My New Job As A Recall Specialist: Sorry, Tyler Durden Will Not Be Giving Commentary
I feel like I'm that character Edward Norton plays in the movie, "Fight Club". No, not the psychotic insomniac part, but the part where he talks about his job. If you haven't seen them movie, he is a traveling accident recall specialist. He goes to wrecks and what not and analyzes them. I've been doing that with my marriage, soon to be divorce and my entire life. It's all been playing on some old timey projector, the kind that makes the click click click noises. I'm strapped to some uncomfortable theater chair as 1994 comes into view. We were so in love and we had endless discussions and even more things in common. We were young and fearless; ready to take on the world and God, the sex was, well it was something. That's the thing I'm learning, we had this intense physical relationship all the way up until after I got pregnant with our daughter. It didn't decrease right off but our relationship was very very much a physical one. I sucked at housekeeping. My house was a wreck most every day and I was rarely at home. I didn't know what I was doing, now that the reel begins to focus on those first five years. My grandma was heart broken I had left home and I felt enormous amounts of guilt along with depression and fear. When we'd argue, I would go to them and as I watch this, I see now how I weakened the passionate bond that Mike and I shared. We didn't have a clue what we were doing.
The reel keeps going on and I see the night that it was snowing, and I was getting ready to come home to be with him but he told me to stay where I was that the weather was bad and there was no use to get my grandpa out in this. At that moment I can see the look on my face, a smile that I was thought about and loved. Then I see where I got home the following day and he'd had a party. There were bottles and the house smelled of stale cigarettes, pot, and puke. He was semi happy to see me but I was overjoyed to see him even if he lied to me. Later that day I would get a phone call from a woman who had been to our home and supposedly with my husband. I hit pause. I don't want to see this because this single event would scar the next 17 years. I have to see it though. His best chick friend calls me telling me she has to talk to me; something she has to tell me about Mike. I call him home from the bowling alley. I'm believing he's going to come home and clear this up. The bomb ends up dropping though and rather than clear things up-he leaves. He left and I'm there feeling as if I have been betrayed in the worst possible way. "I did this" I say to myself. I should have been home and suddenly, just like that I'm snapped out of this postpartum nightmare and I'm mad that some woman came in and thought to take what was mine; what I shared with him. I see us both hugging each other in that 1987 tan Nova in front of his parents' house. Neither of us wanted to let go, both of us crying. Then I see his face as I see him and the very same best chick friend at the mall and he doesn't know what she's said about him or how she accused him; he doesn't see it but he will.
The reel switches up and now we have another baby. It's a little boy. A girl and a boy; all that was missing was the picket fence and the dog. I let him name our son since he is definitely the last baby I'l ever have. He's working but his factory is closing. I feel so hurt for him because he gave ten years. What will he do? Perhaps he'll go to college and do something he's always wanted to do? Those were all the thoughts I had at the time as we were adjusting to having a new baby and a daughter who was entering puberty. The year that he didn't have a job, I didn't work because our kids needed the Medicaid. He never understood that. Maybe I didn't understand it. Things were already so tense between us, yet we were hanging in there. Then he got a job at the distribution center and life looked up. Or maybe I hoped it was up. The arguments still were happening but so was the laughter and we still had some semblance of a physical relationship. Grandpa got sick and died and I lost my Pell Grant, but I had lost my grandpa which was excruciating. So once again I put everything into the kids and my grandmother to try and keep everything going, everyone going, everyone happy. I didn't know he was unhappy. We didn't have much but we had more than most. So in 2010, when he told me he didn't love me and some girl he worked with had popped up on his FB.
Years later he would tell me that he put the girl up to it so that I could have a "wake up call" and go ahead and file but he decided to stay and stick it out. Our daughter was having issues, our son was in the midst of full on ADHD without medication, I was living at schools and courtrooms, and I got arrested twice. Yes, I got arrested for criminal conversion simply because I ran after my son to keep him from being hit by a car and the second time? I took a pack of plates and plastic ware and birthday candles I had forgotten to pay for but because of the once charge, I was arrested even though I had the money and even though I had never been in trouble ever in my life. My husband abandoned me. He paid the costs and the lawyer fees, and he stayed with me but in his heart, I could see that he abandoned me and I don't know why because if it had been him in my shoes, I would have defended him like a lion and held him up. I needed him to at one of the worst times in my life, but he didn't.
I'm looking at myself sitting in my car by the side of the road after St. Vincent's has just called to tell me that my gran has died. I should have been there with her, but I wasn't. He was the first one I called and within hours, when I had finally come home from my mom's, he was there waiting. Those next few weeks, it was as if we were right back to the way we were at year one. He was tender, compassionate, caring, and loving. He made sure gran had the send off she deserved and even offered more, but I didn't want him spending every bit of his 401k; it wasn't his burden but he loved her too. The film reel changes and we're standing in the driveway of this house; a house I didn't want; a house I never wanted to live in, but here we are. He's worked so hard to try to move us in without it impacting me. He doesn't see it but I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack the moment I walk into that door. The grief is going to hit me and sure enough, it does but I just try to help him hang up clothes and move things in. It's just us and Justin. That first week we spent here, I couldn't sleep. I could have sworn I kept hearing Ma's voice like a quiet echo. Mike goes and he buys paint and a smile kind of cracks over my lips. He worked like a mad man painting the living room and hallway and it looks so nice and finally, I feel like maybe I might sleep; maybe we can live here. He keeps telling me we can live here that we'll have a home; it will be our new start.
The rest of the reel? We're still arguing here and there and I still don't have a job, but things aren't so dire until the end. The end ends up being some thrown together montage of "I love you's", getting frisky in the kitchen and us heading into the bedroom, us watching television, us just doing what married people do together and with their kids, and then comes the part where he leaves and becomes someone I don't know anymore; someone harsh and cold; someone that looks at me as if I am some sort of plague. The film flips out and the screen is blank white and it's quiet except for the crying that's coming from me.
We were The Noffsingers, Mike & Nikki. We had so many dreams, ambitions, hopes, plans, wishes, fights, arguments, and even laughs. Every thing I have written above in some way shaped our marriage and sent it on the path it ended on. Where do we go from here? We're separate; we're divorcing, but is it always going to be so hateful? Will the pain between us ever cease? Will the anger ever go away? Which is the right way? What's the wrong, so I can make a U-Turn on that one? Will there ever be a "why" that's ever answered? The human ability to love is equal to the ability to hate and I may never understand how families break apart. I will never understand when I grew up with people who stayed and made their lives happy. Shouldn't I have be able to have someone who wants to be happy with me? Why didn't he want to be happy with me? The "why's" seem to never end and they will never be answered. I can only know my own heart-I don't know his. These days, I wonder if he has one but even now through all this, I don't wish ill upon him. I don't wish anything other than I hope one day he sees our 21 years through MY eyes instead of just the shortcomings that didn't suit his.
Michael, I'm not crazy. I have loved you for what felt like forever but I wish you well. I pray you find the happiness that you wanted. Be good to yourself and keep loving our children, both of them. They are going to need you more than ever. You can be the man to them that you always wanted to be. Maybe one day, you'll see me as friend not foe.
The reel keeps going on and I see the night that it was snowing, and I was getting ready to come home to be with him but he told me to stay where I was that the weather was bad and there was no use to get my grandpa out in this. At that moment I can see the look on my face, a smile that I was thought about and loved. Then I see where I got home the following day and he'd had a party. There were bottles and the house smelled of stale cigarettes, pot, and puke. He was semi happy to see me but I was overjoyed to see him even if he lied to me. Later that day I would get a phone call from a woman who had been to our home and supposedly with my husband. I hit pause. I don't want to see this because this single event would scar the next 17 years. I have to see it though. His best chick friend calls me telling me she has to talk to me; something she has to tell me about Mike. I call him home from the bowling alley. I'm believing he's going to come home and clear this up. The bomb ends up dropping though and rather than clear things up-he leaves. He left and I'm there feeling as if I have been betrayed in the worst possible way. "I did this" I say to myself. I should have been home and suddenly, just like that I'm snapped out of this postpartum nightmare and I'm mad that some woman came in and thought to take what was mine; what I shared with him. I see us both hugging each other in that 1987 tan Nova in front of his parents' house. Neither of us wanted to let go, both of us crying. Then I see his face as I see him and the very same best chick friend at the mall and he doesn't know what she's said about him or how she accused him; he doesn't see it but he will.
The reel switches up and now we have another baby. It's a little boy. A girl and a boy; all that was missing was the picket fence and the dog. I let him name our son since he is definitely the last baby I'l ever have. He's working but his factory is closing. I feel so hurt for him because he gave ten years. What will he do? Perhaps he'll go to college and do something he's always wanted to do? Those were all the thoughts I had at the time as we were adjusting to having a new baby and a daughter who was entering puberty. The year that he didn't have a job, I didn't work because our kids needed the Medicaid. He never understood that. Maybe I didn't understand it. Things were already so tense between us, yet we were hanging in there. Then he got a job at the distribution center and life looked up. Or maybe I hoped it was up. The arguments still were happening but so was the laughter and we still had some semblance of a physical relationship. Grandpa got sick and died and I lost my Pell Grant, but I had lost my grandpa which was excruciating. So once again I put everything into the kids and my grandmother to try and keep everything going, everyone going, everyone happy. I didn't know he was unhappy. We didn't have much but we had more than most. So in 2010, when he told me he didn't love me and some girl he worked with had popped up on his FB.
Years later he would tell me that he put the girl up to it so that I could have a "wake up call" and go ahead and file but he decided to stay and stick it out. Our daughter was having issues, our son was in the midst of full on ADHD without medication, I was living at schools and courtrooms, and I got arrested twice. Yes, I got arrested for criminal conversion simply because I ran after my son to keep him from being hit by a car and the second time? I took a pack of plates and plastic ware and birthday candles I had forgotten to pay for but because of the once charge, I was arrested even though I had the money and even though I had never been in trouble ever in my life. My husband abandoned me. He paid the costs and the lawyer fees, and he stayed with me but in his heart, I could see that he abandoned me and I don't know why because if it had been him in my shoes, I would have defended him like a lion and held him up. I needed him to at one of the worst times in my life, but he didn't.
I'm looking at myself sitting in my car by the side of the road after St. Vincent's has just called to tell me that my gran has died. I should have been there with her, but I wasn't. He was the first one I called and within hours, when I had finally come home from my mom's, he was there waiting. Those next few weeks, it was as if we were right back to the way we were at year one. He was tender, compassionate, caring, and loving. He made sure gran had the send off she deserved and even offered more, but I didn't want him spending every bit of his 401k; it wasn't his burden but he loved her too. The film reel changes and we're standing in the driveway of this house; a house I didn't want; a house I never wanted to live in, but here we are. He's worked so hard to try to move us in without it impacting me. He doesn't see it but I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack the moment I walk into that door. The grief is going to hit me and sure enough, it does but I just try to help him hang up clothes and move things in. It's just us and Justin. That first week we spent here, I couldn't sleep. I could have sworn I kept hearing Ma's voice like a quiet echo. Mike goes and he buys paint and a smile kind of cracks over my lips. He worked like a mad man painting the living room and hallway and it looks so nice and finally, I feel like maybe I might sleep; maybe we can live here. He keeps telling me we can live here that we'll have a home; it will be our new start.
The rest of the reel? We're still arguing here and there and I still don't have a job, but things aren't so dire until the end. The end ends up being some thrown together montage of "I love you's", getting frisky in the kitchen and us heading into the bedroom, us watching television, us just doing what married people do together and with their kids, and then comes the part where he leaves and becomes someone I don't know anymore; someone harsh and cold; someone that looks at me as if I am some sort of plague. The film flips out and the screen is blank white and it's quiet except for the crying that's coming from me.
We were The Noffsingers, Mike & Nikki. We had so many dreams, ambitions, hopes, plans, wishes, fights, arguments, and even laughs. Every thing I have written above in some way shaped our marriage and sent it on the path it ended on. Where do we go from here? We're separate; we're divorcing, but is it always going to be so hateful? Will the pain between us ever cease? Will the anger ever go away? Which is the right way? What's the wrong, so I can make a U-Turn on that one? Will there ever be a "why" that's ever answered? The human ability to love is equal to the ability to hate and I may never understand how families break apart. I will never understand when I grew up with people who stayed and made their lives happy. Shouldn't I have be able to have someone who wants to be happy with me? Why didn't he want to be happy with me? The "why's" seem to never end and they will never be answered. I can only know my own heart-I don't know his. These days, I wonder if he has one but even now through all this, I don't wish ill upon him. I don't wish anything other than I hope one day he sees our 21 years through MY eyes instead of just the shortcomings that didn't suit his.
Michael, I'm not crazy. I have loved you for what felt like forever but I wish you well. I pray you find the happiness that you wanted. Be good to yourself and keep loving our children, both of them. They are going to need you more than ever. You can be the man to them that you always wanted to be. Maybe one day, you'll see me as friend not foe.
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