I am four and my grandparents have an object in their yard that looks like a spaceship. It is made of wood and wire with a pointed roof and stilted legs. I often climb inside, shut the door, peer out the wire and wait for take off. My grandparents have confirmed with me that it is most certainly a spaceship but my parents think it’s a birdcage.
I am a teenager. My grandparents sell their house and with it their mysterious ship. I don’t notice. I am occupied by thoughts of boys and grunge music and coffee shops. I am plagued by spirits and ghosts. I have so many frights in the day and in the night. When my chore is to shut in our chickens after sundown, I run and scream down the path through the woods to their cage, lock their door and run with breath held all the way back up. During the day I take walks though my parent’s property and surrounding areas. A dirt road and a creak run side by side through the yard. There are redwood trees and, under them, clover ground cover and thick cushions of redwood needles.
I wonder about spirits in the woods and worry why I can never spot a four leaf clover. One day, while walking through the dry creekbed, I see something moving out of the corner of my eye. I am so startled that I let out a blood curdling scream into the culvert that carries water but mostly just my feet from one side of the road to the other. I turn around and around, surprised at my voice, but nothing is there.
My parents have not taught me any particular religion or spiritual belief or practice and so my fears do not have a particular shape, but they are still very real. I eventually leave home for college, where I learn the difference between the old and new testament, the allegory of the cave and zen buddhism. I am hollow and hungry and lost. My sense of self is as easy to find as a ghost hovering in another dimension. My mind searches around the classrooms, in the library and on public transportation, intent to find what is missing.
I am a new college graduate and have decided that boys are the answer. I admire their minds, I tell myself. It is so much easier to connect with them than with girls my age. I occupy my time, which turns into countless years, shaping myself into what I think they want me to be. To what they see in me. I center their intelligence, interests and passions over mine. I stuff down my passions when I realize that my talents are mediocre and dull in the shadow of their more important ones. I tell myself that I am progressive and smart because I am able to be friends with boys and then men and they want me because I am special. I believe that I have a special power over them that most women don’t.
I am an adult now, there is no getting around it. I focus on every piece of evidence I can find to remind myself that men think that I am special and different and worthy of their company. I think that my mind is that of a man and not that of a woman. Women are uninteresting and just not relatable. Boring. I roll my eyes at the art of women and prefer male authors and song writers. My boyfriends always have very particular interests and are happy when I mirror them. I do a lot of listening and happily wear the lingerie and heels given to me for valentines day because nothing says love like a plastic thong and blood filled heels.
I still believe that I am on course for a special place. I will know it when I arrive, I think.
I am no longer young and, now in midlife, catch myself in a window and see my mom. I jump head first into relationships with no idea why, resulting in years of being used, manipulated and lied to. Wait, wasn’t I supposed to be the one in control? I am the one with the power over men and I have the upper hand, right? This illusion begins to crumble after the final and crushing end to a years-long secret and destructive relationship with an unavailable and manipulative man. I break open. All of my badges and trinkets and knowledge and tangled up wire and rusty nails, come pouring out and are absorbed into the earth.
I am on long drive with my son. I begin to hear something. I ignore the sound but it returns a few minutes later. It sounds like a song. I pick up the phone and hear a sharp and low man’s voice introducing himself as a cop. His interrogation takes me all the way to a bank. I am holding my son’s hand and my daughter is behind us. The bank employees are all wearing ugly Christmas sweaters as they stand around an open vault. I see this and everything around me through a fun house mirror. I think that this must be a nightmare. Again, I notice a sound. It’s that cop voice. It has me like a hook. How did this happen?
My daughter shoves her phone into my face and I read: THIS IS A SCAM. The illusion melts. I end the call.
The ship has crashed and the pieces are scattered across the universe, each of them alone on a planet or moon. A rattlesnake slithers across the thirsty ground until I grab it and hang it from one remaining rusty nail.
I walked past the open vault, holding my son’s hand while following my daughter, who guides us past the vault and into the day.
The air is warm and full of plum tree petals. I am taking a circular walk around and around the blocks of my son’s elementary school. My headphones are in, the sky is bright and my mind consumed by a storyteller. In the middle of my second lap I realize that there is a person walking on the sidewalk about a half of a block behind me, neither gaining nor retreating and definitely not walking a dog. I notice myself noticing them. What is that feeling? It is familiar. I turn around and do a double take because it is him. He sees me see him and calls my name. I turn back around and yell,
leave me alone!
He responds,
please, I want to talk to you. Please stop. Stop, I want to talk to you.
I know this trick. He has done this so many times and, in the past, I fell for it.
In the past I would say,
fine, okay, what do you want to tell me?
I’d stop and look at him and he would look at me and he would say,
I just want to talk to you. I miss you.
I’d say,
what else is new? Didn’t I tell you that I am not interested in your tiresome story?
I am finally immune. I’d say,
unless you are going to tell me that you have stopped lying, that you are finally taking responsibility for your actions and will stop ruining my life?
Water
When I succumbed in the past and stopped to listen he would always say,
what do you want me to say? What do you want me to do? Why are you so mean?
Sometimes he would cry, like that time in the pouring rain when he cried and cried and I felt sorry for him, hugged him and couldn’t let go, stuck on to the tentacles protruding from his raincoat and drunk on poison. He would take my hand and tell me again that we have a special connection. I’d agree and smile, the rain turning into small rivers under our feet.
Fire
This time I started walking faster and shouting,
stop following me! What are you doing here? How did you find me? For fucks sake. Why are you following me? Leave me alone, go away, go away.
I faintly heard him call out that he happened to be driving by and spotted me and decided to stop. My chest is on fire and my face is burning with rage. I begin to run, find my car and hide inside until my son is done with basketball practice and we go home. I lock the door, make dinner and play legos with my son.
Earth
In my dream I walk down the carpeted stairs to my basement. The new floor is gone. In its place, a grave. A terrifying monster climbs out of the grave and into my basement and I scream like it is my last breath. I think,
how I could have built my house on the grave of such an evil spirit? I think about this as the monster reaches out for me.
I enjoy my walk to work each morning. I think that I am lucky to have such a nice walk from my car, down a path, over a cloud bridge and across a beautiful lawn before entering my workspace.
This is the time to be fully present before starting my day. I take in the air, which is sometimes thick with rain, or thin with summer heat or piercing with cold. I blow it out and my phone stays in my pocket. I notice the state of the trees – sometimes full of leaves of green or red and yellow and other times, like today, naked with bejeweled rain drop branches. The geese may be around, or maybe just some ducks. The water below is clear and calm or filled with birds or a perfect reflection of the sky or full of the force of raindrops and wind. I notice my mind. It is calm. I feel the radiant energy of Earth.
Earth
As the hours pass my body is a collector. It does things and it cannot stop. Now I am friendly but not too friendly. Oh no, did I say that wrong? Should I shut up or change my voice? I am too loud. I am too quiet. Do I look more professional with my hair up or down? I am excited about tackling a project. I do a task that nobody will remember next year or even tomorrow. I wonder, am I good at my job or just okay. I wonder, should I still be working here? Why do I have to work? I am sick of work. I wonder, how much older do I look now than I did before I started this job. Indeed, I am older. Should I quit now or wait to be fired?
Fire
Eight or nine hours later, when I cross the bridge again, my world has changed. The bridge is no longer a cloud but a dark flame. I move faster. As fast as my legs can go while holding the remains of the workday. Thoughts of beauty are replaced by anxious hammers. I must leave now. I must get out of here and do anything else. I could have handled that meeting better. What am I going to make for dinner? I am looking, craving, seeking, running away from. I am lost. I am spinning. Who am I? I cross the bridge and do not look at the shape of the water.
Water
It is the weekend and I have a rare date. I am anxious and worried but also excited because maybe it will be great? We meet up at a restaurant of his choosing. He is waiting for me at the counter and has me order and pay for my own food before he orders and pays for his. We sit down and begin to talk. It is easy to talk with this man. To share basic information and light philosophy. I wonder if he likes me. What do I think about him? Leading up to this date he has texted me a bunch. I think: this guy likes to communicate a lot. He likes to exchange words. We like some of the same things and we get a drink after. He seems excited to be in the moment with me but I wonder if he will ever stop talking and take action. He seems kind of cute, maybe? Mostly, though, I look for signs that he may like me. When it gets very late and my eyes are closing I tell him that I need to go to bed. He walks me to my car, gives me a hug and says goodbye. No attempt is made to kiss me. No excitement do I feel. In fact, I am absolutely freezing. I go home and get into bed and pile on extra blankets. I wonder if I am getting the flu. Why am I so fucking cold? I realize it is because my body has been clenched tight like a vice all night. I reach down to feel my thighs and they are ice. Slick and cold and without feeling. I turn the light on, flip back the blankets and yes, my legs are long spikes of pure blue ice. I start to panic and hit my legs hard to wake myself up. Instead, my left leg, brittle and cold, breaks at the knee and the lower half rolls off of the bed and onto the floor. My cat jumps down to investigate. I decided to put the blankets on and think about something else. Sleep comes while my lower left leg melts in the warmth of the bedroom air.
Air
I awake in the middle of a dream in which I had just purchased an igloo shaped cat bed. I was laying in it with a handful of tuna, attempting to get my cat to come join me but now I am awake. My legs seem fine. I make coffee, do my weekend cleaning and head out for a walk. It is a beautiful winter day. The kind when the sun is out and the mountains are clear and the first bulbs are bursting above the frozen soil.
I wake up to the sound of my cat breathing loudly. How does she make that noise? Is that normal? No. No way is that a normal cat sound. What a strange snorting bed hog, curled up contentedly snuggling in the exact middle of the mattress.
I realize all of the sudden that I am craving a cinnamon roll. Ah,it was one of those nights. Once again I traveled the lit up highway of my brain to the smaller world that reflects inside my eyes. For what feels like all night I inhabited the familiar place I visit while my body rests. This one is on the other side of my eyes and inside my cells. A smaller but equally cyclical world full of repetitive problems and sweet treats.
For some reason I have the belief from others or movies or books that dreams are metaphors providing one with clues about what they should do next. As a child my mom had a dream book on the family bookshelf. It was like a mysterious dictionary where the words translated into ghost-like apparitions that pointed in a direction that seemed solid but then crumbled upon a good solid stare. In my memory many of the definitions insinuated that my dream had something to do with sex, which I did not understand. Are my nightly cinnamon rolls trying to tell me something?
This dream book and countless friends and influences tell me that the mind is the all knowing wizard laying down artsy hints in the form of dreams for the dumb consciousness to follow. Or it’s like the super computer inside that is secretly optimized for happiness but is playing coy and holding back like an evil narrator.
At some point my mind decided that it would serve me up a world complete with a sometimes haunted, sometimes perfect home and a city full of secret bakeries. A few years ago I realized that it was as real of a place as this is and I have since spent countless nights on a break from my literal dream job looking for the most amazing underground bakery that my dream city has to offer. It is always the same, complete with a long line and a selection of yeasty treats waiting to be decided upon.
You walk down the street and the cold air is all that you feel and the moon is all that you see. You look to the right and into an open window with a nice mid-century lamp and a fireplace in view. You become an orange glow.
You float down to the next block and realize that this night walk is the only time you feel present all day. You took this walk in order to look for yourself. Until a few blocks in you have been surrounded by what you can only describe as a terrible sand storm shaped like your own head. You start to wonder if senses and feelings are the same thing. The cold on your face is an antidote to the hot heat of that earlier flash of anger and the moon a bright antidote to shrink the feeling of hopelessness you felt when brushing your teeth this morning.
It was only yesterday that you noticed the sandstorm that has been following you, getting stronger every day. You finally caught it in the mirror when you looked upside down and backwards. It is sneaky but you are learning. You wonder if this is what will kill you. You wonder if you should call your mom and ask her if she has one. If so, what the hell does she do to keep it from growing?
Your storm is comfortable on most days but it clouds your vision from seeing anything new. Everything yesterday and the day before you already did. You thought it already and you took those steps already and thought those things about that person already and made that judgment already and forgot your dreams already, just as always.
Your walk becomes longer and longer as you realize you can’t stop without risking death. You walk most of the night. Until your shoes rub your toes into blisters and the feeling of pain in your legs replaces the fear of stopping. You go home and get into bed and you do not wake up in the morning.
I don’t know who to talk to about this but to you. I hope that it’s okay that I am writing to you before our session. I have been crying like a teenager experiencing my first heartbreak for the last three hours. Why? Well, remember that man I told you I was interested in that I see around campus? He is a contractor who does some work there occasionally and has been around every day this summer. He is also someone that I noticed over two years ago for the first time when he gave me a ride across campus. Ever since then I have noticed him and he has noticed me. This summer he and I developed a rapport of sorts. We had long, extended eye contact every time our paths crossed. I would almost call it staring. We started saying hello more and having small interactions. I started thinking about him a lot more. I introduced myself formally to him last week, at which time he reminded me that we had met a while back. He started greeting me by name and then, yesterday, came up to me out of the blue and asked me where I was going for lunch. That was when I had a note ready in my pocket to give him. I knew that my words would not come out at all if I used my mouth. I gave him the note and walked away.
The note said that I think he is cute . That he should let me know if he is ever interested in having a drink or something. I didn’t include my number as I figured it was just a way to let him know without the burden of a phone number attached.
My stomach was in knots after this note was delivered, wondering what would happen next. I lost my appetite completely. I thought that it was almost a sure thing. I thought it was the right move, even though it was out of character for me. I thought so because I knew that he would intentionally run into me every single day. At least that’s what I thought.
Today, as I walked outside, he came up to me and said thank you for the note. That it was sweet and that it was one of the best things that he has received in a while. He said that he is married (no ring, by the way). That if he wasn’t, he would love to take me up on my offer. He said that he enjoys seeing me around. I told him no worries. I will get over my embarrassment, eventually. I slowly backed away from him as we spoke as, inside, I was about to explode. It was like a nightmare when I heard his words. I got out of there fast, went to my car and started to cry. I can’t stop crying. I can’t believe how much I let myself think about him and believe that this was the person I was supposed to reach out to and that this was the right thing to do.
Thank you for being there for me and for helping me these last few months. You have been invaluable. I really was feeling so good and now I have fallen back into sadness. I know that it will pass, but it really sucks.
I look forward to seeing you next week.
Part 2: talk therapy continued
Hi again,
First of all, thank you for being there and for listening and for sharing so many of your own stories with me. It has been invaluable. I don’t think I can make it yet again this Tuesday. You may need to rethink our schedule and switch to another day. I am sorry, but I have written you another very long email below.
I am writing again to get something off my chest as I don’t know who else to tell. I told you on Friday that the married guy and I had a long conversation at the end of which he said that he did want to take me up on my offer to get a drink sometime. We exchanged numbers.
Last night we met at a bar with a dark back patio. He got there first and ordered me a beer. I saw him there and it was like a dream. Everything glistened, including his eyes, the glass of beer and even the wood fence surrounding the patio. I was inside my own fantasy. He and I talked for a while. His disposition and thoughts on things so clearly lined up with my own. And he confessed to purposefully ending up in places around campus in order to run into me. He told me that he couldn’t stop thinking about me and I told him the same.
He was up for anything with me last night and made that clear. I was also up for anything. He told me that he wanted to be sure I understood that we could not date.
We left the bar and walked out into the dark residential street. He stopped me and held me close to him. We kissed and made out for a few minutes there on the sidewalk. It felt like I was melting into a puddle of warm lightning. Finally.
We both agreed we needed to go somewhere alone and so we found a seedy motel. It seemed the only next step. Before we did this there were a few awkward minutes in his car when we couldn’t find anywhere with an open room.
I learned that he is not in an open marriage and that this, according to him, was not something he had done before. We talked a bit about how good my note made him feel. How the expected monogamy of his long term marriage can cause him to feel lost and far away from himself. I discerned that keeping his family stable is very important to him.
I felt some guilt about this, like I was leading him into something that he could regret. But that feeling was overpowered by my selfish desire for him. He told me that he couldn’t make this a thing we did more than once. I told him that I understood and we both talked about how maybe this would resolve the tension that was distracting us both all summer.
As soon as we got into the room at midnight, his wife started calling him on repeat. He went outside to talk and came back looking solemn. Though she was out of town he was shaken by her asking him if he was out and who he was out with. He was not able to continue. He felt guilty and badly about what was happening. I told him that it was okay. That I was sorry about this and that I didn’t want to cause harm.
We left the motel and he took me home. He texted me once he was home and apologized for the way things ended. I told him again that it was okay and that I didn’t want to cause any harm. He told me he wished he was still there with me. I told him I wished that he was, too.
I’ve been in a state of extreme confusion, reflection, pain, and sadness today. I got up and got on my bike, rode to an exercise class and have been riding all around town ever since just trying to exhaust myself enough into…acceptance?
At the end of my exercise class, during the part where everyone lays on the floor for five minutes, just breathing, I thought of our conversation last week. Of how I tried to describe to you a time that I felt a true connection with someone. The person I told you about from my past, still haunts me to this day. I had a lot of desire for him, too. We had a connection but it was doomed. Maybe it was not love, I realized there, lying prone on the floor. Maybe I’ve never experienced real true love for any man I’ve been with? And have they loved me? Certainly not the kind that was strong enough to bond us through our tumbles. This thought struck me hard and I left the class in tears.
So I got on my bike and rode for two hours until I got to where I sit now, writing to you. On my ride I did find pleasure. In the music playing in my headphones, in the sun and the wind as I peddled over bridges and under them. I stopped several times to take photos of the sky, of large metal pieces holding together the bridges, and of statues that for some reason are on rooftops. I thought of a quote that I had written down a couple of weeks ago from the novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. The author writes that “it was beauty, I learned, that we risked ourselves for ”. That quote represents, at least to me, a central theme of the book. Everyone in it experiences so much pain, but they have small moments, as the author pens out in poetic form, where they experience something that can only be described as beauty. These beautiful moments cannot be wiped out by the pain as they are intertwined. Would I have noticed the beauty today if I was not so torn up inside?
It worries me that I want this kind of thing. I want the passion and can’t stand these stale blind internet dates. I don’t feel anything when I meet these strangers. Even when they kiss me. Absolutely nothing.
Part 3: talk therapy concludes
Hi,
I am trying to take your suggestion and write. Today has been really hard and I feel certain that things are over for good between myself and the married man. Here is all I could write. I tried to do this instead of continuing to cry until my eyes swell shut. Sorry about all the swearing in this bit. You don’t actually have to read this. But if you are looking for a bedtime story…
Things have taken some turns and now my heart is on the floor. I am smashing it now with my laser eyes. They are actually just blood-shot, sad eyes with no special powers. Last week the married man and I met every day for a walk. We walked and talked and held hands. Everyday we learned some things about one another. It was so fucking exciting and so fucking romantic and so fucking dreamy. Everything about it. I felt so good in those moments. He sent me goodnight texts about wanting to hold me. One of those days was a time at my house. Our third time and the best of all. We were more relaxed and more connected. He felt so good and we were so happy. We texted several times that night about how good we both felt. Until, on Sunday, when I texted him back too late after he had texted me. His wife looked at his phone and saw my text and that was the period at the end of our sentence.
He called me last night and told me that she found my text. I was at a restaurant with my daughter at the time and had to step out to answer the phone. I knew it was bad as he had never actually called me before. He told me that he told his wife about me. He confessed. He said that he didn’t know what was going to happen. I said that I was sorry and sad. That’s all I could think to say.
Today he called my work phone from his work phone. He said that his wife had smashed up and destroyed his phone in the middle of the night. He said that she had kicked him out of the house and told their two kids about what he had done. He said that she may come looking for me. He said that he regretted everything. That it was great, what we had, but that he wished that he had not done it. That he had fucked up everything. I didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to jump into my arms. He just lost hold of his life and was ashamed and regretful and scared.
Tonight I texted him that I wanted to help in any way that I could. I told him that I would talk with his wife if she wanted and that I would agree never to see or speak with him again. I told him that I cared very much for him and would do anything to help. He texted back OK and that he would tell his wife. He said not to text him again unless he did first as he was not kicked out after all but at home and she could have seen my text. I burst into tears and banged my head on the kitchen table for 10 minutes. I was hysterical. The dream bubble ended in a heart smashing tornado.
I feel right now like an idiod. I feel so unloved and unimportant. I don’t have anything of substance with him. He is now engaged in a fight to save his marriage and family. This is what he wants, based on how he sounded on the phone with me today. I was all just flattery for him that felt good. In the end, it leaves me alone just as before. So much of my mind and most of my heart has been captured by him for the last few months. I can feel it all. I have all the texts. He has nothing as he has to erase every text we have ever exchanged. I can’t erase them. They were so beautiful.
Part 4: reboot
Dear Me:
It has been over three years and I have long since fired my therapist. I never gave the other woman much thought. Of course that would never be me. I’ve always been the aloof and hard to get one. I’ve always been the one prone to almost cheating or leaving a boyfriend as soon as things get difficult, unwilling to work on it. But now I am that woman who loves a man who is married and will never leave his wife. He tells me that he wishes that we could be together. That we could sleep one night at least, together, in the same bed. I tell him I wish we could, too.
I love him. I will love him even if we can never be together. I tell myself that is okay, that is okay, that is okay.
Sometimes I tell myself that I don’t care about this whole thing all that much, anyway. I tell myself that I am good at compartmentalizing. I joke that I am dead inside. He jokes that he is, too. I will find someone eventually and forget about him. But then I procrastinate dating and shut myself off to others.
I’ve been in love with him for three and a half years. I wrote about all of that already, to my former therapist. She encouraged me to pursue my feelings for him, even after I found out that he was married. I stopped going to that therapist after his wife found out about our affair.
After his wife found out and he panicked and convinced her to take him back, I grieved and then I moved on and dated someone decent for a few months. When the pandemic hit I broke it off with this guy as I was afraid and could only think about my kids. I didn’t see the married man much during that year due to social distancing but, in 2021, we started to run into each other again. The first few times I felt sick and repulsed during our interactions. But then, after many months of him tracking my schedule and every move, I started to warm up to him again. I experimented over that year in changing up my routines and he would always catch on and figure them out and make sure we could talk a little bit most days. I was distant for so long and didn’t let him get closer then small walks and talking. But at some point things got more complicated again.
We have spent so much time together. How did I let that happen? At this point, the man who is married is the one that can read my mind and always knows when to check in. He always remembers what is important to me. He is thoughtful in a way that I have never before experienced.
Sometimes, when I think about how we will never be together outside of our stolen moments, our gum swapping, walks and stolen moments, my heart actually hurts. Heartbreak. Sometimes I think that his wife will realize that something is going on (again) and things will unravel. A bomb will go off in our lives and we will be in pain in other ways. That is not something I like to consider.
I don’t know who to talk to about this. There is nobody in my life that would not say STOP IT, STOP BEING DUMB. DON’T BE THE OTHER WOMAN!
Part 5: stupid girl
Dear Me:
The mind is a tricky beast. This week I have been reading a book called Radical Acceptance, by Tara Brach. She talks a lot about the pause and about observing your feelings in the pause without telling a story about anything- just being in the moment.
Where are these clues and moments of teaching leading me? Staring in the face of the married man. The person who is always there and yet not there at all. The person who tells me that he loves me and that I am his favorite person in the world. The person who tells me that he will be sad when I someday meet someone and I withdraw from him and can’t have physical intimacy with him (remember, he is married and can have sex with his wife but I can only keep having sex with him as long as I am not doing it with anyone else – according to him). Well, I have tried yet again to break it off with him. Last week I walked with him and yelled in the wind in his face that he had to let me go. That he had to choose, for fucks sake, between his wife and me. That I can’t stand the lying. That I feel tortured. That I am worth it.
“Why can’t you just tell her the truth? Why can’t you just tell her and then it can be out and you and her can work through it?”
“Remember, she found out four years ago and you are still together. I can’t be part of this lying anymore. I can’t stand having a double life. I can’t stand that you won’t be able to be there for me if I really need you.”
“What happens to us in an emergency? We can’t be there for one another if one of us gets in an accident or is very ill.”
He doesn’t have an answer to these questions. He says, as usual ,
“Just tell me what you want me to do. What do you want me to do? “
Ug. Why do I have to tell him?
Whenever I explode like this and announce that it is over, he gets upset and turns red. He begs me not to go and tells me how much I mean to him and. Like last week, he stands a bit crooked and then cries on my shoulder and says he is heartbroken. In those moments I feel so frustrated and cold and then I warm up and usually cave in. But not this time. This time I felt much colder and even angry. I realize that I am afraid to let him go because it is a kind of loss that I don’t want to go through. He has come to take up so much space in my heart and my life. Who else will be so kind to me as he has been? Who will come fix my broken window, help me build a basketball court, bring me honey from his own beehive and salmon he fished from the river? Who else knows where I park each day and what I like to do on my lunch breaks and what I worry about and what I adore? Who else brings me flowers on my birthday every year and tells me that I am beautiful? Who else makes me a playlist for my road trip? Who else looks at me that way? Who else knows exactly what I am feeling and thinking based on a 5 word text message or passing glance? Who asks me about my weekend and knows about my kids interests and gets my sense of humor and grabs my hand when nobody’s looking? Who else checks in on me when I am sick and brings me soup when I have a sore throat? Jesus, he has even met my dad and my son!
But with all of this intimacy there is a price. The price of secrets. I don’t have a problem with non-monogamy. But this is not an open relationship. This is lying. I’ve tried to justify it so many countless times and I keep coming back to this feeling of emptiness and loneliness and sadness. I feel like a ghost. Like a disembodied being floating in and out of his world, glowing brightly when he sees me but fading into darkness on the weekends when I am alone and he is with his family. Those weekends when I try to rally to be interested in a random date that I will later tell him about, enjoying him relishing in my dissatisfaction with the man. Him fishing for compliments on his superior body and charm.
“How tall was that guy?” “Did you kiss him?” What did he say to you?” “Tell me, tell me, tell me”.
So, I ask myself…how long do you want to keep this up? What do you really want, knowing he will never leave his wife or even tell her about you? Do you want to keep pushing things until something happens and she finds out…again? Is that what you want? No, you want to be loved and give love openly and honestly. You want to be able to spend the night with someone, even occasionally, holding hands and sharing a bed. You want someone to be there for more than one hour. You don’t want to have to lie and make up stories in order to have this hour. You want someone who is strong enough to tell the truth and to face hard things. You don’t want to be a fucking secret. You want him so desperately to let you go and yet that is also your greatest fear.
Part 6: denial
Dear Me:
The end of 2023 was a mix of euphoric love episodes and extreme emotional collapse. The more that I tried to end things with the married man the harder I fell back into his arms. Every day pulling in and pulling in and then some days pushing away and crying and him crying and us having to be in meetings together and me hating him and loving him in the same hour.
We spent more time together last year than in any other year. And in the last month, when I swore to myself and to friends that I would move forward and not look back, we did things we had not ever done before. One night he arrived at my house with a sleepover bag. I was stunned when he stood brushing his teeth in my bathroom as we got ready for bed. I was stunned that he brought a change of clothes to go to work the next morning. I was stunned when we were able to lay together and talk for hours. I was so stunned, my body and senses and nervous system a mess, that I was not able to sleep at all that night. I lay awake in bed the entire night in a state I cannot even describe. It was another fantasy come to life. We both pretended to sleep but neither one of us did. I made us both coffee in the morning and we went to work, exhausted and dazed. That may have been one of my happiest days. I was in a state of complete euphoria.
We went Christmas shopping together…at a mall. We held hands as we walked among the crowd. He took me on a date to a sushi restaurant where we pretended to be a normal couple. Normal save the constant looking over the shoulder and room scanning, just in case.
It’s now the new year. The married man can no longer talk with me outside of work hours. This after we talked on the phone and in person and text countless times all day and night over the last three weeks. This is why I am writing. I am not sure what to do with my thoughts. Last night I went on a date. The first one I’ve been on in quite a while. I told the married man about it and he got upset and then we talked on the phone as I drove home from the date at 11pm. I wanted the date to go well so that I could make him upset. Part of me doesn’t want it to go well because a relationship will get in the way of my strange fucking relationship with him.
He always tells me that we love each other and that we will love each other forever. This seems stupid as I write but the sentiment is that this is a connection that seems so unique and important and powerful that it defies the bounds of morality and rules. I would not be surprised to find out that other people have similar experiences as we have but it does not diminish the feelings. I only have this one life. How can I reject a feeling that is so much more powerful than any other connection I have ever had in my life with another human? Sometimes the married man reads my mind and I read his. He has a spooky way of knowing exactly what I am thinking and feeling.
I know that our relationship is a time bomb. I know that it may end up harming me in ways I don’t yet understand. I’ve talked with him about this so many times and yet he wont stop. There have been many times when I’ve asked him to stop, to leave me alone. But then he is still there, showing up when I park my car, when I try to leave, in between my meetings due to his constant stalking of my calendar. I always cave in.
Part 7: you are still stupid
Dear Me:
You finally reached your breaking point and I am proud of you. When he tried to convince you to take a long lunch so that he could meet you at our house you said no. When he insisted, you still said no. This time you finally realized what was happening. You finally realized that he was going to keep up this pattern forever and that you would have to take charge. You told the married man to fuck off and leave you alone and, despite his dramatic texts in protest including gems like “Fuck this life. I don’t want to live anymore. Goodbye if that is what you want”, you did not cave.
But, dear self, you may need to take some deep breaths to get through the angry phase of your grieving process this month. Your actions today may have been a bit much. I know you wanted to fuck with him and to see him panic and suffer so that you can feel better (and it did feel good), but telling him that you are going to tell his wife about the affair may not have been the best idea. He panicked and found you and begged you to stop. He confessed that he has been stringing you along for years and that he has no intention of leaving his wife and that she must not at all costs know. That he would do anything to prevent her from finding out. And that is when you remember that you are a woman dealing with a man and that you are not safe, that you do not trust him and that he is capable of anything. You became afraid and you wish you had not made those threats. You hope he doesn’t think you meant it because, maybe he would do anything? Maybe he would do something to hurt you? Why are you spiraling like this? Would he? What would he do? He has told me for four years that he loves me and is in love with me but does that matter? Oh shit, what did you do, you stupid woman. Tomorrow you will text him that you promise not to mention it to his wife, ever. And then you will reiterate that he must leave you alone. That he cannot try to speak to you or text you ever again.
Part 8: end of another summer
Dear Me:
It’s a full moon in August. I woke up uneasy after going up in the sky yesterday. I briefly let myself feel in love and loved just for a few hours yesterday. I knew it was foolish but did it anyway. I woke up anxious and with a sinking feeling that the weekend would not continue on a floral wave.
He called me yesterday and asked to stop by to talk. I agreed. He came over looking a lot less distressed than I expected. He seemed slightly happy as he told me that his wife had told him to do whatever and that she wanted a divorce. He joked that I could be his girlfriend now and I felt tense because he wasn’t being serious. How could he? He said that he just wanted to talk but that’s not really what he wanted. He asked to go to the bedroom to lay together. This is his code for sex though he never admits it. Here he is in the middle of a possible grand finale to his marriage and he tells me he loves me as we have sex. I don’t want to do it at first as I know better. He will tell me that he loves me but the next day he is just “confused” and still married. I told him that I loved him too. It hurts so much.
Last night I had a dream that a person that I work with arranged for male prostitutes to be available for all of us women that had a meeting together. In the dream I grappled with realizing what a problem it was to have sex with a prostitute paid for by my employer. A prostitute asked me if I was his next client and I said “no, she is right over there”. He walked away and so did I. Later I spoke with a woman who had just left the bed of a paid lover. She was extremely relaxed and happy and seemed perfectly oblivious to how strange it was that we were at a work function featuring prostitutes. Why was I the only one who realized how strange this was, how inappropriate? I thought at any moment the other shoe is going to drop and I will somehow be implicated in this, even though I refused the offer.
It’s like I am in a feature in a circus act gone wrong. I try to let him go but inevitably can’t and we talk and we lean into each other again.
How many people have had their secret friend/lover’s wife show up at their desks at work out of the blue demanding information? I am guessing not too many but obviously there are others. It may have been one of the most stressful interactions I’ve ever had. And the one in which I’ve told the most lies. Equally terrible, too, was listening to her tell me that he may have a crush on me but that’s it. And she kept dropping subtle hints about how close and intimate she and him are. I had to pretend that I was talking to a girlfriend, not the wife of my closest secret friend. I found myself liking her and seeing how much of an absolute con-artist he is. I am so angry that he put me in this position.
I keep trying not to cry and then do a little crying anyway. But I still feel terrible and need to let out a fucking flood of fire and water and wind.
I cried so much that I got a giant sty in my eye. An infection of the eyelid caused by too much inflammation and bacteria. I told my mom. I cried to her like a teenager and she got on a plane and came to visit me for a few days. She cooked me meals, took walks with me and waspresent in a way that I really appreciated. I spent years wishing that my mom and I could be closer, like this, and it finally happened. I am grateful to her.
I walked by him today with my hand shielding my face as if to block the sun. Of course I then texted him and we ended up in a text feud followed by him calling me to talk. The problem is that, as soon as I hear his voice I break down, slowly and then faster and faster until my heart is melted cotton candy running down my chest.
The other day a guy that I have not seen or spoken with since college sent me a facebook message that said,
“I know that it was years ago, and that I should not be saying this, but I screwed up with you. I needed to get that off my chest”
I was surprised but not entirely. According to what I see on facebook he is going through a divorce. I understand completely why he would be feeling nostalgic and retracing the threads of memory.
Part 9: the end
Dear Me:
As is a pattern, I eventually gave in to taking some walks with the married man. I told him about a couple of dates I’d had during the time we were not talking. I got pleasure out of complaining to him and he was clearly pleased to take in all of the details. I felt close to the married man for a moment and then he asked for hugs and I gave in a couple of times. My irritation with him, though, has been pretty thick and frustration that he continues to want me to be his secret best friend. He did the thing again where he reminds me that he is available for sex. My inner rage burning, I told him to fuck off a few times and yet he kept trying. Last week he told me about his dates with his wife and I got really upset and expressed it to him. His reaction was to try to make it seem like this is what I’ve asked for – that we are sharing our stories about our weekends with each other like normal friends. But I told him again and reminded myself that no, this is not what I want. I reminded him again that he keeps fucking with me and I am in a state of complete emotional fucked-up-ness and yet he continues. He did that thing again where he starts asking me questions like,
“would you rather I left you alone?”
and,
“what do you think I should do?”
that piss me the fuck off. I stopped responding to him. Sunday was my birthday and he texted me a happy birthday text but I did not respond. Partly because he is at home with his WIFE and partly because I can’t fucking believe his nerve. I am so over his asshole behaviors. I give in and think he cares about me but how could he? He is being a selfish asshole who only likes me as a secret fantasy.
I decorated my house for halloween. My son did a fantastic job of putting up webbing and we have some spiders. I think about the married man as my spider web. I can’t figure out a way out of the web and so just give in, over and over. Meanwhile my blood is being sucked out slowly over time until I am a husk with nothing left inside.
“Sharky says Hey sport, you connect the dots, you pick up the pieces. He says you know I can see two tiny pictures of myself and there is one beneath your eyes…he says, listen to my heartbeat…” (lyric by Laurie Anderson)
A body in motion 