Ode to Yer Face... Part I

So.

I've been attempting to blog a particular "thing" for the last 2 months and it simply hasn't gone smoothly.

Block?  Fear?  Simple avoidance?  I don't know.  Either way, today whatever the hurdle, it kind of burst and I've been at it like a fiend, but now realize this sucker's gonna have to be in parts...  I don't know how many...  but it's gonna be long and painful...  much like my first divorce.  ;)

I ask only for your patience and say if I whine too much or there's too much "warm and fuzzy", suck it up and indulge me...  or close this window, go YouTube some music that makes you happy, and come back another day when I haven't spent the day weeping while I type.  heheheh

So...  this past weekend was another quiet but very good weekend spent mostly on the sofa...  reading, working word puzzles, watching random movies, relaxing...  kind of sad, I know, but after 2 weeks of 2-a-days at boot camp on M/W/F's and kickball league on T/Th's, I was TRULY diggin' it!  :)  

And on chick-flick marathon movie Sunday, "Made of Honor" comes on.  Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan...  a reverse roll "My Best Friend's Wedding". 

Watching, I kept going over in my head something I've needed to purge for a couple of months - different scenes reminding me of particulars...  emotions, thoughts, special stuff - but it was something I hadn't yet been ready to put to paper...  something I'd put off looking at...  balked at dealing with...  for a few reasons, really... 

Before I knew all the details, I'd at first hoped the explosion that started and, as was later made clear, ended it all, would be brief in nature and things would return to normal naturally...  then when it was clear the explosion was far more complex than I'd realized and resolution wouldn't be quick nor simple in nature, I'd hoped given time I'd be able to address it and sort it out directly with the source...  whatever the case, then I'd be ready to blog it.  Finally, though, I simply realized it was going to stay raw for me no matter what and I just wasn't able or ready to corral my thoughts and emotions yet.  I'm not sure I am now, but I have to try to put it to bed or drive myself to distraction.

The movie brought me in and around all of this because the lead character, Dempsey, has a female best friend...  at one point describing her role in his life he says, essentially, that he can sleep with an army of girls but then he gets to "come home" to her and he'd never ruin that...  then, when his best friend spends 6 weeks abroad in Scotland, he tries spending time with various women doing the things he does with the best friend and everything, of course, falls flat...  the others just don't "get it"...

This was how I felt things were for me and Sparky.

You see, it essentially went like this...  October 2 years ago Sparky & I reconnected planning a high school reunion of sorts.  He's smart.  Charismatic.  Funny.  Talented.  Attractive.  Has "happy crinkles" at his eyes.  Loves his kids beyond reason and to distraction.  Takes care of them like he should and to his own detriment.  He's someone I deeply appreciated having on the other end of the phone. 

Within a month of the reunion, shit hit the fan with "5-Year" and me when I was hit in the face with a horrid shitty brick of 5's making, we broke things off permanently and forever...  and I was a wreck.  I...  me, who's not prone to falling apart...  me, who's been through more than one divorce and didn't feel any of them as keenly as I felt that...  I...  fell...  completely apart.

Sparky lived 3 hours away and up to then, we'd been in sporadic contact and the day things hit the fan with 5, I...  

Good Lord...  this is a lot harder than I thought...  

I called him and leaned on him with every ounce of my being.  When the shit-brick hit me, I was driving 4 1/2 hours alone to my mother's to stay with her (God help me!  LOL) while she recuperated from spinal surgery...  so there I am, driving alone for hours, at the holidays...  bawling my eyes out to the point of heaving...  and Sparky was the first and only person I thought of...  I couldn't tell you why now...  well...  maybe now I can...  but that's for later...  then and for a long time after, I couldn't tell you why.  It just was what it was.  I was crushed, devastated, and he was the only one I thought could make sense of things and tell me what to do.  And he did.  He talked me through that day, every time I called, talking me back from every ledge, patting my back and telling me I'd survive, patiently listening to me blubber and ask "Whyyyy?!" and just being there. And he was there the next day, and every day for the rest of the week I was with my mom that I needed him to be - shoring me up when stress or emotion with mom got too much...  explaining why boys are the way they are...  assuring me I'd live and I'd love...  sending random smiley faced texts just to say "I'm here" or others literally saying "How's it going?"...  and I lived through that first week.

Over the next few months while I spent weekends on my sofa crying uncontrollably, unable to sleep or eat, barely making it through my days...  and he was just there.  "5's done this"...  "Well you do that"...  "5's said this"...  "Well you say that"...  "I feel like I'm dying"...  "It's all good, you just have to remember this and that"...  continuing to listen and support and just be...  and so it went until I found I could stand alone again.

For the next year, we continued the sporadic contact, which usually involved him sending me a smiley at the precise moment I always seemed to need it the most, or a check-in at the exact moment I needed proof someone was out there and/or thinking of me...  and on my November birthday, almost a year after the shit hit, I invited all the people who had been SO instrumental in helping me survive after 5 to come have dinner with me so I could raise a toast to them and thank them utterly inadequately for being there for me...  including Sparky. 

He wasn't able to be there and I was terribly disappointed, but I didn't want to let the opportunity pass to tell him just exactly what he and his support and caring meant to me...  so I emailed him and told him (because I knew I'd bawl if I tried to call and saaaay it)... 

I know it's not officially a year til December but I've been doing a lot of reflecting the last month with my birthday coming up and the 'beginning of the end' that came with it...

There are a handful of people who have been instrumental in propping me up the last 12 months until I could breath again and I want to let each one know exactly how I feel...

You are one of the most important ones.

I knew nothing about you as a person before last year, but ****, you've come to occupy a very special place in my heart since then...  December I wanted to die...  this year I've actually learned to finally live in a way that's truer to me...  maybe I'd've made it without you but I have to say I don't know that I would've...   you've been a savior.  =)

You are an amazing man.  Smart, sensitive, funny, compassionate, passionate, loving, strong, supportive, self-aware and I appreciate each of those things in ways I may never properly express...

Tonight I wanted not to celebrate a birthday but rather to break bread with & raise toasts to the Friends who helped me make the intervening year such a happy, full & interesting one and if you were with me, I'd thank you for supporting, comforting, empathizing with, listening to, scolding, guiding, molding me, and just generally being there.  I'm thankful you're in my life...

Love
s.
 
Through the winter & early spring and into the summer, the random smiley faces and occasional contact went on and I started to spend time at Sparky's boat with him and his amazing son - at first with other friends, eventually just me...  until ultimately, every time Sparky'd come to town to see his son he'd make sure to mention I was welcome to come out and "hang"...  and I'd be sure to say I'd like that...  and then I made sure I did.  :)  And I fell more and more in love with the son and felt more and more like I'd found in Sparky possibly the truest relationship of any kind I'd ever had.  No bullshit, no games, no judging, no pretense.  It was warm and honest and open and comfortable...  we three spent time together and it was amazing for me, even in its simplicity...  eating, drinking, watching movies, talking, listening to music...  I felt something I'd never ever felt before in any kind of relationship...  a trust...  a comfort...  a belief in the complete and total safety I felt when I was with him and his son...

I enjoyed, kind of to the point of selfishness, bringing them "stuff" knowing Sparky's main focus was Little Man and travel for visitation didn't leave much wiggle room for "extras"...  new/different ABC libations for Sparky & me to play with, treats for Little Man, other stuff they couldn't indulge in often, even some mistletoe for the boat for Christmas I'd jokingly promised but which I knew'd been forgotten; mistletoe that was particularly lovely when hung with the festive lights & ornament Little Man had insisted be strung for me.  <3  I especially enjoyed making favored foods for them, making sure there was enough to send home with Sparky whose diet of icky frozen pot pies worried me...  and I took great pleasure in finding a book for Little Man for Christmas that my own son had loved at the same age (10)...

And Sparky reciprocated by screening movies he loved for me (the first of which made him laugh uncontrollably throughout its entirety to the degree that I made him promise he'd screen another for me that would do the same; it made me goofily happy inside hearing him giggle with the abandon of a child), creating cocktails for us to sample, taking us out on the lake in the boat, and generally being an attentive host.

It never mattered to me Sparky didn't have much...  that we spent pretty much all our time at a boat with only the barest amenities...  where wasn't important...  what wasn't important...  it was the who that was the draw...  and it didn't matter that he had so damned much baggage to deal with in the form of his ex's, his divorce, his battle to be with his kids...  it was all gone when we three were there hanging out on the boat...  it was a quiet, happy world for me and I was selfishly and deeply content...

Holy crap, THAT'S the word/feeling I was trying to find!!  Contentment!

I was deeply content just spending time with those two.  It was...  what was it...?  It was something I could see going on for years and years...  I could see Sparky finding the dream job he so desperately wanted to take him away from the hills of WV...  I could see Little Man going to live with his dad just as his dad talked and hoped and dreamed and planned for the entire time I've known him...  I could see getting an invitation to Little Man's graduation from high school... I could see going to visit them once Sparky was in the job of his dreams and Little Man was living with him... 

And I did what girls do...  I planned things in my head... 

Once I purged that last of the remnants of 5, I would have them over for dinner when Sparky was in to visit Little Man;  next time it was raining or crappy, we could go roller skating again on the free ticket I'd gotten as a "refund" from the accommodating counter girl at the skate center the time they'd made plans independent of "boat time" and Little Man and his date were pooped out and ready to go by the time I was able to get there...  once the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out in RedBox I'd take it out for all of us to pile in like puppies and watch with pour over butter popcorn I'd stock up on...

Hell, it was on-going...  they'd become a part, a very, very dear part of my life. 

Dear and loved.  The end.

To be continued...