It’s going to be all over the place, because there’s a lot to tell over lunch. Yesterday, my sister and I went to Popeye’s and I had chicken and Fanta, the official meal of the Cajun south. It was delicious, and we chatted both seriously and not. So much laughter, and long hugs because it had been a while since we’d had some face-to-face conversation.
One of the things that really flipped my shit was that when Counselor wrote to me and told me not to contact Dana under any circumstances, I told her that I wanted Dana to cut all ties with my family. This was over Christmas, and I really, really meant it.
Lindsay told me that on Feb. 7th, Dana contacted her to ask if she knew any tax accountants, and she was asking for a friend who’d been here less than a year. It hurt so bad I almost cried. Why she thinks that she can have a relationship with my sister after all we’ve been through is unimaginable to me… on the serious. I was glad that I was on my anxiety medication, because when the cortisol and sin started racing through my body, I was able to combat it.
I don’t have a relationship with Counselor… not that I want one. But it would be the same. Dana hurt me so bad that my therapist recommended group therapy for battered women. I am not innocent in that fight, but the last punch undid me. I had a bruise under my eye for a week, and phantom pain for long afterwards. My wife and best friend in the world left a bruise that everyone could see. I couldn’t leave the house. I took sleeping pills all the time to get away from the pain. It was the most horrible feeling in the entire world, and I lashed out at everyone. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t function, and at first, literally.
The problem was that she outweighed me by quite a bit, so when her fist hit my face, at first I thought my eye socket was broken. She arranged a penitential rite with our priest, and she opened the Book of Common Prayer to show it to me. I hyperventilated so hard that she called my parents, and when they showed up, they saw the bruise under my eye, and it was humiliating… Devastating, really. I didn’t want to show ANYONE that bruise, much less my stepmom and dad. I was just undone.
The fight started when she pushed me so hard I went off like a rat dog with a Napoleon complex, but I couldn’t compete. At that point, I was dealing with a lot of shit that had nothing to do with her, but it was making me so anxious that I’d dropped to 117 pounds and my muscle mass was disappearing. Dana was the opposite. She gained weight and was over 200. Again, I couldn’t compete. I was feather-weight at best.
And the bitch of it is I still love her, pray for her, wish that we could have done more to save our marriage than completely destroy it one day at a time. But praying for her gives me peace in the matter, and I won’t stop. It feels like I won’t ever. But I know that eventually I will meet someone else, hopefully long into the future so that I have time to grieve. There are moments when I still can’t function, I am so upset at what happened. We were in trouble, and the fight was just the last thing that happened. I will never forget it, and yet, she’s still the one I’d hoped I’d be chasing around our nursing home.
So, to say that I flipped my shit yesterday is just about the most honest thing I can say. As Bryn would say, “it’s just true.” I had a great time driving my car home, because she is so perfect for me, and then I crumpled in grief and sadness. I went to bed at 7:00 and slept until 8:00 just because I could. I wanted to get away, so I took 2 Atarax and slept without dreaming. I knew it would do that, because if I had been dreaming, I would have ripped Dana a new one, and I didn’t want to have that dream in the slightest.
She can’t have it both ways. She can’t ask for silence and expect to have full contact with my family. They are so over her.
And one day, I will be, too.
Just not yet.
Stories That Are All True 