I received a text message last night from my best friend, Tony, whose spare bedroom I am currently squatting in, informing me that I have two weeks to move out. I know this is something he needs to do for himself, and I was prepared for him to let me know if I was close to overstaying my welcome. I agree with him. Two months and change is long enough for me to live in his spare bedroom. What I disagree with is what I perceive to be his opinion about me. For the first month after the breakup, I was still financially extricating myself from my ex-husband, a process that is far more complicated than it needs to be, as well as working full time, taking on side projects to boost my income, and all the while feeling like my insides had been scraped out. I admit that I did put off calling the landlord he referred me to simply because I was worried I wouldn't have my finances in order in time, a problem I just figured out this week. Tony holds everyone to a very high standard, and I know I am failing in his eyes because right now, I have almost zero ambition and can't move forward because I don't feel ready to.
Getting divorced is complicated. Anything that involves human emotions is complicated. There are so many practical things that need to be seen to, so many loose ends to tie up, and the rest of your energy evaporates after you have taken care of all of that. My tying up loose ends has taken a longer time than I would have liked, and I know I've become a drain on Tony's energy as well, despite my best efforts to be a considerate house guest. A continuing theme in my life this week is my best efforts not being adequate. I realized this in an unfortunate interaction with a guest of the health spa I work in, that my best efforts to be friendly and accommodating were viewed by this couple as the opposite. My further hyper-vigilance toward them, in my attempt to turn the dynamic they had set up around also failed, as nothing I did seemed to be recognized. I also finally saw, this week, how very little it mattered that I tried my hardest to be a good wife to Gino, and that even trying my hardest did not work.
I did something I haven't done in over a month today- I sat in my car and cried. It started as a frustrated cry over my own failings as a good friend, my inaction that has led to being informed that I have overstayed my welcome, but then it started to swell and take on all the other corners of my life where I have failed. I have failed as a wife, I failed as an employee this week, and now I have failed as a friend. When I came back to my desk, I had tear tracks going from my eyes to my chin and sweat trails from my temples all the way down my face. The blood vessels in my eyes had made my corneas appear pink, and my nose and lips were swollen. I'm an ugly crier. I can't hide it easily when I've been crying, so I have a feeling my co-workers could see it, but thankfully, none of them asked. Crying today, however, made me realize I haven't cried over my divorce in weeks, although I feel as though I have been crying all the time. I have been holding back, crab-walking away from any thought that is too painful, and then diverting my attention toward something mundane and distracting. Everyone keeps praising me for how well I am handling my divorce, and while it is nice to have them acknowledge this, I also feel I might be missing my opportunity to really let loose, to completely unravel for once and show the world how much this hurts. I could just go running down the street, barefoot, screaming, letting the tears and snot stream out of my head until I collapse in a heap by the side of the road with a face full of burst capillaries from crying too hard. I could be call my ex-husband and screaming at him as a daily reminder to him that he let our marriage die, not me. I could drink every drop of alcohol I can get my hands on and stop being so responsible about indulging, just soak my wounded heart in a sea of whiskey and let it float away. It's not my style, though, to show the whole world, so I do my emoting quietly, in a boiling-hot car in the parking lot where no one will notice, and then when it's over, I go back to being the model divorcee.
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