What About All the Broken Happy Ever Afters?

Him: I heard you talking in your sleep last night

Her: What were you doing?

Him: I was watching you, you seemed sad

Her: Why didn’t you wake me up?

Him: I didn’t want to intervene, you seemed like you were suffering somewhere else and I didn’t think it was my place to drag you out of it, so I just let you be.

Her: So you just let me suffer?

This is the opening dialog from Florence and the Machine’s video for What Kind of Man

It’s also kinda the story of my life.

People see me drowning and just assume since I spend so much time in the water that I can swim just fine and save myself.

There is truth there, I can. Always have. Almost actually drowned twice as a child. Saved two others from drowning (as I was saved) before the age of 13.

I am tired of treading water.

Sometimes I know how to float and then something or someone comes along and knocks the wind out of me and I fail and flail. Coughing and sputtering trying to keep the water out of my lungs. Thinking how nice it might be to just succumb, let the water have me.

But then my fine-tuned, over-used survival instinct kicks in and I start kicking and I finally get to breathe.

I revisited a post I once wrote called Chivalry.

I don’t think I realized at the time, or maybe I did and I am just trying really hard not to reopen that wound.

I am such a sucker for the subtle things. The minuscule body movements of a bouncer that make me feel safe.

Offhand comments that weren’t meant to flatter but made my heart soar and then plummet just as quickly.

“You don’t know my girl here, she’s got this.”

That one was double-edged.

I’d just survived a death wobble caused by a wheel sheared off at the axle careening down a hill at 80km/hr and somehow managed to not die and get the evil death smoky dragon wagon jeep off the road with the remaining wheels 3 inches on the proper side of the white line with room for the tow truck. So ya, I got it, but every atom in my body wanted to break down and get scooped up into the strong arms of someone.

The same someone that was telling the second tow truck driver that I had this. So I had no choice.

What is it about me that makes everyone think I am fine?

In most aspects of my life I am, I see that and I’m grateful for it. I looked around this morning and realized my house looks like my dream bedroom from when I was a kid.

I write and there is no greater joy than this for me. When I turn a phrase just so.

My body and I have made peace.

I have the kind of friendships I coveted and craved as a child.

We are problems that want to be solved, we are children that need to be loved. P!nk

Her, Florence, Ke$ha and Miley have been on A rotation in this house. Women who changed.

P!nk goes on to ask what about all the broken happy ever afters?

Ya, what about them? I have too many.

I used to buy into the idea that one day everything would make sense.
I’m 43.
None of it makes sense.
Everyone seems to think I’ll be fine on my own.
Track record proves this true…I am technically still here.
But
I’m not actually fine.
I think I’m done.

I know all the adages, broken windows still let in light, blah blah blah.

But I’m having a hard time keeping the faith that someday someone will come along and do much of anything at all.

I think it’s all on me.

I am letting go of the fairy tale.

If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Shakespeare

Love turns its back on me over and over. So now I’m turning my back on it.

Sure I will still love, it’s what I do. I love my son, my girls, my life. Coffee, words, sunsets, the little noises my dog makes, dew on the grass, sun like diamonds on the water, floating, driving, singing off key.

Just never could find a balance between physical attraction and requited love. So I’ll stop looking.

I’ve had epic adventures, godlike lovers, and a wonderful life, if you cut out the part where I keep craving being loved in return and being let down every. damned. time.

Full stop.

No more monsters I can breathe again Ke$ha