March 30, 2021

Off-color comments about dead babies don’t make new friends

Evidently, fate decided that I didn’t have enough bullshit going on in my life that it dropped a steaming pile of drama at my doorstep tonight. My besty’s boyfriend went through the entire length of our messages together and took umbrage with an off color joke I made nearly two years ago. Do I remember this comment? Fuck no. But it does track that my mouth would get me into trouble. That has been the theme of my life so far. Granted, it wasn’t my best joke and, most likely, probably my worst, because it had to do with his son who died shortly after birth.

Before you demand my head on a pike, let me explain. First off I have no memory of this conversation. Even now it’s a faint whisp of smoke and I can only recount it to you now via the way she did for me. How it went was when she was explaining everything she liked about this dude (after meeting him, because he went that far back) she had stated he “wanted to have more kids” and I replied “well… not more.” It was unwarranted, cruel and said in the privacy of my friends and my text conversation. Never in a million years would I have thought he would read it, and never EVER would I say such a thing to him, but here we are. Now this young man wants to fight me. He wanted me to drive an hour out of town, to their apartment, so I could apologize to him face to face.

When my friend texted this scenario to me, my immediate response was “yeah I’m not doing that.” I didn’t say that to her. Instead I gave her a ring so she could further explain the whole sordid affair. I was/am furious that I had/have to deal with this. Why did it have to be me? I understand that in reality I don’t have to do shit. I could just say, “this is not my problem, I have enough crazy right now, please sell yours somewhere else,” But in the end I will eat crow and do it because I love her. She loves him. And I hear how this dumbass statement has completely upset her life. He’s furious with her for not defending his dead child, as if I said “good I’m glad his kid is dead,” Or “the kid knew he got a dud, he died to get away,” or “he couldn’t even keep the one, what’s the luck he’s going to keep any others?” See? It could get way worse. Yet I said none of those things in the moment.

What I really want to say to him is that I’m really sorry that your life is either going too well or not bad enough that you LITERALLY went searching for a problem. I’m sorry that you are so hung up on the past that you fail to realize if your son hadn’t died you wouldn’t have the daughter you have now. I would say, I’m sorry that you feel so threatened by my presence that, even though I haven’t seen her in 8 months, you felt compelled to scour through the entire length of our messages together to find this one comment to get furious about. I’m sorry your son was taken from you, but do you know what it’s like to have to be the one to pull your father off of life support because your mother is dying of Alzheimer’s and can’t make that decision? Do you know what it’s fucking like to watch your mother slowly forget how to make a phone call, how to bathe, how to dress herself, how to fucking use the bathroom? Or watch your mother struggle to string together a coherent sentence? Do you know what it’s like to watch your spouse, who used to throw you over his shoulder, struggle to barely hold a fucking cellphone?! Do you know what it’s like to hear your lover talk about how he just wants to die because he doesn’t want to be a burden to you? And do you know what it’s like to deal with it all at the same fucking time? I would never, ever, EVER wish the death of a child on anyone. But just be fucking glad that you can make kid after kid to watch you and care for you in your old age, when I’ll be lucky if my niece and nephew in-laws remember me when their uncle has gone. I’m sorry you haven’t gotten over the trauma of losing a child, but instead of picking a literal fight with someone who isn’t even present in your life, who you have met and spoken to TWICE, maybe get some therapy. Deal with your grief. Stop projecting. But most of all, learn to take a fucking joke.

Will I say any of this to him? No. Not a word. I will talk to him, on the phone, and apologize. There are things I have no control over and instead of fighting I’d rather just say “I’m sorry” and move the fuck on. I have bigger things to deal with than the fallout of some dumb comment I have absolutely no memory of making. And that apology will be more than enough because, in the end, this drama is not my problem.

March 22, 2021

The Struggle to Breathe

We are nowhere near the time that my husband has left me. That moment sits as a tiny spec on the horizon of my timeline, but, as with time, we march ever toward it. And knowing that it’s there, rots me from the inside.

My grief of the situation comes and goes. I have gotten to a place where I can handle it when it does exist in my headspace. Those are the days I ugly cry in my car, hoping no one in the vehicle next to me happens to look over. I am very unattractive when I cry. I literally struggle to breathe, as if every breath becomes thinner and thinner and I am just gasping at air. The only other time I have experienced such tears was the time my husband and I had a brief separation.

Before we became polyamorous we basically just cheated on each other. Our relationship had turned into lies and secrets and neither one of us had the guts to be honest. The truth came out when I downloaded Grindr to cheat. I caught his profile at the end of our street, on his way to visit his dad in Palm Springs. Over the course of his brief trip I watched his account like a hawk. I was obsessed. When he returned I was honest. We struggled with things after that, and at one point I asked him to leave. He went and stayed in a hotel for a few days, and that morning I cried much like I do now. I could barely get out of bed. If I attempted to get dressed for work, I would start to cry again and my legs would buckle out beneath me. It was one of the worst mornings of my life.

At the time I didn’t understand these tears. I have cried before but never like this. And I always questions their sincerity. Even now I wonder if they’re real, or if it’s just because I am expected to feel something. I think I’m the only person who doubts such things.

After his return to our house our relationship changed. We started to communicate and eventually the truth about his infidelity came out. Instead of being angry with him I was overcome with relief. Finally, I wasn’t the worst one in the relationship. The one who cheated on an honest, dutiful, good man. At least that was the narrative I told myself, because I had repeatedly asked him if he had. He would always tell me that he hadn’t and I would feel ever worse. When I finally got the truth it felt like I could finally breathe. A gigantic weight had been lifted from our relationship and my shoulders. Since then our bond has never been stronger. All it took was the truth, and the inability (both of us have) to give up.

It seems to track that once we finally move into a better place in our marriage he would be taken from me. Even now my eyes fill with tears. I just want to scream. I want to take a sledgehammer and destroy everything in my path until I am too weak and too tired to carry on. There are days that I literally just want to die. Losing my father, my mother dwindling due to Alzheimer’s, and my husband to ALS is just too much sometimes.

Just know, I am too much of a coward and (bizarrely at the same time) too conceited to take my own life. That being said, just know that if I were hit by a car I wouldn’t try and hold on.

March 8, 2021

A Year in Review: Covid Providence

I am going to say something I doubt has been uttered by very many, if anyone at all: the pandemic was a blessing in disguise. For me and those in my life at least. Not everyone has been “blessed” (for lack of a better word) but for the overall arcs over the past year it was beneficial that it went into total shut-down.

Let’s start with the first that, in hindsight, was super dangerous and had drastic effects: my husband’s obsession with the gym. He had been on paid leave from his teaching job. His symptoms of ALS had just started to show at the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year. He thought it was stress, because the job is insanely overwhelming at times, but that turned out to not be the case. At the start of his disability, he started to see a slough of doctors to pin-point what was happening to him. They had no answers. So, my husband treated this time like a little vacation. He was searching for purpose and the drive to do something worthwhile. And even though he was seeing a doctor for the random physical occurrences in his body, he decided to get into exercising and building muscle.

During the summer (prior to his leave) my husband had just had the gastric sleeve surgery and had lost a ton of weight. He wanted to shape up. So, he dove head first into YouTube videos about the subject and body sculpting. He got a gym membership and got so obsessed he would spend hours working out. This was for about a month prior to lockdown. Even in mandatory quarantine he didn’t want to lose his momentum (and surprising love) of exercising that he bought at-home equipment. However during the quarantine he maybe did it once or twice. He felt weird doing it when I was working from home.

Eventually he stopped altogether and it wouldn’t even be until August that we would learn that he had ALS; a disease that destroys your muscles and makes it impossible to heal the ones that are damaged. I shudder at the thought if he had kept going. Would he be worse off than he already is?

That was the biggest miracle of all.

The next was that, because I got to work from home, I got to spend more time with him. Granted I was a rage monster most of it, as I pounded away on the wireless keyboard in our living room. It was nice to be around him. It was also during this time that I watched him more and saw the toll the disease was taking on his body, but not really having the answers to what I was witnessing. I too thought it was stress. I wanted it to be that. Eventually, because Covid had made working from home so accessible, I was able to do jobs on our road trip from California to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to get a second opinion. Sure, it ultimately confirmed what we had already been told, but I got to take a memorable trip with him.

A bizarre side effect was that the man who would eventually become my husbands boyfriend, and a huge factor in our lives, was forced out of going on trip, backpacking across Europe. He had quit his job just weeks before he was going to take his sabbatical and prior to the explosion of this deadly disease. Instead of getting a once-in-a-lifetime trip, he was trapped at home. In his boredom he found other ways to occupy his time. One of which was (months into lockdown) he got on scruff to possibly make new friends, which is where he met my husband. He came over one night and has, since then, been a staple in our lives, holding our little story together. I don’t know where he came from, but he has done so much for the both of us that I don’t think I can ever repay him.

Speaking of boyfriends, it also brought mine closer to my husband. Because we couldn’t go anywhere, we were forced to cohabitate, which was something we really hadn’t done prior to lockdown. For the most part, the lives my husband and I led, apart from our marriage, were separate. Covid absolutely killed that. We started making dinners, watching tv, and spending weekends together. It’s been nice.

A really random side-effect, that turned into a huge factor, was my work-load exploded. My income has grown exponentially since because the role this pandemic has played on the real estate market. I have made more money and therefore can now afford a bigger house that will accommodate a wheel-chair, when the time comes for my husband to reside in one permanently. Up until this past year, the idea of upgrading was fleeting. Yet, here we are.

Don’t get me wrong. Covid has been horrific. It has devastated so many lives. It has made the process of dying that much shittier for my husband. When faced with one’s own definitive end, he wants to travel and see the world while still able. This disease has robbed my husband of that luxury. But then again… Maybe it’s good. We would have spent so much money that getting a bigger, nicer house would have been impossible.

This isn’t shared to brag. By no means. If the reader sees this as such, you’re missing my point. And ultimately, I have failed as a writer. It is posted as a way to try and look at this shit in a rosier light. At the end of the day this entire event has been horrific. It has needlessly killed so many people because of the negligent actions of others. It has revealed the cruelty and selfishness of humankind and for that I loathe it. It has robbed everyone a year of their life, one they will never be able to get back. I really wish it hadn’t happened, but if it hadn’t, where would my road have gone?

January 25, 2021

Reading-Road Trip

The anxiety I get posting about travelling is real. I love my twitter peeps but they will turn on your in a second if you do something irresponsible. Travelling in a pandemic is definitely one of them, yes. I do not disagree. However, when someone is literally dying, with only so much time left, all they want to do is travel. What then? It’s a conundrum. I want to share these journeys with these friends but at the same time… Some person will inevitably pop up on a comment thread commenting on how “selfish” I am by not following the stay at home order.

I have just come to the conclusion that I am going to travel with my husband. If someone decides to add their two-cents I will provide the reason. Whether they want to agree or not is on them, but I won’t feel sorry for trying to enjoy what moments remain. Nor of making the most of them during a fucking pandemic.

If I had to choose when my husband would get such a deadly disease it wouldn’t have been now. I would have chosen a time when we could go on cruises or travel abroad. He’s seen so much, yet so little. When one is faced with the inevitability of being human, all the other petty bullshit falls away. You’re left with what is important and that is LIVING.

I have heard that sentiment so many times, but (I believe) for most it doesn’t really hit the mark until you live it. The understanding of this particular human flaw wasn’t made aware to me until I did this thing called the “landmark forum.” What I learned there was that we are constantly given the same advice but until we are ready to hear and accept it, we don’t pay it any mind. Even though we may have been told it over and over again. That’s how landmark was. They told us the same bullshit repeatedly, until they told us, “we’ve told you the same thing all weekend.” If you’re interested, I highly recommend the experience. It’s pricey AF and TOTES a cult. But if you keep that in mind you can gather what you need for the experience to matter.

This weekend I got a wild hair up my ass to go to Salt Lake City. My husband (who is the one that is dying) wanted to take a trip somewhere, he just didn’t care where. The last time we had done one, we had stopped in Salt Lake just to sleep and move onto the next stop early in the morning. (This was during out journey to get a second opinion on his ALS diagnosis at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.)

We packed up a bag for the weekend, the boyfriends, and headed out on the road. I had an ulterior motive of forcing the boys to listen to my novel. The hubs joked that I was torturing them, but at the conclusion he told me he thought it was good. “Just be done with it!”

The boys seemed to enjoy it too. My BF told me that I could get it finished in a month. (How overly optimistic of him.) My husband’s boyfriend opined to him (when I was out of the room) that he was excited to read the next one.

The one opinion that really mattered, and took me by surprise, was my own. I genuinely loved my book, by a lot. It was odd. I couldn’t wait to hear the next chapter or see where I took the narrative. I was surprised at the little clues I left that seemed innocuous to the boys, but meant so much to me. I felt proud.

Overall our little jaunt was fun. We got to see more of Salt Lake, the parts that weren’t obstructed by snow clouds that is, and got out of town. Most importantly I got feedback on my novel, from three people at once. Sure they were trapped in a confined space for almost 20 hours, with nowhere to go, but we’re only going to focus on the fact that I liked my story.