would be the one to inevitably tell him what happened. Perhaps he too mentioned how I slept with Conall and Piet on multiple separate occasions. My best friend at the time cited this time in my life as a “downward spiral.” I remember it as an awakening.

Matt and I got back together after much begging and we went to prom as a happy couple, but he never forgave me. And he made me know it. He was mean to me. Spiteful. Pushed me against a wall when we fought. Called me a slut and a whore in front of our friends, in public. I stayed with him – in guilt. As punishment for how I treated him. Because I loved how he loved me. So much more than I ever loved him despite moving to a state I had never even visited to go to college with him.

And I cheated on him again. I came home from college with him for his grandmother’s funeral and slept with a good friend of mine I had always loved. Will always love.

He never fulfilled me. Completed me.

But I wonder often, as I imagine my mother with the shears ripping through cotton prints of snowmen and red plaid, if perhaps it was more than just being enough. If perhaps there was something ingrain in our nature that made us capable of something others found so repulsive. If I can’t truly ever hate my father, for I am more like him than he will ever know.

A Part of the Series: Let’s Talk about the Serious Stuff

Written for Write on Edge: Remembered and Pour Your Heart Out

                       

Unspoken, a Story.

Written for the red dress club. Topic: write about sex without writing about the actual act. Because you always want to leave a little to the imagination.

 

“What is it that you said that one night, that you care about me. What the fuck was that?” Her body slides down the wall and she lands on his cold wooden floors.

She brings her knees to her chest, bows her head down and sobs.

He pushes the wooden chair out of the way, leans against the wall and slides down with her. Stretches his long legs under the table and closes his eyes.

They sit there, for what seems like hours, like eternity passing. She cries and whimpers. “Can I have a tissue?” she finally asks.

He gets up, knees cracking. Walks to the bathroom, pulls from the toilet paper roll and rips off the sheets. He stands at her feet, their toes touching. She looks up. Her face red, swollen, the tears crusted to cheeks, her nose running down into her lips. She’s so beautiful, he thinks. She takes the tissue, “more please.”

He hands her the tissue, still standing. She pulls herself up and walks to her purse on the floor and pulls out her cigarette and lighter. Tosses the Kleenex in the trash, opens the back door and breathes the fresh air. She quivers.

He watches her. His phone vibrates. He reaches his long arms into his jeans. Looks at the screen, the name flashing on the screen, the vibration in his palm. Puts it back in his pocket and walks into the kitchen.

He sees her back through the window. The sun is reflecting off her dark hair and he can see the specks of red throughout it. Sees the way a slight wave occurs at the nape of her neck and some hairs go in and some go out. Her tan shoulders shake, she inhales and exhales.

“Do you want something to drink?”

She turns, her green eyes rimmed with tears, her face and chest splotchy and red. “Some water, please” the tears slip off her eyes and glide down her cheeks. One stays stuck at the edge, desperately clinging to the skin, not wanting to fall.

He turns and opens the refrigerator. His mind completely blank. His fingertips cold. He walks the water out to her, leaning against the door to keep it open.

“Thank you,” she says.

He looks at her. He knows he needs to say something. He knows it’s his cue, but he just watches her. The tear is still on her cheek.

“I guess I should probably go,” she says.

She walks past him. Places her dirty glass next to the multitude on the counter, next to the bottles of beer and wine. She wants to stay and clean. She walks into his bedroom. Sits upon his bed and reaches out for her shoes. Steadying herself in her high heels, in last night’s clothes. She scans the room for whatever small reminders of her may linger, her scent on his sheets, the indent of her head on the pillow. She stands in the doorway.

“You’re just going to let me leave aren’t you?”

He looks up at her. His eyes run from her face down to her body past the waist he held, the legs he spread, onto the floor. “We knew this could never be anything else.” He finally says.

“But there was always a chance, that’s what you can’t seem to understand.” She wipes the dangling tear off her face and it absorbs into her fingertips.

Silence covers the room. Light flickers through the blinds. At an impasse neither of them speaks. Their breaths align.

Bye Bye Rabbit

A postscript to my previous post “The One Where We Talk About Sex“

Warning: This is way more explicit than previous post, so move along to different posts for some family friendly mommy bloggy reading. Like this one about how my daughter doesn’t like to cuddle.

…

I was 23 years old when I got my first vibrator. Which to my friends seemed like ancient. How have you lived so long without one? they wondered incredulously. You, with the whole Sex and the City Dvd set, doesn’t own a vibrator? You, who lost her virginity (17) before any of us? Yes me, the vibrator virgin.

It was September 10, 2009, and I was driving to Omaha for a friend’s wedding with three male friends and one of their girlfriends who I was meeting for the second time. I know the exact date because in my iphone I still have the note created at 1:36 pm with directions to Romantix the store we had googled that wasn’t too far off the path. The Economist, whose sexual exploits were well known in our group of friends, demanded that we must correct this wrong. He also a connoisseur of proper sexual toys encouraged me to purchase a Doc Johnson chocolate.

I didn’t bring it out until I was safely returned to Minnesota, after all what kind of girl do you think I am?, and it was alright. At best it was merely awkward. I googled how to instructions as I’m an instruction follower what can I say. I just couldn’t disassociate myself  from reality which was me awkwardly in my guest bedroom/office glancing at the computer screen of what I was to do next. Despite its chocolate color, it was nothing like my ex. It was after all toy, but not even a toy as I knew it for it didn’t resemble the countless amounts of plastic battery operated objects that were next door in Bear’s room.

Since I couldn’t actually bring myself to try and focus on anything sexy, I had to google it so I’d have something to look at that wasn’t the ceiling and photos of Bear. And it was better than okay, it was borderline great. I must confess its impossible for me to orgasm. While I certainly have small little baby mini sort of ones often, real orgasms the way you see in movies I could count on two hands and never because of my own two hands. I decided that it must be the toy, I needed something better, I need the real thing. The thing Sex and the City made famous. I needed the Rabbit.

As Amazon tells me, I purchased the Grape Rabbit Pearl on September 14, 2009. Clearly I wasted no time. And it was pretty awesome, after of course I read the instruction manual, and I don’t think I was even using it correctly either. I began pleasuring myself at a shockingly young age. An age so young that now as a parent seems even more so fucking young I’m not even going to frighten you with the age.  I think as an adult I was sort of over it, kind of a been there done that mentality. Plus, of course my success rate was paltry so why even bother. The Rabbit was great, but required a lot of quiet alone time I didn’t possess or often chose to instead to spend watching TV and eating something delicious. My priorities have always been clear.

I tried recently to pull the bad boy out of the storage where he’d been collecting dust since probably October of 2009 when I quickly grew bored of him, went to Mexico, got knocked up and forgot what sex was all together.  I realized I’m just not that kind of girl. I’m never going to be really comfortable putting a vibrating plastic object near my beavie like its normal. I can barely turn off my brain to do it with my husband much less during my precious alone minutes.

So I’m declaring on June 21, 2011, bye bye to the Rabbit. You were fun, for that month, three years ago.

The One Where We Talk About Sex

I started this in December and its been a blank page since then. Just an idea I’ve been mulling on but not sure how I want to write about or if I want to write about. Too personal? But then I read Mooshinindy‘s blog about her depression and that’s too personal. I read bloggingdangerously‘s blog about sex and that’s too personal. Yet, I’m still afraid to really step out and do it. But lets do it. Lets talk about sex.

I’m just not that into it. Sex that is. I can’t say I’ve always been this way, but I’ve been this way for awhile. About four years, wait when was Bear born? Oh yeah, four years ago, yup that sounds about right. I just don’t see the point in it. In terms of fun activities, there are so many other things I’d rather do. Like sleep. Or watch Bravo. As for intimacy, I feel intimacy and love with the H thru so many different things that I don’t need sex to feel close to him. To me it feels like an obligation, a chore, something I should do. And this conversation seems very taboo to me. Everyone always jokes about when you get married the sex slows down and when you have kids, forget about it. But they joke about it. No one ends the joke with, “yeah seriously that’s true”.

Well for me it’s true.

I don’t feel sexy. A lot of that is rooted in my feelings about my weight and appearance. After I had lost all the weight and did feel and look sexy, sex was something I was much more interested in. Certainly not on the same levels as Kit, but much more so than now. So I know a part of the issue is my perceptions of my appearance, except I’m not really motivated to do anything about it. I don’t feel like I need to look sexy. Who am I trying to impress here?

Then there’s of course breastfeeding. The times we’ve had sex I’ve told the H that they’re off limits, Bella’s got them on loan for the next year. I have this overwhelming fear of “activating” and milk squirting everywhere; you can imagine it I’m sure. Gross you out? Me too. Funny? A little bit.

Does anyone else feel this way? I read Kit’s blog and magazines and find myself wondering, do people really have this much sex? Really? Am I the odd woman out? Or am I the only one daring crazy masochistic enough to admit it?

Let’s Talk about the Big Guy (or Dog backwards)

So, I posted last week about having a visit with the Pastor for Bella’s upcoming baptism and I’ve been meaning to write about it. In fact I’ve probably written and rewritten this post in my head everyday since last Wednesday. I know that I will never be able to quite get across what I’m looking for but I’ve come to terms with that.  I suppose. Also this will be a LONG post.

First of all the Pastor had forgotten that we were meeting and was late. Second of all the appointment lasted two hours much longer than the 20 minutes I was expecting. It was all and all nothing like what I expected. I’m not even sure what I was expecting. Perhaps to burst into flames upon entering the church? To be lectured on the immorality of abortion and gay marriage? To be hit with a bible? (Which always brings to mind the scene in Saved where a bible is thrown and the quote is “This is not a weapon.”)

I feel like background is in order.

I was baptized Catholic but never had Holy Communion or Confirmation. I wasn’t married Catholic or anything else. My family were “Chreasters” as the New Godmother would call those who only attend church on Christmas and Easter. To me the act of going to church was simply about tradition and Holidays.

Growing up I had a lot of good friends who were religious i.e. who attend Catholic school prior to High School and who continued to go to church on a semi-regular basis. I felt at that time like I was missing out on something. Like there was an experience that they were able to have (and together) that I wasn’t included on.

Then I went to college. Where shortly after breaking up with my High School boyfriend of two years and briefly dating (but mostly sleeping with) my then best friend I met Swan. And I fell in love. Hard. Like that gross movie love. In my mind now, I was likely delusional and borderline obsessed. At that time I had never known a love quite as strong or all encompassing. Swan was super religious. I mean hard-core-conservative-bible-thumping-no-sex-until-marriage-is-now-a-youth-pastor-in-Colorado religious. Which if you know me seems kind of a crazy pair. After all by the time I started dating him at 18 I had already slept with 5 people and have many close friends who are Jewish, Gay or otherwise unacceptable in his eyes.

But I was in love.

I was able to completely give up the concept of not having sex until marriage (which most of my friends found to be a crazy notion) without any difficulty after all in my mind we were going to get married. Swan wavered on what he thought was acceptable other than sex. In fact often after we did something sexual he would claim to have been possessed by the devil. And in fact once had an exorcism. I SHIT YOU NOT. Again this didn’t seem to phase me appropriately.

Because I was in love.

I did everything I possibly could to make him think that I was the right person for him to be with. I wanted to be the Pastor’s wife. I was prepared to be barefoot and pregnant and give up most any other individuality to serve Him, Swan and our future kids.  I picked up religious studies as a minor. I went with him to church. I read my bible. I was devastated when I accidentally dropped my cross Tiffany necklace down the drain.

Swan broke up with me twice. Both times because of the sin that he believed I drove him to. The first time I was devastated and spent most if not all of my time sobbing in bed and not attending class or anything other than devising a way to get him back. Which I did. The second time I went home for the summer and got back together briefly (but again mostly slept with) with my then best friend. But in the end I convinced him to take me back.

Why is this so relevant? Because this person who hurt me so deeply, who I loved so strongly, who made me feel like I was evil and sinful and potentially possessed by the devil I so strongly associate with religion. It was religion and it was God that hurt me just as much as Swan had.

There are things that Swan did for me that I will always be thankful for. When we started our relationship I had really low self-esteem coming from years of emotional abuse from my father, feeling less worthy than my friends, and a tumultuous breakup with my High School Ex which involved him breaking into my dorm room and changing my screen saver to be photos of the two of us (super creepy). And he changed that. He made me a stronger person. He made me believe in myself, mostly through the fact that I couldn’t believe that he could love a person like me. And I really do credit him for that. He managed to build me up inside strong enough that I was able to withstand the pain that came from when he left me –  twice.

The final time we broke up I broke up with him, or at least it was mutual. I realized that we really were not right for each other and I didn’t want to be the kind of person he needed me to be. I like to think that the cloud of delusion I was under had finally lifted. After we broke up I strayed as far away as I could from religion which I so closely associated with him. I continued to study it since it was my minor but from an educational standpoint only.

I’ve done some, but not very much thinking about religion. And I’ve come to a few confusions. (I meant to say conclusions, but I thought the Freudian slip was worthy of staying). I have no problems with the beliefs and the faith associated with the religion. From a scientific standpoint I believe in evolution, and dinosaurs and such. But just as science can’t prove God’s existence it can’t disprove it either. So I’m open to the possibility of His existence just as I’m open to the fact that it might just be stories that have been passed down through the years to make sense of a world that makes no sense. My beliefs waver when it comes to the concept of Christ. A person born from a virgin mother? Whose father is omnipresent? Who died for our sins? Well that’s a little larger leap of faith. I’m not not open to it, but I’m not as convinced.

I have a lot of problems with organized religion specifically with what I deem to be the mis-interpretation of the Bible. A quote that comes to mind (not sure who and I’m not really getting it right) is that you should bend to the Bible’s views and not bend the Bible to your views. Something like that. The gist is that everyone reads the Bible and comes up with something different because in my opinion religion is a deeply personal thing. And I hate talking about personal things which is why I don’t like talking about religion. It makes me very uncomfortable.

I don’t believe in using religion for wars (which is what 75% of them are based on). Was it in Gone with the Wind that someone mentioned whose side is God on because both the North and the South were praying to him?

I’m pro-choice. As someone with two kids there was a point when I was pregnant with my first that I honestly slightly wavered on this. When I could feel Bear kicking inside of me and the realness of this being a life hit me. But it comes down to this. It was my choice to have Bear. And at 21, in college and newly engaged I could have very easily chosen not to. And I think I deserved to have that option.

There is nothing in the world that I am more passionate about or believe more deeply than in equality for the LGTB community.

Two of my absolute closest friends who I love so much fall into that category. One of which has been with her girlfriend for two years and who regularly talks about how much they want to get married. And the fact that anyone thinks that they have the authority to tell them they can’t I have a BIG problem with. This is where religion tends to come in.

So I have a hard time. I want to reconcile the fact that a part of me still associates with the little girl who felt left out. Who wants to raise her children with faith, and tradition and the community that church can bring. But I worry that I am too socially liberal for this.

One thing I loved about meeting with the Pastor is the story that she told that she and her husband had completely fallen away from the Church in their youth. It was only when they got pregnant and were contemplating baptism that they got re-acquainted with it. In fact they used to sneak into church and listen from the back row so they wouldn’t have to talk to the “churchy types.” This woman would later become a Pastor. It makes me feel that I can have my opinion and my beliefs and still be a part of a church community. That perhaps I don’t have to write off “churchy types” as being against things that I believe in so strongly. Who don’t exist to oppress those they deem unworthy of God’s love. Maybe I can find a community where I can belong and I can raise my children.

My meeting with her opened my mind to an array of possibilities. To a whole line of thoughts and emotions that I didn’t really want to deal with and its much easier to ignore them than come face to face with what exactly makes me so uncomfortable and unwilling to talk about it. So now we’re at this impasse.

Let’s see where we’re going to go.