Pass the Salt: Move on, forget about it, resolve, act as if you are at a dinner table and the request for your need to be met is as simple as asking someone to “pass the salt” while eating a meal.
Don’t ask “whatttt nowwwww?” (See previously stated question in prior post) and not expect the universe to answer, “heads up bitch.”
Fueled by tequila, Marlboro cigarettes and regret I awaken with a headache and the dawdling mental digestion of doom.
At the end of May, after feeling like I didn’t have another choice, I took the kids and went to stay with my parents.
My head was spinning. I have cancer, I’m continuing to undergo treatments until January, my husband and I are at each other’s throats constantly. I needed space. I needed to see if our marriage could be saved. I needed peace. I needed time.
On July 14th I learned that my husband was dating another woman. And was “in love.”
No one thinks, first ima get married and then ima get sick oh and then for the grande finale ima get divorced. Ohhhh damn 10 years, 2 babies, 1 business later you will get stage 2B breast cancer and also a divorce. Oh but bitch you’ll be FINE and live to tell the tale to others across the landddd.
DIVORCE.
The mere notion of the word makes you think. Stops you in your tracks and makes you THINK. What does it mean? How does divorce define your self worth? Does it? Should it? What if your husband of 11 years, companion of 22 starts dating a woman in the midst of your continuing effort to fight cancer? What the holy fuck am I on Dynasty!? What’s next?? If I find out Blake Carrington is my dad I’m fucking out.
Anywhooo.
EGO.
Ego man. Ego. L’eggo of my egggggo. How do you define your ego if everything you’ve considered to be “you” is no longer? What if your semblance of reality isn’t real at all? What if you are forced to reckon that you have been replaced? That there another woman with “my man.” Another woman hearing the same stories I have heard. Another woman for him to call his.
I stare back at my reflection of tear streaked cheeks darkened by mascara and think fuck man, I have eyelashes to support mascara. I might embody Angela Bassett ala Waiting to Exhale but I’d rather burn this place to the ground from the outside than let the flames in.
It hurts. It stings. It comes over me in waves and I can’t stop crying. I should be talking to my children about getting ready for school, picking out new back packs and preparing them for the next chapter of their lives, instead I’m having conversations of morality, honor, respect, devotion and dadda’s girlfriend. We, as a family, as a unit, should have been allowed the opportunity to transition into this new chapter of change with our heads held high having just returned from war knowing we are winning the battle instead of juggling an extra obstacle of debauchery.
I shouldn’t have to teach my children about the morality and sanctity of marriage in the midst of their digestion and recoup from the past year of trauma and fear and processing that their mother has cancer. I should be allowed to focus on the opportunity to allow them a healing time process. A respite for them to process the largest change their world has ever known.
BUT YOU KNOW WHAT?? FUCK. IT.
I AM focused on my children. I AM focused on my health. I have 6 chemo treatments standing between me and the finish line. I have 1 surgery looming on the landing. I say this with baited breath … I should be done with treatments/surgeries etc by Christmas. Nearly 1.5 years of chemo, 6 weeks of radiation, 3 surgeries, a divorce and a fucking partridge and a pear tree smoking a parliament while scratching a scratchie at Dunks.
I leave my house ready for my morning feeling disgraced. At the local market people avert their eyes. I feel as if they all know. He chose her over you. He didn’t want this life.
I’m supposed to have someone, somebody, my person, to share my pain. To empathize. To sympathize. To rub my arm and say I’m here for you, it’ll all be ok, we’re in this together. But the truth is, I do. I have honest, genuine, authentic people (and dogs, dogs man, dogs) in my world that CARE. That are here for me when I need them the most. The tough horse pill to swallow was realizing that the person who I expected to lean on didn’t hold his post. It was a brutal truth to tackle. He just didn’t want to. He. Didn’t. Want. To.
In our society we create paths, tunnels and crevices that we are all “supposed” to succumb to. You go this way, and I’ll go too and then we will meet in the middle because that is what we’re supposed to fucking do. But that isn’t living. Waking up, taking a deep breath, making choices that effect your overall well being, learning, that is living. I’ve spent a long time subconsciously molding an ideal of a person. An ideal that I wished to see. But the truth is, you can’t change someone. You can’t expect someone to act “accordingly” if they don’t want to. Period. End scene.
It’s real simple to say fuck you buddy. It’s real easy to chastise “her.” But at the end of the day, nah. I’m not them. I don’t want their lives, I don’t want to make the choices they have made. So if logic ensues, let go and let god. Or dog.
My mom says I’m an onion. I feel more like a drunk raccoon rummaging through receptacles until I run out of rum but she’s right. I am an onion. Every day I’m unraveling a layer revealing something that I haven’t realized resides inside myself. Every day I discover a little bit more. Under all the wraps. Peekaboo mother fucker.
At the beginning of my 37th year I said to the universe, “I want to find out who I truly am.” It’s strange because the more I sit with my life experiences, the more I marinate in the muddy malarky of my macrocosm the more it feels right.
I am here. I am growing. I am feeling my true emotions. I’m focusing on my business and how much I love it. I’m focusing on teaching my children to love themselves. And to embrace the unknown. There is nothing to be afraid of unless you don’t try.
Life is full of lessons. And shouldn’t it be? Feel to heal. Walk through the fire to realize it’s not about winning, it’s not about losing, it’s not about washing a rug outside at 10 pm in your nightgown and rain boots outwardly crying while 4 dogs surround you seemingly just as sad as you are.
Live in the truth. Feel the burn. Treat people with heart and soul. Resolve, move on, marinate, cry, scream, laugh and repeat. And pass the salt.
