Sucker-Punched

I hate that feeling you get in your stomach when you’re about to be emotionally sucker punched. There’s no dodging it. You can’t bob and weave like you could if a tangible attacker were headed for you. There’s no talking it out. You just have to stand there, with your feet straddling the railroad tracks and wait for that locomotive to come plaster your guts over the rails.

I can remember two occasions, vividly, where I stood there with my back straight and my face stoic and took my punches.

The first time, I was 22 years old. A new mom with a baby so young that my house was still obsessively decorated with childproof bumper rails and baby gates. Barely an adult and shoved, face-first into parenthood with my then-husband, on the surface a family man, working hard to change his circumstances. Within two years time, he went from a green jumpsuit behind double-plated glass to a manager in a white-collar career. The poster child for first-offender-felons, he really had turned his life around.

Saturday morning, it was Valentine’s Day. He promised a romantic dinner at home that evening. Our son was not yet a year old, so there would be no going out this Valentine’s Day. Not like we had gone out for other V-Days, mind you. The first Valentine’s Day that we celebrated together, we were newly engaged (the first time). He bought me one lonely red carnation and Dumb & Dumber on DVD. To be fair, it was (and still is) my favorite movie, so the gesture was sweet. It wasn’t sweet, however, to come home from an 8-hour shift slinging lattes to find him and our two best friends hot-boxed in my bedroom, watching the movie. My carnation was on the kitchen counter next to the cellophane packaging. What a bummer.

I didn’t have my hopes high for our first married Valentine’s Day together. Even with lowered expectations, I was still disappointed when he didn’t come home. He went in for over-time on a Saturday. I thought that was pretty strange, but didn’t question his dedication to his job. He didn’t answer my calls, all afternoon and into the night. My frantic phone calls to his dad and his brother left me more worried and puzzled. Nobody knew where he was. I started to worry that he was hurt, injured, in a ditch somewhere. Then a phone call the next day, after no sleep.

And it happened. I imagined a giant, animated fist appearing stage right and walloping me from the side, my limp body curling over the oversized knuckles and then, rag-doll-style flopping to the ground. He wasn’t coming home right now. He needed some space. He was not happy.

I was at home with no car. No car seat. No money. In serious need of a trip to the grocery store (and the liquor store).

That following Tuesday was our son’s first birthday. He didn’t come back to visit with his son for nearly six weeks. I remember bundling up my baby and rolling my umbrella stroller down the street, in the gutter because there was no sidewalk, because we needed food from the grocery store.

What a mess. Such an empty, hollow feeling inside my gut. It took me months to recover from that. I look back at how fragile and weak and spiritless I was in that time and I’m damn near disgusted with myself.

Then again, the other memory that resonates in my head for that sucker-punched feeling was a similar betrayal. I had been dating the filmmaker for about a year. We ended up being together for over three years and I have never felt such a psychic presence in myself in any other period of my life. My intuition was hyper-sensitive and I never listened to it… Even when unflappable evidence existed, I held fast to my romantic notions of love and happiness with a chronically unhappy man.

I woke up in the middle of the night, gasping for air, a panicked dream ripping me from my slumber. My heart was racing and something, somewhere, deep inside my gut told me to go and get on the computer. I don’t really recollect how I broke into his email that first time (my intuition would lead me to this one more time, more than a year later), but I somehow skated my way into his inbox and right there, in plain sight, an email to the other woman. My chest felt tight.

“I can’t wait to get my arms back around you,” he lovingly wrote. “I miss your scent.” Romantic words for such an unromantic man, I thought. And, as if I needed evidence, I printed out this email and went hunting for more. I found, in total, about twelve emails between these two lovers. My printer ink was struggling to make the letters as I struggled through salty eyes to read, and more so, believe these emails.

I took them to bed, feeling floaty and out-of-body like a ghost. I sat up in the bed a long time that night, in the dark, only my bedside lamp illuminating the room. The emails were in a messy, strewn pile in the floor next to my bed and I recall laying there, on my side, staring at the pile and wishing I could just roll off the bed and into the abyss, like Alice… Wake up somewhere else, where all the rules were different.

I was pretty frustrated with myself in these recent weeks recollecting all of these horrible memories, plowing through my head and my heart like war-era flashbacks. I’m engaged! I’m happy! Why is my subconscious dragging me into my dark and unhappy past? And I realized that my body, my heart, in an attempt to make room for all of the good that is in store for me, was making space… Pushing old, dark memories out of my head to clear an area big enough for all the good that is supposed to be… Exercising the demons.

I guess this is part of the reason why writing this stuff down is good for you too… Even though I don’t want these memories taking up space in my head or my  heart, I never want to forget the feelings. I never want to lose touch with where I’ve been and the men I’ve loved and the lessons they all taught me. It just makes me exponentially more and more grateful for Colin every day.

Wedding Planning for the Anti-Bride

I’m a little defensive about my “bride” status. I totally want to marry Colin. I can’t wait to be his WIFE. But the business of being a bride feels a little sour to me. It’s such an overly-marketed industry. Brides-to-be are assaulted by a constant barrage of magazine and blog articles that tell them what they should be doing, thinking, checking off their lists… There’s pressure to spend, diet, stretch and obsess over the entire process of planning a wedding.

What’s your theme?

Where’s your ring?

Where are you getting married?

Are you doing a unity candle?

Who is officiating?

Who is catering?

Like… SHUT UP. If you want to know all these details, work hard to be on my good side so that you get invited, fool.

No, seriously.

I am trying really hard to follow my gut and my heart, not what the current trends are. I don’t usually have any trouble being non-traditional.

Bridesmaids and groomsmen? No thanks. I’d much rather my closest friends not feel pressure to have to pony up money for fancy clothes and make them stand with locked knees, risking an oh-my-god-she-fainted embarrassing experience.

Father giving me away? I’m sorry, I’m 30 years old and I’ve been married once. I’m also pretty sure that I was never something that my father would ever consider giving away. I’m his daughter and I always will be…

Overpriced bouquet? How about wildflowers instead? Or just a whole crap load of baby’s breath tied with twine? Or maybe no flowers for me at all. What if I just carry an axe? Or a whomp-’em stick?

White dress with train and veil complete with faux-virginity? What about a cute yellow dress instead? How about something I’ll feel beautiful in on THAT DAY and any other day I decide to wear it?

Colin has to consistently reel me in. He’s more traditional than me, but still a very creative person who doesn’t feel like he has to do any of this “their” way… But he has to pull me back down to earth sometimes.

It’s going to be interesting planning this wedding. Our budget? Nearly invisible, it’s so tiny. Our plans? Big. Beautiful. We’re going to make it happen and I’m excited to share exactly HOW we plan to do it. So…

Enter the new blog category, Anti-Bride.

And holy crap — getting married in just over ten months, y ‘all!

I don’t care for freak bacon anymore.

I feel terrible for neglecting this space, guys. There are many reasons though…

• My exhusband regularly stalks this blog searching for ammunition to use against me in court — puts quite a damper on me feeling free to express myself, you know?
• I’ve been SUPER busy with work. Such a great problem to have, right? Classes are perpetually full… Clients are coming in at a nice and manageable pace. I’m even moving out of my home office into a REAL office in downtown Athens in January.
• Oh, also, I got engaged. *GASP!* So I’ve been a little over the moon, sparkly-happy and busy planning details and dreaming up what our perfect wedding day will be.

The biggest thing though, is that this space doesn’t FEEL like me anymore, you know? Once upon a time, Freak Bacon made sense… It was the only logical name for my space in the blogsphere. But it just doesn’t fit anymore. The only bacon in my life is the kind that is lovingly prepared for me by my incredible chef fiance (man, it’s still weird to call him that!).

So I’m trying to come up with another name for what I want my blog to be… I know what it will be about, so maybe this will help you guys come up with ideas, hm?

• I’m going to write about the blending of my new family.
• I’m going to write about planning this wedding.
• I’m going to write about my life in Athens, Georgia.
• I’m going to just WRITE MORE.

When I committed to writing one post a day on Date Wrecks, my readership grew by nearly 600%. This blog isn’t about traffic for me, like DW was, but I do still want to be a writer one day, when I grow up. Also, writing is so therapeutic for me. It will be easier to write more once this crap with my exhusband in court is over, but I’m determined to not let him have any control of my creative energy anymore.

So… help me name my new blog, will ya?