As The Pendulum Swings

You know those people who are constantly posting on social media about how happy they are in their relationships? And then one day they just stop with seemingly no explanation, I mean let’s be honest they don’t owe you an explanation but what started out as a fairy tale has turned into a cliffhanger and it’s very possible you’ll never know what really happened. I’ll take it for the team and tell about mine. Why I did I suddenly stop posting about how happy I was and how loved I was and how everything in my relationship was hearts and flowers. Here is my own True Hollywood Story…

This feeling in the pit of my stomach will not go away. It’s Saturday morning and I hear silence. I wanted silence. I wanted silence to write, to work, to not have to face the situation I was in. The football games on television, the boxing matches streaming online were reminders that I wasn’t alone. Despite six years of marriage I felt so alone. Now I truly am alone and some days it’s scary AF. I could have stayed married forever, something people aspire to do. In our society its like a badge of honor. A long marriage is a sign of an accomplishment. It’s hard work to be married. It takes compromise, sacrifice and work. I can’t help but feel like a failure because hard work is something I have always been known for.

For years I’ve been called a workaholic. I always go that extra mile, make that extra effort, I’m usually the last one to leave. It’s not uncommon to hear my coworkers say on their way out the door, “Don’t stay too late.” “I won’t,” I reply knowing full well that I plan to remain working for another hour or two.

Being someone’s wife is a job, but for some reason my work ethic didn’t seem to kick in. I could find myself putting in those extras sprints. It was hard for me to justify putting in those extra hours. There was always work to do but this time I was the one leaving the office first. I stayed as long as I could and I feel like a complete failure.

Of course this isn’t my first time. My first marriage, the one from the 90’s was a mistake from the word go. That starter marriage that was simply for show. We knew it was wrong but felt like why not? To this day people will still say you had such a beautiful wedding but a party isn’t a marriage. We had a huge party for friends and family let’s not pretend it was any more than that. There was never a marriage and never a connection. We walked away and moved on with our lives but this time was something different.

God Dammit, I tried. This is what gets me so angry and frustrated. I fucking tried!!!! I didn’t want to be alone. I made it a goal to be married by age 40. My mom was single, never married and I couldn’t face the societal pressure of not having it all. A career, marriage, two step kids who I never really clicked with. It wasn’t their fault, it wasn’t my fault it just didn’t happen. I raised my own daughter and now I was a grandmother, albeit a young grandmother and now someone’s stepmom. The “having it all” was what I dreamed of. I wanted to own a home, I wanted security. I wanted to be able to have a forever plus one yet I was miserable. Buying a home in the San Francisco Bay Area is no small feat. As a first time homebuyer I felt proud of myself, my husband was equally proud we pooled our money together to buy a home with no help from our parents. When we bought our home we got a hell of a deal because the house had foundation damage. We paid for it to be repaired but what I would soon realize is that in my eyes our relationship also had foundation damage.

When we purchased our home the appraiser gave us a detailed report telling us exactly what needed to be fixed to repair the foundation of our home. But no one ever told me how to fix the foundation in my own marriage. What was missing was the deep conversations, the laughter, the secret inside jokes that we never had. Even after nine years of being together I longed for a day of belly laughs and speaking in code with someone. I longed for it to come naturally.

I wanted a life I didn’t have. It was too much to bear so I tried self-medicating. A glass of wine after work to numb the pain. Two margaritas whenever we went out, three if I really needed to cope and act like I was having a good time. But then one day I stopped ordering the wine and ordered a 7-UP. It didn’t take long to realize that I really wasn’t happy. I was miserable. I couldn’t take it anymore so I left. How I did it probably wasn’t the best way but why I did it is all that matters.

As I sit in silence I realize that although I am scared AF, I am no longer settling. I am aspiring. I want to be happy. If you’re miserable and you stay in the same spot you have no one to blame but yourself. So I continue to do those things that allow me to be productive, to survive. Work for me is like breathing. I just can’t not be productive. I want to produce and create if not for the financial gain for the spiritual fulfillment that comes out of it. To be able to say “I did that,” “I made that,” “I wrote that.” Even if no one reads it or if very few oblige I’ll know it was mine. All mine. Some days I am amazing and other days I succumb to the realization that I may never be able to fully embrace being someone’s plus one. As I contemplate what happens next, I realize that someday if its in the stars I may settle down but never again will I settle.