Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

Pillars, Crutches, and Other Manner of Support Systems

As I lay in bed the other night trying to fall asleep with used tissues littering the floor, it occurred to me that beyond the pain of my father’s death, his loss was not just the loss of a father who could be counted on to exhibit and act on his concern for me on a daily basis but it was the loss of any remnant of being the beloved daughter as she was cared for in childhood. Not childhood in a child’s sense, but in the sense that in some families a child knows that her problems can be shared with her parents throughout her life (shared as in expressed, which somehow shifts the burden).

Now, I share my mother’s problems. I am her ears and shoulders when she needs to have someone listen to what she did that day and how she is feeling or doing that day. It is not right, or I don’t feel that it is right, to seriously share with her my thoughts and concerns. It’s not that she doesn’t ask me how I am doing and wants to honestly hear, but for once I realize that she just doesn’t need my unburdening. No, I need to be her vessel. Maybe this is a step in the maturity of a child, a bit late, but such was the relationship that I had with my parents.

During most of my marriage and before the divorce, when things were getting bad but not bad enough yet to act on them, I held all counsel within. Then, when it reached the point that I would drive away, week after week, from the house in tears and fear for my life, I finally broke down and called my parents. They became my pillars. They gave me money to hire a divorce lawyer. They listened to me as stories tumbled out about their “son”-in-law’s fierce nastiness. To them I could unendingly vent as I couldn’t with friends. What friend could really listen to the unbroken story of a broken heart as she is trying to live through the dramas of her own life?

Was it selfish that I unburdened on my parents? I don’t know. I know that it was too hard to deal with the pain of my life on my own and they were there to levitate the pain as much as possible.

And now, now I need to be here to help shift the burden of my mother’s pain and emptiness, and fears.

For my daughters I need to remain chief booster and boaster. That is what they need and deserve. That is what I have been trained to be.

Perhaps the time has finally come for me stand firm. Maybe I don’t need anyone to hold my tissue box for me. At first I thought that I still needed to be propped up, but now I am starting to feel like one of those blocks that stays in place even when the blocks around it have been removed. I stay in place only because those blocks transferred their power and strength to me.

Closure, What It Feels Like

I finally got to court on Wednesday; “got to” meaning that we were all there, including the judge, but we didn’t face the judge because nasty lady lawyer decided that we were not properly prepared to face the judge who would get mad at us all for arguing about little things, as in the Battle of the Grocery Store Receipts. That was, to a large extent, because, as she tried to make it out, I did not present the hundreds of pages of receipts and bills to her and her associate early enough to send to exman. Of course, I was never told that I needed to have them in to her early enough to send to him in advance (and in chronological order). She, of course, also said that it was because I got emotional over the summer when there was another delay and I need to, basically, act my age. I was also charged as guilty for not having continued to present receipts to him all the time, as it stated in the PSA but which he always ignored and so I stopped. 

But I don’t feel like mulling over how the lawyers I have encountered have failed me. In spite of her not preparing me to properly prepare for court, I do think she was the best lawyer I have encountered and too bad that I didn’t have her earlier instead of the lawyer who I thought was as good as could be when, in fact, he was incompetent. (Note to self and others: do as Charlotte did and go for the unattractive lawyer if you’re going with a man.)

Okay, the point. Nasty lady lawyer, who wouldn’t let exman rile her and abuse her as he has done to three associates at her law firm as well as the receptionist (imagine that, verbally abusing a receptionist) told exman off and, perhaps momentarily, put him in his little place. Her reaction to him: he’s extremely unattractive; he looks dissolute, as if he might, on occasion, be drinking too much; is seedy and unkempt looking; oh, and he is still in love with me and is devastated by the divorce. She even told him that he’s upset that I left him and it must hurt him that I am so cute. Oh, the woman has balls.

But that’s still not the point. The point is that I am finished, finished with worrying about him getting the better of me, of him getting away with owing me money. I’m just done. What has been has been, and now I am ready to let it go, so I won’t have more money to buy an apartment, and so I have spent too much money on lawyers, I am content as in not mad at myself for letting him win without putting up a fight and not disappointed in myself for having given in. Content that I have done all that I could have—should have—and content, too, that I have come out at the place where I am. 

For the first time I don’t see that another process will bring me anything I need—or that I will get—and am ready to let go. Sure, she said that she will meet with him to go over his receipts and my receipts (at no charge to me she even told him—and she charges quite a lot), but I don’t feel anchored to that in any way. No, I have left the anchor behind. I am no longer moored in any way to him and the marriage and the divorce. Does saying that negate saying it? No, I don’t think so. I really feel complete. Maybe that’s closure, not that there is a tidy end to something (and even an apology and a forgiving), but rather that you feel that no more needs to be done. Does closure happen when you sever your ties to something that had formerly held you? Not that you close a door, but rather that you pass through a doorway. So closure really is an opening, an opening into a space that doesn’t hold you to what had been. Closure, it’s not an end, it’s the gradual movement from one place to another. It is the personal passage from the past to the present.

NOTE: I absolutely loved the fact that this tough 60-something lawyer came to court in an obviously expensive black suit that was decorated with tiny rhinestones and  rhinestone-studded heart-shaped buttons. Oh, she was a sight to see. No power shoulder pads or asexual suiting, she was all woman—all 120 pounds of her in her three-inch heels, ready to do battle with any pin-stripe that came her way.

What I Learned this Thanksgiving

This year, as in the past four years, I went to New York to celebrate Thanksgiving with my brother and his wife’s family. It has become a wonderful opportunity for me to become a part of her family and for her family to become my family, as well as to meet up with my New York friends.

In past years the sympathy factor has been in my direction because I was still in the throes of the bitterness of my life/divorce. But now I have been in my own lovely apartment for six months, and the most visible remnant of the bitter divorce is the court case that's coming up in a week and a half (I haven’t given up on getting from him the $14,000 he owes me), all of which means that I am basically on par with everyone else in the “dealing with life” aspect of things. Which brings me to what I have uncovered or acknowledged: that we are all simply dealing with life. It doesn’t seem that we are enjoying it, rather we are simply handling the things that keep coming at us and we just keep going at it. I wonder, then, if we need to adjust our expectations so that the “dealing with” becomes less of an intrusion into what should be our unending happiness and instead we should understand that life as it’s lived is not just an intrusion but life itself. Would we feel better about our lives and ourselves if we expected the complications and not the beaches?

Most of those gathered round the table are in our forties and fifties, and we are all in the midst of lives that we have found to be ours—none of us can claim that this is the life he or she expected when we were the ages that our mostly teenage children are now. None of us was complaining in the “woe is me” way of the world, but we are all dissatisfied or still hoping for better times ahead or at least times that aren’t so full of pains, and exhaustion, and concerns.

Happiness. What is it? Is it sitting around a table passing plates and platters or is it being untouched on a pedestal? Is it sharing words spoken and heard, or unending attention? Is it sharing stories of aches or being free from compassion? I wonder.

I wonder if now that my house is as in order as it’s ever going to be the time has come to reassess what being thankful means.

Thankful. Full of thanks.

Thanksgiving. Giving thanks.

Thanks, not for what could have been or should have been, but for what is. Is that a new, working definition of happiness?

Friday Night, Alone

When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, there was no fourteen-year-old who greeted me by closing the door to her bedroom but then popping out a few minutes later to ask what’s to eat, nor was there a Maltese named Poops who jumped up and danced on his hind legs when he saw me. There was only the dining room table with its self-created collection of piles to greet me. It's his weekend with them both.

I unpacked the bag of groceries that I bought for my evening at home, trying to ignore the silence by turning on the radio. I put away the frozen pizza and the two bottles of beer. After I responded to some emails, I went into my daughter’s room, piled her clothes on a chair as I had done when I was her age instead of the floor mounds that she prefers, arranged her five pillows on her bed, lay down, and lifted up the remote for what would be hours of unending numbness. It’s not that my job is so hard that I need to unwind so intensely, perhaps it’s because I don’t watch tv other than those Friday nights (okay, the occasional Saturday night if I’ve been grading or on the computer for too long—I think I need a “life”) but it is time that enables me to detach from my mind. Perhaps this is how I meditate. Sometimes it gets hard to think and be aware.

So there I was, on a hot pink sheet for hours watching Say Yes to the Dress and House Hunters International. The thought of why it is always those two programs that I return to kept trying to break into my mindlessness. Is it because I like to see people so happy, so ready to step into another phase of their lives, that I want to become a voyeur? Is it that I wish that for myself and so I live vicariously through them? Maybe it’s a bit of both; maybe I’m anticipating more change. But it’s also that there is nothing else that I can settle my mind onto. I cannot watch the news or opinion shows because I’m tired of listening to people open and close their mouths repeatedly without saying anything. (I don’t ignore the news, I still read mine.) I know, I know, I’m sure some of my students say that about me [especially the ones who wrote “I hate this class” on my “What I Want to Do This Year” sign on the backboard before I ripped it off in a moment that combined hurt and bitchiness (no one was there to witness this act)]. And I can’t watch scripted programs because everything is so fake and contrived that I don’t see how I could ever have been compelled to watch so much falsity in writing and acting.

How bare can I make my life? Is that why I need to watch tv every once in a while? How much can my life, a life, revolve around one’s actions and thoughts and the people one encounters? Is that why we read and watch? Is that how we expand our circle if we need it to be larger than it is in reality? Or do we need to incorporate ideas and people and images that don’t always challenge us and demand attention from us on a personal level? Do I need the numbness because there are so many people I need to care about everyday that I need to just stop sometimes? In a week I have about 185 students, each is an individual who I need—want—to understand and reach, and who I care about. Maybe it is about the job. Maybe it’s more draining than I realized. I get up in front of my classes three times a day and on religious school days, four or six times a day. And each time I’m on stage; I need to sense the audience and project, and thrust my personality out so that it meshes with the instruction. Is that why I don’t watch dramas? Not because of the corny stories and plasticine acting, but because I have too many lives to care about that I cannot expand my heart anymore?

Is this about self-preservation? Do I need to return my thoughts and cares to myself instead of always extending them and sharing them? Do I need to come back to myself at the end of the week because if I didn’t there wouldn’t be anything to share the next week? When I walk, I think. When I read, I think. When I watch, I detach. Maybe it’s not as much of a time-waster as I thought.

Where’s the remote?

Random Thoughts on a Sunny Sunday

 • How is it that we are supposed to help a country, Iraq, if so many people there find that killing each other is better than learning to live with each other? Yes, it’s only a few who are terrorists. Yes, the terrorists might not even be from there. Yes, maybe the terrorists became terrorists after the US-invasion and occupation. But still, it’s hard to keep caring about people who keep blowing themselves up. Blowing each other up at weddings, while shopping, while looking for a job, while working, and worst of all, while mourning a loss at a funeral. Isn’t there a purpose to life other than another person’s death?

• Why do wealthy people register for gifts when they get married? Really? People need to buy gifts for Ivanka Trump and her new husband, who are both from real estate empire families. Can’t a person ever say enough? Why not a gift registry of organizations to donate to if they feel that they always deserve something? They should be ashamed of themselves.

• I wonder what happens in a teen’s mind that enables him to transition from writing essays that are merely lists in paragraph form to writing essays that analyze? Now I know why I’m happy to be teaching 12th graders and not just 9th graders: there are the occasional thoughts swirling around.

• Helicopter parents are not the only helicopters around, this morning I observed a helicopter wife. Really? He can’t put his own food into the microwave and spread the butter on his own bagel? He can hold the door for you but he can’t carry his cup of coffee? Are thoughts like these a reason why I am unattached?

• There is a man out there with whom I will find comfort, but I don’t know if we will find each other.

• Being a three-quarter empty-nester is better than being a complete empty-nester, but my, how I miss being on-duty all of the time. I’m pleased that both of my daughters are independent, and that I am independent of them, but it’s still hard to have a few dishes that reflects my eating and snacking habits.

• It’s beautiful outside. It’s time to put a bra on and go pick up my daughter from her weekend. She will probably say “okay” and turn away when I ask her how her weekend was. But we will be together on this beautifully sunny afternoon for at least a little while and I will be relieved from the pressure of thinking about myself and the world we live in. Enjoy the day.

5770: Starting Off Quietly

On Saturday evening I went to a friend’s house for a mid-holiday Rosh HaShanah (New Year) dinner. Besides me, there were three couples and their two, two, and one children. I had thought before the evening that I would feel a stab of discomfort or loss at my unaccompanied presence. For a brief moment before it was time to go I even considered cancelling and staying wed to my couch. But I didn’t. It could be that my friend and her friends and family were all interested and interesting people so the conversation flowed easily and I didn’t get caught in any down-times in conversation that left me without a built-in conversation partner.

Have I overcome a hump? The “I’m alone” hump? Am I now resolutely in the “it’s okay to be alone” phase? Is this what it feels like to be a person who is not dependent on another or with others dependent on her—or wishing that someone would depend on me? Should I rejoice in this chance to focus on what I want to focus and not moan that one daughter is in California and the other spent the holiday with her father? Is this my chance to be stripped of imposed-upon roles so that I can whittle myself down to my own essence? It’s as if I can feel the layers of personhood that I was and still am, but now I can also clearly discern the self—my self. Enough time was given up to the regret phase that I am purified of it, and so this transcendence doesn’t feel like a trick of a mourning self, but the very real reflection of a person who respects herself and her life.

So this is what it’s like to be me. I talk read write critique listen laugh greet walk observe eat shop cook drive plan think inquire doubt. I don’t seem to do anything. But perhaps that is not essential to me. The doing is the living. This is my life. It doesn’t need highlights to be a highlight. Satisfied with who I am, does that mean that I am not looking for someone to redefine me? Does it mean, too, that I will not let someone else redefine me? I hope so. It’s taken a while to reach this configuration of self; a while and a journey. It seems that I do things. But I also contemplate them.

I have begun 5770. A new year. Stepping into a new year with the fullness of how the years past have wrought me and excited for how I will hone the future, moment by moment. 

Waking from a Nap

On Friday afternoon I took my usual afternoon nap so that I could make it past eight o’clock still a member of the adult community. I napped on a couch in my lovely living room, facing the large sliding glass doors that are always open except when I go to sleep or when I’m not at home. When I woke the sky was in shades of gray; I tried not to think, but just to feel the coolness and the calm. When I finally got up I put on, for the first time in a few seasons, my light, at-home sweater that I bought years ago at a street market in Tel Aviv with a friend. The September chill felt more comforting than the heat of the summer. While I lay there my mind was focused on the now. It was a lovely interlude from the preoccupations of a wake and expressive self. It was a lovely interlude from the intensity of the first week of school and having to deal with exman and his stringent demand to adhere to the letter of the custody agreement that we drew up three years ago.

In a phone conversation later my mother told me that I shouldn’t think about how I had a lawyer who let me negotiate from a point a weakness and not a point of strength, but that was after we once more picked apart how utterly petty and evil my ex-husband is. It’s not that he really wants my younger daughter there, no. He even said to me in one of the fourteen calls that he made to me in the course of two hours the other night, and which he recorded, that he thinks I want her to stay with me more than is written in the agreement because I want to get more money from him. This is a man who has not paid a penny of child support since we moved out of the house in June. This is a man who ignored this wonderful girl for years while he tried to infiltrate the mind of my older daughter, until she went across the country to get away from him. This is a man who uses and manipulates.

The mantra that a friend told me I should recite to myself is “you’re out of there,” and that is good. I cannot tell you how at peace and happy I am in my apartment. And even the new school year and teaching a grade that I never taught before and needing to create all new lesson plans and teaching four different classes at religious school are all exciting and invigorating. So I know what feeling good is like. But the ache I have for my daughter is intense. As a glass half-full person I tell myself that at least I didn’t have to fulfill the custody agreement when the girls were younger, when it was both of them, that now, at least, his negativity and emotional cruelty towards me and the world will have less of an impact on my daughter, my sweet, sweet daughter who is no longer such an impressionable child.

But it’s so unbelievably hard having to deal with someone who is so very poisonous.

When I told him that I don’t want to have to talk to him, that I want to do these movement-of-daughter discussions via email and to please give me his email address he refused, because he doesn’t want to get emails from me. And when, after his recitation of his time calculations that will enable me to somewhat change the agreement for one week to confirm to my daughter’s request, I told him to just tell me when he would be over and if he was bringing Poops, his response to me was “don’t dictate to me.” My reasoned response was, “I’m hanging up.” And I did. Nor did I answer another one of his insane calls. I turned the sound off my cellphone so I wouldn't even have to be aware of them.

I know there are people who act as intermediaries between formerly-married couples so they don’t have to talk to each other. But I’m too tired of spending money on that man. I will try to deal with him on my own, and I will continue to strengthen myself by standing up to him—for me and my daughter-s. My mantra when dealing with him needs to be “He’s just a bully” because that’s all he is.

I can’t believe how endless this is.

In our conversation the other night my mother reminded me that he had told me that he will hound me until he can spit on my grave. He can’t do that. I am determined to compartmentalize my interactions with him, in fact, the writing of this post is the lighting of the fire and the extinguishing of it for this episode.

 

Today I wrote eight pages of my novel, which I can proudly say has reached 90 pages and which I am very pleased with. And I took Poops for two half-hour walks. And I created three handouts for my students (one each on apostrophes, commas and an in-class reading log). So I no longer let him impact me, much.

One day it will be four years from now and younger daughter will be off to college. And the burden of marrying wrong will have lifted even more from me—and them. But I will not wish those years to fly past; I want to enjoy my daughter as she grows into the woman she will become. And I want to enjoy listening to her sister blossom with each and every phone call. I will taste the sweetness and let the bitterness fall to the bottom of my cup, unstirred and undisturbed.

I can't resist

I can't help but laugh when I see the blustering Dick Armey in the news lately. He comes off as a man of no morals, and for whom money and strong arm tactics are central--to hell with people. He talks of tyranny as a man who knows--does anyone seem more tyrannical than him? Is it any wonder that exman, when he was still on his way up, found a friend and mentor in Dick Armey? They were buds for a while.

Arrogant men, can't they just bother each other and leave the rest of us alone?   

Penciling in Dates

An update on how the system's been treating me.

June 18        The house was finally sold in a six-hour "ceremony." Since exman still owed me money (for food, shelter and clothing for his daughters), I filed a complaint in court. The lawyer (one level down the totem pole from Nasty Lady Lawyer) told me the hearing would be on June 26. Since she made a mistake in the filing, a revision needed to be prepared and sent to court by another lawyer (four levels down from Nasty Lady Lawyer) and we were given a new date—July 24. I needed to prepare a lot of things and make a lot of copies for that hearing, which I did.

July 22         When I arrived at 4:50 for my 4:30 meeting (because there was so much traffic) with the lawyer-to-the-4th to prepare for court in two days, she told me that exman had hired a lawyer and the hearing would be rescheduled. She mentioned August 13th as the day she thought this would happen.

July 23         Lawyer-to-the-4th and his lawyer went to court to postpone the hearing.

At this point I sent an email to Nasty Lady Lawyer telling her that I did not want any one to do anything on my case except get a new date. I noted that I feared that the amount I would get was not much more than the amount it would cost me.

July 27 or August 3         I don’t know on which day the scheduling hearing took place because lawyer-to-the-4th never bothered to contact me (was this part of not doing anything?). At that meeting exman appeared by himself because he had fired his fourth lawyer. The new date for the hearing is DECEMBER 9! Lawyer-to-the-4th, feeling pleased with herself (somehow) had the gall to write to me (after I emailed her asking WELL?) that she told exman “no more continuances.” Yeah, she really has him eating out of her hand.

I have decided that I must be as detached from the legal dealings as I am from the dating game. Just play along until something proves to me that I am being taken seriously. No more tears or sleepless nights. These are the follies of my life. I regret going to court this time, but I have started it and will see where it leads. By the way, I do not get child support nor do I think that it will ever come to pass because it will involve more hassles and fighting that I don't want to undertake because I want and need to be done with him, hence the desire to get some of what he owes me for the last two years. 

I just received a bill from the electric company. Shocker. He didn't pay what he owes them and since his electricity is apparently included in his rent in his new place, they want me to pay it. I just kept repeating to the supervisor on the phone (in a not very calm tone that I apologized for at the beginning--stating that this is coming at the end of a bitter divorce) that "I don't owe them anything." She got off the phone, but I don't think that will be the end of that.

The System Speaks

HA HA HA HA HA! You thought you could beat the System. You thought the System was fair. Woman, how is it possible that you never lost your naïveté? How could you think that your voice would be heard? No one cares! The judges don’t care. The lawyers don’t care. Your lawyers don’t care. Only you care. But who are you? You are nothing. So you thought just because you got a piece of paper that said COURT JULY 24 that that would happen. How stupid could you be? Have you not been through FOUR years of this to know that you will never have your day in court!? Have you learned nothing?

DELAYS. OBSTRUCTIONS. INCOMPETENCE. That’s what wins.

How could you not expect the System to work for your ex-husband? He is the epitome of the System, of the kind of people who created the System and who thrive in it. Of course your ex-husband will do something that will get the System to bend toward him because the System is stacked for him and against you. You who think that the System is here to hear you and pity you and understand poor poor you. HA HA HA HA HA!

Of course he will hire a lawyer four days before the court date who can’t appear on Friday and who needs time to prepare for court. Of course it is summer and the judges (those Guardians of the System) prefer to play golf on Fridays rather than listen to your whimperings.

Go back. Go back to your little life and stop pestering the System. Relinquish your attempt at moral superiority and go back. Relinquish your illusions and go back. Retreat from thinking there is equity and fairness. Retreat to your place. You will get no money. You will not be heard. There is nothing to hear. Not even your cries.

You will not be heard.

The Symbolism of the Laundry

I just did a load of laundry. One bath towel. One blouse. Three tee shirts. One tee shirt-pajama top. Three pairs of undies. One bra. One pair of jeans. One cloth napkin. Two kitchen towels. A white wash is in the machine. I think there are four white shirts in that load.

The laundry is hanging to dry on a portable air dryer on the terrace.

Before May 16th, the last time I did a laundry for one, was in the apartment where I lived in Ramat Gan (a suburb-city outside of Tel Aviv) before I got married. Since then I have done thousands of loads for two, then for three, then for four.

Then for three, when I no longer did his laundry. He started doing his own laundry when I stopped folding his undies. The idea of touching them disgusted me and so I left them in a pile on the bed. I guess he got the message.

Then for two, when I no longer did younger daughter’s laundry. She took the modern version of home ec last year and once she had to do laundry as part of her class, she decided that she was going to keep doing it for herself. And she has stuck with that.

Then for one, when older daughter moved to California. She did her first load out there, all by herself. Apparently it’s not so hard and she has managed. Though I do think that younger daughter showed her how to do it before she left.

I’m glad I had all those endless piles of clothes to wash. I’m glad I got to care for loved ones in so basic a way. I loved folding clothes; such a simple way to nourish and nurture. And I loved doing the wash, such an obvious accomplishment. And now I’m glad that I only need to do my little loads that go into the small-capacity machine in this apartment.

It’s very insightful, doing just my own laundry. I see how much I bought things for them and not for myself. I see how my clothes are brighter than I thought they were. I see the continuity of life. Their lives. And mine. 
 

Realization

My book, Get Your Words Off Me, starts with me wondering:

I can’t remember the first time my husband insulted me or what he said because I didn’t even notice that I had been insulted. It wasn’t much of a stretch from the negative comments and forceful suggestions that he was continually giving me about what to do, and what to say, and what to think, and what to feel, and even how to respond to him and his comments. The realization that his caring critiques were really humiliating affronts took far too many years of my taking it, and accepting it as a part of our marriage. The shame is that I didn’t stand up to him the first time the word “fat” or “ugly” or “nothing” or maybe it was “stupid” came out of his mouth and scream back at him, “DON’T YOU EVER TALK TO ME LIKE THAT AGAIN!” Who knows, maybe that would have been enough to break a pattern before it started? But I didn’t. And so my life became one filled with far too many insults, and distrust and fear of the man I had once loved and respected, and much too much silence from me.

Now I know the answer to that question. No, that would not have stopped the downward turn of this marriage. Nothing would have stopped that. The answer in its starkest form came to me on Thursday afternoon.

On Thursday there was the first encounter after the move from the house three weeks ago. I was to drop off our dog for his week to pick up Poops’ poop. I called when I arrived at the gate of his apartment complex (I was so not surprised that he moved to a gated community). When he approached me I said that he needs a leash since I had to buy a leash since he took the leash. He commented that my daughter had brought it to my house; no she hadn’t, I said and then reiterated that I had to buy this one.

Then he asked if I brought his food bowls. No, I said, I had not. “They are not yours, you can’t take them,” was the comment.

“I had to buy a leash, you can buy bowls.”

“Bitch. I’m out of here. Fuck you.”

Yes, I am sure that if I would have yelled back at him that he was “fat” and “ugly” he would have just expanded the range, as he did. And I’m sure, too, that if I had tried to explain to him how much it hurt me to be called fat and ugly (does that really need explaining?), he would not have heard a word that went from my mouth to his ears because he was not making statements, he was expressing something ugly about himself. I was too kind when I wrote this a few years ago, but I was still married to him then and thinking that he isn’t as slimy and nasty as he is.

The other day in my writing group that is part of my Writing Project class a woman said that her husband, who had verbally abused her, finally got down on his knees and prayed and found it in himself to stop hurting her. When I read this excerpt from my book, she commented that she had yelled back at him that first time because she had the self-confidence. Then she said something that really cut to the quick, she said that her husband had really loved her. Yes, her husband had it in him to love someone besides himself. My ex, he was and is incapable of caring for anyone more than himself or even as much as himself. Maybe the way I handled things was the right way with this beast, preventing worse things from happening. But I am certain now that confrontation that first time would not have helped.

Since that day we had been through my talking back, my yelling back, counseling, mediation,  lawyer meetings, legal wranglings, police visits, and the sale of the house and nothing in his attitude or utterances has changed. If none of that had made an impact on him, and if four years of pain in the household did not have an impact on him, turning to him and saying, “You’re hurting me when you say that,” would not have prevented him from becoming who he is.

The Pit of My Stomach

This morning on my drive to my first Teaching of Writing class I was thinking about my next blog post. I knew that I wanted to write about how different I feel now that I have been living in my own apartment since June 12, but I wasn’t really sure in what way I felt different. Sure, I have been smiling more and I don’t get anxious when I drive home, but I wasn’t sure how to pinpoint and explain the difference. People tell me I sound happier, but I can’t really assess that. It’s like when your kids are growing, you don’t notice it until someone comes for a visit and remarks on how much they have grown or developed or matured. So it felt like that. Until 9:10 this morning. Then I knew.

At 9:10, when I was in class, I saw that exman was calling. Then two minutes later, another call. Then again at 9:19. Then a voice mail message. For the next hour until I could hear the message, my stomach was a pit of acid, a tightness clenching and churning within. And I could feel my face sag and my shoulders droop. That’s what I had been missing. No, not missing because that would imply that I longed for something, no, that is what I had been living without. That is what my life had been cleared of. The minefield that had been my life was cleared. I didn’t have to walk clenched, worried about the next explosion or in fear that no matter what I did, he was going to explode.

Then, when I listened to his message a classmate turned to me and asked, “Are you alright?” because I could not suppress the anguished groan that escaped when I heard his voice and heard what he had to say. There was no curse, there was no insult, it was just his being mean, dictating a custody issue, but it was, as always, him playing to some imaginary courtroom with judge in full regalia. And he stated his name in full for better affect, I guess, for the judge; if he hadn't said it in such a venomous tone, it might have been funny.

A minefield. Yes, surely that’s what I had been living in. But that fist in my stomach, that’s what I have not had, that’s what’s different, that’s the tangible change that I am aware of.

I’m glad it came today, because now I am aware of how I have physically changed, and how I had been physically altered. It was so startling, so obvious: the call, then the tightness. Now I know what to fight, what to not let happen to me again, or at least not let stay with me until I forget how it feels to be normal, to be without a fist within while walking in the middle of a minefield.

How do I feel? I feel calm. Peaceful.

Advice from a Friend Who’s Been There

Sometimes the advice friends give are better taken as expressions of concern from a friend who cares but certainly not advice to be acted upon. But yesterday I spoke with a friend who gave me the advice that I needed to hear and the advice that I think is the right advice to act upon. And for that I sincerely thank her, even if she was cleaning her refrigerator while we were talking. I’m taking the liberty of passing on the advice that cost her many hours and dollars in therapy and challenging moments with her own daughter and psycho-ex (her phrase).

You need to have mantras. These are some of the mantras she shared with me for dealing with exman/slime on custodial issues. We are only one week into younger daughter going back and forth and already he is being himself, causing problems, lying and bullying everyone around.

Take the high road. Get yourself out of the conflict between you and your ex because that is over, and put your daughter in the center. It is no longer about your failed marriage and bitter divorce; it is about taking care of your daughter as best as you can, regardless of what he does. It is about enabling her to grow up as independently as possible from the conflict that her parents have wrought.

Take the pressure off her. Don’t make her choose between parents, and don’t make her any more anxious than needs to be. Just step back.

"I will support whatever decision you make." This mantra is to be repeated to daughter instead of transmitting to her any of my fears of loss (of her love and attention) or anger (at exman/slime).

"I will do whatever you choose." A variation on the previous mantra, because it’s not good to keep repeating myself. Again, stepping back and letting her find comfort as best as she can without the added agony of worrying about how her actions will impact me.

Though these will surely be hard to act upon and say, they make sense and seem worthwhile to recite to myself and daughter. When she said them, I knew she was right. Right in the way the friend who told me to just put daughter on a bus to visit her grandparents in New York regardless of ex’s games was wrong. Sometimes there is a difference between what would feel good for me and what would be good for her, and that is what I need to remember. It is about how I continue being the best mother possible for her. That is the only relationship that counts now.

Some Men I Have Been Annoying Lately

I’m not sure what’s going on, but it must be that either I grate a lot of men the very wrong way or the men with whom I have come into contact lately are in very bad moods. Is it me or is it them? Is it some prickliness that seems to have become a part of me? Or is it my mouth—and fingers—and how they say what I think are fine things but other people, boy, they hear other things.

Man at graduation ceremony: During the graduation ceremony for my school I was working the security detail, which means that I was to stand at a portal of the sports center to ensure that people were sitting in their seats and the space for the handicapped was used appropriately. There was a “professional” security person at that portal as well, along with two other teachers. We got there an hour before the ceremony began, which is when the doors opened.

A woman with her mother in a wheelchair arrived at least a half hour early. The mother is afraid of heights so she didn’t want to sit right at the railing, instead the two of them sat back a bit.

For some reason, the security guard agreed to let five very heavy women sit in seats in the handicapped area, but enough space was left so that the mother and her daughter could see from their spot away from the edge.

A half hour after the ceremony began a man arrived with his mother in a wheelchair, his wife and kids. I approached him and (I think) politely told him that he can’t put the chair in that spot since it would block the view of the woman sitting in her wheelchair. His comment to me was basically, “You’re going to tell me what to do?” “Yes,” I said, “I am.” At which, I swear, I could hear his chauvinistic wheels turning. He said that the woman needs to move there and if not there is no reason why he can’t put his mother there. “Because you can’t,” I said. I saw no reason to explain to this man this woman’s fear of heights and just said that she came early and she was unable to move up. Again the chauvinistic wheels churned, he said “Call security,” and he shoved his wheelchair forward, put his mother into place and went to sit in the stands. (There was still space for them to see, they needed to do an angle thing to their bodies.)

Bastard.

Settlement attorney:  Not only was he extremely unfriendly [perhaps because he didn’t like that he felt obliged to let my lawyer (a woman) and me sit in his golf-obsessed office] but he, too, had the boy tantrum thing going on. When we got to the signing part of the day, when exman threatened to leave because I wouldn’t sign something, that was okay. But when I went out of the room for a moment to talk to my lawyer I could hear him raise his voice and say something about “she.” I didn’t hear what he said, but I am sure it was about how “she’s playing games.” Really? I’m just trying not to get screwed anymore and that’s interpreted as playing games. So be it.

Man with no humor: For no real reason, I answered a Craig’s List ad (I know, I know, DON’T GO THERE) and after I made, what I thought was a joke based on a funny spelling mistake that he made, I was told, that he didn’t like being laughed at. I even prefaced the comment with a caveat that I am an English teacher. The puns were funny; what would you do if someone talked about a navel base? Sure, better without him, but what is happening?

Or is nothing happening and I just keep meeting men who quite obviously don’t mesh with me and not to sweat it. But still, you know, it hurts. It hurts to be misconstrued. It hurts to be told that you’re mean when you don’t think you are. It makes me wonder how we can communicate when there are so many ways in which thoughts don’t get understood the way they were meant to be. I did mean to be funny, certainly not hurtful. Was he too sensitive? Am I too insensitive?

Man who really should be spanked: Then there’s the man on Plenty of Fish (no, there aren’t, and yes, I turned my profile off) who about a week ago wrote to me something about being spanked. I did not reply. Today he popped up again, and when I said something about how capitalization and apostrophes are important to me he replied that he has a Ph.D., that I am too anal retentive (is there a proper amount or does my asking this mark me as definitely being anal?) and that I am obviously ignorant, stupid and judgmental. And this from a man who wants to be spanked and compares himself to Einstein because he, too, couldn’t spell. He obviously thought everything he said was okay, but not everything I said. Before I could he reply he had me blacklisted from his account. HELLO, shades of control all over the place.

Is there something I’m missing? Were my years trying to survive exman more damaging than I thought? Is my desire to be blunt and open so that I won’t go into another relationship that will end up leaving me voiceless leaving me open to being insulted and misunderstood? Are men really as controlling as they seem to be? Seriously, what’s with the insults? And why, why do they see everything they utter as charming and me, well, I’ve been blacklisted, deleted and side-swiped. 

It’s been about two years since I started dating. In that time, I only dated one man more than three times and he turned out to be the incredibly unreliable pseudo-man. I’ve been told I’m too picky. I’ve been told that being friends is not enough. I haven’t been moved by anyone. It took a while, but now I’m really wondering about my man antennae, after all I picked exman/slime and pseudo both of whom turned out to be controlling, mind-game players and dangerously selfish. I’ve been told I’m fat (sorry, not “height-weight proportionate”). I have not responded to men who were not attractive to me or with whom I did not feel that there was enough to go on for a relationship to develop. Time, yes, time may be what will bring about a meeting of man and woman. And going with the flow and not trying to force things may also work. I’ve been told to join groups, and maybe I will (other than women’s groups that is, and the political group turned out to include women and retired people). But that still doesn’t answer my question as to why I feel that I have been encountering so much negativity and nastiness.

I genuinely don’t get it. Are men too serious or am I too irreverent? Oh, who cares. (Yes Microsoft Word, I am overriding your desire to have me put a question mark there.) They’re not even funny stories anymore; they’re not entertaining and they’re certainly not making me feel good about my prospects for finding a decent, loving, intelligent, caring man who doesn’t go running to the hills at my humor or try to mini-sermonize me.
Alone is good. I know that. And I revel in the freedom I feel and the joy of a simple flow of life. I should stop reaching for a while. I should stop worrying about what others think, that is until I find others who like how I think, then I will attend to them.

My heart. I guess I need to put it back into my chest, but it keeps wanting to find a playmate. 

SOLD; Bitter to the End

The house was finally SOLD on Thursday, but as usual, not without a long drawn-out process and a “this never happened to me in all the years I have been a lawyer” scenario. I am grateful that this has come to pass, but annoyed that, as usual, I didn’t get the money and the respect (yes, that’s the word) that I deserve. No, I don’t think I’m being spoiled, this divorce struggle has not been about money but about regaining self-respect and getting respect.

Rather than a brief little signing around a very big table, I got to spend more than four hours getting frustrated and annoyed. I even had nasty lady lawyer on the phone and an associate of hers on the spot (with a record for putting deadbeats in jail), but neither of them got me any more money out of exman-slime than he had been prepared to pay the previous day and now I will have some hefty legal fees to pay. (This lawyer’s assessment of exman-slime: a chauvinistic hothead.) I was trying to recoup some of the money he owes me for not paying the mortgage for six months (because this lowered the amount of money paid by the mortgage company), not paying his share of the electricity for more than a year, and in general not paying his share of home and daughters’ expenses since the divorce in 2007. He was willing to pay a portion of what he owes on the past-due portion of the mortgage, but not nearly all that he owes. So this was my chance to finally get what is due to me (monetarily).

Before going there I had been asking my lawyer about putting money in escrow and she had assured me that it would be no problem. Well it was. The settlement company refused to place money in escrow if it was not agreed upon by both parties. WHOOHOO. This was the Las Vegas winning scenario that never happened in 40 years. I had nothing to hold over him; I had no leverage to get him to increase what he was willing to pay. It was his "Get Out of Jail" card. And to make it even more annoying, the settlement attorney was nasty to me because I had the gall to be annoyed at this. Oh, and all of a sudden the realtor (who saw me right after the almost-fight in the house the other day when I ran out with a box of photo albums with him right behind me with his little recorder friend) was on his side. The realtor, who he told he would sue (this seems to be what he tells everyone, even my attorney’s receptionist when she didn’t put his call through but took a message) and who refused to show him rental properties, was there for him. I guess she felt bad that I had a lawyer there and poor little him was all on his lonely. Nothing but frustrations.

As a side matter and pick me up, I did get a letter from an assistant principal at school yesterday that was put into my file that stated how much of a team player I have been in the past few weeks and how helpful I have been to my colleagues.

So now I’ve filed in court for next Friday to try again to get some of this money. I know I should let it go. But I feel I need this one last attempt or this one last stand and then, then I will be ready.

He did tell his best buddy, the realtor, that he is thinking about leaving the area, which would be marvelous, except he said that he might go to California where oldest daughter is recuperating from life at home.

Now, now I am going to my bathroom to color my hair. Suddenly the gray looks gray and not chic. Yes, I am ready to move on, but I need this one last attempt to know that I have fought as sanely as possible, that I wasn’t a frier (Hebrew for someone who is taken advantage of and one of the worst things you could say about someone in Israel).

And after that, when younger daughter and her two friends who slept over last night get up, I will make blueberry pancakes for them and they will still have more to talk and laugh about. Then we will get field hockey equipment for her, and I will drive her to another friend’s house, and I will shop for curtains and a drainboard and whatever else I need to make this apartment more comfortable. But how, how could it be more comfortable because right now, right now I couldn’t be more comfortable.

Comfort to you, always.

 

Dissolution of a Marriage

I’m trying to come up with some lessons learned to share, other than not to marry a psychopath, but I’m not coming up with anything. There’s just too much of so much to distill into a list of do’s and don’ts.

In 1985 I couldn’t have foreseen that I was marrying a psychopath. In 1985 I couldn’t have foreseen that the man who was full of promise would accuse me of stealing plastic containers and insult a receptionist at my lawyer’s law firm, and become a virtual joke through his capacity to be evil and petty. In 1985 maybe I did see a glint of “my tribe before all others” but then I thought that it meant that he would protect me and not that he would try to take from me whatever he could. How can you convey the pain of the wrong decision, or the pain of “people change,” or the pain of “no longer have common goals and interests”?

I did not go through this “for a reason” nor did it make me a “better person.” I went through this because it happened, because it is my life, as others live their lives. There is no higher purpose to pain, as there is none to pleasure, it is what it is. And no, I have not become cold and hard, this is the way I have been, taking life into myself and trying to live it without bestowing it with otherworldly qualities.

Rather than being elated in the last few days, I have been tired and bothered by an intermittent headache. Last night I went to bed at 7:30 (mainly because I had two beers because I didn’t want to think, and the beer made me tired), but when I woke up at 10:30 I didn’t get out of bed (except to go to the bathroom numerous times). I just lay there listening to the cars on the highway not far away and music on the radio. I was not really thinking, I was just there, but I wouldn’t call this my time to meditate. Or maybe I could. Maybe I’m going through an invisible wall that divides between the tunnel of “where I have been” to the path (surely not another tunnel) to “where I am going.” Or maybe I am simply tired of life as it’s been lived and now that it is over my body can finally take a break from holding me up.

This stillness bothers me, but I don’t want to fight it. I should probably start going out and doing things, but I find the inertia calming. What is it that I want now that I have gotten the chance to get it?

• I want to do new things.
• I want to be comfortable with who I am.
• I want to be calmer.
• I want to be less guarded.
• I want to touch other people’s lives in a positive way.
• I want to find the balance of motherhood to a teen who is just starting high school and a teen who is on her own.
• I want to be loved.
• I want to love.
• I want to create happiness.
• I want to share.
• I’d also like world peace, afterall my graduate studies were in how to prevent and stop conflicts, so why not.

Beware of the Bread Knife Thief!

For some reason I wish I could pity ex-man, but he insists on making sure I don’t land in pity territory, but stay firmly rooted in disgustland.

This morning, I got to the house to take some of my things. Surprisingly and oh, so happily, he was not there, so I took Poops for a walk, took most of what was left in my room, took my food items from the refrigerator and pantry, and assorted kitchen items that were not in hazy “Whose is this?” territory, but were firmly mine, and left. I have no desire to quibble over little glass dishes or Chinese soup bowls, so I’ve taken what I know is mine (from the PSA) and things that are so “mine” since I used them all the time—and he didn’t pick them out (and maybe, even, I received them from my parents)—that I felt that they belonged to me. I made my get-away before he returned and made it back to my apartment before younger daughter and her friend woke up. (Yes, we have had our first sleep-over.)

At around six I took younger daughter to the house to pick up some things before taking her to yet another party. I figured that that would be a good time to pick up some more things. The verbal attack that greeted me was unexpected, unexpected because I had just spent my first night at my new house knowing that I will never sleep under the same roof with exman again, knowing that I will never have to put up with his tantrums and abuse again, knowing that I will never have to face him again. But I was wrong.

The floodgates of his mouth and venom opened as I opened the door. Apparently I have stolen the toaster that we have had for nine years, one of the “parents at the soccer game” type of chairs, and the BREAD KNIFE!

To which I replied: the toaster is mine, it’s in the PSA, but I will check and if it is yours I will bring it back. The chair, I said, we had agreed that I would take two, but I will return one of them. And the bread knife back off from my bread knife because you’re not getting it. Not only was this certainly from my parents, but it is also the knife whose handle broke and whose tip flew off when I slammed it down—point first—on the (I mean, your) cutting board when older daughter told me that you told her that I had put shit on your car and she thought that that must be true. Nope, you’re not getting the knife.

“Thief! I’m making a list of the things you stole.”

“Take me to court.”

And as I trudged upstairs to take apart the shelving unit that I had put together in my closet when I moved out of the master bedroom into the guest bedroom four years ago he screamingly proclaimed that his new hobby would be to make my life miserable (for five years, I guess until younger daughter goes to college in four years).

“You can’t,” I said to myself. "There is just no way that you will invade my life any more. The kudzu is cut."

Tomorrow I need to go back to the house to divide the photograph albums and boxes of assorted daughter-artwork that I have saved. I will wait until younger daughter gets home from her sleep-over because I have no desire to be in the house alone with him, nor do I think it wise.

The knife stays here. Thief my ass. If tears were money, I would have gotten to keep the house and everything in it and he would have had to build a pool for me to house the tears. Bum.

Coming soon: The Annoying Downstairs Neighbor. Let's just say "busybody" is fitting.

Two Days’ Worth of Enough Beads

•  Yes, evil teacher here because I accused a student of plagiarizing an essay. About three-quarters of his essay was word for word from an online essay. His mother, unfortunately, accused me of underestimating the intelligence of her child. She, unfortunately, believed her son when he told her, “NO, of course I did not plagiarize. The horrible, terrible teacher who has been yelling at me all year because I never stop talking in class or calling out or laughing in a stupid guffaw way or saying stupid things doesn’t like me.” Ugh. Two days of accusations against me, with stern notes to the assistant principal until under extreme pressure (torture?) the student admitted to the assistant principal that he did get “some” help from “someone.” I guess after an at-home council he admitted to more to Momsy because suddenly the mother apologized to me. Thanks, but it would have been nicer if you didn’t think I’m the evil teacher from Mathilda (Agatha Trunchbull,) and confronted your son and not me. 

•  Yesterday, after a colleague declined to help another colleague, after another colleague suddenly realized that he couldn’t help, I was asked to help. Of course I said yes. So, poof, there went my planning period. Well, it didn’t totally disappear, I just had to spend it supervising five students taking a final exam in the room of the teacher who had declined to help.

• Today, I was told by the head of the department that I need to sit in on a meeting for her for five to ten minutes, which is generally how long a regular teacher needs to sit in on these meetings. But today, of course, it was special, so instead of a diversion from my planning period, I got to sit in a meeting for 45 minutes about a girl I never met and will most likely will never meet when I finally said that I have to teach a class in five minutes (and I have to pee and eat something). They were oh, so gracious, in letting me leave—even though I had asked the person running the meeting before it started if I could leave after a first few minutes.

    o Just as I left the meeting, my department chair appeared. There was a sorry sorry sorry, and when she tried to catch up to me after talking to someone she ran on the knee that she had operated on two months ago, and then there was a “what do you want from Starbucks?” I am so hoping my thank you and sorry chai tea latte appears tomorrow morning.

• This might sound callous, it’s not, it’s just an expression of frustration or exhaustion or enough! Or maybe it’s just being selfish, which I think we all need once in a while. A close relative of my team teacher’s was killed in a car accident this past weekend, which means that he was physically absent and even more absent-even-when-present than usual. I do care, honestly, but I’m just tired of having to do more and tired of the help I’m supposed to have not helping me. And I need to work on this inter-personal relationship because next year we are slated to teach three classes again together. And maybe, too, the ache of his loss has also seeped into me.

It Could Have Been Worse (One & Two)

1.  There was lightning and thunder this morning. It was a kind of rolling thunder that sounded like a god waking up from a heavy sleep rather than a force of nature attacking. After hitting the snooze button on my cell phone five times, I finally stopped resisting the inevitable and woke up. After three lovely, wonderful, peaceful nights at the apartment, it was hard to adjust (even if only temporarily) to the former marital residence. I dragged myself down the steps to the basement, turned on the water and got into the shower.

Just a few moments after full body coverage by water, the lights went out. Needless to say, a bathroom in a basement is windowless. So there I stood, in the comforting flow of warm hot water not ready yet to concede that it was uncomfortable in the pitch black of the bathroom. That is until I realized that if the electricity is out, then how am I going to get to work since the garage door is electric? And then I remembered that I had parked the car in front of the garage because I have boxes and furniture that need to be donated blocking my part of the garage. Which meant that my car was not in the garage, which meant that I was able to thoroughly enjoy my brief warm hot shower because, well, it could have been worse.

2.  Yesterday I had the briefest of conversations with slime. Since I have not noticed that he has packed a single thing, I told him that the organization to which I am donating things is coming on Tuesday, and, oh by the way, are you going to be packing. He said, yes he would be packing and moving onTuesday (which I knew) and good that the organization is coming then. Okay, I thought after that exchange, I could manage what my lawyer asked of me, and that is to see if he plans on paying the mortgage company what he owes it. I should have known, but I was lulled once again into thinking that he is on the normal scale as opposed to the psycho scale.

And he was off. First trying to tell me that he owes half of what he owes. Then he was trying to explain to me how the mortgage company applies payments (which I am well aware of without your lecture stupid little man). But when I repeated that he owes more and that I don’t want to be screwed out of the amount that is due to me because he is behind, I got the tantrum. After the whole “I’ll sue you” and “my lawyer is a bulldog” BS that came out of his mouth, he was off on a tangent. It’s always interesting (well, it could be interesting in a psychological way if I were a therapist or a researcher, but I’m not) to see where he takes off.

This time he took off to the world in which he is a wonderful guy. Yes, he apparently let me take things from the house. But once he said that, he was convinced of how great he is and then he got mad at how truly terrible I am. Yes—you stole a painting. I admit it, I almost took a photograph that is his (the division of assorted stuff is: if he picked it out, it’s his, which means he gets a lot of stuff), but he saw it in my hands and commented that it’s his and I put it back immediately. But that does not matter, what matters is that he saved the painting from me. And then he was onto how I stole wine glasses, apparently there had been eight. Some broke I said to his hearingless ears. The world in which glasses break because the glass is too thin is not the world he inhabits, no, he inhabits the world where ex-wives steal hree wine glasses (and ex-husbands notice that).

Oh my. But, it really could have been worse if the UNDER CONTRACT sign were not in front of the house and I had not basically moved into a lovely apartment which will be my full-time place in NINE days. 

Here’s to the optimist’s credo (“It could have been worse”): May it provide you with comfort and hope.