Divorced Life

My experiences have shown me that sometimes even the best of us need vices to get over the humps and hurdles life throws at us. After my initial separation from my ex-husband I was of course shocked but moreso there lingered a tiny feeling of hope that the situation was temporary and all would settle down and be worked out. In retrospect I wonder why I even considered this. Then after mulling over the thought for a bit I realized the answer is simple. It was for the children. That may seem cliche or blaise but it’s true. When kids are involved it’s not so easy to walk away, despite what the issues are.

I was mistaken, of course. The marriage was over and there was no going back just moving forward. How did I cope with the intense pain and stinging betrayal and viperous exchanges between he and I? Well, for one, I went back to writing. I got all my thoughts down on paper and computer. I stored them in files, notebooks and loose sheets of paper. I wrote paragraph upon paragraph in blogs and spent hours chatting about it with anonymous people online, whom were trying to recover from their own blows life had pummelled them with.

Still, that was not enough. In the moments when I wasn’t writing or couldn’t write, I felt like an empty cup whose contents had be drank and all that remained were moist remnants of what was there before.

The days passed as most other did for me and I felt myself slipping into someone I didn’t recognize at all. Looking in the mirror each day at my unkempt being wondering if this was the real me all along and I was just “playing” sane before. This went on for a bit until I took to the computer and created an alter ego. One that could express the darker aspects and thoughts of my personality and allow the other me to make it each day.

Sometimes vices can consume a individual and take over their entire life in unhealthy ways but in moderation and with realistic expectations it may also be a great outlet to flush out the burdensome garbage that builds up within all of us. In my experiences it kept me sane and in these past couple of years I take that any way I can get it.

I thought I’d share this short article I wrote last year about a controversial website that puts philanderers on blast:

(from 2006)

“I found this gem of a website that was brought to my attention from a segment on CNN. The web address for the site is

It may seem, on one hand, immature (as one poster boy for infidelity put it). However isn’t repeatedly lying to various women, whom you are in a relationship with, making promises you have no intention keeping and putting women’s lives at risk, equally immature? Hell it’s really dangerous! (duh Lorena Bobbit, anyone?).”

Stepping toward the light illuminating the archway of those double doors to freedom, you take a deep breath before crossing the threshold into a new life. It’s only the beginning they say (boy, truer words have never been spoken). Is there a parallel between the great emancipation into adulthood and the somber cross into singlehood?

When we leave the nest are we marching to the beat of freedom or captivity? Are we predestined lambs to the slaughter? I know…I know, that’s a kind of bleak outlook on the future. I’m of course taking liberties with this idea, but could there be even a slither of truth to it?

The world is an endless road with many exciting adventures along the way…at least when your 18 but when your thirty it looks a lot different and if you’ve managed to dodge certain catastrophic disasters on the love front, hold on you may be steadily approaching a fateful collision.

The slow procession of smiles, goodbye waves and tears in it’s naivety may truly be in essence fitting, for the same can be seen at funerals.

At 18 were we marching happily to freedom only to face the harsh realities that comes with it a few miles down the road?

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund

April 16, 2007, will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of the Virginia Tech community and the world beyond.

To remember and honor the victims of those tragic events, the university has established the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to aid in the healing process and generate financial support.

The fund will be used to cover expenses including but not limited to:

• Grief counseling
• Memorials
• Communication expenses
• Comfort expenses
• Incidental needs

If you plan to give, please click the link below:

What are the mysteries that lay below the surface flesh of who we are, when part of us leaves?

Do I encompass the astrological being analyzed through self proclaimed clairvoyants, numerologists and mystic guru’s? The beautiful tragedy of the Piscean woman, almost reminds me of “The Passion of The Christ.� Poetry emanates from one word making the others seem void and meaningless without it. Am I the tragic tale of two fish? One gilled beauty struggling upstream the other riding the tide to calmer, sounder and more hopeful waters.

Am I crimson with anger, the red slash of open flesh stained a shade of brownish grey from the endless evenings of fins whipping ferociously through hostile waters of hate, revenge and rage? Am I blue fish whose delicate graces fall into the endless depths of waters unknown while I struggle against the tide, fighting the sorrow within and lamenting on minutes lost and promises unfulfilled?

Am I two fish inside this one shell of a human being swimming along the chaos of time and fighting the tide raging within myself?

The simplicity of child-like curiosity leads me to ask what is beneath the thin and thick layers of this worn suit I wear. What’s underneath may be the key to moving forward and in the end the answer to my salvation.

I awoke in the middle of the night hair glued to the nape of my neck in small kinky curls, my t-shirt was damp and for a second I wasn’t sure if I was in bed or in the middle of some primordial jungle being chased by some scientific aberration of inhanced arachnid. One of my biggest fears and a childhood nightmare that has never been shaken, a phobia to add to the numerous adult induced paranoias I”ve come to cling to like deflated life vests in the middle of icy ocean waters.

As my vision comes into focus I realize that I’m safe (for the time being). I’m simply having a bad dream. All little girls have bad dreams from time to time, but women…women have nightmares that even the firmest of pillows can’t shield you from. I feared falling asleep again. I feared taking that step into the unknown. Like a waitress in the midst of a crowded restuarant during the lunch rush, sometimes you can’t anticipate when it will strike, just know that any moment it’ll come and you’ll find yourself wading through the murky brush of Floridian everglades waist deep in the swampy weeds of lifes most unpredictable moments.

Fall asleep just for tonight (I tell myself) for if you don’t, tomorrow will be unpleasant and your temper quick to light the fuse of discontentment at the predicament to which you find yourself. I gave myself the pep talk, the one all single mothers do when they know that their up to bat and the team needs to score to push the game into overtime. I can’t let my team down although I’m in the thick of it. In the thickest of overgrowths, the eccentric neighbors unkempt backyard and the weeds have embedded themselves for the long haul. I need to clear a path then remove them one by one to reveal the beautiful landscape that has rested there all along.

I’m in the thick of it but can I find a way out?

It’s All Mixed Up –The Cars

As I sit here alone in my makeshift office frustratingly trying to finish a short story, I reflect on my life. First I will tell you that I am not about to say what you know I’m not. What I will say is that I haven’t been very strong in my short thirty years. I’ve faltered a lot (a whole lot). I’ve let that little condition known as depression totally rule my life. There’s been spurts of time when all is well and I seem to be progressing forward then suddenly I just stop, literally give up on trying to accomplish anything in my life. Instead I lay in the bed most of the day with little or no will to do more than what I and my family need to sustain.

It’s something I’ve been struggling with for years. It’s hardly a secret to anyone that knows me, however it’s very confusing. I believe some people give up on me, take my ex for instance. The ironic part about this part of the story is that I stuck by him through one of the lowest points in his life. That’s the funny thing about relationships (that goes for all of them), you can’t expect to get anything more out of them than what they are at that particular moment. You probably won’t get equal what you put in. Then again I can only draw from my own relationships. I’m hardly the expert.

Writing is so therapeutic for me. I couldn’t begin to describe the ways it has helped me. At my loneliest and lowest peaks. I don’t believe I could be a functioning mother, a caring sister or any kind of living person if I didn’t have this outlet.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you but life is fucken mixed up! Sometimes I don’t know if I’m coming or going. There’s days where I’ve thought okay I’m just going to lie here and let the chips fall as they may. I can’t deal with the harassing bill collectors, my narcissistic ex-husband, a needy boyfriend, noisy toddlers, self absorbed teenage sister and a nagging mother.

I firmly believe that we all have some controls over our destiny. So no matter what I don’t let this disease conquer me. I keep pushing on. It’s not graceful or even pretty, I’m wobbling around y’all but I’m making it through. A blogger on here asked me how I’m able to sleep with three children running about. Well like I told her, I get it when I can. That’s life you get in when you can. It doesn’t run smooth but it runs. Like a old rusted car. It gets me to the place I’m going (aestetically pleasing or not).

Yeah life is all mixed up especially love and relationships but when I put my pen to paper I’m able to sort some of it out and get closer to the place I want to be.

Leaning against a crayon decorated wall of blue, purple and yellow swirls I stare off into my life as it could’ve been if only I’d been a little wiser, spiritually ordained or maybe clairvoyant. I’m not sure if the wall is holding me up or I’m holding it up, all I know is that I can’t move.

I want to be alone but I can’t. The shrieking in the background is getting louder and a quick glance to my left reveals a mountain of laundry clean but in need of folding. “Pitter Patter” that sound is very familiar, I hear it day in and day out, like a million centepedes with endless legs scurrying across the floor or marching across the child like Da vinci portraits on the wall…where I lean.

Sealed in an envelope of being the one who stands alone everyday, taking my moment to stare blankly into what could’ve been my parallel life. Another morning to reflect but no sensual saxophones to play in the background as the soundtrack of my Monday Blues.

It’s Friday a day that is greeted with relief that the official work week has come to a close and the weekend is upon us. A time to relax and reflect on the five days that proceeded but for me, days like this cause me to reach further back. To the time before I knew what life and love meant.

The time of my father, in those brief hours he probably held me in his arms and kissed the plump flesh of my cheeks. He probably ran the padding of calloused work worn fingers down the strands of my baby soft hair. He inhaled the light scent emanating from the blanket I swaddled in and I probably stared up curiously into his face.

Those innocent moments were precious, I’m sure but fleeting as I know now. I can’t remember them, I will never know them as my own memories, only the ones I make up to comfort me, when my heart longs for a father figure.

Is that one of my issues? Do we women at times find ourselves in the predicament of mourning a lost love or divorce because the demons of the past reach in and dictate the choices we make in a partner or spouse? Are the choices we make predestined due to a daddy complex and endless search to fill a void left by an absentee father?

Of course this is not the case for all divorced women, but could it be for some…like me? I have wondered and still wonder…if my choices in men are simply carbon copies of daddy, over and over again. Does time really heal all wounds?

I was listening to Pandoras Aquarium last night and the one line stood out for me…

“Line me up in single file
With all your grievances
Stare but I can taste
You’re still alive below the waist” -Tori Amos

A question lingered in my mind after listening to that song a couple of times. Can you tell when a marriage has gone cold before it’s anywhere near the end? If so, how can you reinvigorate what is left to possibly salvage the relationship before it gets to the point of no return?

Maybe the answer to that question is found in the one line of that song. After a certain point in a relationship the masks are removed and as the years go by you become less tolerant of even the things little things that annoy you about your mate. You or they can argue or pick at each other. You can rattle off a list of faults and flaws in the other person, but if the bedroom politics still work there’s hope for the rest to fall back into place with a little effort.

Of course I’m not a therapist so what do I know. However I listened to that song and thought to myself, there was a point somewhere in my relationship, when I stopped listening and it all became about something else. The bed became a holding area for the heart not a journey to exctasy and amour.

When Tori says, “She dives for shells with her nautical nuns and thoughts you thought you’d never tell” many interpretations abound, but in my own glass house I think she dives to find what is left of her womanhood but in the end she is only a shell of chastity, her sensual being locked away in a purgatory of her mind.