(Cole):

Aaaaaaaaaaand Shanghaied!  Twice, actually.  The first time, he got me.  The second time I stayed strong…

It wasn’t like I didn’t see it coming.  Of course I did, it’s just that if you can’t anticipate when a surprise might come up, well, by definition, it catches you off guard and surprises you. 

The first time he caught me off guard and I buckled, he was supposed to be at work, so I was not in the slightest bit (emotionally) prepared, and I shamefully let him in, just like every other time before.  I simply lack the capacity to say ‘no’ to him; that is until the following Monday…

The thing about the Rapist, is that he just always seems to know how to make it as difficult as possible for me to tell him to fuck off.  At my weakest moments he goes above and beyond the norm to throw me off a little, no matter how resolute I feel that I am.  When I tried to break it off with him before Vegas, he brought me a pack of Nat Shermans and a New York Times.  I was quitting smoking for my dirty thirty and had never tried that brand of cigarette before, so he brought me a pack for Vegas.  As for the New York Times, he knows that is my favorite paper, but it’s hard to find in this ghetto little town, so he usually would surrender after not finding one in a few stores, and he would bring me a San Francisco Chronicle instead.  And I like the Chronicle, it’s just not the New York Times.  So that day, the day when I felt I was as ready as ever to tell him to take a hike, he brought me those adorable little “nothings” that meant so much to me.  I still told him to fuck off, it’s just that, like every other time, I let him in, we talked, kissed, argued, and not a week later we fell back into bed together.

Monday’s Shanghai attempt he came over sweaty, dirty, and looking positively delicious after having ridden his dirt bike all morning in the rain and mud.  He always rides his dirt bike on the Monday mornings before he goes to night shift, to wear himself out so he can go home and take a nap before getting up and rolling to nightshift.  I have told him several times that, even though I understand he’s tired and needs to go home to sleep, that I would love it if he would just stop by for a brief moment so I could smell his sweaty armpits, feel up his damp, salty body, and make out with him for a bit.  And I always promise that I won’t keep him long, but that I just love the way he looks and smells after he’s been doing something strenuous (aside from fucking me, which I like best of all).

He has attempted to hook up with me once or twice before on such an occasion, but it just never worked out, and it always made me sad.  We have even talked about meeting out at Turkey Flats, where he typically rides his dirt bike and where I typically fire my 12 gauge, but suffice to say, it never happened. 

For me to see the Rapist the way he was on Monday morning was like receiving everything you wanted as a child on Christmas morning, the same way he said he feels every day when he goes to work and I’ve written him a long email, complete with a few pictures of myself, out and about, or else otherwise…  In any case, I don’t know how many children would turn their backs on their presents on Christmas morning, so I was both incredibly proud of myself yet insanely disappointed at not getting to smell, grope, and kiss the man I love when, in my opinion, he looks his best, especially because what I really wanted to do was rip his clothes off and rape him right there on the front porch.  But I knew that if I did, nothing would change.  The neighbors would also probably never look at me the same way and I would probably get arrested, but that’s beside the point.

Since starting Marge’s thirty-day challenge, I feel that my life has become nothing more than a clusterfuck of frustrating ellipses.  A series of “what if’s?” 

What if the NRC ruled in my favor and I was able to sue the fuck out of the power plant?  What if the Rapist pulled his head out of his ass and wanted to make a real go of things?  What if Sedouche got hit by a bus and became a quadriplegic?  All of these are very wonderful scenarios, but none of them are real, or even remotely plausible, when I really think about it. 

Sure, I’ve heard that Sedouche has become some sort or pariah that most everyone at work avoids, but what good does that do me?  Ok, so he’s miserable and hated.  At least he still has an incredibly lucrative job!  But let’s put things into perspective.  So he has a nice paying job.  What does that mean, aside from the fact that he’s making out like a bandit and I’m living from paycheck to paycheck? 

Well, for one, it means that I wake up and actually look forward to work, enjoy what I do, who I work with/for, get to drink beer, listen to the kind of music I love, and learn something new every day.  Aside from Sedouche’s fat paycheck, what does he have to look forward to?  Let’s see…  Even though he still has some friends out at the plant, he has to look forward to avoiding people that hate him, being avoided or even cursed and yelled at by others, knowing that he has a reputation for being a complete douche bag, walking around all day wondering how many people know the truth about what he did to me, knowing that certain people refuse to work with him because he is a total creep, and the list just goes on from there.  So, would I rather have the paycheck and no friends, or friends and a meager paycheck?  And this train of thought got me thinking about friends.  My friends. 

Friends are the family you create because you can’t stand your own family, or because your family can’t stand you.  Friends are the people you choose to be around as apposed to being forced to be around, who hand you that fatal shot, or else take it away, depending on what you need, because a true friend would know the difference.  Friends are the people who stake out with you overnight because your crazy neighbor tried to break into your house, and friends are the people who force feed you when you’re too weak to go on, and you just want to give up.  They send co-workers to pick you up on their way home from work because they know you’re too drunk to drive but that you need their help desperately.  They let you spend the weekend in their guest bedroom, pamper you, let you stink, not wash your hair and spend the entire weekend in your pajamas, lounging on their couch because they know it’s the best thing for you.  They force you to get out of the house when you don’t want to, and sometimes they are kind enough to let you rant on and on about something they have already heard at least a dozen times because they know you just need to vent like a mad person.  And it makes me wonder; if I feel like I’m losing a friend in addition to a lover in choosing to not speak to the Rapist, where in the fuck was the Rapist when my world was falling apart around me, and if he wasn’t there then, why should I want him around now???

Mostly, I’m referring to the most difficult time I have experienced in my life, which was having my job taken away from me for something I didn’t do.  Living in foreign countries without a solid foundation of the language was a piece of cake, as was my divorce, but losing my job because some asshole said I tried to kill him just because I wouldn’t fuck him is the most physically and emotionally trying thing I have ever been through in my life.  Probably because it was a fantastic lie that fucked me out of an incredibly amazing job, but it was more than that.  My pride got in the way, because I have never been fired from a job before.  And I know, I wasn’t exactly “fired”, but what in the fuck difference does it make when your unescorted access is taken away and your incredible job just shat itself and died because you didn’t want to fuck some creep?  What does it really matter, ego aside, why your access was denied?  At that moment in time it meant one thing; the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to take care of myself, (after I refused alimony from my ex and all that) and to me, that is the most terrifying and unsettling feeling in the world.

It isn’t like the rapist wasn’t there for me at all when all this was going down, he just wasn’t there enough, wasn’t there to the extent he should have been.  I know that he felt awful for me and what I was going through, that he came over when he could scrounge up the time, even left work early to come over and see me the day after my crazy neighbor tried to break in, but it wasn’t ever really quite enough.  Then again, maybe I’m overreacting.  At that point in time, I wasn’t in love with him yet, and I doubt that he was in love in with me either, and I’m also pretty sure I had a pretty bit chip on my shoulder and attitude problem with him anyway, trying to keep him at a distance so that I wouldn’t fall in love with him, that I behaved as if I didn’t need him to help me because I was more than capable of taking care of myself.  I’m not even sure if I can remember exactly when it was that I realized I was in love with him, but I do know that once I felt that I was falling, I did my best to claw at the walls to keep myself afloat, because I really, really didn’t want to love him, or anyone at all, for that matter.  I thought I was through with love, or at least that I didn’t believe in it.  Turns out not only do I believe in it and that I am capable of it, now I feel it, and it is the most helpless feeling in the world.  I guess now I know why I avoided it for as long as I did…

     

Everyone has their Achilles heel.  To some it’s love; to others it’s work.  I used to think I was impervious to the love part, and that the loss of a great job was the only thing that could faze me.  I mean, I dealt with my divorce just fine, but maybe that was because I was no longer in love with my husband when we decided to divorce.  Maybe the whole love drama with me wouldn’t seem so devastating if I still my had my amazing job and was more capable of taking care myself financially.  I believe there was an episode of Sex and the City where Carrie states that there are three things people need to be truly happy:  A great job, a great place to live, and a great relationship.  She goes on to say that, even if people have two out of three, why are they still unhappy without the third, missing piece?  Right now, I have a great place to live, thanks to Marge, and though I do love my job and think it’s great, it isn’t exactly a career, and it is far from lucrative.  Is it because I no longer work at the power plant that I am allowing my love life to effect me so much, or is it because I have finally found love, someone I actually, really, truly love, and I can’t take it to the level I want it to because of the obvious obstacles the Rapist and I still have to deal with?  Is it only because I am lacking two of the three as apposed to one of the three that is causing my heart to ache, or is it because I never really knew what it was like to be in love with someone before and not be able to have them in the capacity that I would like?   

I think that in order for me to get through yet another difficult time in a year-and-a-half that has seemed like nothing more than a series of gigantic disappointments, I need to focus on the concept of “mindfulness”.  Basically, don’t think about the future, don’t think about the past, live in the present moment and embrace it as being wonderful no matter what it is you are doing.  It doesn’t matter if you’re washing the dishes or having an epic orgasm, whatever it is you are doing at any moment in time is the most important thing you can be doing no matter what.  Don’t wish for it to be over, embrace it for what it is.  I got this symbol tattooed in the crook of my right elbow a few years back, and though it is a very small and simple tattoo, it is one of my favorites, and when I am lucky enough to remember that it is there, or to catch a glimpse of it, it reminds to take a deep breath, relax, and embrace the moment.

Namaste…