Before choosing to read this, please note that I believe this to be a side of me that few have seen. This post is very specific to recent events in my life and I have chosen to post it not out of spite. By no means does this post provide for me a completely satisfying ending, but what it does bring is some form of closure and the ability to move forward. To find my way back to that teacher/that person that I used to be...A journey that has been painful, loving, disheartening, hysterical, and at times with completely unsatisfying endings. This post is done with the realization that I was not given the respect back that I had given. You can say that this post is disrespectful if you choose, but know that this post does leave out some extremely sensitive information that, in it's own time, will fuel the fire known as Karma. I don't have to be there or even know that it is has happened. The reality is we are all accountable for our choices and if you do truly love someone, you hold them accountable. And when you do that, know that if they are not able to hold themselves accountable for their choices, they will inevitably take the cowards way out.
About a year ago, through the previous mentioned friend, I reconnected with a family from my childhood. She was one of three siblings that were the last foster kids the family would have and lived two houses down from me. The father had had a stroke and was in a local nursing home struggling with the effects of having had the stroke while sitting in his vehicle at a stop light and then coming to and putting the vehicle over a ravine opposite the stop light. When we arrived at the nursing home, the father and mother were there with two of their sons and two grandchildren. The father, who had been struggling to remember names and faces, remembered both her and I immediately. We chatted with everyone for a while and during that time as I was speaking with the one son, that if you have read previous posts have come to know him as Thomas. I asked him how life was. With an very angry and sarcastic response, he stated that he had two ex-wives, both of which had lied and cheated on him and there isn't a woman that wants to date him. I replied with something to the nature of don't be a blast of sunshine and look at the positives. I told him that any time he wanted to swap disaster relationships and divorces to just call or come by, I lived in my childhood home. About a week later, childhood friends reconnected and re-established a friendship. We joked that one of the reasons we where spending time together was because we were the only ones answering each other's texts. During one of our adventures either doing work on my house or sitting by the fire pit at his house or building a queen size storage under the bed frame, that friendship evolved. We both admitted to have the most fun that we have had not just in a long time but period with someone. The relationship evolved, I imposed the 90-day Steve Harvey policy (if you don't know what that is then you need to watch "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man), and the love-word bomb had been uttered first by Thomas. It was hard for me to hear because I had not really heard it in a long, long time and it really meant something coming from the other person.
The relationship was far from perfect and we had many ups and downs. I struggled to separate home and work while Thomas struggled with the demands of a teacher and a girlfriend that had been a workaholic and used work as a way to escape. I had been struggling to do that but felt that I was really close and then a completely unsatisfying ending happened, MoMo left for heaven. Thomas stood by my side. My world was in a tailspin. Then almost six months to the day, Thomas's father left for heaven and his world went into a tailspin. We struggled for the next six weeks to figure out what direction we were going. Marriage had been discussed once his divorce from his second wife (previously mentioned during the ray of sunshine moment) a number of time between the journeys our respective parents and best friends had taken.
I was being pulled in close and then pushed away through the form of a text message. This became the norm for until Memorial Day, when we both finally seemed to land at one the same place, at the same time. Thomas even said that he had talked to one of his confidants that while we didn't have it perfect, who does, we are making it work, we are working it through. A week later, his wife had finally agreed to meet him at his bank to get their signatures notarized on their completed divorce petition on Monday and that she would be filing them. He looked at me and smiled and said "So, babe, when are we getting married?" I told him let's see how long it takes her to get them filed. Everything was clicking, but while it was clicking, I was failing to see signs. Signs that I thought I would never have to see again in my life because I had found my forever. I had found someone else that had been the faithful one in previous marriages. I had found someone that believed "Don't lie or cheat. You do, you are gone." In hindsight, I can see the signs prior to receiving the confirmation but at the same time trying not to believe that it was all happening again.
As we were both falling asleep, I got a message on Facebook Messenger that indicated that she had been dating Thomas for two months and wanted to know why I had left my pillow at his house and why I thought I would be going to his brother's house. I asked him and after he read the message and stated "She sent that to you?" had his back to me. He did not look me in the eye when I asked about the extent of the relationship. In hindsight, I can tell you that I should have right then kicked his ass out of my bed, my house and my life...but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. We had been on and off, it was possible. Within forty-eight hours, an ending that was unsatisfying in mammoth proportion had happened. The one person that I thought would not cheat on me or lie to me had. He had violated his own moral code. He had done to me, what had been done to both of us by others. I searched to figure out what I had done wrong besides love this man with all I am. He would not speak to me in person, by text, a year's work of work and love and planning was done.
The queen size storage under the bed has become a symbol of a "completely unsatisfying" ending. I have started to dismantle the bed to re-purpose the wood for the walk-in closet in MoMo's old bedroom. The dismantle of this has become as "completely unsatisfying" as the ending to our relationship. Is there irony in the fact that when we built the bed, Thomas labeled each side and we were not even "dating" at the time?
As I worked, it became more and more clear to me that this bed was built to withstand the relationship but I was not willing to let that be the case. I worked for two days with little or no headway to dismantle Thomas's side of the bed. It was as if in some one I was being mocked by the bed. I finally gave up on Thomas's side after even the circular saw did not make a dent. Then I started to work on my side of the bed...that labeled "Christa's side." I struggled with screws of various style screwdriver tip styles...some square, some stars, some stripped. Ugghhhh. The way my children can tell that I am truly mad, is the increase of profanity and specifically the use of the F word. I was able to dismantle my side but not without proficient use of the F world and some pieces not surviving.
And in the end, why is it always the last screw that resonates the most with you. It feels like a dagger that twists between your should blades reminding you that you were foolish at giving your heart to someone that at one time was worthy but then in the end, they got the last screw. But did they?
I am working on reading, thoughtfully reading Brene Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection. On the day that I started the destruction of the bed, I read the following from her book and there was the start of an "Ah, Ha Moment."
But then there came this nudge into the next level of "Ah, Ha Moment."
Then what then took me to the next levels was the following title of a book located in our local library that is for sale for $1.00 to benefit the Friends of the Library.
At this point, being a person that has an excessive sense of right and wrong along with the belief that one must be responsible for their own choices and be accountable. Seared into my brain, are the looks of empathy on Thomas's two sons that live with him because they knew what their father was doing and could not say anything because this is their father. I am sure that they were seeing their father making their mother tell them why on Valentine's Day he was throwing her out of the house...and my struggle is with the lack of accountability. Thomas has yet to face me to end this relationship while he continues to be with the (politely used term) individual that not only violated his privacy by going through his phone messages but also violated mine by doing so.
While I know that to my son the ending of his book was "completely unsatisfying" and I don't want to make it seem trivial, because I know it was really important to him. For me, the ending to what I thought was my forever was "completely unsatisfying" in a way, that when I am done "compartmentalizing" as an old friend told me this evening, will still be "completely unsatisfying" but in the end, I will have to let go and let God. And should God not be able to complete any task, I am sure that he will call in the bitch, Karma.
