introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- one apology later than it should be - 17 june 2014 "i don't need any help to be breakable, believe me /i know nobody else who can laugh along to any kind of joke / i won't need any help to be lonely when you leave me."~the national today was one of those days, america. i went to bed happy sunday night. grinning, even. i haven't felt like this in awhile and i like it. hiked in the woods in the afternoon for a couple of miles and hours and my dog and i are getting used to picking over glacial rocks and the roots of trees that have been there since i was a little girl. the woods recharge me in a way that i haven't felt since that summer in the country...making calls from a treehouse where the only cell signal could be found, filling the toilet tank with buckets of water because the iron algae in the pipes kept it from filling on its own...those were good days and it has been a long time since i left those days behind. i was alone then, too, wasn't i? was that not the second happiest summer of my life? yeah, yeah, it definitely was. so i'm trying to find a little of that in the forest here...and i have been successful. the only thing missing is having someone with whom to share it....but that's okay, too, truly. i found a few orchids on saturday but had to battle the mosquitoes (lesson learned, Maine) and sammy and i practically ran through the mile i put in just to get out of there again. the wind picked up and on sunday, the bugs were more manageable and i took new trails and found an entire gully of wild lady-slipper orchids. this was a big deal to me guys...and i immediately wanted to share it but...instead, i perched on a rock, watched my dog sniff around for a bit and just absorbed the beauty of what i'd found. they'd sprung up there just for me to find them. on my own. happily. i came home and made meals for the week--newfound energy is surging in me again and i'm thankful after so many weeks of feeling completely drained. comfort food of green beans and tomatoes and andouille sausage and couscous and orzo and quinoa and feta. i never tire of that recipe and i'm back to consuming all the vegetables i can get my hands on again...without puking them up guiltily. i had just crawled into bed and turned out the light and the message came in. messages from this fella make me smile. his face makes me catch my breath...that hasn't happened in a million years if i'm truthful. there are days that i speak no words out loud other than to my dog and when there is particularly good conversation, i'm happy to have it. i went to sleep happy, guys. this morning, i rose before the bus came to steal the screaming neighbor kids from the bus stop, showered, and got over to the doctor's office so they could complete the tests they couldn't finish last week. i was there nearly 4 hours and guys, i'm not lying when i say i had stepped into a monty python scene. a simple pap smear should've taken a few minutes, right? stirrups speculum swab and done...get your clothes back on and we're done, right? yeah. not today. the first doctor calmed my nerves (i mean, nobody wants that invasion in the first place, right?) and she was friendly and kept it humorous as my sandaled feet slid into the stirrups. i tried to tell her about my past experience with this undertaking but she assured me that it was fine and she was a Cervix Queen. cool, thought i. get to it, Cervix Queen! then the first speculum collapsed and broke...because that's how i roll, guys...and that's some uncomfortable shit right there. okay, another, she says. and she gets it in but she can't find the cervix even with the spotlight wired into the thing and so this is getting a little uncomfortable but hey, i reminded myself, it's temporary. then we can go to the forest! nope. "wait here. if its okay, i'm going to get Christy. She is even better at finding a tricky cervix than i am!" wait here? where was i going? i'm in an oversized hospital gown and naked from the waste down so yeah, i'm not going anywhere, CQ. more doctors come in. more doctors prove they can find my cervix with their hands but after three attempts and an old fashioned metal speculum, they decide it can't be done. three doctors, one broken speculum, six hands in my junk, and no pap smear. super. i was happy to put on my freaking pants and put that behind me! but then the first doctor explains that she's really sorry and didn't want to alarm me when they hadn't completed the test that there had been a 'splash' (i'm still not even clear what the heck this means...blood? other fluid? WHAT???) when the speculum had collapsed and now i have to get additional tests to confirm that she hadn't been exposed to anything. dude, i get that...occupational hazards and safety are my thing so let's do it. thankfully, i'd ordered a full panel of std tests, most all of which had been completed already last week and we were good. they still needed to draw more of my blood (i guess it's a good thing that i've got so much right now?) to test for the only version of hepatitis they hadn't yet tested for....and it was time for that glucose tolerance test. i guzzled something called glu-COLA which was basically hi-c orange only sweeter (apparently, that's possible!) and then waited for an hour before they came back and stole more blood. in the end, they forgot about me in the exam room for at least 45 minutes before i finally asked if i was done or what? and could i have that vitamin d script, please? turns out, my weakness and sad have been due to extremely low levels of vitamin d. who knew? my midwife knew. so we're gonna fix this right up, guys. doctor's offices exhaust me. i came home and his name lit up on the screen while i checked my email for the morning. it's time, i figured... so we round a new bend and there's a new question to consider...one i hadn't even considered to consider before. when is it appropriate, in an online dating situation (is it dating? what do we even really call this?) to explain that i'm pregnant and that the dad isn't in the picture? i don't have kids yet so i can't mark that option and i can't say i don't have kids because i mean....that's like denying the pizza is coming when you've already ordered it. so what is right? i never expected anyone to just take this news lightly. i don't even know how i'd react if someone came at me with that. we'd been talking for less days than i have fingers on one hand (to note, i have all of my fingers on both of my hands...intact!) they were some of the nicest conversations i've had in so long. at what point do you bring this up? it was eating me up inside because i don't keep things like this to myself. i don't have a lot of secrets and i hated how it felt. i knew that when i told him, everything would change and there wasn't any going back but better to tell him now than wait longer and be devastated when i'd become more than a bit emotionally invested, right? right. and truth be told, even though it's been a couple of days, this is a particularly interesting to me. it is something...someone? that i care about. it's something that would make me sad to lose but, in the end, i'd understand. i'm a reasonable person. i'd understand. "why would you not disclose that in your ad[?]" i don't know how to explain this to someone who has never logged in to an online dating site as as plus-sized woman (...or any woman?) not only are the fat-girl-chasers messaging me constantly, so, too are the fellas with abs instead of faces and old men with remote cabins who want nothing more than to steal you away, make you their 'slave' and eventually, i assume, murder you. it's an onslaught of fetishes and hookup-seekers. did i really want to add the benefit of getting the pregnancy chasers, too? for example, friday night, i thought i was having a conversation with a dude who seemed normal for five minutes until he asked me if i'd ever had kids. when i told him that i had one on the way (it fit naturally into that particular conversation, i'll note) his questions changed to focus on how big my breasts are now that i'm pregnant telling me that he likes to pretend nurse from women..which, hey, if that's your thing, cool, but i clearly state that i'm not looking for hookups...is that not enough? i just cant take that stuff anymore, guys. so what should i do? give up on the internet dating sites? go to a bar to meet people? i'm not meeting fellas at work or at the lactation group and i don't expect to meet them at the parenting and birthing classes...so what do i do? i'm at a loss. this is frustrating to me but at the same time...i can't keep this a secret for obvious reasons. and when it feels like it matters, when is it appropriate to discuss it? most days, i can't tell if a person is being real online. there are guys that have seemed normal for a day or two before just cutting to what they really want...hey, want to get together and fuck? seriously? no. no, i don't. what i want is going to take more than a few days to make happen. i understand we're gonna have to weed through a lot of weirdos to find someone that has the same stripe of personality as our own. i get that. still, i don't know if i should be adding this to the profile or just telling the person that this is my situation. in the scope of do-the-right-thing, what is right? i haven't sorted out the ethics and i have no gut response...i think i thought i was doing the right thing. i gave the 'truncated version of the sperm donor' to him and when it was over, i realized that i don't just don't want to talk about ian anymore. i just want it out of me. i want the baby and i want motherhood and i want to make a happy life for this kid but i know that i want to be happy, too...because our happiness is going to be so closely intertwined. i want my child to be strong...to respect women or to be a strong woman herself...and to value honesty and kindness. as long as the truncated version exists in me--as long as i gloss over all of it, it will still have power over me. so...here it is. the truncated version with a few more details...because ultimately, what happened was shitty but how it made me feel? that was the worst of it. how do i take such a shitty situation and make someone else see that, at every turn, i tried to do the right thing and still landed here on my own? how do i make someone understand that i'm scared as hell but i'm stronger than i've ever been and that i'm unapologetic? that i am not looking for a dad for this baby as much as i'm looking for the partner that i can nurture and who will, in turn, nurture me right back? when i first found out that i was pregnant, one of the first things my sister said to me was that if i treated this thing like i was ashamed of it, it would BECOME something shameful. this baby is not shameful and i'm not ashamed. this situation is one that, unusually, wasn't about my mistakes. i will not concede that trusting someone basically is a mistake. it was one of the first times in my life that i felt like i was handling things successfully...one day at a time, with communication. i didn't feel like i had to pull teeth to get him to talk about his day or how he was feeling. and as much as i don't want to speak poorly of ian, i want to scream from frustration at where his actions left me. i was careful, i was safe...and it still happened. i'm not unthankful for the life that is inside me...in fact, it's quite the opposite. i never thought my body would get a chance to do this and while it's miserable with morning sickness and no energy a lot of days, it is something that i never thought i'd experience. i've been reserved in telling a lot of this story here because rehashing all of it again hurts like new. i feel like i was so stupid for not seeing him for the person he was: a person can tell so many lies and do it so well that nobody knows. his lies had lies. he'd told me that he wanted to wait for a bit before we pursued anything so he could move out of the home he shared with his soon-to-be ex-wife. i thought that was the most respectful thing someone could do...they were splitting up after all and that had nothing to do with me. i was coping with sean bringing home meals from his new girlfriend and leaving me the dishes in the kitchen...of finding evidence of this other woman here and there around the house and i knew how that hurt (in that it was just a reminder of the end of it more than actually wanting that part of my life back again.) i knew how it hurt and i didn't want some other woman in some other house to be dealing with that. so i gave him the time he asked for. he found his apartment on the other side of the river, a rented room in a house of strangers renting rooms. when they announced the center closure, i knew i was relocating and as soon as i told ian about it, he expressed wanting to come with me. he said he wanted a new start, too. i didn't ask him to come with me...i never expected that anyone would want to join me in my fresh start but hey, as ever, i'm always open to company. in the end, he came with my mother, sister, and i to find a place and visit the center. a few red flags on the car ride...his wife calling when we'd just passed through boston and the one-sided conversation that had a lot of 'you don't wanna know's coming out of his mouth before he just told her he was on his way to maine. and then to find out that she wasn't going to be his ex-wife any time soon and that the process hadn't even started. i met my mother's eyes so many times in the rearview mirror as this played out and that's when i started getting nervous. i started to understand that something else was going on during those few days when i first came up to visit maine. he faked illness to avoid coming out to dinner with us but requested i bring him meals...to find out that he'd been chatting with her while we were out. he was rude to the local people--for our first trip out of town, i was learning that this guy had no manners. i mean...i've got 3 rules: don't waste food, don't be a glutton, and DON'T BE A DICK. he was into all of those things and it was becoming more and more evident. he was aggressive with potential landlords and tried to haggle on prices in a way that was off-putting and embarrassing. at that point, i know now, i was already pregnant (i assumed i was travel-weary) and i was so seasick and weak that i barely had the strength to say that this isn't the kind of person i am and that i'd appreciate him not speaking for me...i asked him weakly so many times to just be nicer. even my mother and sister were getting annoyed with his attitude. he was relegated to the back seat, none of us willing to let him drive because of the epilepsy thing that he stated meant nothing (despite it being a grand mal seizure and on his way to losing his license over his stubbornness and unwillingness to see his neurologist.) i knew something was wrong in those days and i waited for it to surface and show itself...and it was a matter of days before it did. our intended mission was successful and ian signed the lease with me. i asked him so many times whether he really wanted this because i had my doubts. i explained that he could back out now but once the papers were signed, he was taking on responsibility for his half of bills even if we just ended up being roommates. yes, yes, he promised. i was in love with this little apartment as much as i was in love with my salty old mainer landlord. ian was irritated that we hadn't haggled with him on the rate which included all the utilities and was quite a bit cheaper than any other place we'd seen. within days of arriving home, i found out that he'd been going back to his wife. not once like he'd first suggested...but the entire time. he'd been telling ME he loved me (despite my asking for that to slow down a little) and then going there to have sex with her. he never took responsibility for that...not once. he blamed her for pushing his buttons but last i checked, i've never met a man with a boner button...and even if such a thing existed, i don't think anyone would be required to use said boner, right? i joke now because i have to. the whole thing was so crazy. he didn't even have the guts to tell me himself. instead, he had his wife send me a message while i was at work and when i tried to call, i spoke with her, not him. he had her tell me that i was giving him another seizure. i'm pretty sure that isn't how seizures work, either, guys. in the end, i told his wife that it was fine, in the end...i was glad i knew now rather than when we got to maine and i would've felt stuck. i let her know to tell him that it was fine and to just send the rent or we'd have to figure that out. why would i fight for someone like that? i won't. that's all there is to it. i don't need that in my life. as scared as i was about going this alone after allowing my plans to include someone else, i felt strong standing my ground and leaving that relationship behind. when i found out mere days later that i was pregnant, i was defeated. i weighed telling him against not telling him for a few days and then i eventually called because it was the right thing to do. i told him immediately that i wanted nothing from him but wanted him to know. suddenly, it was game on again for ian...he wanted to be there for me and for "our child" despite my telling him that after everything, the lies, the cheating, the compulsiveness of his lying...i couldn't be with him again. i was out of forgiveness for lies and cheating. i deserve better. it was the smartest strongest thing i've ever decided for myself in hindsight. i understand now that ian just expects that a woman will forgive him these lies and indiscretions...because his wife has set the example. and ian goes for women like me...beautiful but not traditionally so (ha) but i suspect this is out of motive rather than actual attraction. women who haven't learned to think much of themselves get stuck in this kind of relationship and cycle...i've been there myself. no more of that for this lady. over a few days, he voiced a desire to still come to maine. that we'd work on it...i eventually agreed to let him come as a roommate but that was going to be the limit of our relationship...and if it worked, we could co-parent but there had to be some rules. he had to get his license back if he was going to drive with the baby and he had to get that divorce in order because i wasn't going to put another woman through this...even if she was aware of me the whole time and didn't much mind what happened. and that's fine, america...he was legally hers and i respect that. suddenly, the divorce that was going to take months to get going was filed within the week and, if uncontested, would be over in 9o days. more lies coming to light...i learned later that he'd been lying to his family, telling them that i was being difficult and keeping him from the baby when, in truth, this was exactly opposite from what i was trying to do for all of us. in retrospect, i don't know how i got through those weeks. this was imploding around me. he wanted to help and i was in no position to refuse help. i had to orchestrate a move and make it happen no matter what or i'd have no job and no severance and a baby on the way. he came to bring boxes and every time he came to drop them off, i believe that he felt he was entitled to touch me, to make a move. i repeated myself over and over: nothing was going to happen between us ever again and started to dodge his hands like they were diseased. i was repulsed and he didn't even seem to notice. i couldn't breathe without expecting him to touch me. he kept telling me i was beautiful and wanted to take my picture. it is hard to have someone tell you you're pretty when you want to believe them but when everything they've said is a lie, you start believing exactly the opposite of everything they've said. on the last night i saw him, he asked for a hug and i gave it to him and he refused to let go as though if he could keep me there, eventually, i'd want him back again. "i never want to let you go." and i made him. i decided it was the last time he would touch me and it has been strange to think of how repulsed i was when only a few weeks earlier, i'd been so happy to be in those arms. it makes me feel foolish to think that i was so happy and that he knew he was lying to me the entire time. stupid, stupid girl. so what does this mean? does this mean that i should stop wanting to have a partner? does this mean that i am now so damaged that i'm not worth getting to know and possibly, eventually, given time, worth falling in love with? i don't think so. i think that i am more worthwhile than i have ever been in my life. i've proven that i can be on my own and i can be strong on my own. i don't need anyone to complete me...i just want someone to share my life with. that's all. whether it's a friend or a new partner or just someone i talk to online occasionally, i don't feel like i should be making excuses but i do feel like there is a responsibility to be open and honest about my situation. for not sharing sooner....for that, i apologize. but i'm new at this, too. i've just started to be able to feel some self-worth again here and i've never really thought about how to explain this to a stranger. for that, i ask for forgiveness. how many times am i going to have to tell this story? how many times am i going to gloss over all of the terrible shit i lived through in those weeks because complaining about how awful it was only brings it back and makes me feel dumb all over again...and ultimately focuses on something that isn't who *I* am. i am eventually going to have to explain that ian just stopped messaging. the emails about moving here in july and sending the rent like he'd promised...laced with promises to be a great dad and partner and apologizing for the zillionth time...that they finally just stopped. no check ever came (not that this came as a surprise) and i have a hunch that i'll likely not hear from him again...and i'm thankful for that because it just means i'm finding some peace again. 'there is no dad. it's just me.' i think that's a fair statement. he was never going to be a dad. he was never going to be there for this little one. i will not treat her like a burden or someone who brought me shame. there is no dad. there's just me. and i have an awful lot of love to give and laughs to share and life to live and explore. and i'm starting out remembering the joy and peace of who i am when i am the best i can be on my own...because that's the only place i know to start. so it was a long day, america. i was happy to have you to talk to today and i'm glad i fixed some things. it's the only thing i could really control about the day and it felt good to be in my rhythm. the baby has started moving around a little so delicately that i can barely tell she's there yet. i know it's time for bed. it has been a late night but i've had so much on my mind that i knew i couldn't sleep until i wrote it down. it's going to be a lot of trial and error from here and i'm going to have to embrace that. i don't know the answer to the question i posed and i suppose there may not even be an answer. i'm just going to do the best i can do. that's what i can manage. goodnight, america. xo, jones ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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