I' m an Action Kind of Girl

I’m sick right now. It happens about once a year. Allergies combined with stress and a runny nose turns into a cold into whatever and knocks me down for a day or two.

I hate being sick, but I have to admit that the down time gives some time to ponder things I don’t take time for usually. Maybe it’s the cough syrup but my mind jumps in and out and I come up with some of my funnies one liners and best ideas for future projects during this time. If I remember them when I wake up…..

I was kind of half in, half out, watching “Sleepless in Seattle”. A chick flick from way back that I somehow have missed for all these years. Not a great movie since I missed most of it dozing, but it did bring up the idea of what makes a great love relationship. What I got out of it was Meg Ryan was in love with one guy but was drawn to another that she heard over the radio. Everything about guy #1 seemed perfect for her, but she kept getting these “signs” that something else lay out there for her. And it did – a guy who lived on the opposite side of the country, with a half grown kid. Oooookay.

So what about this love thing? I have been in love several times. Almost as many times as Elizabeth Taylor. Many people are hooked into thinking that we all have this one soul mate. However, if you are going to buy into that idea and the soul is something that is a part of heaven and lives forever, doesn’t it make sense that maybe you have more than one soul mate? Or at least soul connections? Soul friends? Soul acquaintances? Souls passing in the night? Soul one-night stands?

Okay… so I’m being a bit silly, but my point is – if we are expected to have generosity and compassion and empathy for all men as in peace on earth, good will to man, doesn’t it make sense that we also have great capacity to love and to love many?

While you roll that over and pick at it, let me share this with you. I have had the opportunity to love several men romantically. I married most of them. And in the past year or so, I have had the opportunity to have two of them come back into my life and reconnect for a bit.

And in conclusion, love is not enough to build a future on.

Oh wait, I left parts out. Just consider you have read the last paragraph of a really long news article and now you will go back to pick up the details. I do that all the time.

The first reconnect was my ex-husband who is my daughters’ father. I loved that man in a way that kept me connected to him like a bee just has to make honey. He was good looking, smart, a great conversationalist, liked to try new things and was, if not great in bed, at least long lasting enough for me to get the rest done.

He was also self centered, selfish, narcissistic, paranoid, a liar, a mind manipulator and his favorite saying was “I am who I am because of my mother. If I killed someone and buried them in the back yard, she would just help me cove it up and tell me they deserved it.”

Oh, and he was and still is gay. And the gay part is not what ruined our marriage. It was the stuff listed above that did.

And when he came back into my life and my daughter’s life after 16 years, he was still gay. But he promised me that all the other things listed above were no longer true. So I was willing to listen to him.

And I thought to myself, while I don’t need him as a husband, if he is all the good things he used to be and none of the bad things, what a great friend he could be to the daughter he had not been a father to.

And looking in my heart, I saw that I had good feelings for him still and he spent several months showing me the “new” him. So I let him back into her life. What a mistake!!

The “new” him was just a highly developed “old” him, whose purpose was to deceive those around him to support his need to control and manipulate. And 12 months later, we are still dealing with the damage he created for my daughter and our family and I don’t know that this will ever be a closed chapter in her life. So I will have to continue revisiting it with her, for her. She loves her father. I love her father. Love didn’t help either of us.

If I had not been able to recall the love I had had for him, I might have still made the same decision in an effort to better her life and let her have some closure on old wounds he created for her.

HOWEVER, if I had not been able to recall that past love, I might not have been so easily deceived. I thought I was being so careful for her sake, laying down rules, drawing out boundaries – remembering his old tricks and trying to second guess how he could use them against us today, in the now.

Love makes you vulnerable to having your heart used against you though. I so wanted him to care for our daughter and for her to not feel that he had abandoned her – that it had all been a mistake. So in a way, my love for her also created this scene where I feel that I failed to protect her as well.

The second reconnect was my first love. We were never married but together during high school. I have many fond memories of him and our time together. He made me feel cared for and important and safe. In his senior year, he decided to join the marines. This was a lifestyle I did not want for myself and I was angry at him for picking it and not asking me what I thought.

In a recent conversation, he asked why I didn’t speak up about what I thought. The answer to that is because I didn’t want to infringe on his dream in the same way he had infringed on mine. My lack of maturity and lack of knowing my own self prevented me from doing a lot of things. Consequently, I became distant and angry.

Now I know that I was actually suffering from depression that became worse when he left. He’s angry or was, I think, because all he sees is that I broke off because he was leaving. I refused to see him when he came home or take his calls. I couldn’t. It was physically and mentally painful to even think about him. I saw myself stuck in a no win situation and felt that I was drowning. The only security I had known since my parents divorce had walked away from me.

We reconnected after many years. We had lunch. I was nervous and became even more so as the lunch progressed as I realized that I felt just exactly as I did in high school towards him. That spark was there. But I also carry a spark for my love that died when I was 25. And for my daughters’ father; sick, perverse human that he is. And I carry a spark for my husband now.

So how does one pick which spark is the spark they want to live with, be with?

My first love is living a life that many people would love. He was in the military and traveled a lot. But he was also away from his family a lot. I wouldn’t have liked that at all. I don’t now what kind of husband he turned out to be or a father. But not having him home every night is a deal breaker in the plan for my life. And he showed me that when he joined the marines. It’s not a bad life, it’s just not the life I wanted if I were going to be married and build a family.

In our talks, he says we are friends. But I find his definition of friend and mine to be very different. I like calling my friends to share what is going on in our lives. I now I can call them anytime, and they can and do call me anytime. To me – a really good friendship is as intense and committed as a marriage, just without the sex.

I love my friends and like caring for them. He seems content with a chat on the internet about his latest work project once every few months. We’re not connected and it makes me sad. I would like to have someone in my life that knew me in my teens to talk about things.

My ex-husband is just not a whole person. His being gay is not the issue. His being mentally and morally corrupt in his assessment of what his duties are to others and how to treat people is the issues. If he had stayed in my life, I am sure I would have had a nervous breakdown or worse.

So what about the spark that is a part of my life now? He’s home with me. He supports me in what I do… so much that I was able to tell him about lunch with my ex-boyfriend and consequent chats and conversations later. So that makes him my best friend as well. And he has taken good care of my children, the ones he didn’t father but did parent like his own. And our major fights are about when he thinks he is not doing a good enough job and is letting me down. Imagine! A man who worries about doing enough for his family!

Love is wonderful. I love being in love and all that implies. But even more so, I love being cared for and thought about. That makes up for a lot of other things that love just doesn’t start to cover. Love is the emotion. Being cared for is the act.

I’m an action kind of girl.