February 15, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 6 – I’m Not Okay

This song is my go-to emo ballad. I scream it at the top of my lungs until every ounce of breath has left them. I’m left gasping for air but it’s well worth it. No song evokes my inner rage more than this. The sudden build up and explosion of music brings to mind a big wheel perched at the top of a steep hill. With an unexpected push, I’m launched forward. My destination is only a hope as I’m hurtling downhill. The plastic pedals and wheels spinning uncontrollably. All I can do is keep my legs elevated out as not to get my pants knotted and twisted. Or, worse, have the skin stripped from my shins. The intro perfectly encapsulates the trajectory of my life from this point.

In a roundabout way I started to tell these little stories linearly. I hadn’t intended to do that, but that’s just the magic of writing sometimes. It takes me where it wants to go. And I blindly follow.

For a very brief moment my life was good. My husband had I had worked out our relationship. I met josh. I had finally passed my real estate appraiser’s exam and received my license. And I graduated Summa Cum Laude with my AA. My outlook was nothing but clear skies. Then began the downward descent.

I was having some pain and decided to go to the doctor. They did a CT scan of my abdomen and it was there that they noticed I had an enlarged prostate. They informed me of this little fact as I was on my way to the eye doctor for what turned out to be a bad case of pink eye. All-in-all it was a lovely day.

They sent me for bloodwork and more tests. At this point I had already decided that I had prostate cancer. What else could it be? I told my husband and boyfriend that I had no desire to treat it. It could lead to erectile dysfunction and I wasn’t about to live that life. Hard pass. (That joke was for us.) Both of them protested. It is one of the most treatable cancers and if left alone could spread to other parts of the body and turn into much more deadly forms of the disease.

After a rough couple months the final diagnosis was I just have an enlarged prostate. Along with an enlarged spleen. Two things no one would ever want to be big. I guess I just have all the luck, y’know.

Crisis averted! However it absolutely opened my eyes to the fear of disease and made me hyperaware of respecting someone’s wishes.

About a year after that my mother began acting very strange. It started with her speech. She was unable to say certain words and would explain how she could see it in her mind but couldn’t verbalize it. We went and had a brain scan done and the doctor ruled it a non-issue. The nurse practitioner recommended memorizing and saying bible verses. (I rolled my eyes so hard at that suggestion.)

Then my mother took a hard left turn. She talked about the walls of the house leaning. The floor feeling wet. And she would not stop shuffling papers. The real moment of absolute horror was when my mother sat and read and re-read the same single piece of paper for 30 minutes. It occurred to me that something was very, very wrong.

We went back and did another scan and in that time she had 7% brain mass loss. An average person with Alzheimer’s is usually at 3%. The next time we saw the doctor it was conclusive. She was in the early stages of the disease. The nurse whispered it to me while my parents sat at the other end of the exam room. Why I was the only one she bothered to tell is beyond me. Don’t you want to tell the person who has it?

Since then it has been every nurse or doctor whispering shit to just me and not her. “She can’t live on her own.” Yeah? Tell her that! My mother doesn’t believe me when I tell her stuff. Of the few things she can say without any trouble is: “that’s what you say.”

I remember the night my mother’s diagnosis became undeniable. I put this song on and screamed it all the way home, crying. All I could think about was how she would have all of her memories, her words, her identity ripped from her. In the end she will basically die because her body will have forgotten how to live.

But you really need to listen to me
Because I’m telling you the truth
I mean this, I’m okay! (Trust me)

February 4, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 5 – Falling In

If you don’t know by now, the husband and I are polyamorous. We have been for about 4 years now. While it was shaky at first we learned and grew through communication. If you’re ever going to attempt such an endeavor you have to have an open dialogue, heart, and mind. Without these it will end in failure. Guaranteed. Everyone needs to be on the same page.

When we first started it wasn’t that way. We “opened up” our relationship just to shut it down again. The husband says we never did and I explicitly remember when I said “fine. we’ll go back to how it was.” We were on an overpass merging from I-5 toward Half-Moon Bay. Regardless of what I remember transpiring, he started seeing someone in secret. When I learned of this relationship I decided I was going to see another gentleman too.

Josh messaged me for the first time as I sat in the hallway outside of my, soon to start, speech class. We hit it off instantly, talking about Harry Potter and Pokémon. After I made an off-hand Harry Potter reference/joke he commented “why do you have to be married?” I responded with my then go-to explanation of: it was open but wasn’t and who knew what was going to happen.

We chatted for a couple days and at the end of my next speech class I agreed to meet him in the student parking lot for a chat. He was(is) so handsome. Just my type. Scruffy with brown eyes. Without hesitation, we decided to meet up on the day of our next class.

I had intended it to be a once and done hook-up, as I like to do. However that is not what happened.

On a really stormy, rainy day I agreed to see “Black Panther” with him. (Side note: most of the more pivotal moments of my recent life have been met with some extreme weather. It’s odd.) After the movie I asked if he wanted to go with me to a friend’s house to hang out. He agreed and we went to visit my then girl-besty.

On the drive over there I called to let her know what was up and I made a point to say “This dude wants more but it’s not going to happen.” Oh, how foolish I was.

He was conflicted about dating someone already married. He wanted the usual things: monogamy, marriage, and kids. Those are difficult to achieve when the person you’re dating cannot offer them. However, on a trip to visit a friend of his in North Carolina, we agreed to date. This was of course, after St. Patrick’s Day when the husband and I had outed ourselves to the other about the guys we had been seeing on the side.

Four years later and Josh is still around. So much for “not going to happen.”

And I don’t know what I would do without him.

It’s weird. We are very similar in SO many ways, but yet so opposite. We’re both named Joshua (obvs). Our birthday is two days apart, we’re both Scorpios. We are both giant nerds. And we were both raised in very religious homes. Where our similarities depart is where I ditched most of my faith at 17, he doubled down and went on mission trips in Africa and later worked for a religious non-profit. At one point he was engaged to a woman, or had intended to… I forget the specific details. Either way… he was living the hetero fantasy.

When we started talking he had only been out for a year. That’s still crazy to me.

The song I chose was one I shared with him, while sitting in his car chatting; in the same school parking lot where I had met him to make sure he wasn’t crazy. He is, but he fooled me that day. So, kudos to him.

I was so hung-up on his religious past that every time a Lifehouse song came on my “Mumford and Sons” Pandora station I would think of him. This one truly spoke to me because it was right as I was falling for this dude. That’s kind of the problem with dating people and not just banging them. Well, I guess that isn’t entirely true considering…

Since then he has spent holidays with my in-laws and gone on cross country trips with Charlie, Charlie’s boyfriend (Tony), and I. We are this weird little family compiled of lost souls. And to think, it all started from a random conversation on Grindr.

February 1, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 4 – Sit Next to Me

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.

January 22, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 3 – All Too Well

I will do my best to limit the amount of Taylor Swift songs that end up in this year long project, but I can’t make any promises. I love the bitch and her songs resonate with me on so many levels. My husband likes to joke that I am a 14 year old girl. (Although she’s in her 30’s now, so that no longer applies.) However incorrect the statement, it’s true. Gay men are notoriously immature and tend to romanticize any interaction with a person they find attractive. It’s just how it is.

I chose this song because of my visceral reaction to one particular part of the song. Ever since I first heard it, when I got to/get to this portion I immediately began/begin to cry. Every time. Without fail. It didn’t really occur to me until the re-release of Red (Taylor’s Version) that I react this way because of one specific memory. One in which still is very vivid in my mind no matter how much time passes.

Well, maybe we got lost in translation
Maybe I asked for too much
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece
‘Til you tore it all up
Running scared, I was there
I remember it all too well
And you call me up again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I’m a crumpled up piece of paper lying here
‘Cause I remember it all, all, all

They say all’s well that ends well, but I’m in a new Hell
Every time you double-cross my mind
You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine
And that made me want to die
The idea you had of me, who was she?
A never-needy, ever-lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you

There is no doubt that when I got into a relationship with my husband I was not emotionally, mentally, or mature enough for one. I had just got out of a bad break-up and I was so young. I had just come out… I wasn’t looking for anything serious. He was. That’s where we got lost in translation.

Instead of verbalizing any of this, I was unwilling to let go of a person I knew loved me, who (at the time) I was not emotionally vulnerable enough to return his affection. I kept him for selfish reasons. The thought of losing another boyfriend was too much for me, so I became secretive. I was a liar and a cheat. I snuck around on him and justified it in my mind by saying I needed it or somehow deserved it. No one deserves that.

Everything began to unravel when he went through my cell phone and started reading my texts. He saw messages with this dude who I said was my friend Mike but was in fact an entirely different one. These explicit messages began to sow seeds of doubt. I explained it all away that we were just flirting but it was nothing more. He accepted that because he said he would sometimes do that with guys on AOL.

That’s when he read my e-mails.

Rookie mistake when cheating is not clearing out your trash can. That’s where he found the messages proving my infidelity.

He was enraged. But the kind tied to emotional pain. He kept asking me how I could do this and I had no answers. At this point I was caught. I owned up to it and he told me to get out of his house. He never wanted to see me again.

I was dumbstruck the entire drive home. I didn’t know what to say or think.

What should have happened was he should never have spoken to me again. It is the only way I would have learned my lesson. And I’m sure in some alternate reality he never did call me up, however this is not that timeline. When I answered his call he said simply, “Get back here,” and hung up.

I sat there wondering whether I should. What was going to happen?

I couldn’t imagine a life without him and so I went.

When I got there, he had devised “the plan.” I either agreed to these rules or we just were going to separate. Before he even told me what they were I had accepted. I knew I had fucked up and there was nothing more I wanted to do than to fix it.

Even though we got to a better place, the night was far from over. He banished me to our bedroom while he drank. He couldn’t look at me that night, and I don’t blame him. I had betrayed him. The hurt I caused… I have never seen anything like it. I truly destroyed him and I hated/hate myself for it.

There is one moment that haunts me. I was in our bedroom, the lights on, staring at the ceiling and I begin to hear his footsteps thundering through the house as he storms down the hallway. The heel of his palm hits the bedroom door and it flies open. He was drunk, tears streaming down his cheeks, and has a flurry of new questions. I sit up and try to defuse the situation that had quickly escalated. Fear courses through my veins like ice. I’m almost certain he’s going to make me leave again. I just knew it.

But he didn’t ask me to leave. And we worked through this event.

I wish I could say that I learned my lesson and didn’t cheat again. But that would be a lie. I was genuinely the worst person to him. I regret every horrible moment to this very day and wish I could take it all back, but what’s done is done.

These moments you must not forget. You must keep them fresh and learn from them. Study them. At least, I do. I pick each moment apart, trying to decipher why did all of this occur. What was the purpose of all of this? Why?

Am I just a horrible selfish person? Yes, I am. I have been. But knowing this I can be more conscious of the choices I make, the things I am willing to accept. It comes with experience. I was much too young. I knew nothing of myself or what I wanted. I didn’t deal with the grief that lived inside of me. I instead chose sex and liquor to try and heal the wounds.

This isn’t a good memory, but it’s one I can’t let myself forget. It humbles me because I know that I am the wrong in all of this. I was the problem.

The verse above is an abbreviated conversation between me and my husband. The bold words are his and the others are mine.