If absence makes the heart grow fonder; then you guys must be ready to give me back my panties, sit cross-legged on a glass table, and kiss me over birthday cake (rest in peace, John Hughes!).
I’ve been away pondering the blogosphere rules. There appear to be some no-no, off-limit, gone-to-far, universally untouchable topics. I mean, you can go on and on about anal sex and post photos of razor burned cooters, but one naked baby photo sends folks into a tizzy. And it’s the same for relationships. It’s okey-dokey to publicly filter through your ex’s faults, flaws, and foibles; but there is some titanium shield of shame guarding spouses. With the exception of the banal toilet seat shift and chunky milk incidents, of course. But I’ve never been married before. I have no idea what is normal married people shit and what are spinning red DO NOT ENTER sirens, so this has been plauging me for a while. I’ve been afraid that once I started typing, I’d forget a boundary and turn a blip into a bomb. So at the risk of TMI and violating vows, propriety, sanctity and trust; here goes…
The Hubster and I haven’t had ess see ecks in…well, I’ll just say awhile. Long enough for even a first-wife to know that it’s not normal.
I know it’s beating a dead, alcoholic horse to keep referencing my relationship with my mom as the catalyst for my deficiencies and drama, but it’s a pink tazmanian elephant in my bedroom. My goddaughter, at 8, is more confident, intelligent, self-assured, and ready for life than I am at 34. And I 100% credit that to her parents being there. For leading by example, not just words. She sees her parents hug and kiss and argue and plan and value and compromise and respect and equal and fail and succeed and get up and persevere. My mom was there to occupy space but not be anything other than a stand-in. An understudy. A placeholder for the parent any kid should have. There were no mother-daughter rituals. No “us against the world” moments. No ladies lunch when I started my period. Motherhood was on her to do list somewhere between oil change and the next child support payment.
My model for relationships was a bit…different. Mom had an affinity for much-younger drug peddling felons. Whether they found her or she found them, there was always 1 or 2 lying around. Even at 6, I knew there was something not right about the relationships. Because they were all the same. Fit, too-young, jovial, attractive, unemployed, ex-cons, who cooked, played video games and had tons of “friends”. Mine was overweight and fiercely obsessed changing it, divorced, sad then happy then sad, didn’t have her own friends, didn’t do anything outside the home, had no communication with her family. What I learned was that there was an exchange. A quid pro quo of sex, companionship, drugs, and money.
I learned that if I touched and opened and took off and kissed, then I’d get companionship. Delivering indiscriminately got me stuff. So I answered the call at midnite, on some everyday night when she was gone and I was home alone. When someone I didn’t know called and asked my name, told me my voice turned him on, and said things that would make the johns on To Catch A Predator blush. But if I listened, he’d keep calling. My mom wasn’t there to ask who I was speaking with in the wee hours the next 2 months. Nor did she insist on greeting the person I was going to the movies with that night. She never asked why subsequent boys took me to movie theaters outside of town or she would have known that I learned they would take me out again if I loosened buttons on my shirt. Had she been there to have a talk about birds and bees or that anything on my person being precious and saved, maybe I would not have done it with the engaged guy whose only boundary was mouth-kissing. Or the one who’d always wondered what it’d be like to fuck a black chick. She may have clued me in that drinking made the little voice in my head screaming to ‘run and get out’ quieter, but it would also make me someone who could ess see ecks with my roommate’s guy. Or be able to lie with the one that called at 2am and pretended he didn’t invite me to his soccer game the next day. Or pick the first person I saw at the house I drunkenly wandered into. Or the 2 different people on the same night at the same party.
Then I got married and realized I’ve done ess see ecks the wrong way for FAR too long. My experiences in sobriety, intimacy, and an expression of anything other than love were few and far between. But after 8 years, the pendulum swung the other way. My ess see ecks was pointed due correctness. And stayed there for… well, I’ll just say awhile. And it sucked for both of us. For the person whose rules changed without preparation or warning; and for the one who carried the anger. I guess the answer, for me, is there should be a balance. An ess see ecks trailmix. Somedays are drunken, bucknaked, sexytime debauchery; others are candles and locked eyes and satin sheets and flower petals.
So here we are. After the draught. Close and smiling and ready to see what the next 8 years bring. With the husband who was there all along.
