Greatest Hit’s – Fear of Commitment Pt. 4
The J and two mistakes
I’ve noticed something about myself. I don’t like telling the stories that tell. I don’t like shedding my skin and letting you peek in unless I lend your experience a humorous caveat. Or maybe I don’t like to admit I have emotions and I can be hurt. This time more or less, I hurt myself.
I met J while I was working one of my three jobs; this job just happened to be cooking in a bowling alley. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Arthur”he asks his butler what he thinks of Liza Minnelli, the butler answers “she looks like the kind of woman you would meet in a bowling alley”. That was me at the time. A year after my divorce from O and I shack up with the first guy who pays any attention to me.
I swore that I would find someone different from O; someone without a drug problem, someone with some hobbies and someone who sought more out of life than their next bong hit. I think back; I think a bong hit would have done J some good. The relationship started fast and soon we were moving in together. There wasn’t any fan faire, no romantic gestures; just a settling. J had found the hood ornament he had always wanted in me and two children to adore him while he was at it.
J loved my children. He was wonderful to them. He lived for them; he hated me. J was an alcoholic. Not the type of alcoholic I was used to being around; he just drank beer from sun up to sun down. He would get aggressive verbally but not too much that another beer couldn’t calm down. Oh I forgot the best part; he cheated on me constantly.
J was stuck in his youth. He never dreamed for anything outside of the little town that he grew up in, he still imagined he had long David Cassidy hair, he listened to the same music (we went to see AC/DC 4 times) and he still owned a 1972 Chevrolet Camaro SS. 20 years later; he had very little hair, a yellow ranch style house with white shudders and a rose garden and realized that 35K a year wasn’t really that much money. But he still was basically happy; as long as he had my children and I kept my mouth shut.
A month after we bought the house I got into a car accident. I found the first reason to postpone the wedding we were planning. All J talked about was the money that “we” were going to get. He rarely acknowledged my injuries or my constant pain. He bought me a dishwasher so I didn’t have to spend so much time in the kitchen washing dishes after cooking him dinner. According to J, I was a very lucky woman to have someone like him who would take me in and love my children as much as he did. He told everyone how lucky I was. Soon after my doctor decided I was depressed and prescribed prozac to help. J decided I was now crazy; all of his girlfriends were crazy.
I put off the wedding again. I learned I cared about little except for what was on television and making sure J had enough beer in the fridge. I kept taking the prozac. One night or one that wasn’t different from any other, J drank too much beer. He called me a stupid bitch; I knocked him out. I don’t actually remember hitting him but I do remember a flood of red and then standing over him as he rolled around on the ground. I told him it wasn’t for calling me a bitch; it was for calling me stupid. I took a prozac.
A month later I was in the kitchen J was putting the kids to bed. I lit a candle, he started screaming and backed me into a corner. I don’t remember what happened next. J was on the floor again. My son told me last year that he saw what actually happened; he swears J smacked me. I truly don’t remember, it was the second time. J would always forget that I was a competetive bowler that threw a 16 pound bowling ball three times a week for 4 hours at at time. Knocking him out was as easy as blowing out a candle. I took more prozac.
On New years eve 1995 I came home from work planning to make snacks for a party and make sure there was plenty of beer for J. I found J in the bedroom hugging the shower curtain and the towel rack from the bathroom. I found him by following the vomit stains through the house. He rallied and attended the party in full swinging J fashion. The party ended with him screaming at me. The last thing J ever said to me in that house; “you don’t even know your children, you’re just the incubator – I take care of them better than you ever will”. I flushed the prozac.
J left the next morning for golf. I rented a moving truck. I took only my children’s furniture and my pots and pans for cooking. J didn’t cook for himself or do his own dishes; I knew his sister would come do it for him. I moved away that day – it only took me two hours. I left my second hand engagement ring on the counter in the kitchen right next to the dishwasher. He didn’t know I knew that he had bought that ring from a guy at the bar – but I did.
After my divorce I decided to never tear another person apart with my words again. I kept my word and J ran over me like a train. My children hated me because they didn’t understand why I took them away from the man they considered their father. They are older now and I knew if I let them stay he would do the same to them that he did to me. They were fun for J because they weren’t thinking for themselves yet. I couldn’t imagine anyone treating my children the way he treated me.
Everyone thinks I’m afraid of J but, I’m not. I was more afraid of what I allowed someone to turn me into. I can’t add up the amount of money I lost the day I left. I lost my house, my investment, my furniture, my friends and my financial security. I’ve never been so broke and I’ve never been happier in my life.
I don’t bowl any more.
Drink count:
3 Vodka Soda’s
½ bottle Pinot Grigio
