What the HELL is wrong with Mrs. El?: Volume One (A confessional in five parts.)

I’ve sat down many times over the past few months to compose this open letter to the internet and anyone who stumbles across it…

 

…but every time I’ve come close, I withdraw and retreat like a little bitch with a skinned knee. 

 [I’m a girl, ergo, I can say things like this about myself.  You, however, are not me…so take note.  Also, I should know.  I’m very clumsy and shred my knees on the regular.  It’s kind of my thing.  *sigh* I digress.]

I’m too chicken to peel the scab, too stupid to leave it unpicked. 

Either way, it won’t heal and I can’t leave it alone.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

In part, I suppose that a measure of me knows that I should continue to shoulder the experience I am enduring (authoring?) on my own, but the truth is that so many people dear to me have sought understanding from the trail of cryptic breadcrumbs I’ve been leaving for months and have approached me directly with their concern. 

Frankly, I’m exhausted with the charade—

—so—

DEEP BREATH.

Here goes:

After exactly twenty years with my husband…I am here to confess my admission into the ultimate American Claim to Fame Club—

I, Mrs. E.L., will now and heretoforever be defined by being on the losing side of the 50% success / failure rate of American marriage.

Yep.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Please, suffice it to say that over the past few months, bridges have been set ablaze, social media accounts pirated, emotional arbitrage conducted…and every foul piece of behavior you can imagine has transpired as promises and pledges have been transgressed and dreams defiled.

THIS is not the blog to explain (that will arrive later), nor is it the blog to attack (that will never come), nor is this the blog to defend (perhaps… one day)…

As children [spelled v-i-c-t-i-m-s] of divorce ourselves, I honestly believed my husband and I could do better by one another than the template set forth by our parents. 

As the divorce and its imminence loomed, I surmised that one of four things would transpire:

1) We’d get our shit together and reconcile for the kids—because why SHOULDN’T we be able to do so as educated, privileged, first-world citizens with every reason and opportunity in the world to make things work???

2) He’d kill me.  (Seriously.  Marital tension is no joke, yo.  I won’t even make light of domestic violence, because there is little that weighs heavier on my heart than this subject.  This may be the place, but it is most certainly not the time…)

3) We’d find some hip new divorce style that honored our two decades together (and, more importantly, the two magnificent daughters we created in our union)—you know, where we met for coffee, invited one another over for game nights, sat holding hands at the kids’ events.  Then, of course, the default option—

4) We’d take what little scraps of money we ever even had and humbly bow upon our knees to beg to award it to litigators who would drink their fees in thirty year old scotch over two forty-something idiots who couldn’t get their heads out of their respective asses long enough to avoid becoming a pathetic statistic amidst the divorcé clichés.

I was always down for options one or three and I made this clear, but—as it goes—my proposal was moot and well…here we are:

Lawyers receiving dollars that should be spent on our daughters…so that we can pick and poke at one another, digging our fingers deeper into wounds of our own creation, spreading the pus and poison of infected hearts and bilious, cankered souls.

Hot DAMN, it’s a great day to be alive, ain’t it?

[Pity?  Party of one?  Your table is now ready…]

So how does this happen? 

How does a pair of hearts go from “…th’ exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine…” to “…a plague o’ both your houses…”?

Honestly, this is what I anticipate uncovering as I roll myself into a chrysalis and cocoon myself through this process—hopefully emerging from the viscera of the tears and the years at some measure of better transformation from this corrosive metamorphosis.

Where am I now in phase one of this drama? 

Well, my wit has abandoned me and reason is hiding within my rationalization, so I am left with only this pithy bit of bitterness:

Relationships are not mushrooms:

love can’t live in shadows, faith can’t grow in shit.

[How ya like dem apples?  You’re totally welcome for that little nugget of awesome.  I fully expect the royalties from having that printed on your t-shirts and coffee mugs to pay for my overpriced counsel.]

 
There is so much to say, so much I want to reveal…so many veins to drain…but, what is the thesis at this juncture?  The bottom line of all this cathartic word vomit?

 

Perhaps only this:

 

Have you love in your life?

(Seriously?  Does it still have a pulse, however faint?)

 

Treasure it.

Sanctify it.

Bandage it.

Bond it.

Protect it.

 

 

Have you not found that love yet?

 

Stop looking.  It will find you.  I swear to almighty Sagan, it’s the truth.  The moment you stop seeking love, it will mow you down like a Mac Truck.  This I know, but...again...this is for another blog.

 

Have you had love, but now acknowledge that it is fractured and broken beyond repair? 

(Are you bruised beyond all recognition?) 

 

Well, my friends…then welcome to my table: pull up a chair and join me. 

Let’s laugh our way through this…or at least toast to our pathos and pity one another’s shortcomings over strong drinks and even stronger language.

 

This is my brave face, folks.

[Please bear with me if it falters.]

 

Your regularly scheduled Mrs…I mean…Ms…El will return posthaste…at least, I hope she will...

 

 

P.S. Want to understand my feels, from one sad bastard to another...?  Give this a play and you might land somewhere nearby...

 

Ms. El's Sad Bastard Song for Life