*
first, a picture of k's absurd tanning stickers. they go over the eyes. there truly is a product for everything.
this is one of those items of modern life that i hope to never utilize firsthand, but it is good to be informed of one's options. (actually, she said they are mandatory- unless you're a truly seasoned tanning-bed tanner, in which case you have your own anti-cancer goggles. like bowling shoes, i guess.)
and here's the completely fucking useless ladies, rubbing their bits all over my eatin' table.
sooo....
because i made the 'right' decision, i can now explain the last 2 weeks to the people whose opinions i care about and who know me exceptionally well...
i have a flight to austin at 230pm tomorrow, to see ex #1 after 13 years, united flight 356 connecting in denver on united flight 416, arriving at 1030pm CST... $282.76 on my debit mastercard, non-refundable. and i'm not going.
*
have i ever really explained the horrid circumstances that led to the demise of my first marriage? i mean, really?
i remember once my parents came to visit us when we lived in seattle. there were at least 5 empty liquor bottles lined up on the kitchen floor. after commenting that the place smelled like cat piss, my father said "what's this? left over from christmas?" it was may. it was the accumulation of a week, and if i hadn't been too hungover to exhibit forethought, i would have taken it all down to the recycling before they arrived.
i truly believe that, once, he and i did love each other. my feelings for him were a version of love that i no longer consider 'love', but it's the version my 18-year-old self adamantly believed in. my standards, shall we say, have improved over the years.
we had plans. he had the vague drunken impetus to move to prague "cause america fucking sucks" and i was trying to be a writer, driving myself insane with the isolation. i was 100 pages into a story he ended up stealing the only copy of, a story i poured my life into for 6 months... i haven't seen it since i was 19. it's about a girl living in a small town and the guy she fancies breaks his infant child's arm. how does she care about someone who does something so possibly accidental but still completely monstrous? the guy's name is paul. i forget her name. i am sure there are correllaries to my subject matter with that era. i wrote at the end of the sofa my grandparents gave me when we got married, cross-legged, on a computer he stole while he worked at microsoft, and i would feel so fucking frantic and ALONE in my own brain that when i'd go to the store with the excuse of buying something, just so i could interact with other people, i'd stutter.
i was the one who found the place in prague (which he has since smugly assured me "sucked", though probably not as forcefully as the dank hovel i moved into once i returned to anchorage) and i enrolled at univerzity karlovy to learn czech. i even researched, much to my mortification, where the nearest ikea was (there is an ikea in prague! now you know.) we were going to drive from seattle to fucking fort stockton, in the ass-end of the ass-end of west texas, visit his folks, and i was going to fly overseas with my already-purchased ticket out of houston. he was going to drive the subaru to NYC and fly out from there two weeks later.
we fought in albuquerque, accompanied by a bottle of jagermeister (a fucking odious liquid i will hopefully never drink again) and i woke up from my drunken stupor to find everything gone. him, the car, the fucking snake, the stereo, my debit card. he left my cats, my bicycle, and my clothes. that was the day i started smoking again.
we were staying at the starlite motel, on route 66, near an overpass. it was a skunky part of albuquerque. it was in walking distance to both UNM and the forbiddingly boarded-up 'downtown'. everything was orange. everything was dusty. it was hot and the world was fucking completely different. i didn't know what to think. i remember a bum telling me i had skinny legs. i went to the library and shivered in the air-conditioning. i bought a cannister of sun-maid raisins from a convenience store. the hotel manager banged on my door and let me know that we couldn't fight like that again. i let him know 'he' was gone and the manager walked off and i listened to his footsteps retreat and then i bawled and i remembered how horrible camel filters taste.
i flew back to anchorage the next day. i had changed my flight from prague to berlin, because this was in the days when one could do that, over the phone... my father told me to come home. "you need to be around people who love you" he said. i was too dazed at the time to truly appreciate that...
and i returned to alaska with my tail between my fucking legs. i filed for "divorce with an absentee spouse", my name and his for all to see in the anchorage daily news for 4 consecutive weeks; i heard from the grapevine that he actually went overseas, but he didn't contact me at all until 4 years later... i stood in front of the judge with my fucking wonderful dad on the benches behind me and i calmly agreed to a divorce. my dad took me to lunch afterwards. we went to that awesome place on 74th and sand lake (?) -near kincaid- that i can't remember the name of... the food was sublime. "are you okay?" asked my father. "yes" i said emphatically, my mouth full.
*
i've moved on with my life. i've been remarried and redivorced. there's 13 years of ridiculously turgid shit crammed into that span, to the point where i, with my propensity for drama and pathos and what-the-fuck, am almost craving a placid existence. i have lived. that statement is not meant as resignation, but as utter fucking gratitude.
*
but in the back of my mind, i never had resolution from Bullshit '98. i never had closure. the last thing i remember is not pleasant. the next-last thing i remember is even worse. this gaping-thing from 1998 has occluded way too fucking much in my life over the last many years, probably even things i haven't acknowledged. i know, lucidly, as an adult regarding the child-me, that there is a lot i'm not nearly as accountable for as my heart still claims. the 'adult' me wants to shake the fucking SHIT out of my 19-year-old stunted self and brutally chastise me to GET THE FUCK OVER IT, HE'S A PIECE OF SHIT, MOVE ON. but... i needed closure. i cannot state it any plainer. and when, after 13 years, he shitfaced to the point of entire-sentences-slurring, me on the other end saying "i can't understand you" whilst doing something *adults* do, like watering my plants... he offhandedly invited me to austin for a concert.
"when?"
"the 16th."
"what day is that?"
"uhhh... a wednesday."
"i can do that. you want me to come down?"
"sure."
"okay."
and i bought the ticket the next day. i finagled coverage for both jobs. i got k to watch my beasts. and i thought, finally. he's a dithering sociopathic drunk, still, made more obvious and pathetic by time, but i'm not. i'm not, when it's all said and done, a fuck-up. i do moronic things, opine inane shit, and can be a complete fucking bitch when i take people for granted enough that they'll tolerate my non-salubriousness... but, i think, i don't instigate the need in people to wince. i fucking sincerely hope i don't.
i had this vision of us talking politely in a pub. discussing the past 13 years. he's older and i;m actually of age, so we'd have the adult thing to bond over. it wouldn't be a rehash of blame, it would be a "this is who i am now." that's what i was looking for.
*
two nightmares in the last week about him later, i changed my mind. and i realized that i couldn;t respectably tell this situation to anyone who truly knew me without prefacing it with "but you know, i know what i'm doing..." disclaimers. and i realized that i, since 2002, hadn't really talked to b when he wasn't shitfaced, and the one time i did i was unreasonably happy, because, you know, he wasn't shitfaced, and that must mean he values our conversations, because, yeah. and i remembered that i have a fucking awesome life in seattle already, full of people who are kind and loving and patient enough with me to allow my illogical retreads and circular solliloquys.
i called expedia about my non-refundable ticket on friday; i realized it was sxsw and i was fucked for possible hotel rooms should i choose to just go and finally experience texas, ex be damned; and by friday night i decided that come the morrow i would just tell him i wasn't coming.
saturday am: on my facebook page for all my truly good friends to see: "you are the queen of fucking things up. why stop now?"
i don't need that. i fucking despise people who do things like that. what the fuck is wrong with someone who does something like that? alls i can say is: i am personally responsible for him having a vasectomy in 1997, so YOU'RE WELCOME.
*
delete!
*
and i'm not going to austin.
and i must offer a repetitive, but this time fucking truly SINCERE, thank you for all the people in my life who have cared about me over the years and dealt with me dealing with that. may i never learn firsthand the depths of your frustration. but i am so fucking grateful for you.
*
it takes a long fucking time for things to sink in. see the first paragraph of this post and please do not condemn me too much.
last week the sun was out. this is me now, living my awesome life, fuck yeah.
thanks for reading.
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