Learning My Lesson?

I will admit, I am starved for positive attention. As such, it's surely safe to say that I'm not always in tip top form when it comes to decision making. And it's also pretty clear from my disastrous marriage that I'm not a very good judge of character when it comes to men. So I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that I fell so easily into this trap considering those two things.

It's been so long since someone complimented me instead of torn me down. It's been so long since someone showed an interest in my thoughts and feelings and opinions instead of mocking them. It's been a long time since I've felt valuable as a woman. And even though I know that I should not allow my sense of self worth to be wrapped up in a view of myself through the eyes of any man, it's difficult to put that into practice. It's difficult to hush the negative voices that my husband introduced to my head.

So when this other man started paying attention to me, I was hooked immediately. I didn't cross any real lines; I never even saw him in person. I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't have progressed to that if he hadn't proven himself to be such a horrific asshole, but before his true colors were revealed the most interaction we ever had was phone conversations.

And they were such fabulous conversations. It was simply delightful to talk to someone who listened to me, who cared what I had to say, who challenged me and made me think, who respected me. We laughed together, we debated, we commiserated, we shared stories and we gave each other advice. We bonded almost immediately and while the thought of another relationship with anyone in the immediate or near future absolutely paralyzes me with fear, I thought maybe in the distant future, in a few years when I am free and things are settled, maybe if we were still in one another's lives that there could be something there.

I'm so naive.

I fall all over the first man who tells me I'm beautiful and, predictably, it doesn't bode well. It's a good thing I learned the truth about him early, though it hurt more than it probably should have. We had a fight about something ridiculous - I won't share what it was because first of all it doesn't even matter but secondly, I don't want to out myself or him; that would be terrible - but the point is, we had this misunderstanding, this fight, and he absolutely flipped shit.

He lost control. Had I been in the room I don't know what would have happened. As it was, he spent twenty minutes on the other end of the phone screaming and railing at me, saying all sorts of unnecessarily cruel and hurtful things.

And while our "relationship" such as it was had not progressed beyond a friendship, at least in my mind, the loss of the man I thought he was was painful. And learning that he wasn't that man at all, that I fell for this persona he created to suck me into his web was very frightening. Frightening because while I am not looking for anything from anyone for a very long time, I will at some point. And I am terrified, terrified that I am doomed to repeat the mistakes I've already made.

Dinner

He's so rarely home for dinner anymore. I like the fact that he's gone, though knowing where he is, knowing he's with her is rabidly humiliating considering I am still here. Still, the fact that he's with her means he's not here with me and any time he's not with me I am content.

One of my favorite things when I was little was when my mom would make breakfast for dinner. I don't know why it was so fun to have pancakes and eggs and bacon at six at night but I remember being so excited whenever it happened. I recreated that for my kids tonight, knowing that he'd be gone. He's always gone on Fridays. Fridays are a night I know I have to myself. I love Fridays.

So I made my pancakes, I scrambled my eggs, I fried my bacon. I mixed up some chocolate milk and I heated the syrup. I was even light enough while recreating one of my favorite childhood memories for my children that I was singing to myself in the kitchen while I worked.

That's probably why I didn't hear him come in.

"What the fuck is this? Tell me this isn't dinner!"

Kind of a far cry from "Honey, I'm home!"

His words don't bother me anymore. I decided to stop allowing him the power to hurt me. But when he takes me by surprise it is difficult to scramble my armor together so his words don't wound.

"Do you think this is healthy? Do you want to make the kids fat? Fat like you? Is this part of your diet?"

He ruins so much. He seeks out fun and enjoyment and he just sucks every last drop of it right out of the room.

So he's home tonight, I guess. Maybe his whore was busy. Maybe she kicked him out because he showed her his true colors. Maybe she got fat and he moved on. I don't know. All I know is, he's home now and my fun dinner tasted like ashes.

Dreaming

I'm drunk. Gin and tonic. Tonic and gin. This is a ridiculous way to deal with things, to eat and drink my pain and yet? Where else do I have an outlet? Nowhere. I have to be on all the time. I have to wear my game face, my big girl panties; I have to suck it up.

I can't fall to pieces no matter how badly I want to. And somewhere, somehow, something has to give. And so sometimes I drink so I can just escape for an hour and maybe I can sleep.

I don't drink too often. It's not like I do this every night or even every week but sometimes I swear it just becomes too much. Sometimes I need so desperately to just feel nothing because the weight of everything I feel (and the feelings I have to hide) every minute of every hour is enough to crush me.

And I think that maybe if I drink enough that I can sleep. That maybe my sleep will be uninterrupted and dreamless. I would like not to be plagued by dreams.

The nightmares I don't mind because, shit, they're just fucking reality. It's the good dreams I don't like. It's the good dreams I have to wake up from. The good dreams where my life actually is what it appears to be - full of health, wealth, and happiness - are horrible. They are a mockery of what could be. The only thing I have of those three things is the wealth and I don't fucking care for it. I mean, I don't hate it. But give me the health and the happiness and I'll happily leave the wealth behind.

It doesn't work that way, unfortunately.

And so sometimes I drink. And I go numb and I revel in that numbness. Please, God, give me dreamless sleep tonight.

And So It Begins

Well. Here we are. I have not yet decided how much of myself to reveal, in words or in pictures, but I do plan on baring more of myself here than I ever have before.

I am in the process of breaking free of my pretty prison, both literally and figuratively. It will have to be figuratively first; I have to rediscover myself, my strength, my ability to be in command before I can literally break free. That's partly what this blog is all about.

I need to find myself again.



I have been waiting so long to be loved, finally, by the man I married that I forgot how to love myself. I allowed him to show me in a million different ways how unlovable and ridiculous I am. I lost myself in the pain of allowing someone else to control how I see myself and how I see the world around me.

No more.

He might have me trapped where I am for the time being, but he will not hold my spirit any longer. I have decided that I will make the best of my pretty prison, that I will be as free in my mind as I want to be in reality until such a time as I can truly escape.

Welcome, then, to my pretty prison.