Presents of Mind

personal reflections through public exposure

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Excerpt:

Old Wounds and New Scars (Part 2)
April 27, 2009

 I don’t type a lot about Connor’s mom. I. Just. Was. Not. There. It all came to a head after I left her, after I spent the next year in Florida.

"So let’s talk about the second marriage shall we? Why I shriveled up and died? Because, like I stated earlier, it wasn’t going to last. For a day or two there I really believed those that told me it was time to settle down already, have kids and get married (lol, not in that order!) It was what I was supposed to do, so I did it. But I knew better, and knew it wouldn’t last. Try working out your differences with THAT attitude! Tough thing to do, and one of the reasons, two years later, I am still dealing with issues of my own, parents and the ex still not sure what happened. I was closing off before I even walked in there, and all my own fault. Even if I wasn’t admitting it then, it was still in my conscience, and set me right into the next relationship even colder." (May 9th 2006)

I had a breakdown, May 2006, on the 301 northbound. I love that stretch of highway for the insights it brings me. Lennon had spent a month asking the right questions, opening me up tearing my walls down. And it came to a head driving home that night (home being the Motel 6 in Richmond Hill. I had no laptop, and remember carrying my desktop back and forth to Florida and in to the hotel room just to blog. But I am digressing.


What I am realizing tonight is that you can never not hurt somebody. It will happen. I hurt Erin, too. But in much smaller ways. It comes down to how we respond and react. Again, the answer for me comes from page 164. When I came to Georgia, I knew I was running. From my failed marriage, my job loss, the foreclosure. It wasn’t until last year, writing about my breakup with Erin, that I realized and uncovered even more ugly truths about myself. That these issues went way back. I learned that from arguing with somebody here in Savannah. Somebody, (believe it or not!), I didn’t actually sleep with. But I wanted to.


"I was a dragon, once. This was her font. This is her closing. Are you a victim if you walk in knowingly? Or was she really seduced (was I?). Glitter and gold and fire were what attracted her to me. Room 319...I walked in on her. She ordered pizza once, answered the door for me in just the blanket off the bed. Is it wrong to hurt someone looking to be hurt?
          Long story. I am trying not to rehash it here, but let you explore it, only I am not doing you a service yet, my gentle lady. She made my scales awaken when she approached. I thought she was safe. She had courage to face me. It was not the jewels she wanted, but the dragon. I did not destroy this one, though I tried. Took her in the hills, took her clothes and left her bare, torn and bruised. I was the tempted, I thought. I wanted to go bowling ha ha (right). She cried, I stopped.
          She came to my lair after that, several times. The dragon slept. He wanted her to stab him, destroy him. She only wanted to awaken him. Is this one more self inflicted wound? One more chance to prove to the world that dragons don't exist? I am HERE....still here, waiting to be awoken, wanting to burn the town with her (with you?). Wanting the town people to tear him to shreds, rob his jewels, his prizes, for the Dragon lost the most precious. No, not her. He thought that, for a long while. He lost himself." ( Sept 2004)


This was Stacia. This was written in 2004 but we met in 1999. This is a reprint of a reprint, meaning, I did look at this in an inventory, have written about her in a way online. She was unhappily married and I was divorced. I told her I could flirt with her safely, since she was married, and that’s how it started. We talked for many months. She wasn’t looking for a relationship, wasn’t leaving her husband (Steve. I like to remind myself that he is a real person). She had sort of a rape fantasy, wanted scratches and bite marks and bleeding and maybe even something more serious. We spent a few hours together up in Hollywood Hills fulfilling those fantasies.


Remember I am working backwards here, much like when I originally looked at these things. I went into a relationship with Connor’s mom completely empty. I gave nothing to that and, May 2006, back into meetings and finally looking at this stuff, I came back to this. I noticed two things. One was old behaviors, because most of the people I slept with drinking were married. I didn’t always know, I just went to a lot of clubs and seemed to pick them out by mistake. I can say I honed my craft, too. But really, I was just pretty wasted so I don’t know much of the where or what. But in sobriety it’s pretty hard to cry “party foul” when you have all your senses about you.


The other thing I (wrongly, it turns out) discovered was that this was the situation I was running from. To quote myself “Is it wrong to hurt someone looking to be hurt?”


I keep backspacing. Left this part overnight and still backspacing. I don’t want to type it out, and I am not sure why. I think, for a moment together we could have been in love. It wasn’t more than a moment but we looked into each other and knew...something. She started crying, I understood and we sorta talked around it, sorta implied her leaving her husband and within another moment, a minute? A half hour? It was passed. And I shut down, something inside of me. To reference “The Wall” seems too typical, but that movie is what gets into my head when I explore this stuff, up to and including all my typing about my greatness, my archetypes, my “better than human” attitudes that are finally crumbling away from me.


So I came to Georgia already shutting down, closing up. I entered a relationship, had a child, and nobody really had a chance at all. For a long while, this was point A to B. Until, like I tried to state above, I discovered yet another situation last year. I have one (two?) more posts to write. Things a couple of people know and even less who really understand. It’s coming, maybe tomorrow.