Text Messages

“Hey, xoxo Lv U”

I looked at my phone and read the text message I never expected to get.

“Hey, xoxo Lv U”

Three weeks before, the last thing I heard from him was “I’m not going down this road with you.”  And just like I turned my phone off when I went into jail, I turned off my heart and believed he had walked away.

Ten days later, I was able to convince an officer to allow me to use my cell phone to check my bank balance.  While I had my phone, I checked my text messages.  There were none from him.  Ten days of ‘radio silence’.  That confirmed what I had believed all alone, he had walked away.

Eleven days after that I was given use of my cell phone to make phone calls to get bonded out.  And again, I looked for text messages, and again, there were none from him.  I spent the 22 hours I had to wait in jail thinking about what I would say to him when I got out.

The girls dad picked me up from jail, I had my cell phone and again, checked for text messages, still there were none.  I still felt I owed him something, so I sent him “I’m out, home tonight sometime”.

It was as if I had opened a floodgate.  The texts started pouring in, Where are you? Who’s got you? When are you coming home? How are you getting home?  When did you get out?  Why didn’t anyone tell me you were out? Can you call me?

And then, “Hey, xoxo Lv U”

I had just spent three weeks believing it was over. I had spent three weeks not even thinking about him.  I had spent three weeks building walls around my heart and believing when I got out, he would be gone.

And then there were more.

“I missed you”

“I kept tabs on you”

“Let me come get you”

“I really want to see you”

“I am ready to go, truck cleaned, car hauler on, getting to see my girl”

I stared at my phone as each text came in, more and more unsure what I was seeing, more and more unsure I could believe what I was reading.

In the midst of all the texts he was sending me, I started receiving texts he had sent the entire time I was in jail. He had sent me text messages every day while I was gone.  Knowing I wouldn’t have my phone, but hoping they would be there when I got out.

He picked me up that night and brought me back to his house for the night.  A buffer between jail, and the real world.  I stood there looking around at a house I never thought I’d stand in again, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I was out of jail, and in his house.  He walked up to me, wrapped his arms around me and just held me.  I could feel how much I had hurt him, I could feel how much he had missed me, I could feel how relieved he was I was home.  I felt how sorry I was, how it hurt me to know I had hurt him, and I felt like a total shit for not trusting everything that was right in front of me.

And yet, I had spent three weeks building walls, keeping him out, believing he was gone.  Those were no easier to undo than the hurt and disappointment I had inflicted on him.

It’s been a week.  He’s still here.  He still says I love you every day.  I have learned in this past week, that he called and texted Muri several times a day to find out where I was, if anyone had heard anything new.  He watched posts on Facebook from my girls, and my family hoping for some sort of news.  He was there within hours of me being released and has asked about court dates, has offered to help out until I get completely back on my feet again.

I never did get all the text messages he sent in those long three weeks I was gone, but I got the important one

“Please get out soon.”

It told me all I needed to know.

First love, True love, Forever love

I seem to be reading a lot of blogs lately and finding inspiration in them.  I’ve read several posts about Forever Loves.  At 43, I don’t believe I’ve met my forever love.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I never will. 

Sure I’ve been married. Twice. I knew neither of them would be forever.  I’ve been honest about the reasons I married them.  Neither was because I was head over heals I can’t live without him want to spend the rest of my life with him in love.  Oh, I did love them, as best I could as the person I was then with what I understood about love.  All of which was painfully inadequate. 

But they were not total failures.  I have three amazingly brilliant, funny, good looking, outgoing, wonderful kids. (yes, I’m wearing mommy goggles) I have a good relationship with my 2nd ex husband, and my 1st ex husband could fall of the face of the Earth and I wouldn’t hire the search party to find him.  Oh, there would be a party, just not the searching kind.

Then there was Brian. I can honestly say, from the beginning, I thought “This is it. This is forever love.”  The stubborn hopeless romantic still wonders what if.  (look, that’s honest, but it doesn’t mean it will happen, but you know, when you believe that this is it it’s hard to let go of that, no matter what.) After 5 years, and countless break ups, it’s probably a safe bet that he isn’t my forever love. 

But he was as close as I have ever gotten.  He’s probably as close as I’ll ever get. 

My first love? I was 12. In 7th grade.  His mom made him break up with me in 8th grade because she said he was getting too serious.  At the time I thought she was cruel and I cried for a week, my poor 12 year old heart was shattered for the first time.  I thought I would probably die.  Turns out, she knew him pretty well.. he tends to get a bit obsessive.

The thing is, I hear people talk of true love, forever love, lasting love, a certain security in knowing that while their partner could leave on any given day, they know that they know that they know that they won’t.  And that is something I’ve never had.  I’m willing to accept that I never will.  Does it tug at my heart? Sure it does. Who doesn’t want to find someone who loves them, accepts them, wants to be with them day in and day out and not just on good hair days?

I believe in true love, forever love, lasting love, committed love.  I just believe it exits for other people.  At 43, I’ve missed the boat.  I chose to give my heart to men who wouldn’t protect it, who would end up breaking it, sometimes over and over again.  I’m done giving my heart away.  It’s too beat up, banged up and bruised, used and abused, I’d be hard pressed to find anyone willing to put in the work to heal it.  I’d be even harder pressed to find someone I’d be willing to let try. 

Happy Birthday Ian, I love you.

Today, is my son’s 18th Birthday.  18 years ago today, I walked into the hospital was hooked up to IV’s and induced.  He was happy where he was.

18 years ago today, my brother was leaving Basic Training, and flying out of Texas.  I had made a bet with him that he would leave Texas before I had a baby.

Way to lose that bet for me Ian! You owe Uncle Sean a case of beer.

Not only did Sean leave Texas, he was just landing in St. Louis about the time Ian was born.

18 years ago today.

Five years ago in the process of moving and drama and a whole lot of things I’m not proud of, even more things his father did that make me hate him with a passion that burns hotter than Hell, and a whole host of other things that really no longer matter because they can’t be undone, his father took him away from me against my will.

And I didn’t fight hard enough.  Not even close to hard enough.

And his father used that, convinced Ian I didn’t love him because clearly if I had, I wouldn’t have given him away.

So, here we are.

His 18th birthday.

I haven’t had any contact with him in two years.

None.  Not an email, not a text, nothing.

And my hatred of his father burns hotter every day.

And the hole in my heart where my son should be continues to go unfilled, aching with the child I miss.  Even now, especially now, on his 18th birthday, my arms ache to hold him, to tell him how desperately I love him and miss him and how horribly terribly sorry I that I didn’t save him 5 years ago.

Happy Birthday Bo.  No matter what anyone else says, no matter what you’ve been told and made to believe, I have never ever stopped loving you and I never will.  You are 18 today, and today you are a man.  A man who can make your own choices, a man who can make up your own mind.  My heart, my arms, my home are yours whenever you come back to me.

All my love, for the rest of my life, and then some,

Love Mom

My soul was for sale, and cheap too. Who knew?

The worst part of all this isn’t him leaving. I expected that.  As much as I knew I should have said NO when he asked me to take him back, I also knew it wouldn’t last, it wouldn’t work, and it wouldn’t be from lack of me trying.

The worst of this, is that I disappointed lied to a whole lot of people.  My family, my friends, you guys, everyone on the internet who supported me when I walked away after Sexapoloosa 2011,  but mostly I disappointed myself.

I knew beyond all doubt that taking him back was wrong. KNEW IT.  And yet there was that kernel of doubt, that said “Hey, he asked you to take him back.  He left the choice up to you. This time you get to call the shots.  You get to lay the ground rules.  You get to say This is what I want and if you can’t do it, then the answer is no.”  Knowing full well the odds were he’d lie, and he’d give me the illusion of trying.  For a while.

On yesterday’s post, Andie left me a comment, about how you think “Maybe this time.. Maybe this time things will be different. ”

Except, after 5 years, I knew things would never be different.

And I took him back.

Actually I sold my soul.

For a pair of $20 stilettos.

Apparently I am for sale.  And apparently I’m cheap. And shallow.

Remember these shoes?

The shoes I found on Pinterest and spent two hours hunting down on the internet only to discover they were ISL shoes and they cost $800 and there was no way I would ever spend $800 on a pair of shoes no matter how much I loved them.

So I went looking for knock offs and all I could find was grey suede and they were still three figure and did I really want to spend 3 figure on a pair of shoes I wouldn’t absolutely love b/c they were the wrong color?

Yeah, those shoes.

Right after Brian came crawling back, he went on vacation for a week with his family.  When he got back from vacation, the very next day he said “Let’s go to the Mall.  We’ll look at shoes for you, and Bass Pro for me.”

While we were there, we found The Shoes, ok major knock offs but still… beige suede 6 inch heel stilettos.

They weren’t exact, but OMG they were close.  And? They weren’t $800.  Also? He was paying.

They were $20.

And I loved them.

I put them on and danced and giggled and laughed my way through the rest of the day.  I laughed and giggled and adored them the whole way home.  I wore them all night, clear up until I went to bed, and left them on the floor by my bed (Yes I’m *that* dork).

I wore them to work the next day, and I showed them off.  I danced and giggled and laughed and told the story eleventy billion times about how I loved the $800 shoes but these were only $20.

And I never told a soul who bought them.

And I loved those shoes for about three days.

By then he was back to his old ways, he was too busy working, too busy eating, too busy driving, too busy watching television, too busy sleeping, too busy breathing, too busy finding ways to be too busy for me.

It was then that I realized this was not going to work.

But I couldn’t leave, he just bought me a pair of shoes. My dream shoes.  If I left it would look like I used him to get the shoes.  If I gave them back and left, I would have to explain where my dream shoes that I had bragged about had gone.

All of a sudden I realized I had sold my soul.

For a pair of $20 shoes.

That now, I hated.

Then, this weekend, it was over. Finally.  All that was left was to give him back a couple of things of his that I had.

And the shoes.

I boxed them up, left a note saying “I don’t care what you do with them. Maybe the next one will wear them.  I just know that I never will again.”  I left them in the mailbox and drove away.

He didn’t even say thank you.  I’m willing to bet they’re in the trash.  Draw your own correlation