Him: Hi, baby.
Me: Hi, baby, how are you?
Him: I am good. Kinda craving you. Is that ok?
Me: I can’t say that I’m surprised.
Him: What are you up to?
Me: Work.
Him: I wanna play with you for Christmas!
Me: Is that all you want for Christmas?
Him: Hmmmm. It would do. A really dirty session with you would make my Christmas. Does that sound nice to you?
Me: I’d prefer a new Macbook.
Wednesday: I got a flat tire.
Thursday: I broke the heel off my $700 Jimmy Choos that I just spent $55 getting resoled.
Friday: My laptop was stolen out of my checked bag on my United flight from LGA to IAD.
I’ve always hated the month of February, but I didn’t realize until now that it’s really the month of December that’s out to get me.
Our first Christmas together, we were an engaged couple. Our second Christmas together, we spent in our first home. That Thanksgiving we scoured the aisles at Kmart, the only store crazy enough to be open on the holiday, indulging in every Christmas decoration fantasy possible.
Christmas was our season. The only place on the calendar where our days off from work coincided; the time when we laughed together and loved together the most, the best. We threw lavish Christmas parties, packing our home with the people in our lives.
We indulged in the other’s wishes when at any other season we may have not. He allowed me to design Christmas cards with the pug on them. I allowed him to put a replica of that leg lamp, you know, the one from the movie A Christmas Story, in the bay window.
Last night I decorated for Christmas. I hung the stockings by the chimney with care and decked the halls with boughs of holly. I placed the last strand of garland around my Charlie Brown tree, turned off all the lights in the living room, and plugged in the strand of white Christmas tree lights.
The tiny, little tree glowed. I sat on the couch opposite, gazing at the aura of Christmas bouncing off the shiny ornaments. My eyes brimmed with tears.
Somewhere in Ashburn, VA, there’s a single family home with a single family proudly displaying a leg lamp in a window. It’s not the life I want to be living, but, still, sometimes I miss him.
Married men cheat. Married women cheat.
People cheat.
People have emotional and sexual affairs outside of their marriages all the time. Yes, really, all the time.
Estimates say that anywhere from 30% to 60% of married individuals engage in infidelity at some point in their marriage. That estimate is likely on the conservative side because it relies on people admitting that they strayed.
I don’t condone adultery. But I understand adultery.
If we’ve really lived, we’ve had times when lust has overwhelmed us and tried to take control. When the opportunity is right in front of us, the heat, the passion, the skin, the tenderness, we have to make a choice. Sometimes people choose poorly.
Some marriages are bad marriages. Sexually dysfunctional marriages. Some married individuals are sexually confused; some are frigid. Sometimes they don’t become that way until months or years into marriage; sometimes the realization just doesn’t occur until months or years in. Is the right thing to do to find satisfaction outside your marriage? It’s a choice. Sometimes people choose poorly.
So Tiger Woods had an affair. So?
Are you really shocked that Tiger had an affair?
Or are you shocked that he was caught?
I tend to be an overachiever. I tend to push myself. It is difficult for me to handle disappointing other people.
I’ve been sick for over a week now. I’ve made it into work each day because it is easier to go into work than deal with the aftermath of a day of missed work.
On Monday, I knew I needed to make a doctor’s appointment. But I couldn’t call my family doctor. No, I’m the girl who had a tumor growing on her vocal chords last year. When something comes up with my ears, nose, or throat, I have to see my ENT.
The earliest appointment was for this morning. My ENT is a jovial man. He doesn’t take offense when I say, I really never want to see you again.
My diagnosis: laryngitis, sinus infection, throat infection. See? I am such the overachiever.
He prescribes what he refers to as “the nuclear bomb of antibiotics.”
And he suggests I go home and get back in bed.
I realize that as much as I need his prescription, I need what else he has given me more- the permission to take a break.
I came home. Turned the heat up to 73, made some hot chocolate, and put on sweats.
Doctor’s orders.
I started typing up one of those This year, I am thankful for… lists.
I didn’t get very far.
I didn’t get very far because, truth be told, I was not feeling terribly thankful the days leading up to turkey day. I was sick. Laryngitis. Sore throat, cough, cold, fever. And I was pissed about it because 2009 was supposed to be my year of being well. God damn it, 2009, what did I do?
Then Thanksgiving arrived.
And it was the best Thanksgiving I have ever had.
I had an obligatory family meal. But it didn’t feel obligatory. My OCD mom easily tolerated the mutt (an actual mutt I am dogsitting, not a guy) I brought with me even though her tail is at a lethal height for tchotchkes and is not permitted by her owner to have people food. The “orphan” from church who joined us was a dog person with a hearty appetite and an admirable sense of how much she should talk in social situations. Trust me, the last trait has been lacking severely in several of my mother’s most recent guests.
Traffic on 95 wasn’t so bad as I headed home to drop the mutt off. Traffic on 66 was non-existent as I headed into Georgetown for Thanksgiving dinner.
I’m not sure the exact moment I realized I was having the best Thanksgiving I have ever had.
The realization was mixed within the company of 3 charming, intelligent, attractive men who kept me on my toes with conversation and endured my voice that sometimes rivaled that of a phone sex operator’s and sometimes disappeared into a whisper. It became clear that the only thing better than the good wine would be the good food, and the only thing better than the amazing food would be the wonderful company.
I warn friends approaching or going through or coming out of divorce that the holidays are hard. Especially the first one, and then the second one too. You miss what you used to have, what you are supposed to have. You are lost in attempts to reclaim memories. You are lost in what was lost.
This year, for me, I had my best Thanksgiving ever.
This year, I had exactly the Thanksgiving I would have planned if I had ever known such a Thanksgiving could exist. Surrounded by the family I was born into and the family I chose. Sharing laughter with friends who have known me my whole life and love me faults and all as well as with friends who have only known me as a born again single and love me faults and all.
I didn’t merely feel thankful. I felt joyful. I felt like the luckiest girl in the whole world.
I put these thanks in writing on Wednesday night. I didn’t pen them for a blog entry. I penned them for a friend who is going through a bad divorce. I penned them for me. And, in the end, if you take a tiny ounce of hope away from this, I penned them for you.
Things to be thankful for…
The sucky, crappy, shitty feeling doesn’t last.
The friends who make it through this with you will make it through everything with you.
Only one family to worry about on the holidays. (For the time being at least.)
All those sappy movies and songs? They will mean more to you now.
You will find unexpected people and unexpected pleasures in your next chapter.
The deepest passion in your heart- whether music or dance or baseball- it gets a second chance to take over.
It will all be okay. I promise. It will all be okay.
I’ve never been well-rounded.
The daughter of a musician, my parents wanted me to learn an instrument. My sister played the piano, played the flute; I think she may have briefly picked up the violin. I did not want to learn an instrument. All I wanted to do was dance.
Knowing what learning an instrument entailed, renting or buying it, storing it, transporting it to and from practices, I told my parents I would learn to play an instrument. I would learn to play the harp.
I never had to learn to play an instrument.
I’ve never been well-rounded.
I’m passionate. I’m an all-in kind of person. If I do it, I do it 1000%.
I put myself wholly into relationships. There is no toe dipping into the pool; I dive.
It’s why I get hurt in relationships. It’s why I sometimes fall before I see what I am falling into.
It’s made me perhaps more round-heeled than well-rounded.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I hate to play favorites among shoes, but there’s just no denying that the shoes with the largest real estate in my heart are my Jimmy Choos.
I only have one pair. They cost what some rents might cost. And they are worth every penny.
They were in part a 30th birthday present from my fabulous coworkers who pooled together for a gift certificate. They were in part a souvenir from my first date, my first everything, with a man I would give my heart to, a man who holds a part of my heart to this day.
The red peep-toed pumps are suede and watersnake. They were purchased on September 18, 2007 in Las Vegas. The sales tax alone was $52.
Worth. Every. Penny.
I have a love affair with these shoes.
I clicked my way through Reagan National Airport, turning heads as I went, to hop on a plane to New York for the night. And I kept those shoes on while that man I loved led me to a balcony overlooking Times Square for an X-rated reacquainting.
I rang in the year 2008 with those shoes on my feet, toe nails in matching polish. I had those shoes on my feet while I was in the arms of a dirty musician who to this day is a friend and bedmate, despite his commitment to another.
I have paired those pumps with a short black dress for a Hall of Fame bad date. I have rocked them with a pair of tight jeans and danced the night away.
Over the past two years, they have been through so much with me. They are bonafide Fuck Me pumps. They are things of traffic stopping beauty. I love those shoes.
I took them in this week to get them resoled. $55 later they will be good as new and their adventures, PG and R alike, will continue. A new sole and they will each be good as new.
I said out loud to my best friend today that I think I need to take some time off from men.
In the past month, the men’s lips who have kissed mine have been a series of emotionally unavailable or socially inappropriate choices. A musician with a girlfriend, a clingy conservative, the best friend of a best friend, a good man in the midst of a bad divorce , the cousin of an ex, and an idiot.
I think, I know, it’s time for a little resouling of my own.
Dear PB, My biggest fear is that I am wont to want an emotionally unavailable man. I know where you are right now, and I know I am the perfect person to help you through this. And I will. But I won’t be able to do it without thinking about how comfortable it was to wake up naked in your arms. Please forgive yourself. It gets better. It all gets better.
Dear TP, You know what that other woman has on you? Absolutely nothing. Well, maybe a few more wrinkles. My doll, my dear, you will come out on top. Trust me on this one.
Dear M, I give up. Get some sleep.
Dear TA, I want to shake you and tell you to keep your personal out of your professional. Don’t shit where you eat. Don’t sleep with your talent. You will spend ages quantifying the suck* on that decision. Please don’t make me tell you how I know.
Dear JT, Thanks for getting me so fucked up. I had no idea how much I needed it.
*blatantly stolen phrase
It seems like everybody else saw trouble sneaking up behind. Left you half dead in the street but that just means you’re half alive. And your heart’s still beating. -Josh Ritter
