Stale champagne

On the occasion that you find yourself in a mostly packed and emptied house with nearly all of your possessions sitting in a parked u-haul van while your (ex?)(current?)(significant other)boyfriend? (former[or current] Partner) is away working over time trying to finish up a project because his boss’s brother in-law just OD’d on heroin and died. And his boss’s debut solo show is happening in four days with at least a week’s worth of work to do and so said former or current boyfriend is going to work through the night to dutifully figure out how to mount/frame the photos of the aforementioned boss in the complicated way that even the incompetent yet some how talented boss doesn’t know how to do. ON this occasion, where not knowing the actual state of the three and a half year relationship, that you did not realize had meant as much to you as you thought. Or perhaps that good ol’ patriarchal Christian monogamy still some how haunts you more than you realize. It is on this occasion that drinking the stale champagne that was meant for celebration mimosas, which ended up being merely sad lonely mimosa that you didn’t even finish because you have shown a recent self harming impulse when drinking too much.

This occasion in which you find yourself, baby-sitting the beloved elderly dog of said former or current boyfriend in the mostly empty house surrounded by said former or current boyfriend’s things, because you both deeply love the elderly dog, and some how are still not quite ready to face what your life has become. Sure you finished graduated school, and yes that is awesome. But when you have a meager amount of sanity left, and the relationship that now you realize you are willing to work on is probably ending, but definitely feels like limbo. And you’re having to strongly consider going into some kind of intensive therapy program, oh and you’re broke, while so many around you seem to have their dreams being come true….

It is this occasion in which drinking that stale celebration champagne is acceptable. Check your bank account and order some fucking indian food for yourself and try to not be so fucking sad. Salty stale champagne is just too pathetic, even for you.

Divorced vs. Temporarily Married

I visited my family and my home town for the christmas holiday. And have many moments with my family that made me feel less than good, one of the ones that has been mulling over in my mind is my father’s new phrase he likes to use instead of divorced.

“My daughter was temporarily married, that’s what I’ve decided to say instead of divorced because it really wasn’t that long”

But here’s the thing. That phrase is shaming.

When he first said that he thought it would better to say temporarily married instead of divorced I laughed slightly uncomfortable but unsure why I was so uncomfortable exactly. But I listened to that discomfort and learned, just why I would much rather identify as a divorcee than some one who was once temporarily married.

Marriage is about union, partnership, maybe even love and friendship, but is is a union, a linking, and in my case-bondage.

I do not wish to identify with the part of myself that was in that bondage. I am proud of my divorce. Yes, it was painful, but it was a worthy struggle through a much of shit that gave me freedom.

I divorced myself from abuse, my mocker, bully, and rapist.I divorced myself from wanting to die and take my own life before becoming a divorcee or life with out my ex-husband.
I divorced myself from a way of thinking that with out a man I wasn’t really a woman.
I divorced myself from fear of a day that words would come to blows-that tears would flow with fists.
I divorced myself from a slave driver who identified me as, bitch, whore, and cunt.

I saved myself through divorce. I separated myself from those identifiers, and to re-identify with a union to my rapist, is putting me in a state of eternal victimhood. I would never have become a survivor if not for my divorce. I would never had been free if not for my divorce.

I’m proud to be a divorcee.

Home.

When I think of home I think of prisons, pine trees, and Jesus.

The only one of those that I have a fondness for, is pine trees.