Angry Talk (Comic Style) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ok. So, I wasn’t quite over all of this after all.

I hate sounding like a schizophrenic, but even worse, I hate feeling like one, too.

So, Chef has been playing this game with me called I Love You But I Love Her Too. Let me tell you right up front — this game blows, and the only one who ever wins is the person who thinks he/she is “in love” with two (or more) people. I’ve heard every excuse in the book about how this is my fault — I wasn’t making him feel like a man; my empty-nest emotions were too hard to handle; I didn’t take his motorcycle club dreams seriously; I’m not handling this like a calm, rational adult. Oh, please spare me. The upside to all of this is that, if this is all he has to swing at me, than good for me. I wasn’t such a bad wife after all. And now, I’m no longer the back-up plan, either. If a person can’t even accept that they’ve just done a really painful, stupid thing to their lives, and yours, then they aren’t going to be able to do all the hard work it would take to become trustworthy and dependable again. There has been so many lies, you can’t have any secrets for awhile. There has been so many ugly things said, you would have to filter every thing that you said carefully, and balance out those memories with lots of gentle, kind, giving words. You would have to help rebuild a broken heart, that you broke, and that’s hard…not impossible, but very hard. And I can’t even get a real apology from this guy. So, there you have it. I can’t be part of some weird triangle. I’ve bowed out.

Let me say this about admitting you’ve done something really, really wrong. There is no place for pride in it. People will always hurt other people, whether on purpose or by accident, but when you are apologizing, don’t try to spread the guilt. It makes the whole apology worthless. Own your crap. There simply is just nothing more beautiful and healing than a truly contrite heart. And there is no room in a contrite heart for blame. None.

I’ve been swaying between some hard emotions to calm ones; trusting the Lord and then panicking; feeling forgiveness and then wishing the guy and his new girlfriend would get hit by lightening. I know. Ugly. But, the truth is that I’ve been afraid of being angry. And sometimes, you just have to get angry. You have to rage, storm, cry, and if necessary, hit an inanimate object. And I’ve been so afraid that if I showed Chef just how angry I am, I would somehow push him so far away, he’d never come back. Well, guess what? That isn’t honest. It isn’t healthy. And anger in and of itself isn’t a sin. Only what you do with it, and repressing it with tons of vodka isn’t any less a sin than beating his face in with the cell phone he has all his “love” texts on. I’m owning it now. I’m pissed.

A few days ago, I sat down with Chef, listened to his tears about how conflicted he is, how hard it is now that he has no job, no home, and all of his club brothers are treating him like crap. He has no money and the guy he is staying with has roaches and it grosses him out. None of his laundry is clean, and he can’t afford to pick up his partial dentures. Life is really hard for the poor guy, and could I put some gas in his bike and buy him some cigarettes.

I told him, I’ve had enough. You need to choose what you are going to do, and there are conditions to coming home. The first and most important one was to call his girlfriend, in front of me, and end it. Nicely or not, I don’t care. But that had to be done first before we could even talk about anything else.

He flat out refused to even break off his thing with the girl, much less in front of me. He said I was not going to give him ultimatums. So, I walked away, bought a pack of cigarettes for myself, put gas in my car, came home and drank myself into an almost coma. Sometime in the early morning hours, I went on-line changed my phone number, and then sent him a text basically telling him I changed my phone number and then saying things that I’m not going to admit here. Yeah. I’m a rocket-scientist when I’m drunk.

So, Rebekkah took the rest of the vodka and now she isn’t letting me drink anymore. She’s a good kid, wouldn’t you say? I went to the doctor today, and I’m back on anxiety medicine, and I’m feeling stable…sad, a little lonely, but stable.

I miss all of you guys!

– bird