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TwitterIt’s Not So Much A Birdhouse In My Soul As It Is A Walled And Armed Fortress
18 Aug 2011 6 Comments
Mostly I’m happy, sure. I have a job I love and three kids at home who, while sometimes trying, are mainly good kids. They cause the normal amount of trouble. It’s nothing I can’t handle.
But I have been married, twice now, and both times have not been successful. My first husband was a drunk and a deadbeat and hasn’t had any contact with his daughter in over five years. When we split up, he left me high and dry, with no money, no car and nowhere to live. If my mother hadn’t stepped in and let me rent one of her apartments for a ridiculously cheap amount of money, I don’t know what I would have done.
So, I pulled up my socks and I went back to school for a year and got a certification as an admin assistant. It wasn’t hard to finish and I graduated with a 4.0. I worked for a couple of companies and met the guy who would become husband number 2 in 2000. Things were ok. Not great, but we were doing ok financially and we were mostly happy. And then I had a daughter in 2004. And another in 2006. I stopped working (for a paycheck).
Suddenly, I was home, with three kids and a husband who firmly believed that because he got a paycheck, he didn’t have to do anything at all. I got resentful. I got depressed. And he started looking elsewhere. It wasn’t the first time. He had some online flings going on when I was pregnant with our first. He swore up and down that it wouldn’t happen again but of course, it did.
We finally split up in 2010. Once again, I was without income, until I found a crappy job. I was living in a horrible apartment complex, filled with drug dealers and cockroaches. We were there for a year, until I found this place I’m in now. And a better job, one that I actually love. And I’m still doing it all, only now I don’t have the disappointment of knowing that the person who was supposed to be my partner, to pull together with me equally, is going to let me down again and again. He’s gone. Yes, he sees the girls, but that’s it. I don’t rely on him for anything else because I know it’s useless.
And I have built such a cage, such a wall around myself since then. I don’t want to let anyone in. Why should I, when I’ve been failed so many times? When I question myself constantly over whether it’s just me, whether I invite this kind of treatment or do or don’t do something that lets me be treated this way? Why would I risk that again?
I don’t want to be alone, really, but I’m afraid if I let that bird sing, the one I know is inside of me, that it will get sucked into the engine of my life and come out the other end, unable to repair itself one more time.
This is part of the Indie Ink writing challenge. If you want to take part, visit them and sign up. I was challenged by Hannah, who gave me this: There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him. I say, stay in there, I’m not going to let anyone else see you. I, in turn, challenged Stillie with this line from the Dave Matthews Band: Sometimes it’s better to be somebody else.
6 Comments (+add yours?)
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Aug 18, 2011 @ 02:54:14
I know. Oh how I know.
Aug 18, 2011 @ 03:35:21
I wish you didn’t know….
Aug 18, 2011 @ 17:53:13
I guess Life has its lessons for us, for whatever unfathomable reasons…
Aug 19, 2011 @ 02:17:34
I think the most important thing is that you are able to love yourself. If someone comes along who will be a good partner (and they do exist!), then that’s great. But the most important thing is that you are able to live the life that you want to lead, and that does mean letting that bird out to sing every once in a while.
Aug 26, 2011 @ 03:57:04
It gets harder as you get older for a variety of reasons. Your standards get higher, which makes the pool smaller.