From Heartbreak, Mourning, Loss. Volume One, Detach or Die
It took me 25 years to crawl out of the tar pit
I was married for twenty-five years. I was wife, mistress, secretary, big and little sister, confidante, confessor, guru, cook, janitor, accountant. I was his baby, his mommy, his queen, his whore, and his Madonna.
With the end of our marriage, all my titles are gone. I am free to become whomever I wish, but I have no idea who that person should be, could do, or where she should live, how, and for what purpose.
I used to love reading, but I can’t read; I don’t know what I want to read. I used to be an active person, and now I stay in my pajamas all day, eating whatever I find in the kitchen that is still edible.
Where is the person I used to be? Who am I supposed to become? I long for the woman I was; I mourn her. The truth is: I miss my former self more than I miss my husband. He is somewhere in the Caribbean with his new young chick. After all his lies and betrayals, I don’t want him back.
I have inherited the frigidity of a whole lineage of heroic women, all of whom survived by denying their material, emotional, sexual and spiritual needs. Like my female forebears, I offered my husbands sexual service, domestic service, secretarial service, catering service … never risking to exist for my sake.
My first husband left me for a woman I find vulgar and ugly, but, according to him, one who likes sex. He left me with four kids to raise, which, of course, I did heroically. When the youngest left for college, I met my second husband, and I thought it would be different.
But soon I was back to the same game of doing whatever he wanted. He wanted to have another child, to insure that he and I would be a “real” family, thus making it quite clear that my other four kids, because they were not biologically his, did not qualify as real family.
I did not oppose that silly egocentrism of his, and I gave birth to a fifth child, which I didn’t really want. I think he wanted that child to tie me more securely to the hitching post of marriage and domestic responsibility. Our baby girl was his puppy. As soon as she was old enough to argue with him, he lost interest in her, and he himself became my needy baby. I felt like I was a prehistoric animal caught in a tar pit.
It really took me 25 years and a terrible heartbreak to develop a sensual presence to the world. I am not talking about sex, just the sensation of being alive. It feels as if somebody pulled the blinders off my eyes.
