mikeyhatesit113

[mikeyhatesit113]

With Humans Like These, Who Needs Aliens?

They say the world might be in for a doozy on the 24th. Saturday. 

It better not be. That shit better wait till Monday. After this week, the apocalypse will have to FIGHT me for the rights to this weekend. I know this sounds like a teenage girl’s journal, but seriously- no, I can’t say seriously. 

A teenage girl would say seriously. 

Speaking of, why is the world full of petty people? 

I know. I’m not breaking new ground. People have been dicks for literally ever...this is nothing new. 

But this week, it has hit me really hard. Especially when you have bent over backwards trying to be a perfectly solid gear in a very broken machine...and one of the operators says you’re probably not doing enough. 

I’ve bled for success. Worked for it. Labored fingers to the bone for it. 

And I’ll continue to do it, because that’s who I am. I’m hungry. I’m motivated to continue building a home that gives me peace and solace from this very broken, narcissistic world. 

And as I sat at a table with some other people this week, one of the leaders said, “It’s safe to say that no one at this table can really say they grind.”

And I have to tell you; that put the biggest fucking chip on my shoulder. 

You see, it’s easy to have an opinion of people. It’s easy to judge them. I do it all the time. It’s something I’m trying to get better at. 

Even today, I stepped out of my workplace to run a workplace errand and piss on a workplace fire. And I wanted to reward myself with a quick lunch.

Of course, on Thursdays, I want Buffalo Wild Wings BOGO boneless wings. 30 boneless wings...15 parm garlic, 15 mild? Yes, please. BETTER THAN SEX. 

I’m in my 30′s- I would know. And no, I’m not kidding. 

But then, upon passing a Subway and remembering I had coupons, I had a quick decision to make. 

Well, I went with time efficiency. And a place quicker and closer to my workplace...just so I can return there without people talking too much shit and do some things for people who otherwise think I don’t do anything at all. 

Anyway, I got to this Subway restaurant, and what happens? As I’m looking for my coupons, another car pulls in and an old man gets out. 

At Subway, this is a gamble. Is he going to be one and done? Or is this guy stepping in there to order for his family (5 subs with all the toppings, literally every one)? 

You never know. But because he was now in front of me, though I arrived first, I judged him. I made silent jokes to myself, about how he’d order a crazy sub and shit it out later, knowing he had subway for lunch. 

Anyway, i had nothing against the guy, but it was just the mood that I was in. 

So he walks in ahead of me, and turns out, he’s just getting a quick 6 inch. 

Also, the subway workers loved him. He was a regular. They even knew what sub he wanted, including the toppings. 

I knew immediately that if push came to shove? I was the asshole in this equation. This man was pretty much out of my way and left me to order my two footings (yes, I was the asshole). 

Easy to judge him, and maybe that’s why this other co-worker found it easy to judge me. 

Saying I don’t “grind”, which is more insulting, considering two equals in my department don’t seem to do what I do as good as I do it. 

See? There I go judging again. 

But in the workplace, everyone judges, because everyone tends to think that no one else gives a shit as much as they do, because everyone values something different. 

Many people, if not most, value the quitting time. In the workday, they’ll do just enough to seem like they did enough...though, they could always do more. 

Other people, the fewer, value their pride. They value their performance, and to a fault, the way they are evaluated. 

They think that if they do more, they will be noticed more. 

At the end of the day...most of these people are paid the same. 

The former doesn’t care. 

It eats the latter alive. 

But at the end of the day, we die alone, right?

Yeah. Absolutely. So, if we finish by ourselves...why are we so easily mentally hijacked by our peers? 

What they do...what they don’t do...and everything in between. 

You know why? Because we’re insecure. I’m, insecure. 

And I know this about myself. I showed it today at Subway with the old man who beat me to the restaurant...I wanted to be first, because without even knowing him or his potential selection, I decided that mine was simpler...more important. 

You might laugh...but what if that was God? 

What if God himself ordered a 6-inch sub in front of me at Subway to teach me a broader lesson that carried on through the day?

What did I do when I got back to the workplace? 

I got mad easily...I got especially upset when a co-worker didn’t help me with something that was well within their job duty. 

No...they wanted to be petty and try to get more gossip that I’ve realized they’re painfully addicted to. 

It all seems to make sense on this Fall evening...in my kitchen alone...the bills paid...and the first, fresh Autumn breezes washing over me as it blows through the screen door (the AC is off). 

Whether I like it or not, 90% of my gripes come from within. 

Yeah, people are dicks. They’re cunts. They only care about themselves, especially people who are in power. 

Politicians do it...why wouldn’t somebody at a company? 

But...how we respond is up to us. And after a lifetime of being shit on by people who were supposed to have my best interests at heart...maybe it hits a nerve that people in current times don’t seem to be any better. 

The difference is, I have to be better. It ain’t about them; they will have their day. 

Their comeuppance will come. Don’t believe me? 

This one dude, who hated that I got promoted and openly said things to try to stain my name...well, today, he fucked up. 

At least, according to this irate driver anyway. 

This guy called in and said that this dude cut him off on the road...with children in the car. 

This guy wanted this dude fired. 

The dude...who openly slammed me whenever he got the chance during the most relieving life change for me...this dude who considered himself tenured, and perfect, and the hardest worker in the room...

...he fucked up, and some stranger wanted him fired. And I was the guy who got the phone call...I was the guy who saw the photos this man took...just to prove that this dude was the one who endangered the lives of him and his children.... 

“I want him fucking fired.”

We all have our moment of humility...and it usually comes when we think there’s nothing else for us to learn. 

The Autumn breeze washing over me. 

The winds of change. 

I have to stay humble, is the message. And sometimes, it takes me writing the shit down (and a little bit of Whiskey) to realize that. 

Even without the Whiskey, I know this. 

See, I know one thing about myself;

I start each and every day out with one thing; I ain’t out to hurt anyone. 

Yeah, I might be in a bad mood. Yeah, I don’t want to be bothered. 

But hurt someone else? Not on my agenda. 

Never. 

See, everyone else woke up just like me. From that magical time span called “sleep”, we all wake up. 

Some of us choose peace. 

Ignorant assholes choose violence. 

But what happens when the people who choose violence meet other people who chose violence? 

Well, that shit ain’t up to me. I’m staying out of it. I got better shit to do. 

I had my moments of wanting violence...and none of them ended with me being glad I chose violence. I like remembering the good shit I did...rather than the moments I chose to ever be an asshole. 

That’s not what people talk about at your funeral. 

Even with the hardest people ever...their loved ones will always say, “If you really knew them...they were a teddy bear.”

Well, I don’t want my body to be cold before people know that I’m all about love and hard work. 

And maybe that’s what pissed me off the other day; that person lumped me in with other people who apparently didn’t grind. 

Because I knew, if my funeral were tomorrow, there would be people who said I was one to grind. 

Tell that to my wife, who has been jobless most of this year after she got arrested for stealing pills. 

Tell that to my kids, who will never know that I worked 60 hour work weeks, just to end every work day with logging onto GrubHub and DoorDash to make extra money to make ends meet. 

Tell that to the tears I’ve cried...the blood I’ve shed...the sweat I’ve poured...just to try to be a better me than the me before. 

That’s what offended me. He didn’t know my journey; nor does he give a shit. You know why? Because he won’t be there when I die either (most likely). 

I write my own story...and I see my own flaws and pitfalls...

The trick is...you have to be quicker than other people than pointing them out. 

Why? 

Other people point them out to beat you down. 

You point your own out to do one thing; grow.

Grind. 

#mental health #mentally exhausted #mental heath awareness #suicide prevention #suicide awareness #choose love #comedy #corporations #art of war #art of survival #buffalo wild wings #personal #journal #do you hear me

[mikeyhatesit113]

i don’t feel so good

Wow, what a bitch. 

I had a first draft of this. It began with some anecdotes about my mindless trip to the supermarket, but I couldn’t find traction. Because that isn’t what I wanted to write about. 

So I began writing about what was truly on my heart, and when I got going, i mean, really in a good self destructive groove, I hit the “command-i” buttons on the keyboard (it turns the text to italic), but I didn’t hit “command-i”. 

I hit “command-y” accidentally...which launched my web browser history and my mail app for some reason. Slowed my computer down and erased my words. 

2022 problems, am i right? lol (I’m not actually laughing...I haven’t cracked a smile all evening, and you know what? That’s ok. Shit, why is this still in italic?)

Look, what I was saying before just to summarize? I’m miserable today. 

I wanted to throw my plate of food against the wall because I was enraged that my pizza crust wouldn’t scoop my homemade side of buffalo chicken dip just right, and I kept getting dip on my fingers. 

In fact, I’ll tell you what; I’m not as miserable as I was 2 minutes ago, because right now, I’m in my sanctuary. 

I’m on a page, and on a page? I’m fucking untouchable.

When life has taken a giant shit on my face over and over again, this is where I retreated. A page...to air my grievances and maintain my sanity, because the real world is the scariest place on Earth. 

I think I’m afraid to say that I hate my life, so I won’t, because I don’t hate my life. But is it too much to ask when I request life to stop squatting over my chest and taking massive dumps? 

I’m not asking for pity, but holy shit...enough!

This is probably the worst year of my life, capped by the hottest summer ever...misery. 

Misery for so many reasons but the obvious. 

The year started out with my wife getting fired from her job because she got caught stealing pills.

Yes...that’s the tea...that’s my life. 

Then, when all the bills are squarely on my shoulders (did I mention we have two small children?), I work my 55+ hour weeks and then go do Grubhub and Uber for some extra money to make ends meet. 

I needed to do two things; keep the bills paid and keep liquor in my freezer...because that’s about all that made me feel like things could be ok. 

Also, a heavy dose of Mac Miller on my bluetooth speaker...Mac’s words soothing my pain as I pour shot after shot and pour it in my fucking face, trying to forget who I am or where I’m at for a few hours. 

Hop in that alcoholic time machine and blast away from the real world...

Side note; that’s exactly how alcoholics are born. 

Born, what a weird tragic word. 

You think when I was born, and then rolled around in my warm crib and cooed as a baby...I would have ever thought I’d be treated like this? 

A father who forgot me? 

An ex-wife who slept around on me? 

A grandfather who abused me? 

And a current wife who takes me for granted? 

Apparently as a baby, I was fresh off of a previous life where I was the worst piece of shit ever, because this hell I’m in? Yeah, I’m trying to claw my way out. 

Sometimes I hate myself...I hate how inferior I feel to other people. 

I don’t always act it...but that’s thanks to a nice mask I wear most of the time. 

How are other people smarter than me? How did they ever become leaders and I’m a follower? 

How is this their clubhouse, and I’m an outsider? 

No one ever said that, but plenty things in life don’t have to be spoken...they’re felt, and everyone who’s ever felt rejected knows what I’m talking about. 

I’m talking about serious thoughts of what’s the point? and why bother?

Then when you take your own life...forever closing the door on reconciliation, rehabilitation, and rejuvenation...people just want to act like they didn’t know where this came from.

They watched you suffer...hell...they may have even contributed to it...but when that fateful moment comes? They didn’t do shit. 

You know why? Because they were talking shit. 

Other times, I find it hard to blame myself. It’s not that I think there’s a typical light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m stubborn, and come hell or high water, I will find out the reason for my suffering. 

Affliction. 

By the way...my pizza crust still don’t scoop my chicken dip right. I got more dip on my fingers...it’s just not my day. 

Man, it is hot. 

I got promoted in May. The day after I found out the best news, my mentor got into an accident and he’s been gone since.

I’ve been lonely...I’ve been lost...and it’s been a struggle. 

On top of that, the AC at work broke. It’s been broke since May. 

It’s stifling in that fucking place...and then there’s flies. 

You know what I hate? Eating outside. Can’t fucking stand it. Especially when there’s a cold dining room nearby...a room where you don’t have to take a bite of your food and then cover it, because a fucking fly might land on it. 

At work? There’s none of that. In this 100 degree humid hell box, it’s just stale, sticky, and hot inside that fucking building.

Decisions have to be made. Money has to be handled. People need to be coached and supported. 

All the while, you’re in your chair with sweat rolling down your back...wiping your forehead intermittently...your face gets oily...the back of your head sweats...and you can’t go anywhere...not even for 20 fucking minutes to go grab a sandwich in an air-conditioned store. 

And people? They might be the worse part. 

They don’t give a shit how uncomfortable you are, or how you’ve been busting your ass to make it all work with way less staff than there should be. 

They got their complaints. Their gossip. Their shit talking. And their insults. They can’t wait till you turn your back to go get an ice cold drink so they can throw a fucking knife at your spine. 

You know the tough thing about school ending? It’s when you realize how many people can scatter to the wind and completely forget you. 

At work, it’s the same way. People come and go. But you stick around and keep making that money for a career that becomes increasingly untrustworthy. 

It’s cutthroat...and everyone is holding a knife. 

People want your spot, because they believe they’re better than you...even though they couldn’t walk a fucking yard in your shoe. But hey...they’ve got an inflated sense of self...and you’re an outsider. 

All the while, you can’t get a minute to eat your sandwich...because people keep interrupting you. Hell, even when you’re trying to get some fucking work done, they still keep interrupting you. People who you wouldn’t dare interrupt in their work space, but yours? Come right in...I wasn’t doing shit, right? 

Yeah...because that’s what people say anyway. Give a person a $100 bill 364 days of a year, but that motherfucker will only talk about that one day where you only gave him $99...because you were a bit short that day. 

You try to take a bite of your sandwich, but this big ass fly starts buzzing around, so you put your sandwich back down and cover it quick with a piece of paper...and then someone else interrupts you because someone else didn’t do their fucking job and you’re supposed to whip out a magic wand and fix it. 

Well...then what does that other person get paid for then? To walk around and look pretty? 

The worst part is when someone who you know for a fact doesn’t do shit criticizes you over some petty stuff...man that’s salt in an open wound. 

In many instances, it truly is about who you know and not what you do. 

I have seen people in positions of power who are more detestable than King Joffrey in Game of Thrones. People who...well...just aren’t good with people. I never wanted to be apart of greed, and I hope never to be...I don’t hold people over barrels and I’d rather do someone a favor than rob them blind. 

Things in this world aren’t that simple though, because what happens when there’s no escape from the greed? 

If it’s not in front of your face, then it’s on your TV screen...and if it’s not there, it’s on your phone screen...your social networking...everyone has an opinion, but nobody wants to find a solution. 

Why? Because we might be defeated. Greedy fucking people have power...and power is not easy to come by. 

So how do you get power?

Nowhere but within yourself. Power lies not in talking shit about people or making them want to kill themselves because life is hard enough without your insults....but true power comes from within. 

That’s where happiness comes from too. I’ve got people talking mad shit on me like we’re in 6th grade at the dance, but the problem is, we’re not; we’re grown men who collect paychecks for families we provide for. 

But to shut it off at work is fine...but in my case, what about home? What about my wife who stole $1400 from me and has “friends” dropping off pills to her behind my back? 

Where is my escape? 

Not death. Or is that what you want me to say? 

Shit man, I’d love to run away. But I can’t. The guy who mentally abused and tortured me when I was growing up used to say, “You can’t run, because all your problems will be waiting for you when you come back.”

At 19, I almost ran away. I almost never came back. But because of a woman who would go on to cheat on me multiple times, I didn’t run. I stayed. 

And I made peace with the man who I said I’d never forgive. 

But I did. 

And that knowledge right there is bigger than any knife a person may hold for me; any fly trying to land on my food; any busted AC unit that makes inside temps feel like the 5th level of Hell; any shitty smirk a backstabber might be wearing; and any issue that might make me say, “I don’t want to live anymore.”

There are bigger things in this world than right now. 

And I will find my affliction. 

I am here to win this fight. But man...today? I’m fucking miserable.  

#depression #mental health #suicide awareness #forgiveness #love #hate #jealousy #drama #work problems #mac miller #alcoholics anonymous #pills

[mikeyhatesit113]

Balance Due: $126.45

I’ll get right to the point; that’s why there’s a mental health problem in this country.

Look, I think it’s great that we live during a time where there seems to be a great, if not the greatest, focus on mental health, and what that means for the help people seek, and the help other people provide. 

But then...

Balance Due: $126.45. 

This is a payment stub I received from a medical provider, seeking funds from me that my insurance wasn’t willing to pay, probably because I haven’t met my health plan’s “deductible”.

You know what happened with that appointment?

I’ll be very transparent here, because I’m a human, and other humans will read this. 

I was feeling incredibly anxious and depressed, and sought to adjust my medication dosage. 

Going even further back, I took a giant step recently. 

Earlier this year, I gave into the struggle of my life, where I endlessly insisted that I could manage my emotions on my own. 

My extreme highs. My enormous lows. 

My paranoia. My anger. 

My unsettled day-to-day range of emotions that threatened any given moment. 

Everything. I finally conceded; I needed help. 

I was no longer the guy who thought of medication as a weakness. I no longer maintained that I “didn’t need meds” because I never needed them before. 

I sought help. 

My heart, blood pressure, and loved ones would be thankful. 

It would help balance me, and keep me from an early grave from self-inflicted causes. 

So they put me on a low dosage of (prozac?), though it’s not called that. I can’t even pronounce the name. I never cared enough to. I just take the pill around the same time everyday. That’s all I know. 

I noticed the change immediately. It didn’t zombify me. It kept me from bouncing off the walls. No, it wasn’t a magic wand that erased all anger and stress from my life, but it assisted me in controlling both of those enemies, which came easier. 

But late Summer, I let life events throw my emotions and stress out of wack. I requested another meeting with my family doctor (which isn’t the family doctor I wanted), and she listened to me while I tried to describe what was going on with me. 

That was actually my favorite part of the appointment. Her listening to me. Not her immediate agreement to adjust my meds. Just me describing the vicious, tangled ball of hell yarn that was my head to another human, made all the difference in the world. 

So did the med adjustment. Once again, it wasn’t a zombifying effect where I felt nothing all of the sudden, but I regained control of my emotions with a lot more ease. 

More importantly, they set me up with a “behaviorist” who would grant me 6 free sessions. The next week, and the week after, I’d be spilling my guts to a human I didn’t know, and I looked forward to that.

I didn’t want my partner to hear me; I didn’t want a friend to listen. 

I wanted to talk to a human I didn’t know, because that was my best chance to lay out all the familiar chaos in a foreign environment, and hear a view that would be equally as unfamiliar. 

Refreshing. 

Well, the original behaviorist wasn’t available, so they set me up with the other option; an intern. 

I have nothing against interns. Everyone has to start somewhere, and I respect that. But my emotions weren’t to be taken lightly. 

Not to say they weren’t taking me seriously, but given the trauma of my life, my thoughts are a loaded gun; I’m not going to place them in just anybody’s hand.

But I gave it a shot. I had come this far; why not? They were free sessions. 

My first time talking to her, I felt like she was going through the professional motions she learned about from her text book. Her words asked questions her voice didn’t seem to want an answer to. 

Was that reality, or my warped perception?

Isn’t mental health fun?

Look, as humans, you can’t fake one thing; caring. 

You may want to be a psychologist, or a therapist, or a psychiatrist, or a “behaviorist” as a profession to earn a degree, title, and ultimately money, but if your heart isn’t in it, people will be able to tell. 

Let me give you some advice; you won’t be talking to just ordinary people. You are going to be speaking with and listening to people who are going to be fucking begging you to fix them. 

To give them answers you don’t have, but what if I told you that answers weren’t half as important as just lending your ear? 

She cut me off an hour in. That was “all the time we had”. 

It didn’t matter how deep we were, or how I was feeling the evil tangle inside my heart unraveling, providing a strange sense of relief. 

That was all the time we had. 

Free trial was over for the day. Upgrade to $349.99 for extra care and attention.  

The strange thing is that behavior therapy isn’t just a practice and/or profession; it’s a business. It generates revenue. 

People receive bills in the mail after seeking help. 

I did. Apparently that caring, attentive appointment where I spoke to a doctor I didn’t even want for 5 minutes cost $176 and some change. 

I received this bill shortly after the second “follow-up” visit, where I was there less than 5 minutes before my second “free session” with the behaviorist I just couldn’t find myself trusting. 

Once again, she cut me off 30 minutes in. In fact, I think it was shorter than that, because we started a bit late. 

Second free sash was up. Still got issues? Wait another week, or pay up now. 

The third session came, but all I could think about was the $176 I paid from my bank account. 

$176, how much does a healthy mind cost?

Meds were $8 per refill, thank God. But the appointment to get the meds? 

Flirting with $200. 

After the “follow-up”, I dreaded receiving another bill. I hoped, by some chance, that the “follow-up” wasn’t another event that would pull money directly from my pocket, just so I could tell someone I had no connection with that the med dosage adjustment worked. 

The third session began, and sure enough, it ended abruptly. Only this time, she informed me that she thought she was booked for the next few weeks, so I could try to schedule far out. 

A sad, 6-part TV mini-series that’ll make you laugh, cry, worry, and touch your heart...cut off after episode 3. 

To be continued. A cruel cliff hanger. 

Here’s a plot twist she may or may not care about; she won’t be seeing me again. 

I made that decision as soon as I left her temporary office that day. I was done with her, and I haven’t heard from her since. That was coming close to a month ago. 

Everyday, I winced when I saw the mail on the counter, but luckily, I didn’t see an envelope with the health place’s insignia on it. Thank God...they didn’t want my money...yet. 

But today, upon moving stuff around on the kitchen counter, I spotted an envelope face-down on the counter...stuck underneath our “stuff bin”. 

I turned it face up, and my heart sunk. There it was...the envelope I was dreading. I knew immediately it wasn’t a letter that asked me how I was doing. 

It wanted money. I opened it, and there it was. 

Balance Due: $126.45. 

For 5 minutes of telling someone that my head felt a little better? 

Due 5 days ago. 

Maybe I should have known better, but I didn’t. They wanted to see me for a follow-up...I didn’t know it would run me another $126.45. 

So I ask...what are we doing to truly help people? 

I know this is “just the way it works”, but what if it’s not working? What if we need something in addition to these valiant cries for mental health reform? Are we prepared to pay the price for help?

Or should institutions and service prepare to offer a better, reasonable price? 

 Or is that stepping on the wrong toes of people who will always look at our trauma, and cries for help, as a business? 

Like a good soldier who wants to maintain good credit, I logged on and immediately paid the balance. 

I hope it was worth it. 

For those who received my $126.45.

...but more importantly, I hope it was worth it for me. 

Unfortunately, these high rates and shocking bills do nothing but the opposite of what this “system” encourages us to do; ask for help. 

Ask for help?? At what cost?!

My life, or $300?

$300 for me to ask you for help, and for you to ask me if the pills did their job?

I have a family. A mortgage. A sewer bill that’s due every 3 months. Electricity and gas bills I have to pay to keep my sons warm.

At the end of the day, if I have to choose, my mental health will take a back seat if I can’t afford both bills. 

Health appointment bills, or bills to keep the lights and heat on?

There’s a 99% chance most people would choose the same thing. It’s the right thing to do, after all. 

That’s what those of us who ask for help try to do; the right thing. 

When will the system that claims that it cares about us do the same?

I paid the balances. You got your money. 

Hope it was worth it. 

For both of us.  

 Next time, a bottle of whiskey would be cheaper. 

Isn’t mental health fun?

#change #mental health #suicide prevention #health #mental #therapy #better help #help #depression #anxiety #do more

[mikeyhatesit113]

Dear Lynn,

I was awoken this morning by you kicking me in the face. I know you didn’t mean to. In the middle of the night, you said your back hurt and you switched ends of the bed, with your feet now up near where I was laying my head.

You kicked my face the first time, but it wasn’t that hard. However, I was awoken again by you kicking me in the head again. This time, direct hit.

I’m sorry you think our bed needs replaced, and it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe we can look this weekend for the Labor Day sales? The advertisements come by the millions each year…maybe this year, we can finally capitalize.

The last time I bought a bed, I was with my ex-wife. You know this, of course. She also said her back hurt, so we rushed out and bought a new one.

I think less than two weeks later, we separated. We never even had sex on it (thankfully).

Days after the separation, I moved all of my stuff out, including the new bed. Nearly all of my worldly possessions were shoved inside a 5x10 storage unit. 24 years of life…all in a 5x10 metal cell with a cold concrete floor.

Even when we started to work things out, I didn’t move my stuff back in. It was as if I knew the outcome I never wanted.

I moved back home to my grandma’s house, and I regrouped. I paid that $1600 bed off, along with some other bills. 8 months later, I met you.

You and I though, we didn’t sleep on my bed. My room was rather small at my grandma’s house, and that queen sized bed wouldn’t fit. So in my storage unit it stayed, while you and I made the most out of my temporary single bed.

Almost two years later, I cleared out a large room at my grandma’s house, and finally…my queen-sized bed could come out of storage and be used.

And use it, we did. In fact, our first child was conceived on it just months after we started sleeping on it.

And when I got us an apartment in the city (because I couldn’t raise a child under someone else’s roof), that bed came with us.

We set it up in our new bedroom.

3 years later, we moved in with your mom to save money, and guess where my bed went?

Back into storage. We already had a bed set up at your mom’s house.

When I finally bought us a house, we merrily moved that bed out of storage and into our very first home.

This bed has seen it all; good nights, bad nights, drunk nights, restless nights, etc.

We even conceived our second son on it.

It’s true; I should have spent more nights in it with you. Those nights, I chose the couch instead.

Nights I fell asleep. Nights I was angry at you. Nights I stayed up with our newborn. And nights I didn’t want to hear your snores or feel you stir.

But now, we’re talking about a new bed. A new bed that will officially be ours from the start.

A fresh start, maybe.

I went to work grumpy today. I was woken up by your foot to my face, and text messages from work already on my phone.

My mood soured quickly.

I also was frustrated you haven’t wanted me romantically lately. I love that connection with you, and to not have it too often feels like neglect, or deprivation. Both descriptions are dramatic, but I just want that connection.

That connection also serves as a reminder that we are each other’s mate, as loyal people only have one person in this world that they share this with.

It’s more than sex. It’s a feeling, a connection. Something we share in private only with one another.

I’m trying to get over myself, but I have needs.

You’re snoring on the couch tonight, so I’m about to wake you to go up to bed.

The bed that has seen it all, and will see us yet again falling asleep together. Best part of the day, I always say. Though I know there’s more to live for.

I love you.

Till next time, sincerely yours,

Me.

#mental health #relationships #dating #divorce #breakups #sexy nerd #love #i love you #marriedlife #marriage #married couple #there goes my hero

[mikeyhatesit113]

Dear Lynn,

I want you to know that I’ve been trying super hard the last few weeks. I have tried to correct the errors of my stubborn ways, and show you the physical affection that is so important to you.

A little over a week ago, we were in New York City. Together, with an incredible babysitting arrangement back home taking care of our two baby boys.

During that trip, I was so happy to be by your side. A tropical storm moved in late Saturday, but it just couldn’t dampen the night. Especially when we found that bar close to our hotel, with inviting lights, a fun atmosphere, and great music. We sat there together, drinking like it was a first date, and the rain falling outside added to the cozy aura of the place.

I leaned into you and said over the loud music, “At some point in the future, you’re going to want to be back here, in this very moment.”

There will be, and already have been, moments that will bring that statement to truth.

Tonight, I’m watching you sleep on the couch. I’d be lying to say I am not scared of you, but I am.

It’s not your fault that I endured mental abuse as a kid.

It’s not your fault my ex-wife cheated on me, opening up a gaping hole of distrust and paranoia.

And though we’ve been through hell together, it’s not your fault for the things I can’t seem to let go.

That is on me, and that is my repair to make. Accomplishing this will make me a stronger person. That’s what’s important.

Last night before bed, I brought up our first date, and I asked you when you fell in love with me.

Was it when, the day before our first date, I surprised you at work to say hello?

Was it when we met in that parking lot the next day? How about when you got in my car, and we drove around for an hour as we talked and figured out where we wanted to eat.

Of course, we found that sports bar, and we didn’t have a drop of alcohol.

We didn’t need it. In fact, we played off of one another as we told our waitress that we were a “soon-to-be” divorced couple ironing out final details over dinner.

We laughed that night, before the very thought scared me to death over the past couple years.

I glanced at my watch that night, as time cruelly sped by as if it were on a treadmill. It was a Sunday night, and I had to be at work early the next morning.

But sleep could wait, because I just didn’t want our night to end.

You saw me glance at my watch, and you asked me, “Do you have somewhere to be?”

The truth was, I didn’t. I was right where I wanted to be, for one of the first times of my entire life.

After dinner, we went for another drive and actually got lost in a neighborhood I had never been to. But we laughed, we listened to music, and we both stuck our hands out of the open sun roof, at the same time, totally unplanned.

The summer air added a perfect flavor to our evening, and after those few hours together, nothing would ever be the same again.

For better or for worse, per the promise we made 2 years and 60 days later when we got married.

I knew you were the one, but I’ve done a bad job over the past few years in managing my fears and insecurities.

I’ve had panic attacks, and I’ve suffered. The things I never thought would affect me have crept into my world like an invisible gas…or maybe they were always here? Maybe they were just in the shadows, waiting for things to get dark, so they could come out and play.

I don’t want you to hurt me. I’m terrified of you. But I love you, and I want to be better. I want to find a normal where I don’t have to worry, or let trepidation take the wheel and steer me down destructive roads.

Marriage isn’t just about two people. It’s about 2 individuals, who take frequent separate looks in the mirror and figure out what’s best, what’s healthy, and how to support the other.

Is that answer always clear? No.

Is that answer always discoverable? Yes.

When one’s ego gets set aside, anything is possible.

I know the challenges in front of me. I know what I have to do. I can’t fill your glass if I’m pouring from an empty cup.

And you can’t fill mine. I was annoyed we didn’t have cool hotel sex in either Manhattan hotel we stayed in, but it’s not like the movies. One night, I know we were both tired. The other night, that cozy bar had no problem filling (and refilling) either of our glasses.

And I will always want to be back in that moment with you. But I also look forward to the next special moment with you.

I’m going to stir you to go upstairs to sleep now, so until next time Lynn, I love you.

Sincerely yours,

Me.

#mental health #dating #divorce #breakups #relationships #counselling #strength #love #trust issues #i love you

[mikeyhatesit113]

World on Fire

Who reads this shit, anyway?

Hell, I don’t even know if I’d read this. But then again, my brain is kind of fogged up right now, like 5 people sitting inside a car on a humid day with the windows rolled up. 

I don’t have an interest in much lately. Is it the COVID vaccine shots? Is it the heightened doses of anti-anxiety meds? 

Obvious answer is, all of the above. 

And everyone fucking says that now of days. Both. All of the above. A little bit of everything. 

We used to make choices, black or white, yes or no. There used to be no “maybe” or “we’ll see what happens”. 

We used to make shit happen. But whenever we turn on our TV’s or open up our social media, all we see is shit happening to us. 

20 years ago, the blue sky was engulfed in fire when the world witnessed 9/11. After that, a supremely dark undertone dominated the news. 

Yeah...be happy and all...but...look who died today. 

Look who got sick. 

Why don’t you care?

You should care. 

You need to be really fucking afraid. 

Today, the headline said that the last of American troops just left Afghanistan. First time in 20 years that no American boots are on the ground. 

Oh, but we’re in the sky. Bombing shit. The war isn’t over, because there isn’t peace. Go ahead...try to tell me there’s peace. 

There’s no peace in your head...peace in your heart...the world is on fire.

Try to tell the families of those 13 American service members that there’s peace. 13 flag-draped caskets...containing the loved ones of people who thought the world of these men and women...and now, they’re gone from the world. 

All for 2 sides of the political aisle to froth at the mouth and turn this sincere tragedy into a political football...to politicize the deaths of people who will no longer embrace their loved ones. 

They hugged them goodbye...with every intention of returning to say hello again. But no...that long-awaited moment won’t be happening, and the sweet voices of these fallen service members have been replaced by cable news television show hosts screaming at each other, pointing the fingers at one another, and insisting that they’re right, and if everyone listened, these 13 brave men and women would still be breathing. 

Making plans. Creating memories. Growing old with their loved ones. 

But all that matters is that you’re watching their program, right? 

And don’t look to the left...we’re still in a pandemic.  

Coronavirus raging like it’s March of ‘20. Remember when 2020 was a year everyone kind of looked forward to? 1/5 of the century down, 4/5 to go. The “Class of 2020″ across colleges and high schools in America were all about it. 

Now? 2020 is a year we want to completely wipe from our memories.

By the way, the feverish sensation people described after COVID shots is setting in. My face feels hot...and my energy is waning. 

4 weeks ago...I was dead set against the vaccine. But then I thought about the bigger picture; about how businesses were beginning to mandate vaccinated status before stepping into their facility, and how that mindset seems to be expanding. I wanted to be ahead of the curve. And I suppose I am, but that makes me a sellout, doesn’t it? 

Conservatives yelling about how I complied...liberals screaming about how the unvaccinated are killing people...

Who do you trust? 

It’s dark outside, a world on fire, that no one’s safe from...

Well, i guess I get to go to concerts now. And restaurants. And other venues/events I was able to attend before this world hit a brick wall. Do I wear a mask or not? 

Air conditioning just kicked on. That feels good, I think. Can’t really feel the air. I adjusted the vent and I feel the cool, but still barely the air. 

It’s ok if what I’m trying to say isn’t clear, because it’s not even clear to me. I’m just happy to be writing again...to regain another little piece of myself after I let mental trauma and paranoia ravage my mental state. 

Been trying to catch up for years now. To forget the things they said...the things they did...the way it made me feel, and how it affected me so much later in life. But this latest trauma taught me about what was wrong with me, and gave me a glimpse at the tools I need to build to survive. 

Storms will rage...the question is, do you have the proper shelter? 

You can either stand outside and let the elements decimate you...or you can retreat into your bunker and gameplan as you merely hear the wind and rain try to get in. The thunder roar. The lightning flash. 

World is still on fire. But do you have to be afraid? 

Addiction. Suicide. Divorce. Broken families. Murder. Abandonment. 

Those 6 things have forever impacted people, both living and deceased. Why can’t we break the cycle? Find a better way? 

What if we don’t know a better way? 

What if we don’t have the water...the hose...to extinguish our sky on fire. 

What if we don’t have to live this way? 

What if you were still reading this?

What if? 

[mikeyhatesit113]

Rumblings of Madness

I need to take a break from writing material for my podcast to get some little annoyances off my chest. 

First off, I’m switching gyms. I’ve made up my mind. I joined that gym initially because it was closer to work, and after my first few visits, I was very happy about that decision. Since then...

...it’s always packed with meat heads who lift some heavy items and then stare around the gym, expecting to see a gaggle of females who are just entranced that they have big muscles for only $9.99 a month. 

I have also seen too many people wearing the “Project Rock” Under Armour line, which happens to be the only thing I wear now of days. I’m not a hipster, no, but I have a keen connection to The Rock, and it’s not because of a Fast and the Furious movie.

At one time in my life, The Rock was all I had. I watched WWF Raw and Smackdown every Monday and Thursday night, respectively, so I could tune in to what he would do next.

The next match. The next feud. The next backstage interview.

Monday mornings after he lost the title at a Sunday Night Pay-Per-View were hell for me. 

HOW COULD THE ROCK LOSE??

It was a time in my life when I was so alienated from both of my parents that I was in desperate need of a role model. 

In addition, i never wore name brands either. Never had the money. 

So, it was like a match made in heaven when The Rock joined forces with Under Armour to launch “Project Rock”, name brand fitness clothing that has both comfortable AND sentimental appeal to me.

What can I say? It’s a guilty pleasure. Am I saying no one else can like The Rock or anything he’s associated with? No...but am I saying that I embrace complete meat head douche containers who wear it? 

That’s also a negative, señor. 

I guess you can equate it to Mac Miller fans who hate other fans who fell in love with his music after he died, and now pronounce themselves as hardcore supporters. There’s a “I’ve been down since DAY 1″ loyalty about it, and I feel the same way about The Rock. 

It’s my little tic...let me go. 

So, long story short, now I have to stare at these douche nuggets in this overly-crowded gym walking around in the gear that I hold near and dear to my heart. 

You’re not worthy, Bruno. Take the shirt off.

In addition, seemingly everyone I DON’T want to work out around also belongs to that gym. 

My ex-father-in-law and his wife. My mother-in-law. Co-workers from my place of employment.

Workout sessions are therapy for me. They are my escape from the world...my private time where I get to vibe to music and sweat out the toxins of life.

Call it my fault for a lack of concentration and focus, but like my writing sessions, my workout sessions are a solo affair with no exceptions. It’s my sweat, not yours. We’re not “gym bros”. 

I’ve never had a gym bro. Not even a “gym sis”, or a “workout wife”. 

I’m a loner. What can I say? I like who i like, when I like them, and when I want to be around them. 

Which also reminds me, I could NOT be a celebrity. So many times throughout life, we think we want fame. Some chase it relentlessly. 

We equate fame with money, power, and popularity. 

We think about that big white house on the beach, complete with 5 units of central air-conditioning and gargantuan plushy beds with 6 pillows, where we sleep in everyday till noon after raucous parties full of attractive people and boisterous laughter that last till almost dawn...sometimes after dawn...

We think about people writing us letters and emails about how much they love us and our work. We are attractive, wanted, and just on top of the world with the bank account balance that allows every purchase we might desire. 

We are on the front cover of every magazine and movie cover that matters, and we regularly attend award shows where people at home wish they could be us. 

...who the fuck wants all of that? Because with all of that, comes this;

...non-stop phone calls and visits from people.

...people picking out every flaw of your body.

...internet rantings and pages about how much people hate you, just because they want to hate you.

...people bothering you at every time possible. 

...when you’re eating. When you’re sleeping. When you’re taking a shit.  

Even when you’re just trying to pick up two things at the store quickly.

Every have one of those days? You need milk, but you don’t wanna get all dressed up to go out and grab something from the store? 

So you pull on a pair of pants and a sweatshirt, and you run to the store, hoping that you don’t see anyone you know. Most of all, you don’t wanna talk to anyone.

Well if you’re famous, you don’t get that day. 

You think Jim Carrey can go to Wal-Mart to pick up a jug of milk without being bothered? How about Adam Sandler? Or Eminem?

No dice. 

You’re going to have hoards of people, some are fans, others are just people bothering you because you’re famous, and they’re going to ask for a “selfie”, all so they can send it to people they know so that they can say that they met you.

And if you try to do it for just one, that moment will be just long enough for someone else to realize who you are, and then they want a pic. And then, that’ll be more time for other people to join the party.  

And if you say no? You’re an asshole, and you must not appreciate the people who support you with their money.

So long story short, that’s why I’m switching gyms. 

Of course, I don’t go to gyms right now. Because of the Coronavirus lockdowns, and the subsequent closings of gyms, I joined the masses of people trying to buy their own workout equipment. 

Dumbells out of stock for months, and I scrounged every chance I got when I found one. A year later, I have a couple different sets of dumbells, a workout mat, and two different workout benches. 

I even have a Project Rock flag hanging in the wall of my garage (suck it, meat heads.)

So I haven’t been in a gym for some time, and I’m in decent shape. I have a track across from my house, so I’m good. 

And you never know when they’d “shut things down” again. What a fiasco, right? I want to get into self-publishing, and I am looking forward to writing a few books. My personal experiences. 

But for now, it’s time to self-publish this entry. Until next time. 

(By the way, I got to almost nothing that I originally wanted to write about.)    

#project rock #gyms #mental health #celebrities

[mikeyhatesit113]

This is Zero.

He’s my cat, and he’s going through a rough time right now. He lost his job today. He was a grocery bagger for 14 years.

Zero showed up for work everyday and even earned “Employee of the Week” 9 times.

His supervisor approached him today and gave him a pink slip. When Zero meow’d why, the supervisor said nothing and instead held out his hand.

Zero removed his “Good Shoppes” vest and handed it to the supervisor.

Zero came home, looked at Indeed.com, and instantly got depressed. How to start over after 14 years?

Rumor has it that Zero was canned because he refused to shave. He was also written up several times for licking himself in the break room.

Zero has looked into a potential lawsuit, as he believes he was unfairly terminated.

Mr. Paws and Associates, a local law firm, is looking into the case. They say Zero might have some money coming his way.

However, I found a dime bag of catnip under Zero’s bed. Zero hasn’t had catnip since he was an unruly kitten who did 4 months at the vet.

I need to get Zero back on his paws and into the workforce again ASAP.

#warrior cats #beautiful cats #storytelling #funny #harry potter

[mikeyhatesit113]

I knew a guy once. Looked up to him, leaned on him, and even admired him at times.

He’d brag about how many different women slept with him during the week, calling them his “rotation”.

He even sent me a pic of a ghost in his garage, telling me that he thought it was “God”.

...then I found out it was all a lie.

There was no “rotation” of women. And that ghost in his garage pic?

It was an app. A fake ghost app where you could insert a “ghost” into one of your photos.

On top of it all, he was dating a girl for 5 years, and I never knew it.

We weren’t best friends. We weren’t “brothers”. He turned out to be a stranger.

Some of the most unfamiliar people you’ll ever meet appear in the most familiar of places.

A complete stranger, appearing after a 13 year friendship.

A fake brotherhood.

I’m too busy being honest with myself to entertain a man who has no idea who’s looking back at him in the mirror.

[mikeyhatesit113]

Fast food restaurants need to make up their minds. Either we can come in your luxurious lobby that smells like pickles and piss, or we can’t.

Either I have to wait behind the guy in the drive-thru (ordering a burger with 2 slices of cheese, light ketchup and light onion), or I can come inside and watch someone yell at you because their fries were too cold and their child didn’t get the Happy Meal toy that they wanted.

This isn’t rocket science. I’ve seen your restrooms. I’ve seen the quality of your food. COVID-19 should not be your top priority.

What’s the sense of opening, and closing, and then re-opening, and then closing your “dining rooms” over and over?

Stop it.

[mikeyhatesit113]

forever and never: Chapter 13

November 4th, 2007.

“Welcome to Sunday Night Football! The Dallas Cowboys take on the Philadelphia Eagles...”

The lights in the sports bar had dimmed for the night game, which was being broadcast from the three large projector screens at the front of the dining area. The commentator gave his pre-game introduction as I settled excitedly in my chair at the table.

My favorite team was about to play...and she was coming.

She had just gotten back from her weekend trip to a college football game, and she wanted to see me. I told her my whereabouts, and she was en route. She even had arranged it so that a fellow couple from the daycare center would meet us there, as the husband of the other couple was a trash-talking Eagles fan who loved to mock my Dallas Cowboys fanship.

But his opportunity to taunt me served only as a pawn in a larger game he didn’t know was being played.

The other couple would give us our perfect cover from curious eyes. Janie and I would be just two friends, meeting up with some other people to watch a football game in a public setting.  

But the game itself was the furthest thing from my mind. The only thought that highlighted the evening was our first kiss, which had occurred 3 days earlier.

She appeared in the doorway a short time later, looking for me. The buzz and conversation around the bar went on normally, the patrons guzzling their beers and unaware of the forbidden scandal playing out between two people before their very eyes.

I caught her eye and waved her over, and she sat down in the seat next to me.  

What now? It’s not like we were an item, or in an official relationship.

Our exchange of small words was interrupted by the arrival of the other couple, and the stage was set.

Regardless of the occasion and company, we were where both of us seemingly wanted to be...together.

It’s what made me think this was genuine. Her efforts to see me, even under the most mundane circumstances, are what made me believe I was the exception.

Her “Happily Ever After”.

Her “Forever and Ever”.  

The game began, animated conversation ensued, and what seemed like a year of fateful good luck continued as my Cowboys beat the living hell out of his Eagles, effectively silencing him.

Victory was sweet.

The game ended too soon, and the other couple bid their farewell. Janie and I sat at the table after their departure, continuing our conversation.

“I couldn’t get you out of my mind all weekend,” she admitted.

The bar closed, and we went and sat in her van, as we weren’t ready to go home yet.

She turned on her radio, and the CD in her changer started playing.

Hinder’s “Extreme Behavior”, an album by a popular rock band that would play as the soundtrack to that entire stage of our relationship. Years later, I look back on how appropriately the album was titled.

“Lips of an Angel” hummed from the speakers as our lips found eachother once again...

...”And I never want to say goodbye, but girl you make it hard to be faithful, with the lips of an angel”...

November 4th, 2012.

5 Years Later.

“Welcome to Sunday Night Football! The Dallas Cowboys take on the Atlanta Falcons...”

I settled onto the couch, placing my cold beverage on the coffee table in front of me. I laid my lifeless cell phone beside my cup.

Janie was laying on the love seat a few feet from me, her phone tucked under her leg as she snoozed.

The face under my skin, the voice in the back of my mind spoke to me...urging me that this wasn’t normal behavior...

But I shook it off. After all that had happened...

...all the fights, the men, and the questions, this was my last stand.

This was my last chance to trust her. If I couldn’t trust the location of her cell phone, then I couldn’t trust anything.

The game started, and though the action and cheers on the television were non-stop, our living room was quiet, save for my occasional curse word.

The game drug on, and as the fourth quarter got underway, it became clear that I was watching my team’s loss in progress.

In a year of what was seemingly fateful, endless bad luck, Dallas lost 19-13.

The game wasn’t over quite yet, but I angrily shut the TV off. I had to work in the morning, and I wasn’t going to lose anymore sleep over this game.

“I’ve seen this story before,” I said, my finger angrily pressing the OFF button on the remote.

Janie’s eyes shot open, awakened from her slumber by my words.

“Whatever, Ekim,” she said, grabbing her phone from under her leg and standing up before marching towards the staircase.

“What’s your problem?” I asked, dumbfounded by her reaction.

Apparently, she thought my words were directed towards something else.

Could have been a guilty conscience. What else would she think “I’ve seen this story before” meant?

The sad thing is, we indeed had seen this story before. Too many times.

I stood downstairs in silence, hearing her move around and then get into bed.

Unconcerned.

Not giving a single shit I didn’t follow her up that staircase.

My temper soared. I reached another boiling point.

Treat me like this, huh? I’m this disposable, right? You’re invincible, correct?

I marched up the stairs and walked to our bedroom doorway, observing her get comfortable and curl up under the covers.

“You just think you’re hot shit, don’t you?” I fired.

“Whatever, Ekim. Just come to bed,” she said dully.

We exchanged some more words, and I spilled what was on my mind.

“All I want is you,” she said.

Following this fight, we made love, but neither of us knew it would be for the final time.

Few people ever know when it’s the last time for anything.

The next day, I woke up early and went to work, and throughout the morning, I was encouraged by normal, jovial rounds of text exchanges with Janie.

By mid-morning, they stopped.

And for the next few hours, it was complete silence.

I went about my day, unable to focus on anything but her silence.

She still worked in the same building as Steppenwolf...

After work, she finally contacted me and I felt instant relief.

“Sorry, busy day,” she said shortly.  

“Did you want me to pick up a pizza?” I asked her.

“...what are we doing, Ekim?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“All we do is fight,” she said.

“Janie, don’t start this shit with me,” I shot.

An argument instantly erupted, and I couldn’t help but notice that she was trying to cut me short and get off the phone.

“Why are you trying to get off the phone so fast?” I asked.

“Because I stopped for gas and I have to use the bathroom, is that OK with you?” she asked savagely.

“Fine,” I said.

“Do you want me to call you right back?” she asked.

“Whatever,” I replied.

But that call didn’t come. I arrived home, and I determined that this was no good anymore...or at least I thought I had.

Packing my things was more for presentation for her to walk through the door and see how serious I was. But was I?

If I wasn’t, it was about to get serious real quick.

More sadly yet, there wasn’t much for me to pack. Just some clothes and small belongings, as I had left the majority of it in my storage and at my grandma’s house.

The safe zones.

Janie arrived home soon after, and watched me condescendingly as I packed up my things and put them in my car.

She was flawless at making me feel like this was all my fault, and I was the one leaving.

But she wasn’t backing down. In fact, she marched upstairs and packed a bag of her own.

Gym clothes, and a bottle of vodka.

She walked out the front door, and this was my last stand.

I followed her across the street to her mom’s house.

Just like I had done so many times before, in the bad times and the good.

“Leave me alone, Ekim.”

“Tell me it’s over,” I said.

“What?”

“I won’t end this until you tell me it’s over,” I said.

“Ok, Ekim. It’s over,” she said, not bothering to look back at me as she continued walking through her mom’s backyard.

But I needed more. I needed a whole lot more to end this.

5 Years...could a simple declaration just end that?

I continued following her as we made our way up the steps to her mom’s back deck.

“Tell me you’re done,” I begged.

“Why?” she asked angrily, turning around to face me.

Her husband. My wife. A union in splinters.

“Because I can’t walk away until I know you’re done,” I said, my eyes welling with tears.

Inside her mother’s house, everything was normal and happy conversations could be heard.

Outside on that wooden deck in the cold November sunset, there was an emptiness.

“Ok Ekim, I’m done,” she said emphatically, looking into my eyes.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m. Done.”

She walked inside the sliding glass door and shut it behind her.

I stood there for a moment, soaking in the finality.

Tonight, there would be no pestering her. No knocking on the back door, pawing at it like a stray no one wanted.

This was my apocalypse, and I was standing in the middle of it.

I slowly walked off the back deck and back across the street to our empty home.

A home that held secrets. A home that would thrive without me.

A home that was no longer mine.

I finished packing, and as I was loading my final things in the car, Janie emerged from the darkness and walked inside the house.

I shut my car door and walked inside the house, the ghost of hope slightly rising in my chest.

My last stand.

Janie stood there, leaning up against the living room wall as she looked around wistfully, completely silent.

I was silent too, but I couldn’t help myself.

I walked toward her and reached out to hug her.

I wanted to hold her. I wanted to be those two people again who did everything they could to be together.

Sports bars. Stores. Hidden parks. Her van, listening to Hinder.

Anything to be together.

I reached out to embrace her, and she ducked under my left arm and marched to the staircase.

She trotted up the stairs, and on instinct, I went to follow her.

I put one foot on the bottom stair.

SNAP.

I felt it. It wasn’t physical whatsoever, but I felt it nonetheless.

I broke.

My resolve to fight for her snapped in two.

I stood there, in complete silence, staring up the stairs.

Silence.

Deafening silence.

Except for one single thought that verbalized itself in my head.

“It’s time. You’re done.”

I turned around slowly and walked out the front door.

I walked to my car in complete defeat, understanding for the first time in years what was happening inside of me.

I reached my limit. It was time to go.

As I sat in my car and turned the key, the bright lights of my dashboard lit up my car’s interior. But something else caught my eye.

Janie had stepped out onto the front porch. She stared at me, her arms crossed, and her face without emotion.

But there was no looking back. No turning back.

My engine roared to life.

I put the car in DRIVE and put my foot on the gas.

I was going home, where there’d be no more hurt.

No more abuse. No more confusion. No more pain.

Not like this.

That night, I slept soundly for the first time in months.

Alone.

And safe.

The next day, a co-worker gave me a ride back to Janie’s house where I picked up my Lancer.

I thanked him and got behind the wheel.

I turned on the ignition.

Gas Tank on E.

Stopped for gas and had to use the bathroom, huh?

There was paperwork that needed to be filed.

The games were far from over.

“There's nothing you can say Nothing you can do There's nothing in between, You know the truth.

Nothing left to face There's nothing left to lose, Nothing takes your place.

When they say You're not that strong You're not that weak It's not your fault And when you climb up to your hill Up to your place I hope you're well.”  

Our Lady Peace “Not Enough”

NOTE: Though this is my side of the story, including my own personal recollections and opinions, the reader should not consider this note anything other than a work of literature. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

#relationships #breakups #depression #relationship advice #forever #dating #love #hate #self help #counselling #suicide #cheating

[mikeyhatesit113]

forever and never: Chapter 12

My Toyota Matrix speeds down the highway, leaving the New York City skyline behind us in the rear view mirror. Janie sits in the passenger seat, admiring the engagement ring I had given to her just hours before in Times Square.

Ahead of us, the sun sinks slowly toward the horizon. Everything about that day had been perfect, and it was sending us off with a beautiful sunset. I felt proud as Janie smiled genuinely at her ring, knowing in my heart that I had treated her like a true princess that day.

“It’s beautiful,” she says. “I love you.”

I look over at her with a smile as wide as the Brooklyn Bridge itself.

“I love you too,” I say, pride swelling in my chest.

“Forever and ever,” she says.

“Plus a day,” I whisper.

2 Years Later

Janie and I step onto our front porch step, anticipation building in my chest. I had not been home in more than 3 weeks, and I had no idea what awaited me on the other side of the front door.

I had spent sleepless nights at my grandmother’s house, mental images torturing me during the night. Wicked animations produced by an imagination hell-bent on punishing me. Images that took place in the very dwelling I was about to re-enter for the first time in over 21 days.

Janie opens the door, and I take in the scene before me.

The smell hit me first. The scent was unfamiliar, as if something else had inhabited the place since my abrupt departure.

Stale cologne?

What was more, the furniture had been rearranged. The kitchen looked different, decorated with additional chairs and flat surfaced stands.

It was at that moment when I noticed that Janie was studying me, awaiting my reaction to the many changes to the place I had previously called home.

This, however, did not look like home. This was a foreign place, accented by a foreign occupant who was hiding in plain sight.

But what, or who, I could not put my finger on.

I forced a smile, hugging Janie. Though I did not recognize this environment, another part of me desperately wanted to call it home again.

Janie gave me a tour, which proved to be an orientation into her new world. A universe she had constructed in my absence, but a galaxy I was almost certain that she did not build alone.

“Wow,” I mumbled as we trudged up the stairs to the bedrooms. Brock’s room looked almost untouched, but James’ room yielded a big difference.

There was now a ball python resting in a tank beside his TV.

“Who’s snake?” I asked.

“Steppenwolf’s,” Janie said anxiously. “He brought it as a gift for the boys,” she quickly explained.

“He stayed here?” I asked, a familiar irritation arising in my chest, despite my best efforts.

“Only when the boys wanted him to, for a sleepover,” she replied.

“Oh,” I said. I immediately felt trapped again, like I was going against everything I had tried to stand for. I felt outraged. I felt like I had been violated.

I felt sick.

“And uh, where did he sleep?” I asked.

“Downstairs on the couch,” she said. “He didn’t stay here often.”

“And where did you sleep when you went to his house?” I asked.

“On his couch or in a spare room,” she replied as a matter-of-factly.

I wanted to believe her. I needed to believe her. It was the only way this could work.

“Ok...” I spoke, trying to shove her truth down my throat.

I hoped to God that he didn’t see the inside of our bedroom, which in fact, had also been transformed during my absence.

My brand new queen-size bed was long gone, currently locked up in a dark storage unit. In its place was a twin bed with a frame that creaked, and a mattress with springs that groaned. Additionally, the right side of our room was lit up with a red light that glowed from another large reptile tank which housed a lizard.

That night, I slept warily beside her in that crimson-lit room. I laid awake, wondering what I didn’t know. Wondering what she wasn’t telling me. Wondering if I was making the right decision.

I certainly didn’t have the support from my friends and family, who were incredulous that I returned to her embrace.

“I just want your support and friendship right now,” I texted my friend one day. “You got it,” he wrote back.

His response was not what I was looking for, but did he have the right words to make me feel like I was doing the right thing?

No one did, but in the effort of leaving no stone unturned, everyone’s opinion could not matter.

This was my journey, and no one else’s footsteps or words could complete the distance for me. I had to do it myself, whether it was 3 days, 3 weeks, or forever and ever, just like we had always promised eachother.

Logistically, the tricky task was moving the right amount of stuff back home to Janie and I’s place. I was not ready to empty my room at my Grandmother’s house, nor did I touch my storage unit.

They had been safe zones, and as happy as I was to be back home, I was still rather uncomfortable. I wanted to take it slow, if there was a such thing for a married couple.

Of course, there were other things returned. Janie drove with me to my grandmother’s house one Sunday afternoon to grab one of the things she had missed the most; her Lancer.

In the Lancer’s absence, her father had bought her a $300 mid-1990’s Oldsmobile that had an oil leak problem. It did not have a 6-disc CD player, but it did have a cassette player with cracked vinyl seats.

Call it vintage appeal, if you will. A time machine back to the 1990’s on 4 wheels.

I remember handing Janie the car key to the Lancer and her excitedly hopping in the driver seat. “I love this car,” she said, taking in the interior all over again as if it were the first time ever.

When the boys came home from their father’s house that evening, it was the reunion I was looking forward to most. I hugged them both, telling them both how much I had missed them. As far as I was concerned, I was back for good. And they’d never feel that pain again.

I did have unfinished business, however. I had seen enough photos of the boys sporting fedora hats, indicating that Steppenwolf had bought them their very own wacky hats. I did not appreciate these photos, so one afternoon, I found his Facebook.

I simply sent him this:

:)

It wasn’t long before he answered me.

“Hello?” he responded.

I couldn’t resist myself.

“I want to thank you for trying to take care of a family that wasn’t yours, and I hope you kept the receipt from whatever costume shop you bought those ridiculous hats from.”

“That purple sports car will never fill the void.”

“How does it feel to be an empty old man?”

“What’s wrong, Steppenwolf? Answer me.”

Steppenwolf did not respond, and I was blocked shortly thereafter.

Janie, however, was not happy that I had attacked Steppenwolf. When I told her about what I had sent him, she told me that she already knew I had done so, and that she just wanted me to leave it alone.

Nothing had happened between them. He had been just a friend.

Upon our reunion, Janie and I agreed to participate in marriage counseling. One October evening, our pastor showed up to our home and ate a nice dinner with us. Afterwards, with the cool, Autumn air flowing through the screen door near the kitchen table, Janie and I sat across from each other as our pastor looked on from the side.

We had each written down our concerns on a piece of paper, and it didn’t take long before the dialogue spun out of control.

In my endeavor to overlook so much and ignore so many little details, I could not bring myself to believe that she hadn’t lied to me. That she hadn’t kissed one of my best friends.

That she hadn’t betrayed me.

That I wasn’t her fool.

I guess in the end, even though I felt worthless, I owed myself some semblance of the truth.

I felt the conversation turn against me, and our pastor was soon siding with Janie about my paranoia. He hadn’t lived the nights I had, and he hadn’t seen the dark shadows drift in and out of our lives for the past 2 years.

Specters of betrayal. Phantoms that she denied ever existed.

Ghosts and goblins that haunted the life I thought we’d build.

Secrets that wouldn’t stay dead. Rotting corpses that wouldn’t stay buried.

“Michael,” our pastor chuckled. “You have these...construction crews...in your head,” he spoke. “And they build things out of these thoughts you have,” he said, laughing softly. Janie sat beside him, smirking at me.

I’ll never forget the smug look on her face as she stared at me, enjoying the fact that another human being had taken her at her word.

Nothing happened. He’s angry. He’s paranoid.

I couldn’t take it. I had tried to suppress it, bury it, destroy it, even...but the rage had returned. I stood up abruptly from my chair, anger coursing through my veins.

So many friends and family had contributed to my mental health over the past weeks, and this is how I repaid them? This is how I rewarded myself?

Being mocked by my pastor and my wife during marriage counseling?

“You sit there,” I bellowed, pointing a finger at her. “Laughing at me, looking down on me from your pedestal? Trust me, hunny, I’m looking down on you. I have nothing for you.”

I went to walk away, but my pastor called me back to the table.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Ekim,” he said. “Where are you going? Get back to this table.”

I returned to the table slowly, staring at Janie. Her smirk was gone, replaced by a poisonous look of revulsion. I echoed her emotion.

We truly were toxic.

Of course, that counseling session was the start of the downward slope. More odd occurrences around the house sparked more questions and suspicions.

Like the Earl Grey Teabags on the counter, and the Syracuse hoodie I found in the wash basket one morning while I was folding clothes.

Janie was not a tea drinker, nor was she a Syracuse fan. Janie wasn’t home at that time, so I texted her a picture of the hoodie with the simple question, “What’s this?”

“Uh, a Syracuse hoodie,” she responded.

“I get that. Why do you have a Syracuse hoodie?” I texted.

“My family lived in Syracuse for a little bit when I was a little girl,” she texted back.

This was a blatant lie. Her family had never lived in Syracuse, much less another county.

Janie and I hobbled on, but our legs were giving out. The fighting soon made a vengeful comeback, and our tempers boiled over one rainy day.

I struggled with the lies. I struggled with the stories. I struggled with the person I had become. I hated him. I hated what I saw in the mirror. I hated his guts.

I hated what I did to Jay, now that I was at some capacity to understand it years later.

My mood became tense, and the suspicions only increased.

In the kitchen one day, we locked horns. Janie was making dinner when an argument started. It would be futile to try to tell you exactly regarding what, as I cannot remember due to the violent maelstrom we were trapped in. The reasons for conflict and discord were abundant and vicious. Pick one.

After a venomous word exchange, Janie slammed the casserole dish down on the stove top, cracking it. I turned away and marched out the front door into the pouring rain. I unlocked my car, sobbing as I flung open the door and sat in the driver seat.

I had not noticed Janie following me, and she came into my view as I shoved my key into the ignition.

“Where are you going?” she pleaded.

I didn’t plan to say it, and to be honest, I didn’t even know I felt it like I did.

But it came from the heart.

“I fucking hate my life,” I cried, looking her in the eyes. She stared back at me pitifully, the cold rain drops falling on both of us as we took each other in.

Who were we? What had we become?

How had our house of cards collapsed like this? We thought we were the exception.

We hobbled on.

One sunny Saturday morning before Halloween, we were ready to go to a pumpkin patch. However, before walking out the door, I noticed that James was apprehensive.

Everyone else had walked out to the car, and I seized the moment to address James alone.

“James, what’s wrong?” I asked, walking up to him and kneeling down.

“I’m afraid you’re going to leave again,” he said, looking at the ground.

I was taken aback, but I was encouraged all the same.

“James, I love you, your brother, and your mommy very much,” I said. “I love you, and I’m not going to leave you,” I assured him, pulling him into a tight hug.

“I promise, I’m here for good.”

After Halloween, we saw another November 1st arrive. Our anniversary, a day we hailed for years as the day we found eachother.

A day, 5 years earlier, that changed both of our lives forever.

A day I had progressively become more and more ashamed of.

I gave her the gift I had gotten her, a flashy trinket with the engraving, “Forever and ever”.

As soon as she opened it, I could tell she was expecting more. Another disappointing gift on another day we had no reason to celebrate.

Little did I know, that November 1st would be our last.

This is where I’m going to ask you to dig in your memory bank and pull out a date. A date I asked you to remember many chapters ago.

A date with more significance and karma than you could guess.

November 4th.

Welcome to the End.

“Passion or coincidence, Once prompted you to say, "Pride will tear us both apart". Well, now pride's gone out the window, Cross the rooftops, Run away... Left me in the vacuum of my heart.

What is happening to me? Crazy, some'd say. Where is my friend when I need you most? Gone away.”

Duran Duran “Ordinary World”

NOTE: Though this is my side of the story, including my own personal recollections and opinions, the reader should not consider this note anything other than a work of literature. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

#dating #depression #suicide #relationships #breakups #relationship advice #forever #hate #love #loyalty #taylor swift #horror #broken #papa roach #marriage #karma #marriedlife #divorce #daddysgirl

[mikeyhatesit113]

forever and never: Chapter 11

It’s 2009, and Janie and I are driving home from a nice dinner. The radio is up, and Janie is singing along to the old-school hip-hop melody blaring from the speakers.

Janie closes her eyes, vibing to the music.

“It’s all because of you, I’m feeling sad and blue, You went away, now my life is filled with rainy days...”

Janie opens her eyes and points to me from the passenger seat, smirking.

“I love you so, how much you’ll never know, Cause you took your dope away from me.”

I had fallen deeply for her.

But suddenly, I felt like I was just falling.

I jolt awake in my bed. A crash landing back to reality.

Of course, I hadn’t been in that deep of a sleep anyway. In fact, the only thing in the world I wanted was to fall into a deep sleep.

It had to be late night, for the room was full of darkness.

A lonely pit of hell.

But I wasn’t completely alone, per se. No, my imagination was right there with me, leering at me through the endless black.

It wasted no time in reminding me that I was alone on top of a box spring mattress cushioned by only blankets, and she was in another bed. Somewhere else. With someone else.

Doing whatever else.

Not that my brand new queen-sized bed would have been much more comfortable.

The queen-sized bed that was still sitting in our townhouse unoccupied, I hoped.

The $1600 queen-sized bed I had bought for her just 2 weeks prior to our breakup because her back hurt.

The queen-sized bed I had told her not to sleep on. And in a futile effort to provide an obstacle, I threw my clothes and football jerseys on top of it before I left the house.

If her and Steppenwolf wanted to have sex on it, they’d have to remove my clothing or just do the deed on top of my Tony Romo jerseys. Of course, neither scenario would be romantic for them, I was willing to bet.

And 48 hours after my Labor Day Sunday departure, my buddy and I were hauling that queen-sized bed out of the house and onto a box truck.

The same exact box truck I had used just two years prior when I moved out during the Corey incident.

But it would be for good, this time. That’s what I kept telling myself. After all that had happened, and all that I knew, I couldn’t see any sort of reality where we’d embrace eachother again.

My buddy and I searched the house for anything that was solely mine.

Anything that was ours? I left behind.

Furniture, lamps, the kitchen table, pots, pans, cups...etc.

Her children didn’t deserve to return to the skeletal remains of a place they knew as home. In fact, it was rather depressing how normal the place still looked after I removed all of my things.

It was as if I hadn’t existed at all, which was the goal.

However, when it came to things that were considered ours, I made one single exception.

My car.

The beautiful Lancer that she loved was coming with me, as it was solely in my name and I couldn’t risk a repossession.

After we slid the back of the box truck shut, I went inside the house and soaked in the deathly silence of a place that had seemed to hold so much love at times.

Our pictures still on the wall. Our leftovers still in the refrigerator.

I tossed my house key on the kitchen table that had held countless dinners and meals. I walked out the door, ready to leave it all behind me.

After dropping all of my worldly possessions off in a tiny 5x10 storage unit and then returning the box truck, my buddy and I sped through town in the Lancer.

That night, I was serenaded by a different tune as my buddy belted out the lyrics to The Black Keys’ “Next Girl”.

“Oh my next girl Will be nothing like my ex-girl. I made mistakes back then, I’ll never do it again. Oh my next girl, She will be nothing like my ex-girl. It was a painful dance, Now I got a second chance.”

Of course, that moment in the car with my buddy was one of the few high points.

High points came in small numbers, while the valleys I staggered through were innumerable.

No one wants to speak of those. No one wants to live through them.

That’s why many people hop from one person to the next with no time lapse in between, to avoid in the pain.

But it’s the only way.

The only way out of the fire was through the inferno.

I could not eat. I couldn’t sleep. I could not shut my mind off. This went on for days.

I fall out just long enough to wake up in sweat, tortured by mental images and physical heartache.

I’d look at my phone, a part of me begging to see her number.

A missed call. A text message. Something to show me that she still cared.

Something to let me know that she was hurting too. A single hope, no matter how faint, that she was thinking of me too.

I’d get no such relief.

I was angry to be alone, but other times, that’s all I wanted. I wanted the consolation from others. I needed to hear people assure me that it was going to be ok. But just as important, I needed them to abruptly leave me the fuck alone when I wanted space.

I had been a step-dad for 4 strong years. I had watched the boys grow. I had bought Janie nice gifts. Holidays, birthdays, family gatherings...

But as a step-parent, you have to accept something; if your relationship fails, then it all goes away.

The kids you took care of? No longer yours.

The responsibilities you shared together? Not your problem anymore.

You were merely a spoke in the wheel, and the wheel will continue spinning without you.

My friends and family were incredibly patient with me. I needed to talk about my pain quite a bit, and they always dropped what they were doing to hear me out.

Listen to me repeat myself, and question how she could act as if nothing ever happened.

They knew what to say during times I was simply inconsolable.

I remember the day I began to see a slight glimmer of hope.

My uncle and I had just returned from a pizza shop, where I ordered a sub I could not bring myself to eat, and we were sitting at home. Dusk was approaching, and as usual, I felt the dread rising in my chest.

Another sleepless night on the horizon with nothing but haunting thoughts and memories.

My grandmother arrived home shortly after we did, and she saw me sitting on the front porch agonizing over Janie, stuck in the same old routine of beating myself up.

“Michael,” she said. “You think she’s this great person, and she isn’t. You put her up on this...pedestal...and she isn’t all that,” she said angrily. “She’s NOT all that. Fuck her!”

A silence followed her words, as my moment of sadness was interrupted by the utter shock of hearing Helen Pper use the F word. It happened less often than viewing Haley’s Comet.

She was serious, and she was tired of seeing me hurt over someone she never cared for in the first place.

“She seemed rather fake,” she said, recalling dinners she attended that Janie had invited her to. “She wanted everyone to believe she was perfect.”

There was something about that moment that propelled me forward, and over the next week, being by myself got a little easier, and moments with my friends became more entertaining.

I felt normality creeping back in, and I welcomed it with open arms.

Sleep had even got a tad bit better, especially when I came home one day to find a brand new twin bed mattress and box spring sitting in the hallway.

My grandmother simply had the handbook on giving a shit about me, and giving me hope when all else seemed lost.

That’s the kind of woman she was. You never had to ask. She always just did.

As fate would have it though, fools always find a way to rush in.

And one day, Janie called me.

“How’s it going?” she asked me.

“It’s ok,” I replied.

“I’ve been ok,” she said. “I went hiking.”

This caught me off guard, because if my memory served me correctly, Janie was never into hiking.

“I reached the top of this peak,” she said, beginning to sob on the other end of the phone. “I was sweaty and dirty, but I was just so damn proud of myself. It was beautiful, and I cried, because I just wanted to tell you all about it,” she said.

I listened to her words, trying to understand this new version of her. After 3 weeks apart, and she sounded like a new person.

“Who’d you go hiking with?” I asked.

“A few friends from work,” she replied.

“Is Steppenwolf around?” I asked.

“No, we’re just friends,” she said.

We didn’t speak of divorce, and we said nothing about finalizing the distance between us. Which gave me hope, and then I asked...

“Can I see the boys?”

“Uh.”

“I really miss them, and I’d love to see them.”

“I dunno, Ekim. It doesn’t feel like the right time,” she said apologetically.

We hung up, and I was alone again.

On a damp, dreary evening, hope had visited. And then it left as quickly as it had come.

Days later though, it returned. With a vengeance.

“Let’s grab dinner,” she said.

We chose a local steakhouse, and as we sat in the dim decorative lights, we talked about how life had treated us the past few weeks.

We laughed. We responded to eachother’s quirks and quips.

Suddenly, we were in sync again.

One thing led to another, and we decided to spend the night together.

Not at my grandmother’s house, though. And not at the house we had shared together up until 3 weeks ago.

For some reason, she didn’t want to go back there that night.

“We should get a hotel together,” she said with the excitement of a spontaneous backpacker.

“Yeah!” I agreed quickly, feeling myself fall for her all over again. It was as if I had willingly forgiven, and forgotten about, all the pain I had just lived through.

None of that mattered now. She cared about me. She missed me.

We had found eachother. One more thing we’d overcome.

We were in love again.

We ran back to our respective homes and packed overnight bags. I came downstairs, and my grandmother looked at me curiously.

“Where ya headed, kiddo?” she asked.

“Oh, my buddy is having a video game party tonight, so I’ll just sleep there and go to work in the morning,” I said. “Oh, ok,” she said with a smile. “Have a good time!”

I ran out the door, and my car sped to the hotel we had decided on. She met me in the parking lot, and we went into the room together.

That night, I suppressed all thoughts of why we couldn’t just go home to spend the night together.

The only thing I cared about was having her back in my arms, where we both belonged. No matter how cheap the room felt, or how strange it looked with the nearby restaurant lights creeping through the blinds.

We were together again.

The next morning, I showered, got ready, and left that hotel room for work as she also got ready for work. Our two separate camps probably wouldn’t be fond of hearing where we’d spent the night, and we had no intention of telling them.

We were married, what was it their business?

So what if they had spent the past few weeks gluing our pieces back together? That didn’t mean we owed them anything. If they were truly on our side, they’d support us no matter what.

Of course, that night at the hotel was simply a spark that relit our inferno.

Blazing. White hot. Consuming.

The next night, we met at a bar to watch a football game, like old times. Afterwards, after 3 long weeks, I finally returned home.

We walked back through the front door as different people, but after taking one step inside, my eyes seemed to be deceiving me.

There had been far more changes than I thought.

Nothing was the same.

And it wouldn’t be.

“And now I’m running to you, trying to find myself, But I don’t even know where to start. I guess that time has a way of keeping nothing the same, Cuz I don’t even know who you are. Oh, I hate this feeling. You don’t feel like home.” Papa Roach “Feel Like Home”

NOTE: Though this is my side of the story, including my own personal recollections and opinions, the reader should not consider this note anything other than a work of literature. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

#never #forever #marriage #karma #taylor swift #broken #papa roach #relationships #breakups #depression #relationship advice #marriedlife #divorce #suicide #mental health #self help #counselling

[mikeyhatesit113]

forever and never: Chapter 10

My car pulls up to the daycare entrance and Janie comes outside, the overnight bag slung loosely from her shoulder. Her face is blank, but her demeanor is defeated. She walks to my car and she gets in, shutting the door behind her. It’s just us two and a pregnant silence now.

A million questions swim through my mind.

Not to be outdone, she has a million excuses prepared.

“He drove you to work this morning?” I start by asking.

“Yeah,” she says quietly.

After the barrage of text messages from her and Bill, I am still unclear about what the truth is.

He said they met multiple times.

She said once.

He said they kissed several times.

She claimed once.

But whether it was a thousand times, or just once, I had a single question. This question did just pertain to the past 24 hour’s events, but it covered all the happenings over the past two years.

The hotel stays without receipts or bank records. The men who were just friends. The phone calls and text messages dripping with secrecy. The names under other names.

The nights where I watched her walk away.

“At any point throughout any of this, did you ever consider what you were doing to your sons’ home?” I asked.

My voice was not loud. My tone was not vicious.

It was a simple question that any mother should have been asking themselves. An anguished look comes across her face and she leans forward, putting her face in her hands.

Her muffled sobs fill the car and the atmosphere is devastating for both of us.

She had been caught, and another secret love story had been reduced to smoldering ash.

And for the third time in 2 years, I once again had been deceived.

Only this time, I had more answers than questions. I knew she was actually guilty.

Her lips had actually touched another man’s.

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

With this verdict, what would the jury decide?

They were lenient.

My heart wrenched at the thought of leaving her and the boys. After all we had been through, and all I believed we had overcome, I just couldn’t bring myself to throw in the towels.

I had watched those two little boys grow into walking, talking mini-adults.

James was no longer a curious Pre-K little boy. He was now 10, and he was funny. He had friends, and we had a great relationship. He loved Michael Myers just like I did, and he mimicked my wacky antics around the house. He was as close as a son could be.

Brock was no longer a tot in diapers. He was an animated kid who had started school now, and he loved to wrestle in the living room with his brother and I.

After 4 and a half years of being responsible for them, I was supposed to walk away without a second thought?

What if we could overcome this? One more thing to look back on as an old couple, decades later on that typical front porch swing moment. Saying with a smile as we are looking into eachother’s eyes, “We made it.”

“We got through it.”

“We proved our love was stronger than anything.”

“For better or for worse.”

Despite everything I knew, and how dirty I felt, I had decided to stay. I couldn’t pronounce it dead yet, despite what the vitals were telling me.

And as we moved on just days after the Bill scandal broke, I remained disturbed by a single, abstract thought.

I had trusted Bill, and he was a great friend.

He was my groomsman who saw us at our worst and our best.

But the fact that I was blindsided by his betrayal wasn’t because of those things, necessarily.

It was due to something else.

Like, the fact that, Bill wasn’t the one I had my eye on.

I was eyeing another person entirely, and we had already crossed paths.

Let me introduce you to, Steppenwolf.

“Mr. Steppenwolf is so funny,” Janie laughed in the kitchen as she was preparing dinner one day. We were telling eachother about our respective days, and she was telling me about how Mr. Steppenwolf, a fellow daycare teacher, had outsmarted an angry parent that day.

In fact, Mr. Steppenwolf was the director of the program at Janie’s center.

Sound familiar?

“And he has the craziest hats,” she giggled.

“Oh,” I responded. A balding man with gray hair in his 30’s with a wacky hat collection seemed interesting enough, but it quickly left my mind.

He was married with kids, anyway.

But then, Mr. Steppenwolf popped up on my radar again just days later.

I was scrolling through Instagram, and I noticed that Steppenwolf had been “liking” and commenting on almost every one of Janie’s pictures.

Despite the arena I was in, I wasn’t a terribly jealous guy. But for curiosity’s sake, I went to Steppenwolf’s profile and discovered that Janie was doing the exact same thing to his photos.

For instance, his picture of a stink bug had earned a “like” from Janie, and a bonus comment that said, “OMG Mr. Steppewolf, what a creepy bug!”

In addition, I noticed that their social networking relationship was barely a month old, and the commenting/liking had picked up in frequency.

But nevertheless, I wasn’t a jealous guy. However, I did casually tease Janie about the interactions with Mr. Steppenwolf on Instagram. She played it off and changed the subject.

Coincidentally, Mr. Steppenwolf’s profile went PRIVATE a day later.

But perhaps, Steppenwolf was deemed a true threat until one beautiful Summer day.

It was a sunny, July day, and I was going to a Fantasy Football draft at a friend’s house.

Janie, usually opposing my attendance to such events, was surprisingly supportive and cool with my plans to go. In fact, she whipped me up a batch of Buffalo Chicken Dip to take along as a party contribution.

“And I know when you guys get together, you like to stay out late. Just so you know, I won’t be mad if it goes to 2am or something. You deserve to have a good time with your friends,” she spoke.

“Are you sure you’re ok with me going?” I asked as I put tin foil over the top of the chicken dip pan.

“Yeah,” she insisted brightly. “I’ll just hang out around here, or maybe go see my parents at the campground,” she said.

“Cool,” I said, grabbing my keys. I was running a bit behind on time, and I had to get on the road. I had planned to leave 10 minutes earlier, and now I was probably going to be late.

Just then, Janie’s phone on the counter lit up.

Out of habit, I looked at the screen and saw a text.

From Steppenwolf.

“Hey bud, wasn’t sure if we were still on the for the movie? If not, just let me know, and I’ll kick back and hang around the house.”

I read the message, my jaw clenching and my mind beginning to race.

Movie? With Steppenwolf??

What the fuck?

Janie looked at the screen, and immediately after reading the message, she got frantically defensive.

“He’s texting the wrong Janie!” she insisted, her eyes quickly welling with tears. “He must have meant the other Janie in the other program,” she explained.

She picked up her phone and dialed Steppenwolf immediately. He answered, and once again, what she said next would determine everything.

“Hey Mr. Steppenwolf,” she greeted him. “I have a very upset husband standing next to me, and he thinks your message was actually meant for me,” she fake chuckled.

I’m not certain what he said, but Janie’s reaction did its best to make me believe that this was indeed just a big misunderstanding.

“That’s what I said!” she said on the phone, laughing.

She offered me the phone. “Did you want to talk to him?” she asked.

“No,” I said, scowling.

I wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on, but it didn’t look good. As I waited for her to end the call, I knew that I no longer wanted to go to the Fantasy Football draft.

I wanted to dump the buffalo chicken dip in the trash.

How could I go have a good time with these new suspicions?

In terms of timeline, the Bill scandal had not yet happened. That wouldn’t be happening for another two weeks yet.

So in truth, these were my first suspicions since a year earlier when she ran off into the night with Shawn.

But I thought we had moved past that? I thought I’d never feel that way again?

Janie hung up the phone and insisted that his message was meant from someone else. I did my best to believe her, but I was uneasy.

What if it wasn’t a mistake?

I reluctantly left the house and went to the Fantasy Football party, sitting amongst my friends and doing my best to act normal.

Janie, almost as if she knew that I was on alert, texted me frequently.

A few hours later, I left the Fantasy Football party and went to the campground her parents were at. Janie had went to visit them, and she invited me to swing by.

We sat around the fire, talking casually. Janie and I did our best to ignore the serpent between us that had just been resurrected, threatening to strike.

As the days that followed went on, I noticed other little changes in Janie.

She suddenly took a big interest into the sporty attire that the younger girls at her center wore. She suddenly bought several pairs of running shorts, and her behavior at home transformed into more of their demeanor as well.

She’d post pictures online of herself posing flirtatiously with them. Of course, these photos had a thumbs up from Mr. Steppenwolf, who was often lingering in the background and making goofy faces.

Then, she started staying out later at night. She’d cite after-work meetings at a nearby sports bar, but some nights, she wouldn’t come home till after midnight. I’d stay up and wait for her, knowing I’d have to be awake for work in less than 5 hours, but I couldn’t sleep.

I had to know she was safe, and I had to torture myself with secret suspicions.

I’d watch the Lancer pull into the driveway as relief washed over me. I’d run upstairs and crawl into bed quickly so that she wouldn’t know I had stayed up to wait. She’d come upstairs and get ready for bed quickly, and as she’d get under the covers, I’d smell the beer on her breath.

She’d fall out pretty quickly, but I often laid there in the dark as I stared at the ceiling, wondering where her night had taken her.

The weird occurrences continued one day when I saw a mixed CD in her car. It was titled “Daddy Mix”, and it contained nothing but songs with the word “Daddy” in their titles.

“Daddy Sang Bass”, by Johnny Cash.

“Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home)”, by Usher.

“Daddy’s Eyes”, by The Killers.

“What’s this?” I asked, holding up the CD.

“Oh, that,” she laughed. “So, I call Mr. Steppenwolf ‘daddy’ at work, and everyone thinks that it’s funny,” she explained. “So they all got together and put this CD together for me, and slid it in my mailbox,” she said.

The explanation seemed off to me. I’ve found many things my co-workers have done to be hilarious, but creating a mixed CD for them as a result honestly never crossed my mind.

It was such a small occurrence that I quickly forgot about it.

Either that, or I was actively overlooking things as to not find a reason to worry about them.

All I wanted was peace as a husband. I never believed that I had accidentally signed up to be a 24/7 private investigator.

Then one night, I came face to face with Steppenwolf.

It was a night where another after-work meeting was taking place, and she invited me. I sat there amongst her co-workers, and I found myself having a pleasant time as I met people and their spouses for the first time.

Then, Steppenwolf showed up.

I noticed quickly how he presented himself. Though he was a smaller man, he carried himself with an upmost self-importance.

I watched him get out of his purple sports car, and as he walked up, I saw him tug at the bottom of the tight lime-green polo he had decided to wear.

He walked into the outdoor patio area we were all seated at, and his co-workers welcomed him as he took a seat at the far end of the two tables we had pushed together to accommodate our party size.

Steppenwolf did not look at me.

Janie was seated beside me, deep in conversation with a fellow co-worker. I decided to drink some beers, and soon I found myself lost in casual conversations of my own with other people.

It was then I noticed, Steppenwolf and Janie were gone. I looked around quickly, but I could not spot them. I got up from the table and walked inside the crowded bar. After some quick recon, I located my targets.

They were deep in a hushed conversation back by the bathrooms, which were hidden from plain view. I walked up to them and as I stood beside Janie, I crossed my arms and faced Steppenwolf.

Their conversation abruptly stopped, and Steppenwolf shot me a sideways glance as he leaned on the wall. He walked away without another word, and I asked Janie about what I had seemingly interrupted.

“He’s just having an issue with another co-worker, and he was talking to me about it,” she said.

Soon after that night, the Bill events happened.

It was August now, and as Summer was winding down, Janie and I found ourselves in a shattered state.

But were we beyond repair?

The night before Labor Day Sunday, Janie and I decided to go to Hersheypark. It had always been a nice spot for us and the boys, but on this night, it was just us two.

Night had fallen, and the park was clearing out. There weren’t too many people left, and as we walked side by side, I noticed the continued silence between us.

“You ok?” I asked.

“Yeah, I just want to know that you’re ok,” she replied.

“I am if you are.”

The sunset that night, and the emptiness around us, was too eerie for me to ignore. It was symbolic of our love story.

----

The next day, we had a Labor Day cookout planned at our home. Close to the start time, Janie and I walked over to her mom’s house to get some bug spray.

My sister had requested some, and Janie found this as a reason to angrily march off across the street to accomodate my family.

“What is your problem?” I asked her as I followed behind her.

“Nothing, Michael, nothing,” she said.

We both returned to our house and our guests arrived. The cookout got started, and things started off normally enough.

Janie guzzled down alcoholic beverages, and she kept asking her step-dad to admit that she was his princess.

I played corn hole with some of the other guests, but predictably, things took a turn for the worst as night fell.

My father had taken my nephews to a local carnival that night, and he dropped them off at our house because my sister was attending our cookout. However, my father wanted to make a quick job of dropping them off, as his dog had been at home for hours without a bathroom break.

I stood out front with my sister as we casually chatted with our father, and then he got back in his car and drove off.

Janie, however, took great offense to this gesture. He had not come back to the party in the back yard to say hello, and she decided that she had an issue with this.

I picked up on this when I returned to the back yard, and Janie stood amongst the party guests glaring at me.

When I watched her walk in the house, I seized my opportunity to follow her inside and find out what was wrong.

“Hey,” I said as I slid the door closed behind me. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing is ever good enough, is it?” she asked.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Your dad, after all these years, still hates me,” she said. “What the fuck are we even doing?” she asked savagely.

Kelly came inside at that moment, and she saw our confrontation.

“Guys, don’t fight,” she said.

“I’m not fighting!” I said, my temper soaring. “She’s picking another fight with me!”

At those words, Janie scoffed and ran upstairs. When she came back down, she had another overnight bag slung from her shoulder.

The second one I had seen in a month. The third one I had seen in a year.

“And where are you going?” I asked.

“Janie, don’t leave,” Kelly begged.

Janie only wanted to talk to Kelly, but I barreled on, demanding to know where Janie was leaving to go this time.

Janie asked where the Lancer keys were, but I wasn’t about to let that happen.

“You aren’t taking the Lancer,” I said. “You’ve been drinking, and you’re not totaling my car.”

Janie didn’t scream back, though.

As our guests continued enjoying themselves in our back yard, Janie quietly left out the front door. I watched her from the door step as she disappeared into the night, one more time.

There was nothing for it. She was looking for a reason all along.

And I was tired of stopping her.

I was tired of trying.

But seeing her walk away never got easier.

I returned to the back yard, and though some people were aware what had happened, others didn't mind. Janie’s step-dad chatted merrily with our landlord, taking swigs of beer. I wasn’t about to spoil their time.

I walked up to my grandmother and uncle, and I quietly let them know what had happened. I walked them to their car, feeling bad at the failure I had become.

“Well,” my grandmother said. “You’ll have this. And remember what I said, you have a home with me.”

I thanked her and my uncle for coming, and after they drove away, I never felt more alone. Most of the guests had departed, but a few stayed. I walked around my empty home, wondering what to do. I decided to go to bed.

Of course, i didn't sleep at all.

Our Boston Terrier curled up next to me in bed as I listened to Linkin Park’s “Burn It Down” on my iPod.

The cycle repeated As explosions broke in the sky All that I needed Was the one thing I couldn’t find...

I got up several times that night, looking out the window and hoping to see her return. Instead, I remember seeing our landlord and a few of Janie’s family members sitting around our bonfire, still burning brightly.

After a brief stints of sleep and constant exhaustion, morning came.

The sky was full of clouds, and the air was humid and muggy. I walked around our house, seeing the mess in the back yard and the piles of dishes on the kitchen counter.

I was all alone.

I started cleaning up, trying to take my mind off of the situation at hand.

Had Bill re-entered the arena? Or was she with someone else?

I told myself I wouldn’t call, but we were past that point. Enough was enough. I picked up my phone and dialed her number, and it went right to voicemail. I said the only thing I could say;

“I’m not calling to find out where you are or who you’re with. I’m only asking you, out of respect for our time together and the home of those two little boys, to tell me what’s going on?”

I hung up and continued cleaning up the mess.

After a half hour, I called again.

“You don’t understand how serious this is, I need you to tell me what’s going on. Nothing else. Just tell me where things stand,” I spoke.

I hung up my phone.

Then, she called back.

I walked out into the back yard as I answered her call.

“Hey,” I said.

“I’m done,” she said softly. “We fight all the time. Things haven’t been right. We’re toxic,” she spoke. “I’m done.”

“Are you with Steppenwolf?” I asked.

“...yeah, but I slept on his couch,” she said.

Our conversation didn’t last long. What was there left to say?

I packed a few things in a hurry.

I was going home.

As I loaded some things into my car, I saw Janie’s mom sitting on her back porch. I shut my car door after putting my things inside the car and walked across the street.

“Hey,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Ekim,” her mom said. “I don’t know why she’s doing this. I didn’t raise her that way,” Janie’s mom spoke. “I can’t go against her, she’s all I have. She’s my baby,” her mom pleaded.

“I know. She’s with Steppenwolf,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, I heard. I don’t know why she’s doing this.”

---

Walking through my grandmother’s front door was less than ceremonious, but there are places throughout you’re life where you feel safe.

This was one of them.

My uncle had since moved in with her since I had moved out 5 years earlier, and he had my old room. But I didn’t care. I was eager to have any place to call home, and in turn, I moved whatever I had with me into a smaller upstairs bedroom.

It was my room when I was 14 years old before I moved to a bigger room. Since I had moved out of it, it had become a storage room for miscellaneous items and holiday decorations.

The bed mattress was gone, but the box spring was still there. I draped a few blankets on the top until I figured something else out in terms of a bed.

It would have to do for now, like everything else.

That day, I didn’t plan on staying idle and letting my imagination tear me to pieces.

There would be no sleep, no rest, and no peace.

So I might as well stay busy.

I decided to accompany some friends to a back yard cookout, and I needed to take several breaks away from the party to vent to my buddy’s girlfriend.

I was inconsolable. I couldn’t think of anything else.

Luckily, she was understanding and listened patiently while I spilled my guts several times that day.

My life was in pieces, and my marriage was over.

That night, they invited me back to their place to hang out.

I sat beside my one friend on their love seat as they watched the newest episode of the show, Breaking Bad.

I sat next to him and odd as it sounds, just not being alone made my eyes heavy.

36 hours of no sleep was catching up to me.

My head slumped over as I fell asleep, but I couldn’t fall into too deep of a sleep state.

Night was falling outside, and my vicious imagination was going to punish me for not giving it a chance to torture me all day.

I sat there, my head slumped on my buddy’s shoulder as I heard a song coming from the TV. It’s a song called “Crystal Blue Persuasion”, and it was playing on the episode of Breaking Bad. My imagination played a perverse slideshow for me as the melody filled my ears.

I missed her. I just wanted to be next to her.

And he had her.

The music from the TV played as the images in my head haunted me, my stomach turning...

“Look over yonder, what do you see?”

They start kissing in Steppenwolf’s living room, knowing they have the entire night together...

“The sun is a-risen, most definitely.”

They wander through Steppenwolf’s house toward his bedroom...

“A new day is coming, people are changing,”

They reach his bedroom and lay on his bed...

“Ain’t it beautiful? Crystal blue persuasion.”

The light goes out.

But for me, it was far from over.

Broken, but not beyond repair.

We weren’t finished yet.

“My secrets are buried now From my heart and my bones catch a fever When it cuts you up this deep It's hard to find a way to breathe

Your eyes are swallowing me Mirrors start to whisper Shadows start to see My skin's smothering me Help me find a way to breathe.”

Bring Me the Horizon “Sleepwalking”

NOTE: Though this is my side of the story, including my own personal recollections and opinions, the reader should not consider this note anything other than a work of literature. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

#dating #relationships #depression #breakups #relationship advice #divorce #marriage #mental health #suicide #begin again #new beginnings #taylor swift #never #forever #love #hate #papa roach

[mikeyhatesit113]

forever and never: Chapter 8

“I like those new Lancers,” Janie says with a coy smile. She says she loves their appearance and really wants one.

I ponder her words for a moment and almost immediately come to my decision.

I’m going to go buy her a Lancer.

On the morning of, I drove her Corolla to work and right afterwards, I drove to the Mitsubishi dealership. After some perusing and brief haggling, the salesman says that he’ll see what he can do and give me a call.

It seems that he’ll have to do some negotiating with the banks due to my debt-to-income ratio, despite my great credit.

I go home, and not even 20 minutes later, he calls me back.

“Bring your $400 and the Corolla. Let’s go ahead with the trade-in.”

I drive a new Mitsubishi Lancer off the lot that day, and when I arrive home, Janie is ecstatic.

She has the car she really wanted, and I came through once again.

I feel happy that I’m able to make her happy. It’s what makes me feel good.

4 Months Later

I walk in the darkness back to our empty townhouse, the lights still on inside. It feels like a crime scene, and as far as I was concerned, it might as well have been one.

Her beautiful Lancer sits in the driveway, motionless and empty in the night.

Kelly and Dan greet me on my doorstep. After my phone call to Kelly about the mystery number, she and Dan decided that something was really wrong. Being they lived in the same development, they got ready and walked over as soon as they could.

“She’s gone,” I told them as their eyes searched me for answers.

“Where?” asked Kelly.

“I don’t know, but she’s with whoever’s phone number that was,” I said.

Kelly is horrified, and the usually hilarious Dan is lost for words. I can relate to both of them. But there was no time to cry and speculate, because I had done enough of that. I was certain this was the end, and I needed their help.

“Can you guys drive the Lancer to my sister’s house?” I asked. “Sure,” said Kelly.

If this was the end, I needed to remove the Lancer from her access, and I had the perfect hiding place in the gravel parking area at my sister’s.

Kelly followed my car in the Lancer as we drove to my sister’s. Dan sat in the passenger seat of my car, telling me that Janie and I were no good for each other. I needed to move on.

My heart sunk lower and lower as I listened to his words. I didn’t exactly value his opinion, as he was no perfect husband himself, but even still, hearing another human being pronounce your relationship dead is never comforting.

I hear Dan’s words, but my mind of course drifts off to Janie.

Who she’s with. Where they’re at.

What they’re doing.

We park the Lancer at my sister’s house, and I take Kelly and Dan home. After arriving back to my own home, I didn’t even attempt sleep.

It was 3:00am. The dead of night, but I’d have to wake up in less than 2 hours anyway. And if this was indeed the end, I needed to start the packing phase.

I didn’t know where I was going, but anywhere seemed better than where I was at. Janie and I had some nasty fights before, but nothing like what had taken place before her departure into the night. How could we ever come back from that?

I un-install the cable box and start boxing up DVD’s. In less than a half hour, the living area looks like a half finished room.

Before I knew it, it was time to get ready for work. I shower, dress, and step back out into the muggy Summer night. I drive to work, not knowing what the sunrise would bring.

At some point that morning, I spoke to Janie’s mom. “She’s with another man,” I told her. “Yeah, and I have an idea with who,” her mom says ominously.

She didn’t care to elaborate.

I went about my work duties like a robot without programming, completely on autopilot. I didn’t bother contacting Janie. Why should I?

Maybe that’s why I looked down at my phone later in the day and saw a MISSED CALL from her. My heart skipped a beat as the dread washed over me.

Was this an apology? Was this asking me when I’d be moving out? Was it her mystery man calling me to continue with his career advice he had so kindly provided the night before?

I called her back, and she answered.

“After work, do you want to talk?” she asked.

Her voice was no longer hostile and belligerent. It was calm, almost monotone.

“Sure,” I said.

After work, I drove home. But she wasn’t there. Instead, she was across the street, sun bathing in her mom’s backyard.

I walked over to her, and she laid there, looking up at the sky in her sunglasses.

“Where’d you go last night?” I asked immediately.

“He picked me up,” she said.

“Who” I asked, standing there as my heart pounded inside my chest. The questions that had tortured me over the past few weeks were about to receive answers.

“Shawn, my ex-boyfriend from high school,” she said. “I ran into him the day of your Sheriff’s test, and we exchanged numbers. Over the past few weeks, he was able to provide answers about the problems we’ve been having,” she explained.

“He was fair, and he was able to tell me how you were feeling,” she continued. “He’d even tell me when I was wrong,” she said.

“So, where did he take you last night?” I asked, trying to soak in the information.

“He left work and drove me to a hotel, and then went back to work,” she replied. “And this morning, when he got off of work, he came and picked me up and drove me to work.”

What a nice guy, I thought.

“How’d you pay for it?” I asked.

From what I knew, Janie didn’t exactly to have the disposable income to book one-night stays at local hotels. In fact, many times, she requested my debit card to go shopping.

“I paid in cash,” she said.

“Do you have a receipt?” I asked.

“No, I don’t,” she answered.

“But this morning, I told him that we can’t be friends anymore,” she said. “I told him that asking for his advice was wrong, and I need to work on my marriage alone,” she explained.

Amidst the practical disbelief in this story, as she couldn’t even provide physical proof of this hotel stay, a wave of relief did wash over me.

I wasn’t a piece of shit. She didn’t hate me. She wanted to work on us.

I didn’t have to find a new home, after all.

And just like that, I was back in it. I was ready to work on our marriage, too.

Another night of mystery without hard evidence of any scenario.

No evidence she cheated. No evidence she hadn’t.

Not Guilty.

“Can I have my car back?” she asked with a sheepish grin.

-------

The rest of the year finished without incident, although nothing was necessarily fixed. We had just swept the issues under a pretty rug, removing them from plain sight.

In fact, we started looking toward brighter horizons.

Possibly being homeowners, though we didn’t have pennies for a down payment on anything.

Possibly being new parents.

After Janie’s second child, she had gotten her tubes tied. In retrospect, she blamed Jay for that decision, and expressed resentment that he was able to have more children while she couldn't. However, as the years went on, we discussed the possibility of having child of our own together, and we looked into the tubal reversal process.

The doctor walked us through the process, and finished with the $10,000+ price tag. Quite a hefty price to pay for a procedure that could never guarantee a pregnancy.

But I was willing to try. Deflated, we left the appointment in separate cars, and I called a loan company that had recently sent me a “pre-approval” in the mail. The agent took my information and current expenses, but in the end, my debt-to-income ratio was too high.

If, however, she had approved me for a $15,000 loan, I would have absolutely went through with it and paid for Janie’s tubal reversal.

From a personal standpoint, I was no longer the fresh 20-year-old kid I started out as.

I was now 24 years old, and with some scars of my own now, I wasn’t as keen on celebrating our love story. Every year, we celebrated our 11/01/07 anniversary, but as the years went on, I began to feel more shame about that anniversary than I ever had.

Our 1 year wedding anniversary didn’t even feel genuine. We went to a Victorian-themed Murder Mystery weekend that took place in a Gettysburg hotel, and on Sunday morning, we exchanged gifts.

She gave me a Sons of Anarchy belt buckle.

I have her a pricey necklace, but she expressed dissatisfaction.

She even pointed out that I had not gotten her the $1600 Victorian ring she had been willing to trade her wedding ring in for.

Everything felt wrong, and now it seemed that my gifts were no good anymore.

In a slow build, the year went on and Summer came once again.

And so did the fighting.

No house, no baby, and now it seemed there could be no peace.

On top of the underlining distrust and mysteries of our relationship altogether, every little disagreement turned into a fight.

With so much spilled gasoline all around us, even the strike of just one match could incinerate everything around us.

The perfect birthdays were now even tainted, let alone the fact that I had missed Brock’s previous two due to these clandestine encounters.

James’ 10th birthday came around, and he was big into zombies that year. In turn, we bought him a zombie cake and I even dressed up like a zombie, roaming around his party and scaring his friends that were invited.

Later that day, my friend and I ran to the store to buy a fire pit for the evening, When we returned to the party, we were disturbed to find confused guests in the back yard, mostly members of my family.

“She took a bunch of people across the street to go swimming at her moms?” my aunt said as she packed up her things.

I apologized to the departing guests and as evening fell, Janie didn’t come back over. Instead, she conversed with one of her mother’s friends that had arrived in her mom’s back yard. He was an older man (ordinarily no threat), but she sipped her beers and listened intently to everything he had to say.

He was clearly enjoying the attention, and as I walked past her mother’s back yard, she looked over and smirked at my clear discontent over how the day had ended up.

My best friend watched me have an emotional meltdown in the house and had to stop me from packing up my things again that day.

Things were quickly spiraling out of control. Jealousy was rampant like a virus.

Too much damage had been done, and our freight train was threatening to derail at any moment. But whether it was the kids, or the comforts of home, or the fact that I unmistakably loved her...or all of the above...I couldn’t jump off.

But perhaps, July 4th would deliver the first of several fatal blows.

The day started off normally, but not long after we got our day started, it was clear that we were not going to be getting along that day.

The children were with Jay, and after a fiery argument, we parted ways from one another. She went to wherever she wanted to go, and I went with my best friend, abandoning our plans to go to the firework display with Bill.

SIDE NOTE: Bill, my groomsman and good friend, had since separated from his girlfriend Monica. Their infant daughter was caught in the crossfire of their rather nasty breakup, where they both tried to get Janie and I to testify that the other parent was unfit to raise their daughter. This would prove to be very important and critical.

I hung out with my best friend, Jose, and as usual, I didn’t hear a word from Janie all day. I gave strict instructions to Jose NOT to share my whereabouts with Janie. Odd as it may sound, but I had become wise to her strategy of requesting my location from other people. This would give her an idea of where I was, and give her clearance to do whatever she wanted to do, knowing I was not near her.

Consider it a way of tracking me, so to speak.

Night fell, and as Jose’s car sped along a major roadway, I saw a beautiful fireworks display in the distance. Aside from feeling numb, and I still felt enough to recognize the empty pang in my heart.

I knew things were broken...

We went to another friend’s house and played video games.

Unbeknownst to me, Janie texted Jose while we were at the friend’s house. As I sat playing video games and trying to enjoy myself, Jose was texting her that I was with him.

Janie knew who I was with, and now she knew how far away I was.

Hours later, I arrived home and crawled into bed with Janie. A toxic couple becomes extremely comfortable with having terrible fights and day-long arguments, but also crawling into bed together at the end of the day.

Maybe out of habit. Maybe out of the remanants of love.

Probably somewhere in the middle.

------

Over the next few weeks after July 4th, I saw more of Bill than I ever had. In his separation with Monica, we were sure to invite him over to our home for bonfires and little cookouts with other friends.

He’d show up alone. He’d show up with his daughter. He’d show up with a girl he was dating.

One night, I even noticed that him and Janie were missing from a party we were throwing.

“Where’s Janie?” I asked.

“Oh, her and Bill ran down to the store real quick for chips and dip,” someone replied.

...

I also noticed Janie coming home later than usual after work. Sometimes she’d have work meetings at a local bar and grill. Other times she’d want to stop by the mall, where she even brought me home a new pair of shoes one day.

In any event, things seemed to be drifting back into unfamiliar familiar waters, but I did my best to think positive.

Perhaps, things began taking shape one fateful night that I’ll never forget.

Weeks in advance, I scheduled for a few friends to come over and watch old home videos we filmed when we were younger. I didn’t get to see or speak to these friends as often as I would have liked, so it seemed like a great idea to get together and revisit our childhood memories. Janie was on board with this...until the day of.

After running morning errands that Saturday, we returned home and I was going to take a nap.

“Hey, is it ok if Bill brings his daughter over so I can see her?” asked Janie.

“Sure,” I said.

I knew how much Janie enjoyed kids, as she continued working in the field. She had since switched daycare centers to a more community-based childcare center for less money, but more career opportunities. I supported her all of the way.

I went to take a nap, and I woke up about 2 hours later close to the time I had wanted to wake up. I looked out of the window, and I saw Bill’s car parked out front.

Almost immediately, I heard heavy footsteps thundering up the stairs. The door burst open, and Bill came rushing in, laughing and hollering.

“Get your ass up!” he yelled with that signature goofy grin.

Bill was leaving shortly after, but Janie announced that she had invited more people over for a separate bonfire in the back yard. Her own guests included her parents, my uncle and his girlfriend, and Bill?

Bill asked me if I minded if he came back later. “Of course not,” I said.

My friends arrived soon after, and shortly after that, Janie’s bonfire got started in the back yard. After dropping his daughter off to his mother, whom he lived at home with, Bill returned to our house.

“This is Bill,” I announced to my friends. “He’s cool, he’s one of us,” I said, alluding to his personality that seemed in-step with my buddies and I.

But he didn’t choose to hang with my friends and I. He chose to attend Janie’s bonfire.

The two separate parties got underway, and I excused myself to the kitchen to get a drink.

As I poured myself a glass of iced tea, my uncle came in from the back yard.

“Hey Mikey, who’s that dude in the back yard?” he asked.

“Who?” I asked.

“The one who kind of looks like you,” he said.

“Oh, Bill,” I replied. “That’s one of my best friends, he was in my groom’s party.”

My uncle stepped closer to me, lowering his voice.

“Mike, watch him.”

From the living room, I hear my friends laugh hysterically at the television that showed another dumb stunt of ours.

From our youth. Such a simpler time.

Oh, fuck.

“Come again?” I asked.

“I’m not trying to stir anything up, but I’ve seen guys like him. Watch him,” my uncle insisted.

I chuckled uncomfortably.

“Mike, I’m serious. Whatever she wants, he does it. He's pouring her drinks. Putting more wood on the fire. He’s sitting right next to her, something isn’t right,” my uncle spoke.

“Mike! Come here!” one of my buddies yells from the living room, rewinding the DVD to the part he wants to show me.

My heart races. My stomach turns.

I chuckle nervously.

“Mike, I’m seri-” my uncle starts, but I cut him off.

“I know, I know,” I hiss. “Let me wrap this party up, and then I’ll be out to the fire,” I say.

I returned to the living room and sat with my friends. I laughed along with them, but in all honesty, I could not wait for them to leave my house.

I wanted them to continue thinking I’m doing well. I wanted them to continue thinking I’m happily married. I did not want them to even get a sniff of what was happening in my back yard.

And I did not want them to see what was going to happen next.

Mercifully, they announced they had to get home, and I thanked them profusely for coming. I was truly grateful. I watched them leave, waving merrily.

Now, I had a fucking bonfire to attend.

I went to the back yard and sat in a chair. Bill was seated next to her, and Janie looked disinterested at my arrival.

We chatted casually, but it felt like I had intruded on a party that I wasn’t invited to.

My uncle sipped his beer casually in his seat, trying to look nonchalant.

We played a game where we had to name the last person we’d talk to if we were dying, and what we would say.

Janie’s answer was Brock and James, and she’d tell them that she loved them very much and did the best that she could.

Bill’s answer was, “Ekim Pper! And I’d tell him, see you in hell!”

I didn’t get the joke.

Then, out of the blue, Janie asked Bill if he was spending the night.

I found this odd, as Bill had never spent the night before, and he wasn’t even drinking.

“I wasn’t going to, but I could?” replied Bill.

“Yeah, you could sleep in Brock’s or James’s bed,” she said.

I couldn’t resist myself.

“Or, you could shack up with my wife?” I offered.

Janie gave me a murderous look, Bill shifted uncomfortably, and Janie’s mom said, “Now, come on, Michael.”

The bonfire ended soon after. Bill didn’t use his “Spend the Night” card, and Janie’s parents went back to their house.

Only my uncle and his girlfriend remained in the kitchen with us, and I couldn’t wait for them to leave either.

There was a vicious fight brewing, and they were standing in my way. Janie and I sniped at each other, and my uncle’s well-intentioned anecdotes to defuse the tension were futile.

We were two caged lions, ready to rip each other to fucking shreds.

My uncle and his girlfriend left, and as soon as the door closed, we started in at each other. Venom and toxic poison filled the air. Words more powerful than fists, thrown at each other with reckless abandon.

Intent to maim. Intent to destroy.

This is who we were.

“You have problems!” I scream at her.

“Yeah, and one of them was marrying you,” she fires back.

“Fuck this, man, I’M OUT!” I scream.

I turn my back and walk across the kitchen to retrieve my keys. Behind me, Janie breaks into a sprint and launches herself at me, knocking me forward.

I wheel around, fury filling every pore of my body.

“Touch me again, and I’ll have your fucking ass hauled out of here in handcuffs!” I scream.

Would you believe me if I told you we somehow went to bed together that night?

Because we did.

Remember? Toxic couples, habits, broken shards of love, etc.

The next morning, we woke up pleasant enough. That night, I was performing amateur stand-up comedy at a local club.

Janie left the house that morning to go buy an outfit, and I left to buy a new shirt of my own.

That night, a bunch of my friends, family, and Janie gathered to watch me perform. Before the performance, Bill showed up and wished me well.

However, right before the show started, he abruptly left, citing a “babysitting issue”.

I took definite notice to Janie not caring at all about his departure, which was a stark contrast to the previous night’s events.

I performed my set, and it was one of my best sets ever. The crowd laughed when I wanted them to. My jokes flowed effortlessly. I felt on top of the world.

Janie seemed genuinely excited for me that night. Her eyes seemed to sparkle in the glow of the bar lights. She kissed me on the lips, hard.

“You did amazing!” she said to me, hugging me tightly.

I felt like I had my wife back.

The rest of my friends and family congratulated me, and I couldn’t have been higher.

Janie and I left the bar and went home. We fell asleep next to each other, feeling closer than we had in a long time.

I drifted off to sleep, knowing this feeling would resonate for days to come.

Or, that’s what I thought.

I forgot to turn my phone on silent that night, and when it rang at 2am, I was jolted from my deep sleep.

Groggy, I looked at the screen.

PRIVATE.

I figured it was one of my family members or friends still at the bar, trying to prank call me. I silenced the call and put my phone back on the bed stand.

A moment later, it rang again.

I looked at the screen, and this time, it was a number I didn’t recognize.

After I didn’t answer that call either, it was a moment before my phone made another noise.

A voicemail ping.

I clicked the voicemail icon and put the phone up to my ear.

My God.

“All last summer in case you don't recall, I was yours and you were mine forget it all. Is there a line that I could write, That's sad enough to make you cry? And all the lines you wrote to me were lies. Months roll past, the love that you struck dead. Did you love me only in my head? There were things you said and did to me, They seem to come so easily, The love I thought I'd won you give for free.”

Gin Blossoms “Found Out About You”

NOTE: Though this is my side of the story, including my own personal recollections and opinions, the reader should not consider this note anything other than a work of literature. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

#dating #relationships #depression #relationship advice #breakups #mental health #suicide #begin again #new #new beginnings #taylor swift #marriage #divorce #broken

[mikeyhatesit113]

forever and never: Chapter 7

“Why don’t you have one, Mike?”

Janie’s step-dad’s question r0se above the general chatter of the private clubs’s bar area. Janie, sitting beside me, eyed me suspiciously as I considered his question.

It had been a bittersweet Autumn. I lost my grandfather to pancreatic cancer, our relationship had somehow survived the “Corey” debacle, and I had proposed to her in a major American city. On top of it all, we were planning a wedding...why not have a drink ?

“Sure,” I said. “A Captain and Coke, please,” I said to the bartender.

Within seconds, an ice cold beverage was sitting in front of me. Janie finished her beer, putting the empty glass down on the bar top as I took my first sip.

The taste was smooth, despite the growing anxiety in my stomach.

After a few more sips, I couldn’t help but notice that Janie was no longer laughing and contributing to the conversations around us.

I looked over at her and she stared straight ahead, a look of discontent on her face. She refused another drink from the bartender.

“What’s wrong?” Janie’s mom asked her.

“Nothing,” she said. “I think I’m ready to go.”

And I knew, then and there, that she was upset with me. She didn’t like when I drank, and because of that, I could count on one hand how many times I actually partook in alcoholic beverages.

It wasn’t an issue of me being able to control myself or not. It wasn’t even an issue of who the designated driver would be, as we had walked from our house to this private club.

It was an issue of control.

Within moments, Janie had her coat on and purse slung from her shoulder. “I’m gonna go home,” she said stiffly to her mom, hugging her and pecking her on the cheek. The anxiety grew even more in my stomach as I guzzled my drink.

But amidst my anxiety...I felt something else. Anger...the kind you try to suffocate but somehow it survives, and now it wants to breathe.

By the time I finish my drink, Janie is halfway across the room headed for the staircase to the EXIT. I say my quick goodbyes and pursue her across the loud, smoky room. The anger inside makes itself even more known, replacing the anxiety.

Janie marches out of the private club into the Winter night, and I come out behind her. “Hey, what’s the problem?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she says, marching down the dark sidewalk in the direction of our house. “Obviously there’s a fucking problem,” I spat, trying to catch up to her.

“Nothing,” she says.

“It’s because I had a drink and somehow did something wrong,” I said. “You can do whatever the fuck you want, but when it comes to me? No way.”

Janie breaks her icy facade and an argument erupts. But she doesn’t communicate to me what she’s upset about. She just shuts me down, and this pisses me off even more.

“You know what I think?” I say, the anger inside grinning as it takes full control. A savage, resentful anger. “I think you fucked Corey!”

Janie shrugs off my accusation, and we make it home on foot as I continue my rant. We go inside, and she goes right to the bedroom where she lays on the bed without removing her coat, intentionally facing away from me. “Janie!” I yell. “Talk to me! CAN YOU AT LEAST LOOK AT ME?”

She never gave me an answer.

We went to bed.

I married her one month later.

8 MONTHS LATER

It was a sunny Saturday morning, and Janie and I had been invited by my groomsman Bill and his girlfriend Monica to watch a local pro wrestling program. They were taping a show for a public access channel and we were invited to witness it live. As the promotion was ran by Monica’s family, we had no idea what to expect.

We would not be disappointed.

Before the show, Janie had asked Monica if she could bring alcohol to the show. As there were going to be kids and families there, they advised against it. Janie got creative, instead.

On the way to the location, Janie asked me to stop at a distributor. She purchased 6 pounder cans of beer and a Four Loco. Each pounder can fit perfectly inside of her handy fast food cup. She was able to put the straw into the can’s open mouth and put the lid on. Nobody would suspect a thing.

But as the day went on, they’d start to.

We arrived to the location, which was a decrepit looking barn. You would have never believed that a full wrestling ring was inside of it. Men in spandex costumes strutted around, and we watched on with amusement. Janie giggled excitedly, taking frequent sips from her cup. The show began and the action was exactly what you’d expect from people wrestling in a rather dirty barn.

I felt like I needed to wash my hands every 2 minutes.

The day wore on, and Janie became more and more outgoing with the wrestlers and fellow bystanders. Hours later, the show mercifully ended, and everyone gathered outside before parting ways. Monica’s dad, an overweight bald man with tons of tattoos, was the head promoter of the whole show. He sat on a chair outside as people stood around him and talked about their matches.

The entire 6 pack was gone, and Janie had started in on the Four Loco.

Everyone pretty much knew by that point that she hadn’t been drinking Sprite all day. Janie laughed and slurred her words as she made her rounds. Men in spandex pants watched on with concern, murmuring to each other. Janie seemed none the wiser as she sat down on Monica’s dad’s lap. I wanted to hide.

“This my daddy,” she slurred to the bald man. He chuckled uncomfortably.

I wanted to leave.

We left a short time later, Bill tagging along with us as we decided to get lunch somewhere. We settled on a bar for some reason...the same bar I had performed “Last Resort” at.

I was about to reach another last resort.

We sat down at a booth, but Janie had since become silent and tense. She was upset that I had addressed her behavior, and there was no reasoning with her now.

As we sat there and waited for our waitress, Bill and I made small talk, but it was hard for me to focus on anything but Janie. I watched her shift uncomfortably in her seat, her eyes shooting fleeting glances towards the entrance.

The waitress came over and we ordered our drinks and some food. After she walked away, Janie excused herself to the bathroom. As Bill nonchalantly talked to me about whatever, I watched Janie walk to the bathrooms-

-and then take a sharp left, exiting the bar.

I jumped up abruptly and jogged across the bar, exiting it into the hot afternoon. Janie was marching down an alleyway behind a nearby convenience store. “What are you doing?” I asked her, jogging up to her. “Leave me alone,” she said.

“Janie, you can’t walk home. Just go back and get in the car, we’ll leave right now,” I told her. But there was no negotiating with her. Wherever she was headed, she was walking there. “Janie,” I said, pulling at her arm. She yanked away. “Janie!”

From the other end of the alley, a man was watching us. The situation from his view looked like nothing less than a domestic dispute.

He dialed 911.

Meanwhile, I was having little to no luck on getting Janie to turn around. Moments later, a police cruiser rolled up. “The fucking cops are here!” I told her.

Janie mercifully stopped walking. After seeing the cop car, she turned around and made her way back down the alley toward the car, but it was too late. I knew why the cop was there. As Janie walked to the car and sat in the passenger seat, I approached the cop.

“I think you’re here for me,” I said uneasily. “Domestic dispute?” he asked me. “Yeah, kind of,” I said. “What’s going on?” he asked me, eyeing me suspiciously.

I told the cop that Janie was trashed, and we had stopped at the bar for lunch, but she left the restaurant and was ready to walk home intoxicated.

“Do you live close by?” he asked.

“Probably 5 miles,” I said.

The cop told me to wait and walked over to Janie at the car. Though I couldn’t hear everything, he did ask her if I had hurt her. Janie told him that I had not.

The cop walked back over to me, and he was relaxed. “Have you had anything to drink?” he asked me. “No, not a drop,” I said. “I believe what you’re telling me,” he said. “But if you wouldn’t mind, just to confirm everything, I want to give you a breathalyzer test.”

I agreed, and as he went to retrieve the mechanism from his vehicle, I looked over at Janie in our car. She stared back at me, and I couldn’t conjure a more poisonous look. By this point, Bill had emerged from the bar in complete confusion. I pointed him out to the cop, and Bill confirmed my story completely.

As I took my first breathalyzer test ever, I looked over at Janie in complete disgust. I blew into the mechanism, repeating one single thought;

“I’ll never fucking forgive you for this.”

0.00.

The cop told me to get her home, and I did. Janie passed out immediately, and I drove Bill home afterwards. We sat at his house and talked about everything that had happened.

I didn’t hear from Janie, once.

But this time, it was because she had left her phone in the back of my car.

I knew, for more than one reason, things were spiraling out of control. She had recently seemed more unhinged...as if there was something else happening.

But what was it?

----

Days later, I was at work and Janie called. After a few word exchanges, it became clear that she was in the mood to fight again. I couldn’t understand why, and it was getting exhausting. After work, I decided not to go home. I went to my grandmother’s house and I mowed her lawn. Afterwards, I sat at her kitchen table with her and did some catching up. We hadn’t had many moments like that since I moved out 4 years earlier, so it was nice.

Night had fallen and after hours of not hearing from her, Janie finally called.

“Are you coming home or what?” she asked.

“Yeah, I am. Will you be there?” I asked.

“No. No, I won’t be,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“I’m done. This isn’t working. We’re toxic,” she said.

I rushed right home after hearing these words, and true enough, she wasn’t home. She was across the street at her mom’s house. I marched across the street and across her mom’s dark backyard, stepping up onto the deck.

The back sliding door was locked, and I knocked.

Like a stranger who hadn’t known them for 4 years.

Janie came to the door and stepped out onto the deck.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I’m done,” she said emphatically. “All we do is fight. We’re toxic.”

“Don’t do this,” I begged.

“I’m done,” she said. She cut me short and walked back inside, shutting the door behind her and locking it. But I wasn’t giving up that easy. This didn’t make sense. At all.

All of the sudden? It’s over? That’s it? That’s how marriages work? No counseling? No communication? Nothing?

I knocked on the door. She came back outside.

“Janie, come home,” I said.

“I’m. DONE.” she reiterated.

“Please,” I said, feeling the panic all over again. I dropped to my knees in front of her, sobbing as I hugged her around the waist. “My heart is breaking,” I said, tears streaming down my face.

She stood there, cold and stiff. No hand on my shoulder. She wasn’t even touching me. In fact, she acted as if she were quite repulsed by me. I might as well have been a beggar in the street.

It was then when I noticed how she was dressed, and then the scent of her perfume. Her black blouse went perfectly with her denim skirt. Perfect apparel for 10pm on a Friday night...right before bed.

“Go home, Mike,” she said. She turned around and went inside, leaving me on my knees in the dark. But I wasn’t done yet. I knocked on the door again, and she came out again, this time irate.

“Mike, my dad is getting pissed,” she hissed. “Go home. It’s over.”

She went back inside and locked the door again, and I knew it was no good. I walked back across the street and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. I called her.

“Janie, is it really over?” I asked her.

“Yeah Mike, it is,” she said without a hint of emotion.

------

The next day, I went to our pastor and poured my heart out. I was devastated at her sudden change of heart, and I was even more devastated that I’d be missing Brock’s birthday party for the second year in a row. Our pastor wasn’t so easily rattled.

“Call her, right now, and tell her that you’re coming to Brock’s party. Not for her, but for Brock,” he said. “Whatever is going on between you two has nothing to do with Brock.”

I placed that call, and Janie wasn’t thrilled. I was like a stray puppy she couldn’t get rid of, but nevertheless, I found myself standing amongst everyone later that day at Brock’s party. We celebrated with the presents, and then everyone got in the pool.

Throughout the party, Janie kept her distance from me and had private conversations with her family members as she looked over at me. In the pool though, we found ourselves in the same place and touching. Then hugging. Then kissing.

After the party, we were outside hugging. “Let’s go home together,” she said warmly, kissing me. I eagerly agreed, happy to have that temporary feeling of normal back.

It didn’t last long.

As I followed her car, I watched her answer a call. After a few minutes, I watched her end the call and then her car took an unexpected turn. I followed her lead and we ended up at that small park.

That small park we initially took refuge at during our days of hiding, and that small park we paid a visit to in the moonlight.

And now, on a muggy, rainy day in August, we were back at this park under different circumstances. She parked her car and got out, running to the picnic tables under the pavillion. I followed suite, and I sat on the table across from hers.

“I don’t know if I want to try anymore,” she abruptly said. “What?” I asked in disbelief...still high from the kiss we shared 15 minutes prior.

“You need a night to yourself, and so do I,” she announced. “And then at some point, if we happen to, we’ll check in with each other.”

I left that park devastated, but an amazingly timed phone call came from my friend. They were going out for a few drinks, and I was invited.

“You need a night to yourself, and so do I.” Fuck it.

That night, I drank with friends I hadn’t hung with in years. I forgot all about my silent phone as I spilled my woes to my buddies at the bar, bouncing my ring off the bar top. I felt good for once, and then I went back to my friend’s house where I passed out on his comfortable couch.

I awoke at 3am...and I stared at my phone laying face down on the coffee table. Anxiety seized me, as the alcohol had worn off. Had she tried to call? Was it silent with no notifications?

I picked up my phone and looked.

17 missed calls. 4 text messages. 2 voicemails.

From Janie.

“I don’t know where you are, but I’m at our home, and you need to come home, because this is your home, and this is where you belong!”

I got ready quickly and left my buddy’s house, speeding home to her. I got home and she eagerly welcomed me as I crawled into bed.

Things were ok again. She finally saw my value. She wanted me back home.

But that didn’t last long either.

One evening, Janie wanted to meet at the Last Resort bar for some drinks, and I agreed. It had been one hell of a Summer, and we deserved to unwind.

We were sitting at the bar and I saw her phone light up. A text from “Kelly”, her best friend who I was very familiar with. I thought nothing of it.

Janie said she was stepping outside to call her mom real quick. I thought nothing of that, too.

But when Janie was gone for more than 5 minutes, I was about to get up and go outside to look for her when she returned to the bar.

“What did Kelly want?” I asked, honestly curious.

Janie gave me a puzzled look. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Kelly texted you,” I said.

“No she didn’t.”

My wheels started spinning.

That night, Janie got pretty drunk again and as we drove home, I couldn’t get the thought of seeing Kelly’s text message out of my head.

I saw it clearly. And Janie said it never happened.

We got home, and Janie had trouble getting up the stairs. “Dad! Daddy!” she screamed as she crawled on the bottom stair. I was puzzled this time, because her dad did not live with us, nor was he anywhere near. Why would she be calling out to him?

“I’m gonna throw up,” she mumbled.

“Get up the stairs, quick,” I said urgently, helping her up the stairs. I walked her to the bathroom and she hovered around the toilet, before passing out beside it.

She was out cold, and her phone was laying beside her.

I do not check phones. I’ve never been a phone checker. The mere thought of it gives me anxiety to this day.

But that night, I did.

I picked up her phone and unlocked it, my heart pounding. I looked down at her on the floor to make sure, and sure enough, she was fast asleep.

I did not see Kelly’s text in her text messages, and I was questioning whether I was going crazy until I saw Janie’s call log.

There were many calls from Kelly, and many calls to Kelly.

Not abnormal, right?

But the question begs, why was Janie calling Kelly at 5:10am?

Coincidentally, that was 10 minutes after I left the house every morning for work.

And thanks to the glorious details cell phones provide, these calls lasted close to an hour.

Kelly, a stay-at-home mom, would not even be close to awake at that hour. Thus, I went to Kelly’s contact info.

3 numbers.

1 was Kelly’s.

1 was Kelly’s house phone.

1 was unfamiliar.

I called Kelly from my phone, and she answered. “Hey Kelly, sorry to bother you but I think something really weird is happening,” I said. “Can you tell me if these numbers are yours?”

Kelly confirmed the first two numbers were hers, but at the reading of the 3rd number, she was silent.

“Uh...that’s not my number.”

“Thanks,” I said and hung up abruptly.

I picked up Janie’s phone, found the 3rd number, and called.

It rang twice, and then someone answered...but they didn’t say a word.

“Hello?” I asked.

No answer.

“Who is this?” I asked.

No answer.

The mystery person remained dutifully silent, knowing Janie would never call at that hour.

That anger in the pit of my stomach was back, and it was burning hotter than I ever knew it could.

I hung up the phone and I walked up to Janie at the base of the toilet, passed out and unaware.

I couldn’t help it. There was nothing else to say.

“ARE YOU FUCKING CHEATING ON ME?” I screamed, the rage inside exploding.

Janie opened her eyes, looking up at me.

“WHO’S FUCKING NUMBER IS UNDER KELLY’S NAME?” I screamed, shaking her phone.

Janie got to her feet, but she wasn’t taken aback.

She wasn’t nervous. She wasn’t stalling.

She was ready to fight.

“Whatever, Mike,” she said.

“Fuck you,” she said. “Get the fuck away from me.”

She marched down the stairs and out the front door. I walked after her.

“I said, get the fuck away from me,” she said, turning around.

“No, where are you going?” I asked stubbornly.

She turned around and continued walking to her mom’s house.

It was late night at that point, and all the windows were dark. They had since gone to bed. Janie was coming there anyway, but she wasn’t doing so without me.

I wanted some answers.

“Get the fuck away! Piece of shit!” she said, turning around and punching me in the chest.

“Who is he?” I persisted, walking after her. We entered her mom’s dark house, and Janie screamed at the top of her lungs.

“MOM! MIKE WON’T LEAVE ME ALONE!”

Amazingly, her parents did not wake up and I followed Janie downstairs into the lower level of the split level home.

“Fuck this, man, I’m calling Jay,” she said.

“You’re calling Jay?” I asked, almost laughing.

Jay? Who had moved on with his life and had someone he planned to marry?

That Jay?

“I’ll do it for you,” I said. I found Jay’s number in her phone that I was still holding, and I called.

Tawny, Jay’s girlfriend/fiance, answered.

“Tawny,” I said. “Is Jay there? Apparently Janie wants to talk to him,” I said.

“I think Janie is seeing someone behind my back,” I told Tawny.

Oh, the fucking irony.

The call didn’t go well. Jay was in the shower at the time, but I can only imagine what Jay would have told me if he got on the phone that night.

After that call ended, I didn’t have to wait long for another to come through.

“Kelly” was calling. Fake Kelly.

I answered.

“I don’t want to know who you are, or even how you know Janie. I only want to know one thing...is my wife cheating on me?”

The mystery man finally spoke.

“I don’t know you, but I will say you and your wife have a lot of things to work out. If it’s any consolation to you, she isn’t cheating on you, but you also need to stop going out with your friends and drinking all the time,” the mystery man spoke.

Wait...Ekim Pper does what all the time?

“Now, if this works out, we’ll meet one day and shake hands. And also know, if you’re going for the Sheriff’s office, I’ve been on ride-alongs and found out that it doesn’t pay too well. And watch what you post on Facebook,” the mystery man continued.

Yes, you read that correctly. This guy not only has been hanging out with my wife, but he also knows things about me, and is giving me career advice.

The call ended right after that, and I handed the phone back to Janie. I was defeated. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

I left her mom’s house and walked across the street back to our house. Janie emerged from her mom’s house moments later, but she wasn’t coming home to stay home.

She was packing a bag.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Fuck you!” she screamed. She finished packing her bag and marched back out into the night. On instinct, I followed. Our pursuit led down the roads of our quiet neighborhood. Families were relaxed and fast asleep in their comfortable homes.

Mine was falling apart.

“Tell me where you’re going,” I demanded.

“Who is he?”

“Fuck you!” she screamed again, turning around and punching me in the chest. “Piece of shit, get the fuck away from me!”

She started jogging toward the development’s exit to the main road. I jogged after her. She turned around again.

“I fucking hate you! Leave me alone!” she yelled.

“Where are you going?” I asked, my voice breaking.

“You don’t want to be here when he gets here,” she warned me. “He has a badge and you don’t want to be here,” she said. “Get the fuck away from me!”

We reached the main road, and she kept walking into the darkness.

I stopped dead in my tracks, swallowed in a darkness of my own.

She was gone into the night.

But to where? And exactly, with who?

Tell me that I'm faded, Tell me that to you, I am already dead. Tell me that I'm crazy, For thinking that we'd ever be the same again. Tell me that you hate me, It wouldn't be the worst thing you ever said. But don't tell me that it's over, Don't tell me that it's over.

Rev Theory “The Fire”

NOTE: Though this is my side of the story, including my own personal recollections and opinions, the reader should not consider this note anything other than a work of literature. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

#relationships #depression #breakups #marriage #self help #love #hate #divorce #counselling #dating #begin again #new beginnings

[mikeyhatesit113]

forever and never: Chapter 6

My vehicle sped up the road, my foot stomping on the gas pedal.

The minutes ticked by like hours, and no matter how fast the car went, it still wasn’t enough. I had to get back to her, but would she be there?

Outside, the dark night was haunting me once again.

It had been hours...hours of silence.

Desperation built in my chest.

Please be there...

9 Months Earlier

I was back home, and I had my family back. I had a renewed sense of commitment to Janie, and I was determined to do what was right by her.

She was my franchise player, and I had to do what every professional sports organization needs to do…lock down their star player with a long term contract. And true to the world of sports, my star athlete did seem to have interest in other franchises, but after all was said and done, it appeared that she wanted to remain with my organization.

Of course, I’m referring to marriage. I immediately needed to marry Janie.

I had put a lot of the blame on myself for the way Janie had felt, because true enough, we were two years into a relationship and I had not proposed to her. No, I did not think that we were ready but apparently she did, and as I knew I wasn’t going anywhere, why not?

I had ignored the organic, special nature of wanting to marry somebody. It became an initiative of mine to make her feel as comfortable and secure as possible, so that I’d never have to suffer through another agonizing, restless night of wondering where she was.

The first order of business was requesting John’s permission for her hand in marriage. Remember John? Her father who confronted me at the sports bar? Since that heated exchange 2 years prior, John and I had not exactly become “close”, but we were cordial in the event of dinners and parties.

And even though he “forgot my gift at the house” when he came over one Christmas and gave Janie and the boys presents, I still felt comfortable enough to ask his permission for his daughter’s hand.

This process wasn’t going to be the traditional secret phone call or visit that most guys like to have without their prospective fiancé’s knowledge. This tradition usually maintains the element of surprise, as most proposals come in the form of an unexpected moment a couple can cherish and look back on decades later.

Well, there wouldn’t be any real “surprise”, as there were only expectations now.

Janie and I were sitting on the couch one Sunday night when we began talking, and I announced to her, “I’m going to call your dad right now and get his permission.”

Janie giggled excitedly and immediately whipped out her phone to call somebody while I stepped outside and made a phone call of my own. John immediately answered.

“Hey John, it’s Ekim. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’d be grateful for your permission. Can I marry your daughter?”

John chuckled and said, “Well, I think you’d have to ask her that.”

Alright, one obstacle down.

The next obstacle was going and buying the ring. I went into a local, over-priced jewelry shop and let the guy in the clip-on tie and purple dress shirt guide me through the options. I picked out what I thought the perfect ring was, and I was on my way.

Two obstacles down.

Next, the proposal, but where to do it?

A quiet pier, just the two of us? No.

What about a cute little scavenger hunt, ending with me on one knee? Nope.

In my desperation to make her feel special, I wanted to do it big.

As in, The Big Apple.

I planned a last second trip to NYC, and I told her to pack a bag. We left on a Friday afternoon and hours later, we arrived to the modest hotel in Newark.

It was nice, if you could ignore the aged wallpaper and smell of cig smoke emanating from the air vent.

NOTE: Sorry ladies, but I was fronting ALOT of cash in a short period of time. I couldn’t afford a hotel in Manhattan. I was a baller on a budget.

I called down to the front desk, and a man who spoke broken English answered.

“Hey, can we have another room, by chance? I think that the cigarette smoke from down below is coming through our air conditioner,” I said.

The man on the other end asked me to hold briefly, and I heard him consult with the clerk beside him.

“He say, the smokes from outside, is in their room.”

We moved to another room, but we didn’t stay in it much. We were up bright and early the next morning, and my car zipped into Manhattan among the other aggressive drivers. We grabbed an “early bird special” at a parking garage and began our tour of the city on foot. The ring box bulged in my pocket as we walked through the streets and eventually ended up in Times Square.

With her back turned, I seized my moment and knelt down on one knee. She turned around.

Looking back, it’s hard to figure out if anything was special between us. It’s hard to imagine her being happy or being genuinely pleased after knowing what I know now. But if this moment where her jaw dropped and her hands clapped to her face was nothing but an act, she put on a great show.

We both did that day, as nearby tourists stopped walking and took pictures, saying “aww!” and giving small rounds of applause.

Of course she said yes. It wasn’t getting any grander than that.

The rest of the day went fantastic. I had proposed, and I made her feel like the luckiest girl in a major American city.

After returning home, we started planning for the wedding, which would be held in February at a local private club’s banquet room. We invited all of our closest friends and family, and I’d include her two boys in my groom’s party. Other members of my party would be my father, my buddies Bill and Sean.

Bill. Remember Bill. Right there with November 4th, put Bill in your memory bank for a rainier day.

Anyway, for as extravagant as we tried to make the wedding, everything turned out rather normal. In fact, after our rehearsal, we held our rehearsal dinner at a pizza buffet.

My father and his girlfriend, even years later, remained non-fans of Janie. My father treated all of his duties as a groomsman with reluctance and exasperation, and on the night of the rehearsal dinner, veered left to the neighboring chinese buffet while everyone else went to the pizza buffet.

My father and his girlfriend laughed as they did this, and I didn’t know how to feel about it at the time. Years later, the sheer audacity not only to miss your son’s rehearsal dinner, but to literally go next door to another restaurant, is inconceivable.

Anyway, the wedding day went off without a hitch. Janie had one last surprise for me, as she abruptly changed her music halfway down the aisle to an upbeat, poppy Miley Cyrus song and danced the rest of the way to the altar.

I am not quite sure, to this day, what she was going for. All I know is that there wasn’t a huge burst of laughter, no applause, and no one cheered. I can honestly say that everyone looked as uncomfortable as I felt. I knew nothing about the song switch-up, and I couldn’t understand why it had taken place. Miley Cyrus had zero significance to our relationship.

This was a wedding...not a Party in the USA...

I mean, at least save it for the reception?

After the wedding, Janie and I departed for our honeymoon in a modest beach town. It was February, so it was the off-season. We had a decent time with what we could do during a time of year where 75% of the businesses are shut down.

Inside, I felt accomplished, if nothing else. I considered the early chaotic origins of our relationship, and at least I could hang my hat on the fact that we were officially a married couple.

More to the point, we had just planned an entire wedding in 3 months, while also coordinating a move from our cape cod house to a townhouse. The rent at the cape cod house was extreme, and the rent at the townhouse would not only be cheaper, but also be in the same housing development as her mother.

Win/win, we thought.

After those two monumental events, I began looking at my career. I wasn’t too happy at the vending company. It allowed me to provide, but the seemingly erratic decisions from the small business owner made me nervous, and I started seeking a long-term career elsewhere.

Enter, the Sheriff’s department.

I filled out an application and they called me in for a panel interview. After getting approved, they passed me onto the physical fitness test.

The vertical jump. 25 pushups. 38 situps in under a minute. 300 meter dash. And of course, the dreaded 1.5 mile run in 12:29 or better.

I passed everything but the 1.5 mile run time. I hadn’t ran that much since 8th grade.

They scheduled me for a retest, and I worked my ass off in preparation for the running portion. Janie was ultra supportive of my quest for a position in law enforcement. She encouraged it, telling me that she always had a thing for cops. This of course motivated me even more.

Anything to feel like she wanted me.

Weeks later after running more than I ever had, I arrived at the hot track where the fitness test would be held. I performed the tests in succession of the process, passing each one. Then it was time for the run.

The whistle blew and I took off, pushing myself harder than ever as sweat poured down my face. Through every burst of running and stretch of walking after I got a stitch in my side, all I could think about was not failing. Not going back to Janie and telling her that I didn’t pass.

I pushed, and I barely made it.

After the test, they handed me a large stack of background paperwork to complete, and I was elated. I couldn’t wait to tell Janie. I hopped in my car and blared Limp Bizkit as I chugged red bull on my way home. On the way, I called Janie.

No answer.

Moments later, I tried calling again.

No answer.

I was befuddled. Wasn’t she eagerly waiting to hear the results of a test regarding a career that could change our family?

I pulled into our development minutes later and parked at the house. Janie’s car wasn’t there. I walked across the street to her mom’s and asked where Janie was.

“I don’t know, she should be back by now,” her mom said. “She only ran down the street to Walgreens, but that was a while ago.”

Minutes later, Janie did in fact arrive home. I excitedly told her the news, and though she was happy, I didn’t exactly get the reaction I had thought I’d get. She was rather passive, as if someone had told her that their growing pumpkins were coming along nicely.

Unfortunately, this reaction was a sign of things to come. Almost like clockwork, one year since “Corey”, her behavior changed abruptly, and our fights became more frequent. Everything that mattered before didn’t seem to matter to her now, and she was rather detached.

When you’re with someone for so long, you become accustomed to their patterns, behavior, and routines. When they abruptly change, that’s what you would consider a red flag.

One evening, I had enough. If she was going to take me for granted, then I’d make her miss me. I had tried to give her everything, but it wasn’t good enough.

Maybe it was time for her to wonder about me for a change?

I left the house and stopped by the mall, where I grabbed two CD’s. I hopped in my car and gunned it. Where was I going?

Well I’m glad somebody asked. The beach, of course.

My plan was to book a hotel room and stay there the entire weekend, taking time for me. I didn’t plan on having my phone on me. I was going to cut loose and have as much fun as a married stepfather could have, which in retrospect, isn’t much fun at all.

That entire 4 hour car ride, I gave myself tiny pep talks.

Fuck this. She’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be without me. She’ll be begging me to come back. It’s time for her to be insecure for a change.

The sun was going down, giving way to a beautiful dusk. I would of loved to share it with her. I wish this was our trip to the beach. But it was mine, and mine alone. There didn’t seem to be much that she did want to share with me. I’d make her pay for that.

This was incredibly toxic.

Hours later, my Matrix zipped up the main drag of the beach town, the same beach town we had spent our honeymoon in 7 months earlier.

Attractive women, families, and lively young people littered the sidewalks, laughing and enjoying each other. The night clubs, the smell of the ocean, and the excitement filling the air was intoxicating.

I had never felt so alone.

My adrenaline had worn off, and I was beyond empty. I had completely bottomed out. I was a loser. A fucking loser.

And she hadn’t tried to contact me once.

I realized almost immediately that my grand plan of staying there the whole weekend was a foolish illusion. I had become delusional to think that I could separate my stubborn mind from my heart.

What was I going to do? Walk the boardwalk 500 times? Talk to girls and hope they didn’t catch a glimpse of my wedding ring?

I was a gullible puppy dog. This had become some sick form of stockholm syndrome.

I turned my car around and zipped right back up the road. If I made good time, I could get home at least by 3am.

But I wasn’t going to call!

Halfway up the road, that resolve failed too.

I began calling, and texting, and I received nothing in return.

On top of not bothering to check where I was or if I was ok, she seemingly didn’t give a shit about hearing from me either.

I couldn’t understand. Why was this happening?

Where was this coming from?

Why didn’t she fucking care???

The distance I had sought to put between us had become a curse. I couldn’t wait to get home. The car couldn’t go fast enough. I needed to get back to her.

I even later got a ticket in the mail from one of those speed trap cameras.

After 3am, my car pulled into the driveway. Thankfully, her car was there.

I got out of my car and ran inside the dark house, dashing up the stairs. I bursted into our room, where she was sleeping. Or at least feigning sleep.

Her phone was next to her on the bedside table, dark and dormant...as it had never received any attempts from mine.

“I tried calling you,” I whispered to her as I knelt beside the bed.

“Oh,” she said. “Just come to bed.”

No questions of where I was all night. No further inquiries.

Her level of concern, or lack thereof, was maddening. But she was in front of me in our bed, and I wanted nothing more than to lay down beside her.

I eagerly changed into my PJ’s and laid next to her, taking her hand into mine.

But her hand only returned two quick squeezes and then pulled away.

I fought to fall asleep, replaying the entire evening in my head.

Wondering how it was so easy for her to be so rested and peaceful.

Wondering what was happening behind the scenes.

Wondering what was motivating her...

Or who?

Truth be told, there was someone else in our bed.

I could not see him, but he was there.

He was in her text messages. And in her call logs.

Hiding in plain sight.

“I'm blind, lost inside my head, And I can feel the end, it's coming after me. And I can't walk away.”

From Ashes to New “Blind”

NOTE: Though this is my side of the story, including my own personal recollections and opinions, the reader should not consider this note anything other than a work of literature. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

#dating #relationships #suicide #depression #self help #mental health #divorce #marriage #begin again