Twenty-Two

First, I want to say thank you for the comment, Ms. MJ is not my thing, in fact one of the primary reasons I divorced X was because of his addiction and obsession with it. But, I appreciate your intention, and I do think it's a helpful tool for those who need it. I am not against it, I just didn't like what it was doing to my marriage with X, it caused a great deal of trouble for us. I am actually a complete square, I don't smoke- anything- and I don't touch alcohol, not beer not wine, never have- I didn't even drink my champagne at my wedding reception, A drank it for me! But I will take Vicodin like it's free on the street corner, so go figure. I am doing better, which I guess is why I haven't been on here lately. I have finally found someone who may have the cure I've been looking everywhere for. After all these years of expensive medical tests and procedures and hospitals and pain clinics, of great amounts of every type of pain pill out there, of doctor after doctor being stumped and not being able to help me...it has come down to a simple massage therapist. Yes, that is right, as un-fucking-believable as that sounds. Someone suggested I go see her, and now she is my saving grace, the person who can put me back on the road to recovery and sanity, and hopefully, normalcy. She specializes in trigger point therapy, and for the first time, someone has actually put their hands RIGHT where the pain is, and is addressing it. All the other doctors who thought it was my back, treated me for back problems, but never stopped to listen to me tell them it was not "my back", it was my groin and thigh. I couldn't sit down, it was extreme torture to drive, because my groin felt like it was on fire, my leg felt like it was being ripped away from my body. Even at night when I would try to relax to sleep, the pain and the burning tightness in my leg would not allow me to get comfortable, and I would get very little sleep unless I resorted to about 2-3 sleeping pills every night. I would wake up the next day, haggard, exhausted, still in pain, very angry about it, and very much in an ill mood that would last throughout the day. Each day, each night, the cycle would repeat itself, I would wake up and wonder why bother and I would go to bed praying that I wouldn't wake up the next day, but I would, and I hated life for it, and it has been three very very long years of this. Still, each and every doctor and specialist that I would see decided that it just must be something in my back, I had a pinched nerve perhaps although no one could see it on the Xray or MRI, they couldn't tell me that for sure, they were all just guessing. They would all try something different, a different pill, or more pills, another epidural in a different place in my spine. Nothing, nothing, nothing ever gave me relief. Another Xray, another MRI, another doctor. The massage therapist talked to me, listened to me, had me point out on a diagram of the human anatomy to show her exactly where I hurt and how I hurt. She took my history, and finally we came to a conclusion that my pain was due to contracted muscles in an area where I had a medical problem several years ago, a common female problem that left me doubled over in pain for many months. The medical problem and the groin pain started at the same time, but when the medical problem was cleared up, the staggering pain remained in my groin and upper leg. She told me that when people suffer an injury or have a trauma to their body, it's very common that the muscles and tendons in that area contract with the pain, and that in some instances even once the pain is gone, the muscles just never ever let go and relax back to their normal place. It can last for years. My pain has been haunting me every day for over 3 1/2 years now, the entire time I've been married to A. So the therapist started to work on the muscles in my groin area, using the trigger point technique, which in itself is actually quite painful and bruised me for several days afterwards. But once the bruising was gone, my old pain was gone with it and as of today, I do not have pain in the part of my leg where she worked. But that was only a small area, and I do still have the pain where she has not yet worked on me. I go back to see her again this week, and she will concentrate on another area of my leg. She said that's why nothing ever showed up on the ultrasounds or CT scans, or MRIs and Xrays. That's why the many many epidurals I had in my back gave me no relief. That's why the mountain of pain pills I took every day never helped. Tightened muscles would not show up on any test, and no pain medicine would help it. The only thing that helped was the pill I took at bedtime, which was a very very strong muscle relaxer, and completely knocked me out. Sadly, I would wake up the next morning in agonizing pain again and the day would start all over again. I will continue to see her, and my hopes are that within the next few weeks, I will be completely pain free for the first time in well over three years. I have had crippling pain every single day, and I've forgotten what it feels like to be normal, to move about freely, to sleep soundly, to desire sex with my beautiful husband, to walk down the sidewalk, to drive to the grocery store, to be healthy even. The extreme amount of weight I gained with the inactivity, the wallowing I've done in self-pity that eats away at my soul every day, the awful names I've called myself because I can't get my housework done or I don't feel like having sex- I will have to work on those myself, and it will take time, I know. But I hope that it all will end very soon. And I hope with the freedom from pain, I can start to feel better inside my head as well, to clean out the dark and heavy thoughts, to replace them with the love I have for my husband, and hopefully, for my life again. Hating myself, hating my life has claimed a part of me that I want to get back again. I spent SO many years unhappy when I was married to X, because he was a dirtbag and a prick and he treated me like shit. But A, when I started dating him, it was the happiest time of my life because he is such a prince among men, so open and loving and wonderful and, he loved me back, he is still crazy about me even through all of this misery, he still desires me even with the extra weight, and he still tells me he loves me every single day. Our marriage has been so difficult, because of how much I've changed, inside and out, with the chronic pain. He says he understands, but he can't, this is a man in his 40's who has never missed one single day of work in his entire life due to illness. So, he can't say that he "understands" my pain. He may say that to make me feel better about it, and I know he means well, but he doesn't understand. It's not possible unless you go through it, and I certainly do not want him to ever go through something like this. I have always struggled in my life- with my weight, with my violent tendencies, with my dark perceptions. But the pain only compounded it over the years. I wanted to be free of it, but I was too much of a chicken shit to take my own life. Sometimes I would be driving and wish for a fatal car accident- I would be gone but A couldn't blame himself for it. But I was too chicken for that too. I decided instead that I have fight- to fight for my life, to fight against my body and my mind to rid it from the poison, to fight simply to survive my life day to day. I do want to live, and I do want to be happy, and I do want a normal life! If my physical pain is gone, surely my mental and emotional agony will leave me as well. I have to believe that. I have to keep holding out hope. I have to stop looking at my beautiful home as a prison, I have to stop looking at my life as a black hole that is sucking me farther down into it. I know that the pain caused my mental instability and depression, but I also know the depression deepened my physical pain. I have to believe that with one gone, the other will follow, surely. When I was in my 20's all I ever wanted to do was be a novelist, I didn't care what kind of book I wrote, I didn't want any literary awards, I just wanted to write full time and be paid for it. I've been writing again lately, and it feels good, and it is freeing for me. I lose myself in this little world I have created, and I can forget about the world that I actually have to live in. Once my pain is gone, and I can sit at my desk for longer periods without it causing such stabbing discomfort in my leg, I know that I will move forward with my dream of writing. I don't think A believes me, but it doesn't matter, and even if I suck as a writer at least it gives me something to do during the day and something to think about and something to look forward to. A is not at all a creative person, he is very technical and smart and likes results and hard work. I love to read, to write, to paint, to take photos, I am very artsy. But the worse I started to feel, the less interest I had in those subjects. I found no joy in a beautiful colorful piece of art, I felt no delight in a perfectly photographed landscape. I would read but the words went right through me, instead of finding their way into my heart. I want that life back, and for the first time in a very very very long time, I actually believe it is possible. All thanks to a massage therapist in a tiny little office in an out of the way shopping center. Who knew?

Twenty-One

It's 6:30 in the morning as I start this post. A is already gone to work, and he won't be home for at least 13 hours. That's how long he was gone yesterday. The hours are unbearable in this house, because I am alone with my pain. A read the paper this morning, showing me an article about a place in town that needed volunteers, to help sort items from donations. He shows me these things not because I'm interested, but because he hopes it might give me an idea of something to do with my time, out of the house. A neighbor came over last night to invite me over to a girls-night-out at her house, of Bunco, of socializing. I said yes to be polite, but I don't really want to go, I couldn't care less about meeting my neighbors or making new friends- but I will go and be charming and laugh and play, all the while I will be thinking how stupid these women are. One of them will probably piss me off by trying hard to convince me to come by their church on Sunday- I get that everywhere I go here in the South and it annoys the hell out of me, no pun intended. I think A is more excited about me going than I am, he was even mentioning it this morning at the breakfast table, where I sat like a dull lump, already in pain as soon as I woke up. Yesterday it was excruciating, one of my "9" days, as in on a scale of 1-10, how bad is the pain? 9 is the closest I've ever come to wishing I was dead. If I ever reach a 10 day, I just may do it, I will say fuck you pain you won't win. Two days ago I started to try and wean myself off my pain medication. I started out at 3 pills a day, now the doctor has me up to 8 a day and another one at night to knock me completely out. Over vacation, everyone seemed aghast at how often I took the pills, while I was still in pain even with 8 a day. I see how people become addicts so easily. I could, if the pills were available to me in unlimited quantities, and I didn't have to lie or cheat or steal to get them, because that's not in my nature to break the law to get something I want. My pain medication is not a narcotic and as far as I'm concerned it doesn't do much more than any over the counter drug, although while we were away, my mother slipped me a full bottle of Vicodin that she had, unused from a recent dental surgery. I will horde them away for the really bad days. I just used my last Vicodin two weeks ago, and even taking those did nothing for my pain. I don't have a prescription for them, but I get them from relatives who have them leftover from their own medical procedures. I have a bottle with five Valium left, too, but they also have little affect on me. Those were from a medical procedure I signed up for but didn't go through with, no refills. I have no desire to go back to the pain clinic, and I won't, I didn't like the doctor and he wouldn't write my pills for more than 30 days at a time, so screw him, I'm not running in there every 4 weeks just to get a refill for shit that doesn't even work. So I have no refills on my current pain medication, both of which are meds used for nerve damage and pain. I take 2400 mgs a day of one, and no relief. I take 200 mg a day of another med used to treat moderate neuropathic pain. Even adding four of these a day to my routine two months ago has given me very little relief. On top of my prescribed pain pills I take Aleve and Tylenol and Motrin like it was free. Nothing helps. Sometimes heat does, but only as long as I am in the scalding hot water of the bath tub or applying a heating pad directly to my skin- once I remove the heat, the pain returns almost instantly. Last night I took my pain pills, and a sleeping pill, and went to bed with my iPod on and a heating pad under my hip. Sometimes music distracts my brain long enough that I don't notice the pain as much, but last night it was so bad that even that old trick didn't work. This morning I am already at a 7, and I know a 9 is not far off from finding me. It sucks, I hate it, and the pain has changed my personality SO much in the three+ years since I hurt my back. I've gone the medical route, going to pain clinics and having injections of medication directly into my spine. Nothing has worked. So now I am going to go to a chiropractor, as soon as I can find a reputable one with a long-standing practice, and not some quack with a sign up in a shopping center window. I've never been to one, because until I hurt my back I never needed one, but I watched my parents and my sibling all go to one all their lives, as a regular part of their routine. An adjustment here, a quick pop there, and they were on their way. I have avoided one so far because I wanted to see a real doctor first. Yes, I know chiropractors all over the world will tell you they are doctors, and my best friend from high school is even a chiropractor. But I don't know anyone who has only gone to a chiropractor just once- it becomes a habit, like flossing your teeth or washing your hands after you pee. I just didn't want to jump on that carousel, not able to get off. I think it has come to that, I am desperate to try anything, because the pain has only become worse now that I'm not at an office all day long. I try to stay active here around the house, because sitting only antagonizes the pain. I want the pain to go away completely, and I want to feel better again, and if that means some dude popping my back or hooking me up to a machine that will stretch my spine (what my dad gets done, and swears by it), then I am to that point. Everyone I know loves their chiropractor, so maybe I am finally ready to fall in love with a new man, too. A feels terrible because he can't do anything for my pain, this is one thing he can't fix. He asks me ten times a night, is there anything I can do, anything I can get you, can I rub your back, your feet? He is equally desperate for me to feel better. If a chiropractor doesn't work, then I will try acupuncture, or yoga, I don't care. I will let them run me through a meat grinder somewhere if only the pain will go away, I can't take it anymore. I am only in my 40's, I can't live another 30 years like this, I will either go insane or I will kill myself. It is that bad. I want my old personality back, the one where I smiled and meant it, the one where I could keep up when A and I went places, the one where I didn't lose patience with my cat for rubbing up against me and wanting attention, the one where I liked my life, all life. I haven't felt any of that since the pain took over everything, every movement, every thought, wiping out anything else I might feel. I only feel the pain. Today I already can barely move, and I dread the housework that looms ahead of me today- laundry, cleaning the kitchen- things that will, for me, be almost impossible to accomplish because I can't even bend over to pick up a dirty sock off the floor. A helps around the house as much as he can, since he is hardly ever here that is very little. But he shouldn't have to, he works 60+ hours a week in order for us to afford our life, and the man shouldn't have to wash his own clothes, too. That's why he has a wife, and one who stays home all day long. I've tried to explain to him how bad the pain is, and when I told him I am to a point where I don't want to wake up in the mornings, I think he thought I meant I want to sleep in longer. I meant, I don't want to wake up, at all. If that's what it takes for me to stop feeling this agonizing pain, then I am to that point. I know my physical pain plays a role in my great emotional pain, and my growing depression. There are a lot of things I could be doing here at this house while unemployed. But the physical pain keeps me from most of it, so the mental anguish gets deeper. If a chiropractor doesn't help me, I don't know where to turn to next. The possibility of that scares the shit out of me. SO many friends and family members have told me their miracle stories about the chiropractor, I have to hold out some hope. I am at the end of my rope, though, and I am ready to hang myself with it.

Twenty

I have not been blogging lately because I have been in deep, grief-filled mourning for Michael Jackson, and have locked myself away since his death, trying to make sense of his untimely demise. Hah. Sorry, I have a sicko sense of humor, he was a loser and it's all now being treated like a head of state passing away. Makes me ill. No, I'm back from a few days spent on the warm and sunny beaches of Florida, where A and I met up with all of my immediate family. There were a total of eight of us. I managed to act normal the entire trip, although I had my moments, but I kept them all inside. A and my father have become good friends over the years, and they have a lot in common and are very much alike in many, many ways. When we get together with my parents, A and my dad have a tendency to go off and do things together, which in a way I appreciate because my parents always hated X, and he equally did a lousy job of tolerating any time spent visiting with them. But, as much as I am gladdened by my parents' love and adoration for my newer husband, vacationing with them leaves a bit of a sting in my heart. A and I barely spend time together, which annoys me because it is our vacation as a couple as much as it is as a big family. While A and my father went off every afternoon and evening to do manly activities together, I was stuck mostly with my boring but sweet mother and sometimes my snobby sibling and her children. Not to say that I didn't enjoy seeing them. But while I was trying to be a good daughter and sister, I was inside a wilting tree that was needing attention from A. I got very little of it, although one afternoon we did manage to spend a few hours together at the beach, taking in lunch on the water. But that was it. I would sit around with my mother talking, or go shopping with her, or to lunch with her, or trying to smile when my nephews did something funny, or politely listening to my sibling's advice to me about my life. It even got to a point where my mother and I were sitting around doing puzzles out of the newspaper, and I just wanted to excuse myself and go into my bedroom for a few minutes, by myself, but I was too afraid of upsetting my mother so I stayed attached to her hip. There was not a moment of quiet on this vacation, as I was never alone for even five minutes, unless it was at bedtime and by then it really didn't matter anymore. I know A had a good time, and while I inhaled the warmth of being surrounded by a loving family that I only get to see two or three times a year, I tried to exhale and to let it all go and have a good few days. I guess I just have a different opinion of what a perfect vacation is, and it's not having someone in your face every minute of the day. A is not the type to slow down, even on vacation, so he had to be doing something all the time, and usually it was with my father because he is the same way. I am happy to sit in one place for long hours, doing nothing, taking it all in and trying to find a centered place in my mind to throw away all of my issues, at least for a few days. But, short of buying my own island somewhere, I don't see that ever happening. I did come back home with less anger in my heart, less hatred for the world, and I know it won't last, as much as I will fight against it overcoming me again. But I also came back to the great, empty nothingness of my home. A got up before dawn and headed off to work, and I slept a miserable 13 hours, refusing to get up and face the day, back to the old routine. Errands awaited me already today, errands that A was depending on me to take care of because he doesn't have the time, so I spent hours driving about town. Everything I did, every place that I stopped, I felt empty inside, with no thought or joy in my actions, I was mechanical. I am "not living in the moment" as they say on the talk shows. My head is somewhere else, and not focusing on the grocery list as I wandered the aisles of the despicable entity that is called Wal-Mart. I stopped at five places around town today, only hours ago, and I can't recall a single thing about what I did, I can't give you one detail about any of it. My mind is already blank, the pressure of a migraine already building on my first day back home. There are things here at the house, calling out for my attention now that I've returned- the cats, the garden, the laundry, the whole home itself. Today I am doing my best to block it all out, to ignore it for as long as I can. I do not want to load the dirty dishes into the dishwasher right now, and I don't want to wash the dirty clothes we brought home from the beach, and I don't even want to go out in my own yard to tend to my dying flowers, my wilted vegetables, my empty bird feeders. They reflect how I feel now. Today I opened up all the shades in the house. We recently installed two-inch, real wood blinds on all the windows, the expensive ones because A thinks that nothing is too good for his wife, and the last few weeks we've kept them closed to ward off the unmerciful sun that beats down on our house and yard, day after day. Trying to keep the house cooler. But the last few weeks have also kept me shrouded in gloom, in darkness, the blinds closed so tight I can't even guess as to the weather or time of day outside. I can't stand it anymore, I had to have the sunlight in my house, the glare in my eyes, to let me know that yes, it's another day, and yes, I'm still alive. My mother had a long talk with me, about keeping up with my housework and taking care of my husband, now that I'm at home and unemployed. She told me to be a dutiful wife, that's her exact words, she is so old-fashioned. So I will come back to this life now, and I will do what is expected of me, what A needs me to do so that our life runs smoothly. I will vacuum up the cat hair, I will haul the newspapers off to the recycle center, I will take his dress clothes to the dry cleaners, I will water the house plants, I will chop fresh vegetables so we can eat a healthy dinner. But I will not want to do it, and I will find no love in doing any of it, and I will do it with anger and resentment in my heart, and I don't understand why. I love A, but I do not love our life together. It would break his heart in a million pieces to know this, so I still wear my phony smile and I hug him as hard as I can and hold on as long as he'll let me, and while my heart rages, his heart can remain intact and full of love for me, ignorant about the truth, my truth. I do not deserve his love. He deserves a better wife.

Nineteen

Why do we all have two faces, the one we see in our own mind, and the one we share with the public? Is it just that we've been raised to be polite while out in society, or all the "to do unto others" bullshit we learned growing up? Why do we all rarely say or do what we're actually thinking? Why do we wear fake smiles when we're at the counter at McDonald's ordering a number one? Why is it inappropriate to say move your slow ass you stupid bitch and get me my fries now! When we meet a super hot guy why don't we look at him and say wow, let's have some sexy time right now- why do we coyly wait until the tenth date to say what we really felt on that first night? I know some people never learn to behave properly, that little switch inside of them never fully engages to the on position, and they grow up to be serial killers, or Republicans. We've all heard that phrase, children say the darnedest things, and when your three-year-old tells you, Mommy you stink, you think it's cute and you smile and laugh. But let your husband say the same thing to you, you get hysterical and want to slap him. Why is that? Why is it cute when a kid says something that is completely inappropriate for an adult to say? At a recent family gathering, we were playing a board game where we had to shout out words to fit into a story. The youngest child there shouted out "rectum!" and we all howled with laughter, but had one of the adults said that word there would have been outraged gasps and they would have been shunned for life. Why is being obviously truthful with people sometimes the most painful choice? Once a friend of mine and her small daughter were out, and they ran into another mutual friend of ours. The daughter looked at the other woman and said loudly "Wow lady, you are SO fat!" Both women were stunned, and my girlfriend wanted to die of embarrassment. But it was true, our friend was around 400 pounds. Surely she knew she was fat, no skinny jeans in this gal's closet. But for obvious reasons the mother was horrified and apologized and reprimanded her small child. As for me, I laughed my ass off when I heard the story, because I could just imagine the three of them all standing there on the sidewalk outside of K-Mart, where this happened. Film that scene and throw it on a hidden camera show or reality TV, and everyone else out there would have busted a gut laughing too. But it wasn't polite, and it wasn't appropriate, and it was very hurtful to the person it was said to. My girlfriend wasn't a horrible mother, she just hadn't gotten around to explaining the ways of the world to her little girl. That same child would one day grow up and learn that is wasn't okay to say things like that to people, and that "the truth hurts". Why is that? And why can't most of us take it? Most of us eventually start to understand exactly what "those things" are, we know what to say and what not to, in order to keep the peace with those around us. With X, I eventually started saying what was really on my mind, and where did it get me? In huge fights, in a courtroom getting divorced. Is that because I would raise my voice back at him, or because whenever he called me a stupid whore I would scream back at him he was a worthless bastard? With A things are so different, he is so different, he thinks deeply before he speaks, he's never hurtful to anyone. Is this the real him? Or is he just holding it all in, not wanting to be truthful because he knows it would upset me if he really told me how he felt when he comes home at night and I still haven't folded the pile of laundry sitting in the basket? But I am the same way with him. Whenever he gently teases me about something I make sure I laugh appropriately, when inside I'm wondering oh my god does my hair really look that frizzy today or is he just picking at me? Whenever A leaves in the morning to go to work and tells me to have a nice day, I always answer with a smile plastered on my face, not because that's how I'm feeling but because I know that's what he really wants to see, that's what will make him feel better about me. He doesn't see the real me, just my false face, the one I reserve for him. I make certain to remain in happy mode, because if he sees one slight slump of the shoulders, he'll suddenly feel bad because he upset me, and I don't want to make him feel bad, so the cycle just plays itself out. Now that I'm middle-aged in my 40's, I recognize that it's not cute for me to say, you are so stupid to someone, even though that's what I feel. A lot of us also hide our beliefs from others, or we talk around certain subjects, for fear of hurting or insulting the other person. When we do voice our true feelings, it oftentimes can lead to horrible fights or worse, we are misunderstood. In conversations with my mother on the phone, I hold back about 80% of what I really want to say to her, because she can sense the slightest of sarcasm or anger in my voice, and she gets her nose bent out of shape. So our conversations are very shallow and to me, wasteful. How do I tell her that I hate talking to her on the phone, that I think her life is boring and I don't want to spend 30 minutes listening about it, that I really don't want to know about her friends' whatever whatever, that whenever she talks to me I am actually holding the phone away from my ear and listening to Law and Order instead of her blah blah blah? But I remain polite and say un-huh in the right places, because I don't want to hurt her feelings by telling her that I'm really not interested and I have to hang up now. Hell, I'm even polite to those asshole telemarketers, because that's how I was raised when I really want to say fuck no I don't want to enroll in free credit card fraud protection for my Visa. Instead I say no thank you. My parents are devoted Christians, so we never talk about my atheism, even though my father's father was one as well all of his life. All the years I was married to X, I never once even hinted to family or friends that he smoked pot and stayed high. Only once we were getting a divorce did I tell everyone, always ashamed to before- afraid of their reactions that I would stay married to him. I gave his pot smoking as the reason for the divorce, and everyone nodded their heads in strong agreement. The real reason was I had stopped loving him and that I despised him for a whole host of wrongs, but trying to make others understand it would have been too burdensome. It was easier for me to say, and for them to hear, it's because he's a drug addict. I worked with a woman who had an enormous ass, just disproportionally so, and she would wear tight shiny silver pants or camouflage jeans to work, and everyone in the office wanted to say, what the fuck are you wearing, do you know how awful you look? But not one of us ever did, to her face of course, because we talked about it like crazy behind her back. That brings up the subject of gossip. Why do we say to others stuff about someone, that we won't say straight out to that other person's face? Why did I listen to one girlfriend natter away about how she was spending her son's child support check on the Margarita mixes and decorations for their weekend party, sit and grin and nod politely and say sure I understand, when inside I was burning with disgust and as soon as possible I would run to my best friend down the hall and spill the story, saying can you believe she is so fucked up and crazy? Why didn't I say that to the girl telling me the story? Why didn't I say, damn woman you are insane, listen to yourself! It was how I felt, but it would have hurt her, even pissed her off. And I didn't want to do that. Why? Maybe it's because that, no matter how much we deny it to ourselves, we really do worry about what others think of us, that we want to be seen as a likable person? That we really want the girl taking our McDonald's order to think, wow, what a nice lady? We don't know her, and by next week she'll have moved on and up to working at Wal-Mart, so we probably will never see her again. Why do we care what she thinks of us? And those that don't care, the ones who do show their real faces in public, are seen as rude or messed up or lacking the proper social skills. When in fact, they are just being authentic. What if we were all authentic? It would be World War III.

Eighteen

Loving A has been one of my greatest joys, but it also came at a time when I was entering a new phase in my life so to speak. He came along at the right time and I was in the right place to meet him when I did. I met him as my marriage to X was coming, thankfully, to its bitter end. I was only waiting out my separation so the divorce proceedings could finally take place. A was very cautious when we first started dating, since we worked together and technically, legally, I was still married (not to mention he was management and I was not). In the beginning, neither of us had expectations as to where this relationship was going. I, of course, fell instantly in love with him because after such a horrendous marriage and lack of a sex life with X, anything else seemed magical. At first it was only for sex, I think for him as much as me, because he wasn't seeing anyone at the time we met and hadn't been for awhile. And X and I had stopped having sex long ago, since we could barely tolerate speaking to one another. A and I were very careful not to be seen out in public together, and at the office we pretended that we barely knew each other, except when work dictated that we meet for official reasons. But I had desire for this man that I'd never felt before, not for anyone or anything in my entire life. For awhile it was fun and daring, to keep the secret of an office affair locked away in my heart, to have a younger man take an interest in me, to see a potential new future on my horizon that would be life after X. But then the secrecy started to get old, at least for me, and I wanted to be able to share our relationship with my girlfriends at work, with my family, with everyone. A would never come to my home to see me, even though X had long long ago moved out. X still lived in the same city, and A was always worried that X might drive by and see his car, and want to start something. A was better safe than sorry. I always drove to where A lived, which was in another city, another county, and I would spend every weekend at his house. I wondered, what if X drives by my house and sees my car gone at 2am on Saturday night, what will he think then? Sometimes I worried, because since we'd gotten separated X was very angry about my throwing him out of the house and disrupting his "life" (I say it that way because his entire life consisted of a crummy manual labor job and smoking pot), and he called me to make threatening phone calls every now and again, and at one point had started to demand money from me- alimony because I'd been the one who asked for the divorce, not him. What a complete shit!! But things rolled along, time passed, my divorce date with X grew closer, and my time with A, my love for A, was all that kept me going, it was all that I had to look forward to every day. Only A was holding back, not letting me in too deep, and not giving as much of himself as I wanted. When I finally confessed how much I loved him, that I wanted to be with him, he gave me nothing back in return but mere affection. I thought I saw an expression of love on his face, in his eyes, when he looked at me but nothing of the sort ever came out of his mouth. When I would say how much I loved him, he would just look at me sadly and say I'm sorry. Was he sorry because I loved him, and he didn't love me back? He said he wasn't going to give his heart to a woman, a married woman, who could toss him aside and go back to her husband at any minute. I said, are you joking? Do you know what a fucking asshole X is? It left A unmoved, and unwavering in his refusal to share his true feelings with me. But I persisted, and I stayed with him, because I felt in my heart that he loved me, that he was just afraid of being hurt because he had confessed his last girlfriend, who he loved and was going to propose to, had suddenly and without warning left him for another man. The previous woman in his life had also suddenly left him, after he decided to take on a different career challenge and was overnight making a third of his previous salary- she ran up his credit cards then moved away to another state- leaving him alone to try to heal while he had to file bankruptcy. A was not wanting to go through the hurt again, I realized. This man had terrible luck with picking the wrong woman. He was a nice guy, I'm sure there were women out there who could zero in on such a man, and for whatever reason, take advantage of him. That's not true love, to get upset about a job change and ruin someone's credit then run away. As A and I continued to date, I did everything I could to prove to him my worth, that I was not going to hurt him, that I was not out for his money, or trying to find someone to take care of me once I was single. I already owned my own house, owned my own car, when we went to dinner I demanded to pay the bill on many occasions, I bought him gifts and showered him with physical affection- I'd had years of it stored up since X was such a dreg and didn't deserve it. I even once completely paid for one of our weekends out of town, had even planned the whole trip, to show him that I didn't "need" him but that I truly "wanted" him, such a huge difference! I wanted to be his partner, not his dependent. He always showed me tenderness and was sweet, but still no promises for the future, no outbursts about his love for me. And still I was legally married to X, although I had limited to no contact with him. Things looked brighter to me when A sold his large two-story home so far away, the one he'd bought with the long ago ex-wife, and he moved into an upscale apartment over towards a famous golf community, only 20 miles from my house now, instead of 50. I loved going to see him there, was finally feeling like the pampered girlfriend to a rich man, as he wined and dined me in the expensive restaurants in the area. He bought a new convertible sports car, and we toodled around the city on sunny Saturdays with the top down, and I felt glamorous sitting beside him, my dark sunglasses on, holding hands with him as he shifted gears. But still no talks about our relationship. His apartment complex was gated, and it took him a long time to finally give me a key to the apartment, then an opener for the large wrought-iron gate. I finally felt like we were progressing into a new stage. Finally, finally, X and I met in court and after what seemed like forever, I walked away from the building a divorced and free woman, legally back to my maiden name. I was rid of X in every way possible. I had visions in my head of A dropping to his knees that night and proposing to me. A and I had been dating 1 1/2 years at this point, surely long enough for him to decide. We were in our late 30's, not kids, not immature, not out sowing our wild oats. But A remained mute on any commitment. Months went by, we continued dating, we continued our routine, took another cruise to the tropics, vacationed to see my family, to see his. As always, I stayed with him on the weekends, going with him as he ran his errands of grocery shopping, getting new tires for his old truck, his hair cut, shopping at Sam's. He used this as his excuse for never coming to stay at my house for the weekend- it was the only time he had to get all of his personal things done. Even back then he worked until 6 or 7 at night. I continued to try and show him I wasn't after his money- the first year we were dating was the first year he made it to a six figure income- but in the meantime I was running up the balance on my Visa by offering to pay for the occasional dinner out. I was trying to show him my independence by not paying off my credit card, how intelligent! Finally, after months went by after my divorce, and still A did not make a commitment to me, I truly started to become weary of it all. One night at his place I started to cry- very unlike me- and I grew angry when he still wouldn't admit that he loved me (which at this point I was sure he did) and I was beyond frustrated. I loved him, true, but I did not want to forever be a 39-year-old divorcee with a younger boyfriend, how cliche was that? At this point, after dating for almost two years now, he still wouldn't even go out to lunch with me for fear one of our co-workers would see- I didn't care, I was divorced now, and many people now knew we were dating. But as upper management, he always had to be careful of what others might see and think. I thought about it for some time, and knew I was putting the entire pleasant arrangement at risk, but I was prepared for the consequences. I was prepared to break up with him, to even leave our shared place of employment, and if it came to it I was prepared to sell my house and move back to my hometown if I had to. X and I were divorced, the only thing that kept me from going home was my relationship with A- without that, there was nothing left for me in my adopted city. One night on the phone, I told A that I was not coming over for the weekend, that I was tired of packing a bag every Friday and coming to stay with him, coming home exhausted either late on Sunday night or creeping out of his apartment in the darkness of Monday morning. It wasn't fair to me, and I felt like I was living with him part time, that I was a part time wife because when I came over I did his laundry, cleaned his apartment, we cooked meals and shopped together, we had passionate sex, we took vacations together. I was done with it, I wanted more, I wanted everything and I wanted the title of Mrs A to go along with it. And unless he wanted more as well, then it had to be over for us. He listened carefully to me on the phone, but I couldn't gauge how he was feeling, because he barely responded and when he did, it wasn't the way I had hoped- oh I love you so much!! It was only a simple yes or no or I see, as though this were one of his business meetings. After the conversation was over, I felt I had said everything I needed to say, I was drained, and it was up to him now. He knew how I felt about him, he'd always known that, and now he knew what it was I wanted from him. I was true to my word, and for the first time since we'd started dating, I did not pack my bag on Friday and I did not go to his home for the weekend.