Gone

I do my best thinking in the shower. When I'm not in the shower, I do my best thinking driving in my car. I love my car so I really love driving when driving is necessary. But today I wasn't thinking when I decided to just drive to The Ex-Husband's new house, unannounced.

The Ex failed to return my son's winter coat yesterday, on "his" morning with our children. I mean, it's winter. He knew he still had it. He knew he said he'd return it and he didn't. And when my son refused to wear his sister's other coat, (can't blame him for that) and refused to wear his dinosaur raincoat, (also, can't blame him there) well, I just plopped him in his car seat, and away I drove to retrieve the needed jacket.

Something in my intuition (and I do have crazy intuition when it does strike), told me my Ex would not be alone in his house. He only has the kids two nights a week, which leaves plenty of room for him to have "company", namely, I assume, The Girlfriend. So the thoughts that did run through my mind on the six-minute drive included waking them from a slumber, catching them eating breakfast, or maybe even seeing them walking down the front porch steps. Although, really. Would The Ex even be up? It was only 8:51 a.m. And realizing the early hour, I thought, well, if I must, I will have to call his house or cell phone first. Oh wait, scratch that. I had left my cell phone charging in the kitchen. You see, it really was an unplanned visit.

I parked on the street behind a school bus but practically right in front of The Exes house. I left my son in the car and literally raced up the front steps. The TV was on. I saw it clearly through the front window of the house. My heart raced a little. I rang the doorbell and then immediately peered in the front window. I saw a girl, though, whom she was, I was not entirely sure. She was sitting a little too close to a guy on the couch for it to be The Girlfriend. They stared blankly but also in surprise. The Ex literally jumped off the opposite couch, the one not facing the window.

It was that person that jumped up so startled, that changed things for me in mere moments.

The Ex was still in his robe (the same robe my mom had bought for him many Christmases ago). He looked drunk or badly hungover. He looked disheveled. He looked guilty and sheepish. Before opening the glass panelled front door (one can see in the house and front hall completely), he grabbed my son's jacket from the hook. He knew why I was there.

"I'm really sorry, Lisa," he stammered out, looking sad and as though he thought he had disappointed me.
I mumbled, "It's okay, bye."

I could hardly look at him but for reasons not like the ones I have had in the past. I was not angry, I was not irritated or annoyed. I was not jealous of him, his friends, The Girlfriend, (whether she was there or not), or his lifestyle or life in that house. For the first time I felt a mixture of sadness and pity for him. I didn't recognize this man. He wasn't the man I fell in love with years and years ago. This was someone I didn't really know anymore, didn't want to know anymore, and a man that was not part of my real life.

I walked immediately down the stairs without looking back.

I didn't know I had been waiting so long for my heart to release me from the grip of my pain. I didn't know a casual good-bye on his front porch, a good-bye so unlike the ending of Us almost exactly three years ago, could finally make things right for me. Not right for Us, but just for me.

So approaching my car, just steps away from my son in his car seat, I had my ah-ha moment, my light bulb flash, the turning shift in my soul. For the first time, I truly let him go. I didn't curse his existence or think ill of him and all the the hurt and anguish he has brought me and all the unbelievable anger and rage he still hurls at me. I didn't feel loneliness or emptiness. I felt like me, the really good, great me that still finds happiness, still has an amazing sense of humour, still is a good mother, daughter, sister, friend and yes, even lover. For the first time, I realized this can be the me all the time, even when dealing with, or seeing The Ex-Husband. I realized I didn't want to allow him to take any part of the really great me any longer. I no longer felt attached, just free.. just already gone.

Untitled

How do certain songs come on when you least expect it?

I'm driving home. It's that long, annoying drive. Long enough that you can enjoy a long stretch of highway in front of you for killing the pavement, but still, if you're a Torontonian, it's way too far out of the downtown core. I have to pay attention to signs. I have to be aware. Today, after the long meeting, I don't want to think. Yet it's also the drive that lends itself for listening to a lot of music. Many songs. Music that randomly fills your ears and makes you whisper, "awesome!" or "fuck."

Okay, so it's an eighties tune. Music that my sister lives for. Music that I'm very particular about. So why does Howard Jones' "No One Is To Blame" make me almost jerk the car forward to a crazy fast dead rolling stop on the Gardiner Expressway and yell my favourite four-letter obscenity?

"...doctor says you're cured but you still feel the pain..."

It's every damn line. Why is it making sense about so many things? Am I just tired from the 3am bedtime of last night? Am I drained from driving 25 minutes to sign my life over for a house and a mortgage I've acquired solely in my name?

"...you can build a mansion but you just can't live in it....."

I feel panicked. I am on the verge of tears, but for what? This is crazy. I am going crazy. It's another check-off on the longest to-do list made in history, but I'm not happy. Have I won? At what cost? It's now my house and mine alone. The attractive banker has asked me twice if I work. Doesn't he remember my "situation"? The real estate lawyer asks if I owe any money to the Ex-Husband. What am I giving him for our house? (Um.....my life?)

"...you can feel the punishment but you can't commit the sin...."

I think of the positive and the steps forward. I forgive myself for things I think I have majorly screwed up. I procrastinate, this I know, but I have fullfilled more things than I thought possible in two years of turmoil. I have gained friends, I have lost friends. I have stopped making the story my world, or at least tried to. I have put myself out there and I have won love and I have lost love. Sometimes I am happy with the amount of love I have in my life.

"...the insecurity is the thing that won't get lost..."

I am trying to be that person books are written to. The little girl lost who has found her way. The girl turned woman who has recaptured life. She will not come undone!

"...it's the last piece of the puzzle but you just can't make it fit..."

And finally I get home. I sit. I read. I write. I revise my tired looking to-do list.

"....no one ever is to blame..."