I am someone who is all about rituals. Deliberate or otherwise. Today has been a cloudy, wet day and all I want to do is cuddle up on the couch, watch the movie Twister, and eat strawberry fig newtons. I’ve been like this since I was a kid. I don’t know where or when this custom began, but I did it quite frequently when I was younger. Can’t say that I followed it into adulthood, though.

As today is another Friday, I spent most of my morning trying to decide on what song to use for this week’s blog. The ones I have lined up in my mind didn’t seem to fit my mood. Then I looked at what some would consider “gloomy” weather and it occurred to me what I should choose.

This song was used as a promotional tune for the film Twister. I don’t think it would have ever been a single if it hadn’t been for the movie. Then again, maybe it would have. Either way I fell in love with it because, at the time, I only listened to country and Shania Twain was one of those hot artists who had burst on the scene. I remember repeatedly listening to the mixed tape my neighbor had made for me with this song on it. It was midway through Side A and the portable cassette player I had didn’t have a rewind function. So at the end of the song I would have to flip the tape over, fast forward, and then flip the tape back to Side A. God, even typing that out was exhausting. I can’t imagine how I suffered through. Especially since I am someone who obsesses over a song and will usually listen to it over and over until it has lost all meaning.

I don’t even remember where were going, but I remember sitting behind the driver’s seat in our station wagon, window down, singing along to this song with my headphones on. In the middle of doing my rewind, my mom shouted over her shoulder that I was off-key when I had my headphones on. “What do you mean?” I had asked. She elaborated and said that when you couldn’t hear yourself sing, properly, you would go flat. That had to have driven my mother crazy. She could never sing herself, but she was someone who would tell you if you were off or flat. This was because my grandfather “could sing.” He recorded himself for demos and was even the head of every church choir they happened to come across.

Where the rainy weather and fig newtons came from is a mystery. The first time I ever saw this movie was at the theatre inside of the Buffalo Bills hotel and casino. I sat near the front of the theatre and my cousin, who is sort of like a pseudo sibling, sat toward the back. I’m pretty sure he sat back there because he wanted to sneak out and get alcohol while I was distracted. He was the type. I was too distracted with the movie.

Our annual trips to Buffalo Bills was another one of my obsessive rituals, now that I think about it. Always during the summer time or my birthday weekend I would want to go there. I loved the over-the-top cheesy decor, the access to a single outdated movie, and the large video arcade. I could roam free there and never worry about being harassed. For whatever reason they let you get away with it there, more-so than in Vegas. They were sticklers about kids being anywhere near slot machines.

This memory got me wondering what other strange rituals I have and do. At least the ones that I am relatively aware of. I’m sure there are ones that I just haven’t picked up on. For instance, an obvious one, if I am ever feeling blue I will pick up Long John Silvers. Nothing fills that cavernous void much like the greasy goodness of fast seafood. There was a time that I had it every day, for lunch, during an entire month. This was due to the fact that my prior place of employ was a soul sucking/crushing hell hole.

Then there is my obsessive pattern of only eating my fortune cookie after I am 100% done eating, and then I eat one side, read my fortune, and then eat the other. Once it’s gone I shove the fortune in my pocket, because no one should ever throw away good fortune.

There is my annual rewatch of Will and Grace and Golden Girls. I’ll start from episode 1 and work my way through. I’ve done this for the past 10 years.

Then there is the more insidious habits… The ones I dread to share but for the sake of clarity I shall.

In a past blog I have disclosed that I am a sex addict. Most don’t know about it and most view it as a joke or an excuse. It’s not, for me, at least. I can see how my patterns and emotional turmoil fuels it. I share this because in the past I would “act out” (which means engaging in behaviors breaking my self defined sobriety) I would immediately follow it with consuming some kind of unhealthy food. It was almost as if I was “click and treat”-ing myself. (Aka reaffirming that behavior with some sort of “reward.”) As a way to curb my bad choices and maintain a lengthy sobriety, I just cut out the middle activity and went straight for the food. Got a month of sobriety and twenty pounds.

Strange how most of my habits center around food.

Can you tell I was a fat kid growing up?

It has occurred to me that these topics all stem from the same space: my obsessive compulsion. The need to re-perform these rituals during certain events or feelings of emotional turmoil. It must bring me some sort of comfort or I imagine I would stop.

It would appear that my mother’s disease has taken another unexpected hard left turn. To my knowledge it began yesterday morning when I went to pick her up. Instead of her perky self she was sobbing uncontrollably.

The nurse told me “she just started crying and asking for you. We don’t know why she’s so upset.”

Sobbing, her face bright red, I got her to my car, stowed her walker in the back seat and got behind the wheel.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She looked me dead in the eye, terror shaping the wrinkles of her face.

“Do I have a nose?” She said.

I have an awkward smile and tapped the end of her nose. “Yeah. Right here. Don’t you see it?”

“I don’t have any legs.” She said.

“Mom, you do. Look. See,” I pat her knee, “you have legs.”

“Those are someone else’s.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m dying!” She sobbed harder.

“Mom, you’re not going to die.”

I put on some Patsy Cline and drove to Starbucks to get our drinks. As the time passed she seemed to calm down. And stayed that way most of our time together. It wasn’t until the last hour when it all started to derail again.

She started rotating through a series of three stories all in the same breath. One involved her dying and having no legs or toes. The second, was her owing someone money. She didn’t have the money to pay them. She has to pay them.

The third, was when she turned my dad into a villain. He was a womanizing wife beater in her tales, which are nowhere near the truth. My father had his demons but he would and could never do those things.

I dropped her off back the home and she sobbed in even as we pulled into the parking space. “I have to be honest. I’m a Christian.”

I rolled my eyes but I had no idea what this was referring to.

Get her back to her room and she’s calm and cheery.

The next day, Sunday, the home calls me and tells me that she is inconsolable and keeps talking about having no legs. They’re concerned that she’s in pain and they don’t know. So they send her to the ER. They run all the tests. She’s healthy as a horse. Their diagnosis for this little escapade is that her dementia is progressing.

Well, no shit.

I’m curious what my visit on Tuesday will consist of. My husband (and I tend to agree) think someone may have doubled up her meds or got them mixed up with someone else’s. We think that only because of how quickly it came on. But then, when I think of how this all started it wasn’t a slow progression it was just one day she was talking absolute nonsense.

This is one of those songs that the moment I hear it, the energy around me vibrates to life and morphs itself into almost the identical one I felt when this song was released. This was the first track that graced a playlist I began to compile of tunes that I became irrationally obsessed with. It also accompanied the most drastic shift of my life and encapsulates that period beautifully.

I don’t know where you’ve been if you haven’t heard this song. Up until a year ago this little diddy was still heavily filling the airwaves of my local radio station. If it is a new one for you I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. To this day, I have a little dance I do whenever it comes on.

This came out about the same time I caught my husband on Grindr.

I find that statement hilarious because what was I doing on there? I was doing the same thing he was, trying to cheat. We were supposed to be monogamous but that wasn’t really going according to plan.

He was on his way to Palm Springs to visit his dad and had uploaded a picture to his profile. The moment I saw it my heart dropped. I couldn’t believe he would be so bold, but he wasn’t going to be in town so who would know?

I favorited his account and watched it the entire time he was gone. He was on there for hours, well into the night.

We both share our cell locations, because we’re co-dependent like that, and I would keep checking to see if he ever left his dad’s place. He never did.

When he got back I confronted him about his account. He sat in frustrated silence. I told him that he needed to choose from three options: either we break-up and cut our losses, we see a therapist to resolve our issues, or we open up our marriage. Aggravated he looked me in the eye and said none of them. Which, if you think about it, is still a choice. It just wasn’t a productive one. He didn’t want an open relationship. He was “too possessive.” And he didn’t believe in therapy because the moment a couple goes they might as well just get divorced and save the money.

So, like all the times before, we swept it all under the rug and didn’t broach it again. That is until after we had separated for a week.

My husband is so bougie that he went to stay at a swanky hotel. I still had his account starred and obsessively watched him try to hook-up the entire time. Then after a couple days, when I didn’t welcome him back as he had expected, he went to stay with a friend. There he got even more angry. I was at a loss because I wanted to fix things, but he didn’t want to do anything. He wanted to keep doing whatever the fuck we we had been. And all that did was hurt us over and over again.

It was during this time that I found out he had been secretly seeing some dude. I was mad because he was lying to me. And if I had asked if there were any secrets he would deny there being any. It drove me insane.

St. Patrick’s Day, he thought I was going to ask for a divorce. I told him, are you insane? I confronted him about this guy and he finally came clean. It was then that we opened up our relationship. We became “poly.” He had his guy and I had mine.

The ultimate moment of this time and what makes this song a favorite was the night we spent out at a bar in Palm Springs. We’re both feeling good (on our preferred cocktail: vodka and red bull) and he finally decides, on the outdoor patio of Hunter’s, to come clean about everything. He told me about all of the infidelities he had kept secret through these years.

The relief I felt was incredible. Finally! I wasn’t the horrible one. I wasn’t this huge monster who continuously cheated on this honest man who took me back time and time again. We were equal.

The next morning I told him I forgave him and didn’t care what had happened. I was just glad there were no more secrets.

When you listen to the song, it tells the tale of two people who get together after the death of another relationship. It’s strange to me that it makes me think of a really horrible time with fondness. I think because the ultimate outcome brought about a new life for our marriage. Because of the honesty and the agreement to open things up we have a little polycule that I don’t know what I would do without.