fantasy versus reality

i've had a terrible day. major set-back. been knocked completely off my feet. it involves the ex and an email he wrote to me today that i cannot go into. suffice to say i'm shattered, again. i was starting to find my footing with how it's going to be for me from now on here alone. small apartment. working by sewing for a living. believing that my little Memory Quilts were going to make a difference. and i'd be gaining his help piece mail, but he's jerked the rug out from under me. i read the email 3 times. all i could do was fall onto the bed, curl up with a pillow to my stomach, and sob myself into a terrorized nap, wail for my Dragon to come back and save me, fall further than the mattress into the deepest despair. i want my Dragon to come get me.

but he can't.

fantasy: my Dragon is with me, here. we're surviving a little better than we ever did because the kids are out of college and paying their own way, for the most part. he's working. i'm here sewing for a living. we are together. small dreams. i've never asked for a lot. i only wanted a small home, children, and a man who loves me and whom i love dearly.

we'd have done my daughter's wedding together. he would have been at my side. when the ex proclaimed publicly that he had no words for his father of the bride toast, my Dragon would have stepped up and her shocked embarrassment would have turned to smiles. our Dragon rescues her by showing his devotion.

if anyone got too close, maybe to say something to me, my Dragon would have stepped up to prove that he would be there to hear it all, watching them with that look that only a dragon can give. everyone would have seen and known that i was under his protection. i was his. i belonged to someone great and powerful. maybe not a financial giant, but in the world of claws and evil, in the world where women can get trampled and abused, he was The Dragon, and i belonged to him. his hand would have strayed, often, irreverently, to my tush.

we would have come home together and enjoyed the company of my son and his girl. we would have stood side-by-side the next morning watching them drive away and i would have turned to embrace him. he would have held me tight and whispered in my ear as i cried on his shoulder, "he'll be back for Thanksgiving. we'll have them both for Thanksgiving. come on back inside, baby. let me love you."

reality: i live alone. precariously fragile, suffering over the death of my love, my friend, my soul mate, my husband. i beg the ex for the money he owes me with no recourse if he chooses to withhold it. i work hard sewing, pretending that i and my work is worth something, when all the ex says is, "charge more and i won't have to help you with the bills." even if i was paying for all my own bills right now, he'd still owe me the money.

i'm exhausted. i'm tired. i do wish sometimes that it had been me. the wedding was harder than i even imagined it would be. too many snippy girl complaints that don't mean anything to anyone but me, but yes, things were said. my feelings got hurt. i ignored the jabs. i kept my head down and was very correct in my social behavior. yes, they knew i was hurt. yes, there was laughter. i had no Dragon to turn to, to turn in his arms and feel loved. i was alone.

when the ex told the family and guests waiting at the cake cutting that he didn't have anything to say as father of the bride, i reached into my pocket and brought out my prepared toast, my poem i wrote to her, my backup little speech just in case. and yes, her shocked embarrassment was transformed into smiles as i made a jest at my own expense to distract the unpleasantness surrounding her father's arrogance.

i came home and my son has returned to Florida and i'm alone. and now the email has come that i wish with all my heart i could talk to my daughter about, but she'll be on her honeymoon until Saturday. i'm scared and afraid and terrified. did i mention i am frightened?

i wish he were here. i want him to come back to me and make it all better. he would know what to do. my Dragon would be able to keep the demons at bay. when i was crying on the bed earlier i thought to myself, "it's like he died all over again." the ex makes me see in as many ways as possible how vulnerable i am, how alone i am.

i need him so much now and i can't have him. i can't even call him on the phone to hear his voice or the heavy breathing heavy he'd affect to make me laugh. i need him and i don't know how i'll make it without him. splitting headache from all the crying. my neck is tight and stiff from bending over a quilt i'm hand stitching the borders to and embroidering tonight.

fantasy versus reality. fantasy all the way. i wish i could just crawl under the covers and dream the rest of my life away. dream myself back into his arms. stroke his beard and touch the crinkles beside his eyes. i don't want to be awake. i want to be asleep and then wake up to find i'm with him.

but i have to face this. this is what life has decided i need to endure. why, i don't know. i don't think i'm a bad person. if i was, i think life would be working out better for me. the bad people i know seem to have it all while i get a day like today where i get punched (metaphorically) in the stomach and end up chewing on my hair in the corner. or a night like i did on 9 February when my Dragon stopped breathing forever.

"i'd rather be dreaming than living. living's just too hard to do....."

i wish i had a river......

the culmination of all my sewing and planning with my daughter and all my organization is today. her wedding.

i made it through last night's dinner by sitting in my seat and talking only to my son and his girlfriend. i was animated, regaling her with stories of him. we three talked "shop." my son and his girlfriend are both creatives. their work is on computer - 3D and Cinema 4D MoDynamics animation, computer elites. besides his "day job" teaching at the university he attended, he does free lance for Universal Studios and the Golf Channel. he's a nice young man and he respects my background of having been an art director for an advertising agency out in Dallas where all my creative work was done on the board. so the three of us talked about clients and the difference of my having to wrist it all during meetings on paper or paper napkins while they bring laptops and "clamshells" to meetings and render on-screen. very different world.

we three sat and talked and i didn't have to think about everyone being paired. i didn't have to answer questions about "how are you doing?" there was only a couple of "oh, you poor dear, so alone now and still so young." one, "it's going to be such a long life for you and yet you're too old now, I guess, to find anyone new." and one very random, "did you love him?" to each one i said, "excuse me, i need to go take some photographs for the wedding album."

i didn't cry in public. i couldn't cry when i got back to the apartment because my son and his girlfriend are staying with me. nice. this is the first time since i got to this town after my Dragon's funeral that i haven't been alone at night. i can't like it too much or think about it at all because my son and his girl leave for their respective homes in Florida Sunday. *sigh*

i laid awake until 3 AM thinking of my Dragon. i wish he were here. it's that simple. i wish he were with me for this. i don't know how to deal with people. if i don't talk too much because of my aloneness, i shut down and am in my own world. i'm not good with people beyond being a vendor of advice, work, or favors. when the attention is turned onto me, i do not know how to act/respond/be. i'm a behind the scenes person.

so i laid awake and cried alone in the dark. silent crying unheard over the fan and the itunes. my little dogs snuggled in close and knew, "it's one of those nights." i thought about my daughter going away on her honeymoon. i can't ask her to call me to check in everyday like she does normally. it's her honeymoon. i can last one week without speaking to anyone. can't i? then i thought that one thought that was the worst. i'll really be alone for the next week. my son's schedule is crazy wild and he calls only once a week, sometimes twice. but it is my daughter whose my "daughter all the days of her life." but she deserves a break from me.

hell, i deserve a break from me.

which brings me full circle to my Dragon. i want him back. i want to lie down with him in the circle of his arms and have him whisper to me all the sweet words he used to say. i want him to finger comb my hair and tell me it's all going to be okay. that he loves me and i'm beautiful and he'll never leave me. he always promised he'd never leave me.

why did they make him go? why did they take him from me when i'm the weak one? i've been so alone all my life, defending myself during childhood, protecting myself and my children during my first marriage. always alone. always the one out front taking the hits. i was already so whipped and tired. i was already so weak, my strength gone, my inner reserves almost depleted.

and then i met my Dragon.

and i wasn't alone. but now all my dreams have been shattered. all my hopes are shot so full of holes they are unrecognizable. i'm terrified. i have nothing left inside me to give anymore because i trusted that it was finally my time to have something good and i gave all of myself to my Dragon, because he told me every night before we shut our eyes, "i love you. you are my whole world. i'll always be here for you. sweet dreams, my love."

i haven't heard that in 7 months now. 7 very short, very long months.

so the wedding is today. all the people will come. i have a lot to do before it starts. i'll have a lot to clean up after the happy couple leave. and then i'll be alone again. i have no money to get anymore food until i finish another quilt. my daughter is working on her dad to loan me some but so far...... he loves the control. i have a court document that says he owes me 300K left over from the divorce that he refuses to pay saying "it's my money." i know he won't let me starve but the games are exhausting and demeaning for my daughter and me. she sees him now without the mask of "dad" attached to his name. he's let her see who he really is and she gets nauseous sometimes. she's so worried and it's her wedding today. her last comment to me last night as we parted was, "i'll talk to him again. we'll get you some money, mom." my last comment to her was, "don't you worry. i can take care of this. please, relax and enjoy all this. he's not going to keep this up much longer. he'll give me some money to last."

we hugged. we had tears in our eyes. two women who knew the unspoken. i might not be alright, not without giving up more of myself in whatever way he wants. he may want me to sew something for free. he may want me to acknowledge how he holds all the cards. and i'll diminish myself and do it. acquiescence isn't submission. it's just another strategy until a better one presents itself.

oh, God, i am already so tired this morning. i wish you could have let me have my Dragon for a little bit longer. i wish you could have allowed his deals to close before he died so that i wasn't in this financial position.

"i wish i had a river i could skate away on....."

the bell in the fog

i just got an email from a woman who was reaching out to me. a stranger who gave me her phone number in case i wanted to talk. i do and i don't. what do i say to an absolute stranger? a face i've not seen? i walked to the Loew's that is about a mile down the road one morning for a larger clay pot for my lavender and i broke down to the checkout clerk. for a moment i couldn't find my debit card. i panicked and she was very sweet, a woman close to my own age whose husband worked in the lumber department there but whose sister lived with them, moved in after her husband was killed in a convenience store robbery.

i found the debit card and admitted i was a recent widow for whom little things break me. still. probably will for a while. i'm so poor. so broke. and i work so hard for the little i earn off the quilts and things.

so the reaching out email caught me by surprise. i loved that someone saw how badly off i am doing emotionally and i want to call, but i cry so much. it would be pointless. and there is nothing, nothing they can do for me. and the link that was offered up to a blog that has taken off. so many have huge amounts of followers. they write of friends and family, of whom, "without them i wouldn't have survived this." i have to be honest, completely honest here and say to read things like that brings a bitter laugh. my life has been so much less. and yet i'm still here. so much bad and yet, like that scene in Steve McQueen's film Papillon where he says, "I'm still here, you bastards," i'm still here. but i'm also still getting backhanded, still getting hurt. Job, from the Book of, and i should get together and talk.

two things.

one, my ex-husband is now back on the peripheral of my life and cranking up for the rest of my life, to control, to verbally slap me. in contact with him for financial help for my daughter's wedding. deals with the devil. not even the devil. that's too much credit. he's the ground maggot on the hoof of the devil but he's the one i have to work with. i don't bother with hating him. that, again, gives him too much credit. God, the strings attached to that money and when i read Split Second Single Father's words, and other widowers words for their daughters, i weep for my own. she is a wonderful, beautiful girl. young woman. she wants her step-father back as much as i do. our Marine. my husband. it is so unfair to take him now when the demon is still so near.

two, there is a woman from my husband's high school who found his name on Classmates.com who is hounding me. i've blocked her from every angle but she keeps popping up like a rat finds a way inside a house. she's had one of her friends contact me. she's tried to "befriend" my husband on facebook and myspace. i keep both those sites up because i get contacted by his former Marine mates through there. i block, block, block. but it's her words before i realized what she was. "we were engaged before he went off to Vietnam. i'm sorry you have to tell me, a stranger to you, but not to him, that he has died. we meant so much to each other......." she found him after he died. why she's doing this i'll never know. it's been almost 40 years. she saw his picture on myspace. she was wanting so reconnect. she'd missed him. she knew a wife somewhere had been mentioned in connection with him......... the melodrama. i don't have the time or energy. i also don't have the strength. nor do my tear ducts. why this gets to me i can't explain. why i cry, again, no idea. i'm just low right now. really, really low. i'm treading water as it is and i don't need this weight. and to tell me to "snap out of it, forget her," would be a low blow. i'm trying to dismiss it as a woman off her meds. i block. i'll keep blocking. i don't read anymore.

i know of her. my husband told me of his life, childhood stories, of being drafted his senior year in high school. of worrying he would go to Vietnam and be killed. he told me he'd asked a girl to marry him and had been engaged all of two months before logic took over. he wanted a career in the Marines. he didn't want Vietnam but it was part of being a Marine and he was going because it was his duty. she had told him she hated the military and wanted him to quit. you don't quit the draft. anyway, they broke up and he went to Vietnam for three tours, and had a lifetime in the Marines.

Me? i love him. i have an enormous amount of respect for the Marines. i am proud to say, "my husband is a Marine, Force Recon." he is my hero.

but the fog is all around me now. i don't know which way to go so i'm not going anywhere. my beloved is gone. there is no hand holding mine on this beach, or in this tumultous water. i feel like i've gotten so lost that i'm probably fighting it too hard, trying to find footing, even if it's shifting sand. i'm on constant watch against my ex-husband. i'm having to play an old, old game of "you're not going to hurt her, hurt me instead. i'm the one you want to hurt." i hate that game. i played it for 20 years until i could get away. i'm angry that my Marine had to die. everyone knows that when the situation is hopeless you call in the Marines. i need him.

i got a phone number from a stranger who offered an ear. a woman from my husband's 18th year is wildly hounding me with her love for him that she never got over.

the fog is close all around me and i don't know where to turn. my grief for him, my memories of his smiles and his love are the only real things in my life right now.

there is a story of a blind man who would swim in the ocean while his wife stayed onshore ringing a bell for him to hear so he could return safely to the beach. he swims and swims, confident in that bell and his own independence. blindness will not keep him from doing what he loves. he tires and pauses, treading water. he listens for the bell and hears its comforting sound. he swims towards that sound. ding. ding. ding. it's closer now. the water is getting choppy now and he realizes he's swum for a long time. but the bell sounds a little inconsistent. his wife must be as tired of ringing the bell as he is of swimming. so with renewed energy, love for his wife, confidence in that sound coming through the fog of his blindness, he swims on towards the mile marker in the channel.