It’s been over 3 years.
The whole thing lasted less than a year, but it was an important and strange time in my life.
He will protest this, but I was good while he was away. I know my truth and that is enough.
The trend for being faithful was started then and there. I decided to do the thing and I did. It was not easy, an angel of the lord came down and flirted with me, stole my heart really, but I stayed stubborn until I wasn’t.
Scratch that, I have always been faithful. I waited 26 years and destroyed every relationship I was ever in for High School Sweetheart even when he had 3 babies by 2 other women and married the second. He got his shit together a couple years after I had given up and I did not bend.
When I am with you, I am with you and when I am done I am done. I will still be kind, that is who I am. All of these things are in my marrow. Time doesn’t matter to my heart. Never has.
Less than a year after I met Final Boss I helped him pack his things and kissed him goodbye in a hotel parking lot as he flew away to go make a better life for himself. He said he’d be back for me and I had all the anecdotal proof in the world that it wasn’t going to happen, and I was already done.
I followed suit that same winter and here I be. Life is better.
A year ago right around now farm hubby and I went out for coffee as I tried to be the sympathetic ex and help him get over the loss of sisterwife. I had my own issues that needed airing out about that whole situation and it should have been cathartic, apologetic and full of forgiveness.
Except he called me the next day with plans for me to move back in, 8 years later. I cannot begin to imagine the mess he has been able to make in the last 8 years and the 7 years of busy work and constant cleaning was more than enough for me. I will take my little attic and my weird little life over that chaos any day. I was pretty insulted that he thought me no better than some girl who would wait on hold for someone else to die and then move back in like nothing happened.
No. Fuck no.
Honestly, I should have known. The others have done the same “wait here while I go try this girl on for size and wifery” and when she doesn’t fit, I get a phone call. It isn’t flattering. Appreciate me in real time or leave and stay gone.
When Final Boss got on the plane he was (and I believe this) trying to do better, be better. And to tell the god’s honest truth, from the day we met until the day he left, I would have stood by him as he did do that very thing. And I would have been really good at it. I am the girl who carried aspirin in her purse in case he had a heart attack. Did triage in the VIP with his friends while they were bleeding. Picked him up at all hours and made 5am sandwiches.
A few months later he was back in town, back at his old shit and back with his ex. We all know this story. I didn’t like the way my name sounded coming out of his mouth and I told him so. I cried and I was done, like really done.
I both understood what he was doing and didn’t like it. A concept he had a hard time wrapping his head around, ya, I get it and ya, I was still angry. Understanding doesn’t have to denote forgiveness.
I have seen him once since, met his new pupper and he paid me back.
Then I forgave.
We talk on occasion. 5 minutes here or there. I ask if he’s okay, spit a little truth, he tells me to give it up (playfully) and I remind him I have (seriously). He called me at 5am when I was heading to the airport in November, he was also heading to the airport. I was landing at my destination as he was landing at the airport I flew out of. Metaphorical actuality.
The last conversation he was asking for the address of a place he had been to 4 times in the 4 days prior to the call. And I am not the kind of girl to wonder what a dude meant when he said ‘x,y,z’…but ya, it was an excuse to talk to me. Subtle this is not.
Turns out he has been building his empire like he said he would.
And it is going well from all accounts and there is a space for me.
This is a twist. And I am flattered.
Field of Dreams with dogs and drugs instead of corn and baseball.
He built it, but I am not coming.
I understand better than most how awful the universe’s timing seems to be on occasion.
And, full disclosure, as I struggle being the new girl in a new bar, the familiarity and status I achieved out east is so tempting. But I remember the price I paid for it. My sanity and sobriety.
But, being the Queen of Everything in a microcosm is just big fish, small pond. There is no challenge there for me anymore. It has been conquered, dissected and learned from. This latest revelation is just one more jewel in a tawdry crown that was always too small.
There is an old adage which dictates “god will give you everything you ever wanted and then send you a distraction to see what you will do.”
I feel like I could reach back into the archives and find something similar that happened years ago. I mean I did have the trailer, I was ready to go and I panicked and settled for the familiarity of the town I am in now and my stable full of fuck boys. But they are all cuffed now and my girls are gone.
And I have indisputable proof that I was supposed to be exactly where I was, when I was. Arduous journey? Yep. Worth it? Absolutely.
His job was to keep me there a bit longer, not to bring me back.
I don’t want to go back and redo the things I have already done.
It is time for something new.
