5 March 2002
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My throat is raw and my eyes are tired and I just want someone to explain to me why men won't love me they way that I love them. I want my mother to hold me in a warm blanket of her love and tell me that what happened is for the good. For the best. That waiting out there for me is this amazing man who will love me with all he's got. I just feel like my desire for it is so simple, so earnest, yet it feels impossible to attain. . . . I need to know that feelings won't just turn off, that when there are issues, when things feel off that he won't just run away and shut down. - 19 February 2002 Several years ago my mother spilled to me the entire story of her unraveled marriage. She said the first signs were small and it wasn't until later that everything took its place. One random day she'd noticed that my father wasn't wearing his wedding band; she'd spotted it on top of his dresser. She gingerly picked it up and went to him. He was sitting in his chair, feet up on the ottoman, watching t.v. It's easy for me to visualize him. I'm sure he still had his work shirt on, I bet it was white, and it was probably all untucked and unbuttoned from around his neck. She told me that she'd kneeled down next to him and softly said his name. She'd held out the ring, the gold band resting in the palm of her hand, and asked him why he wasn't wearing it. "I don't know what you want me to say," he'd told her, most likely not taking his eyes of the Discovery channel. "I don't know what you want me to say." "I don't know what I feel." "That's a cop-out, you know," she told me this past weekend. We were talking about my cousin and her cheating husband. My mother was remarking on his similarities to my father, the way the story is almost playing out the same. It shocks me. Even after all this time. Even after it happened to me. That people can just throw relationships away out of pain, self-loathing, desperation to fix themselves. That they take the one person who loves them despite their fucked-upness and decide they don't really have the time for it anymore. My mom has her theories on what tripped them up and sent them down that dead end. But theories don't matter. What was is what is. The day that their divorce was finalized my father walked out of the courthouse a few steps in front of her. In my head it's this big monstrous building, with steps for days, but in reality I'm sure it was a squat building with a few crumbling, grey steps leading up to the double glass door. My mom said that she rushed down the stairs to catch up to him and reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder. "It's not too late," she said. He shrugged her off. "Yes it is." He walked away, his head never turning in her direction. I can see my mother standing there, her hand still slightly outstretched, watching him go. I know that she cried that day. But I like to think that he did too. Not because that would bring me comfort or pleasure, but that I know he must have. He must've cried wondering how he got himself there. Divorced, desperate, sitting in an '80s model Accord, detached form his children and spiraling even moreso, in some County parking lot. Did he rack his brain for the day that his life forked? And when I think about how my father couldn't love my mother it feels like I've swallowed a sword. It pierces down to my gut and my throat tightens around it. They say that you choose a man like your father. That biology takes over and really, you can't help it. It's all pheromones. So I guess that means that I am destined to chase after love. I'm destined to never hear the simple things that are so easy for me to say. Will Fate continuously hand me men who are broken inside? The ache is an all
encompassing thud in my gut. It seeps out down my arms and shoots
out my fingers. It curls itself around my toes. It sits behind
my eyes, the rims red and stingy. My stomach sends its comments
up my throat so that I can taste them. I dreamt of a funeral for
our dead relationship. As we laid spooning on an alter we listened
as our love was eulogized. In my dreams they laid roses in front
of us. Silent floral mourners. - 19 February 2002 The notify wants you. And the forum wants you too, fool.
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