BoTB Results and Liner Notes of My Marriage (A Wild West Show)

Let me begin by apologizing for being so late with the results from Battle of the Bands. My migraines have been acting up. What I mean by this is: my chronic migraine has amped up to the point that for the last few days I've spent more time in bed that out of it. And I haven't been sleeping. I also haven't been doing anything "fun." So, it's just been lying there listening to my head pound.

Anyway, that's also the reason I've been so neglectful of your blogs. What time I've spent out of bed hasn't been here on the computer catching up on blog reading.

Anyway, this race wasn't even close, though many of you indicated that the decision was tough for you. So, even though Louis Armstrong won this by miles and miles, many of you gave a smile and nod to Norah Jones. Final tally without my vote:

Louis Armstrong: 20

Norah Jones: 5

I really like both versions, but I'd vote for Norah (not that it matters). I've got her CD and I enjoy listening to it very much.

If you're keeping up at all, I've been giving you the "liner notes" of my life in conjunction with Train songs. I had a pretty good formula in place. Take the albums in order. Play the title cut and then one or two of my favorites. Just so you know the next album will be Save Me San Francisco, but we're not going there today.

Instead, I'm going to address this little comment that Bryan over at A Beer For The Shower made about country music when he saw that my battle was Cold, Cold Heart. "I saw the words "country music" and immediately thought 'oh God no.'" (Oh Bryan, if only you could've seen my head shaking at this comment...)

I addressed this issue with him off of Blogger and we've been doing some music sharing (I think to the pleasantry of both parties). One of the first country tracks I shared with him was the last cut, Live This Life on Big & Rich's first album, Horse of A Different Color. If you want to listen to it, click here. (Stephen T. McCarthy, I think you'll really like this one!) Anyway, Bryan liked it better than he though he might, but not as much as I'd hoped.

So, this next one is for Bryan (and the rest of you non-country music fans, as well as the country music fans). It also goes with the liner notes of my life, which will come after the song. Try and think about this song in terms of what it's like to go through a divorce or particularly devastating break-up. It gets ugly. It gets messy. Sometimes you wonder if either one of you will survive it. It really is its own Wild West Show.

Check out these lyrics:

I'm feelin' like Tonto,
Ridin' a Pinto,
Tryin' to chase the Lone Ranger down.
I'm a little unraveled,
But I'm still in the saddle,
Cryin' your name out to the clouds,
Hey yaw, Hey yaw!

Why don't you meet me,
Back at the tepee?
We'll lay down by the camp fire.
There, in the dark night,
We'll smoke the peace pipe,
Forget about who's wrong or right.
Hey yaw, Hey yaw!

Yeah, it was a big showdown,
Oh yeah, we stood our ground.
Shot out the lights:
It got a little crazy.
I don't wanna see us go,
The way of the buffalo:
Don't wanna have another wild west show.
Hey yaw, Hey yaw!

Only forgiveness,
Will finally end this.
There won't be a witness if we both fall.
There's never a hero,
In a battle of ego.
There's never a winner of the quick draw.
Hey yaw, Hey yaw!

Yeah, it was a big showdown,
Oh yeah, we stood our ground.
Shot out the lights:
It got a little crazy.
Don't wanna see us go,
The way of the buffalo:
Don't wanna have another wild west show.
Hey yaw, Hey yaw!

Hey yaw, Hey yaw!

It's like a ghost town,
Without you around.
Why can't we just forget it,
Ride off in the sunset?

It was a big showdown,
Oh yeah, we stood our ground.
Shot out the lights:
It got a little crazy.
I don't wanna see us go,
The way of the buffalo:
Don't wanna have another wild west show.
Hey yaw, Hey yaw!

I'm feelin' like Tonto,
Ridin' a Pinto,
Tryin' to chase the Lone Ranger down.

So, I had my therapy appointment this week. We were doing something different this time. The issue had to do with loss of voice (which is work we started at the last appointment) after the ribbon incident with my mother at Sam's Club. Anyway, the resulting migraine made it clear that it wasn't about ribbon. Last time, I made this very long list of incidences in which I felt a loss of voice. This week, we started with the ribbon and moved backward. Every single incident, other than the ribbon, was something that happened with me and my now ex-husband. I thought of the incident, went through it in my head, and then told it out loud to my therapist. Rinse and repeat. Over and over and over again. The idea (I think) was threefold. I'd remember more each time I did it. I'd peak emotionally at some point in the middle (often involving crying and tissues) and then become more detached from it each time I told it. Yeah, this meant telling the same story twenty or more times. I was exhausted by the time I left that appointment (and migrainey!)

And just like in this song, a good bit of time I felt like Tonto riding a Pinto trying to chase The Lone Ranger down. I was also really unraveled, fell out of the saddle, and spent a lot of time on the ground (no, I know that wasn't the lyric, but that's how it was). It did get a little crazy. We never literally shot out the lights, but before it was all said and done I could pinpoint the exact moment I stopped loving him and actively began to hate him. (Big stuffs, kids!) I also pinpointed the exact moment I hated me, which was direct result of not being able to SPEAK UP and tell him how I felt. It's really bad when you exercise your voice and the other party refuses to hear you, doesn't care, etc. It's WORSE when you stifle yourself.

And, like the song says, Only forgiveness will finally end this. I was divorced in 2005. It was shocking to me that I was still stuck in that place. That place of lack of forgiveness. Not so much of him, but of ME. I accepted a while ago that you can't hate a snake for being a snake. It's just being true to its nature. However, when you know something's a snake and you STILL pick it up and put it in your pocket... That's where I was getting stuck.

In other words, he showed me who he was before I married him. All the clues were there. And I still picked up the snake and put it in my pocket. I didn't really want to (which shames me to no end). Heck, I blogged about the inciting incident a long time ago and thought I was beyond it. I had reasons, but they WERE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. If you are reading this and scratching your head... maybe even rereading it not sure that you understood it... let me make this very clear. The incident in question happened a few months before we were married. I felt financially pressured to go through with it. I felt emotionally pressured to go through with it. Neither of these reasons were good enough to actually go through with it.

After that, I experienced a whole bunch of rationalization to make it "okay enough" in my own mind to proceed. Not that it was actually okay. I rationalized the situation (aka the relationship) into something it never was.

So, all of this work was about seeing it all clearly. Fully understanding the choices that I made. Fully realizing the importance of voice so that I don't ever repeat these mistakes. They are too damn costly. They cost your health. They cost your peace of mind. They cost your time. And the only place they lead is to a Wild West Show.

And this will make me feel happy... thanks Christine.

I don't normally post twice in one day, because my posts aren't short. Christine over at A Deliberate Life just posted "And This Will Make Me Happy!" Her post was related to food. Food = Comfort and if we eat it we will feel better. That feeling better is temporary. Of course, it is. Logically, anyone knows that. I don't have a weight issue. So, what is giving me heartburn about this post? Isn't it awful when we discover things about ourselves that we don't like? We like to sugarcoat them in things that sound good. Rationalization.

*I got an email from Flash's myspace account a couple of weeks ago that I thought was from Flash, but appeared to be from his wife or significant other, or wife, or whoever saying that it was over. I posted about this. I expressed no shock. I didn't post that it gave my heart a little extra dose of happy. That isn't nice. Who revels in someone else's misery? So what that he caused me tons of misery? So what that he set back my recovery years? That is NOT taking the moral high ground. "And this will make me feel happy...."

*I know this might seem odd, but I became friends with the girl that Flash cheated on me with back in the day. It sort of became a necessity. We talked all of the time. It was a constant comparison of notes. Sharing of evidence. We talked daily for months. Yeah, it takes a long time to pin a cheater to the wall. It turns out that she and I had a lot in common. More than Flash and I, as it turns out. Life is a weird thing. After the whole thing with Flash was said and done we missed talking to each other. Like I said, life is a strange beast. So, we still talked. "And this will make me feel happy..."

*Turns out that she cheated on her husband to be with Flash. Yeah, she paid a lot for that indiscretion. And it caused a lot of pain in her household. Her husband is an alcoholic and the fallout just kept falling. Eventually, her marriage went all to hell. It got really ugly. We stopped talking. He couldn't understand our connection surpassed Flash. All he could see was the reminder of an affair and it was rubbing his nose in it. So, I wished her well and let go. I didn't think that they would make it. I hoped, but wasn't at all convinced. Maybe not talking to me. "And this will make me feel happy..."

*Yesterday I get a friend request from her on facebook and she is good. Great. Even. Turns out that she and the husband are back together. They were separated and divorcing when last we spoke. It appears that they turned it around. She sent me a message. She made no mention of their problems in the email she sent me. So, I don't know if they fixed them or glossed them over. I know that they moved and started a new business. I also know that she found me by contacting Flash because she couldn't remember my last name. WTH? "And maybe this will make me feel happy..."

*I didn't respond yet to her email because I have no idea what to say. I pride myself on forgiveness. Seriously. I talk and talk and talk about it. I really thought I had gotten there with Flash. However, the idea that SHE couldn't remember my name when WE had a more substantial relationship than she and he ever did and she FORGOT my last name, but remembered his galls me. She had to contact him to contact me. And her husband is suddenly okay with it? WTH? It is not that I don't want her to forgive him because not forgiving sucks your soul. I don't even know what I am saying. I guess I would have liked contacting him to be more distasteful. "And then I'll be happy..."

*And that brought me full circle to wondering if he had created a facebook page. Oh yeah, I had to go there. Sure enough. He did. And nothing is private. It is all out there. Apparently, he and the girl are still together. The question of their marriage is still a question. Not surprising. The fact that he would lie about it on myspace not surprising. Lying about anything doesn't shock me. The only honest thing he says is in his About Me where he opens with saying that he is "defective." He nails that. Of course, there is a lot of quoting of Bible verse to lead the unsuspecting astray. And then he makes a comment on his father's comment of, "I LOVE MY DADDY." This is the same man who cheated on his mother for years, leaving her for a much younger woman when she quit her job, and lost her health insurance. She is now an alcoholic. The man doesn't have an admirable bone in his body. I heard not one kind thing about the man the entire time we were together. And rightly so. I guess when it comes down to the pot and the kettle, what are you going to do? "And then I'll be happy...."

*Now, that we have covered Flash, his philandering father, his alcoholic mother, and the other woman, it all comes back to me. When will I be happy? I have already told myself that he was just the teacher of a lesson. I believe that. If if hadn't been him, it would have been someone else. I signed up for the lesson. Liars and cheaters and lie and cheat. That is what they do. I think of the story of the boy who picked up the baby snake and put it in his pocket. When he pulls it out, it bites him. He gets angry with the snake. There is no point in that. It is in the nature of the snake to bite. The lesson is to stop putting it in your pocket. I know that I can stop visiting Flash's internet sites. I have stayed off them for years at a time. That makes me happy. Not knowing what he is doing makes me happy.

*I suppose the Catch 22 here is, "Can I re-establish a relationship with the other woman without having Flash right there in my subconscious mind and disrupting my life? Or, more importantly, is this rolling around to remind me that I don't have this handle on forgiveness that I thought I had? I forgave her a long time ago. She didn't owe me anything. She hadn't made any made any commitments to me. In fact, I wasn't anything to her when she and Flash did their thing, but Flash was a different story. Right now, the idea of Flash's house getting egged is really funny to me. Or TP'd. Especially if it is by every woman he has screwed over. Or maybe finding someone that he really loves and having them do to him what he has done to other people. I don't think that is the definition of forgiveness. So, that means I have some work to do in the forgiveness department. Dammit. I would really rather just throw rotten tomatoes at his house and be done with it. Because "and then I'll be happy...."