My Small House: January 2007

Ok. A number of folks have asked what happened next. This gets a bit harder to write because I’ll have to publicly acknowledging my dopey-ness. Oh well. What’s a little dopey-ness between friends? Be sure to read Parts 1 and 2 first, so you'll know what's been happening. They’re dated October 12 and October 20, 2006.

I let him move back into our townhouse that spring. He said he wasn’t seeing her anymore, and that she didn’t mean anything to him. I was The One. I just figured it might work out ok. My friends Tim and Don exchanged little sad looks when they thought I couldn’t see.

We tried. Well, *I* tried. But persistence can’t always make things work out the way you want. He told me he hated looking into my eyes and seeing sadness. I guess my acting skills weren’t in peak running condition. Of course it didn’t work. Everyone knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t work. I knew, too.

It was as though we were both holding our breath, waiting for the inevitable. I learned what the bizarre phrase “like walking on eggshells” felt like. (Who would really want to walk on eggshells? You wouldn’t be able to find your footing. Wouldn’t that hurt? Ahhhh. Yes. Yes, it does.) Was afraid to speak my mind, afraid to plan a future beyond next week. I could only smile from the outside, not from the inside.

Finally, the unthinkable conversation. Things happen that you don’t think you can live through. You can. But it’s not easy. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the splintering of your heart.

When it was over, I called Tim. Misery wanted company and the arms of a friend.

“Hi.”

“Are you ok? You’re crying. Did he finally leave you? I’ll be right over.”

“She’s pregnant.”

Crushing silence.

“He’s still here. I told him he had to stay in the guest room, though. He said he’d leave in the morning. He doesn’t have any place to go tonight, so I told him he could stay. Was that stupid?"

"Yes. I'll be right there."

I wasn’t The One after all. I never was. The 19-year-old girlfriend was two months pregnant. I was still in my doormat stage – with sadness unhidden behind my eyes - so it was Tim who finally told my husband to move out the next morning. Later we mentally kicked ourselves for not thinking to erase his beloved hard drive when we had the chance. You have to take your fun where you can find it.

Friends Tim and Don tended me like an invalid that summer. (Funny…that word... kind of like in valid.) They worried, and never left me alone. In valid. Lots of Kleenex got balled into soggy little wads of sorrow and thrown around my room.

I cried a lot. I’m the one who’d checked my temperature every morning, I’m the one who’d had the surgery, I’m the one who’d prayed. She’s the one who got the baby. In valid.

The carnival came to town. Send in the clowns. To cheer me up, Tim, Don and I traipsed off to the midway. Nothing’s like whirling lights, cotton candy and the hard-edged glitter of forced amusement. Tilt-a-Whirl, Farris Wheel and Scrambler can help a girl find her balance. Well, of course you also need the Palace of Wonder and the Last Supper in Wax show. Oh. And clowns. You always need clowns.

If you don’t get the family you think you need, it’s important to create one.

Don, Tim and I moved in together that winter. We spent all hours and times together - laughing, cooking, eating, drinking, dancing and passing the Kleenex box to one another as we watched a lipsticked, black and white Joan Crawford strut around in shoulder pads. (Oh, you know as well as I do that clichés don’t come out of thin air. No one chooses to be gay because the food’s better, but we did spend a lot of time trying recipes, choosing paint colors and watching Joan Crawford sneer at Bette Davis.)

A peculiar thing began to happen. My friends treated me like a person, and so I became one. Didn’t treat me like a girl or a wife or a mom. Or a vessel. Treated me like a person without an ID tag. A whole person. I carried groceries, emptied trash, lugged luggage. I learned to plant my own garden instead of waiting for someone else to bring me flowers. Ok – I also learned how to fight (usually fair). Gave voice to my thoughts instead of tucking them away in little, festering shadows of my brain. Learned how to define myself by what I wanted instead of what I could do for someone else. Found my equal voice.

When I was in my 20s, a wise friend in her 70s told me that the best intimate relationships were ones where both people could stand on their own – two people with four strong legs. Protection against toppling over. It was in that house of friends that I tried to stand on my own. I still wobble pretty often but I’ve finally learned that I really am strong and can stand up to what comes. An offshoot of person-hood, I think.

I learned to answer only to myself, too. I bought a motorcycle and discovered the sensual freedom of riding through soft evening air surrounded by crimson sunsets, the scent of warm spring earth and the distant screeching of newborn peepers. Ok, ok – the thrill of speed was pretty enticing, too.

It was also in that house of friends that I began to dip my toes back into the water to see if there really were too many fish in it. Dated all manner of people, some good, some bad, none ugly. No one touched my heart, but a few touched other places.

Tim fell in love with Stephen and moved out. Don fell in love and moved Robert in. With each addition our circle grew larger. We’d created a family – filled it with love and laughter, warmth and security. Brown-eyed children chased around after a romping dog in the back yard. A picket fence. Hydrangeas. Maybe not typical, but an American family, to be sure.

Different people supplied the things that made me smile - some for the brain, some for the body, some for the heart. Some for sickness and some for health. No one person supplied everything I wanted, but it was all there for the asking. Everyone has their own skill.

I was happy.

Then the rug got pulled out from under me. I’ve already told you I’m not a believer in mystical moments or psychic flashes. I leave predestination to my ancestor Scots and mystical curses to the Sicilians. But things really did get out of control. I’ll have to tell you about them later. I promise. Really.