Signs. I don't believe in random, gotta-stretch-and-turn-your-head-sideways-to-see-it signs... but when life puts something in your path repeatedly, it's a sign.
Mine was Lenny. Well... and Sparky, too, in a way.
But first, Lenny. First time I saw Lenny was in a grocery store. My reaction when I saw him was so visceral I literally turned on my heel mid-step and walked the other way to keep from saying anything I might regret. Not regret in terms of saying what needed to be said to him, but regret in myself for letting it out and not just walking away and being a bigger, better person.
Next, a couple of weeks later, a new restaurant. That one was easy, it was Friday night, I was meeting a group, plenty of other things to concentrate on.
Less than a week later, another restaurant at lunch. Again, meeting a girlfriend so other things to distract. NP.
Last. And fatal. I walk into a little bar down the road from my apartment the other week to meet another galpal and there he sat. Alone at a table. Facing the door. Looking right at me. That was the straw. The other 3 places were in his stomping grounds and so perhaps not unusual - though I hadn't seen him since the atomic blast that was Sparky, so mayBE unusual - but this last place... well... it's not in his stomping grounds, it's in mine and so many sightings in just a few weeks...
Oh. And Sparky? Well, during the "Time of Lenny Sightings", I got two random emails from Sparky. And right off the bat, it set my pulse into overdrive. I was SO hopeful when I saw that special blue colored "sparky mcphee" name in my in-box. Unfortunately, they were spammy bullshit emails where he'd been trolling something that virused him and sent them. Fail.
Anyway...
I never finished Ode to Your Face because I finally realized I just didn't want to. I started it so I could purge the hurt, confusion, anger, rawness I felt after being napalmed by Sparky. I think I originally probably intended to torch him the way he had me. But the longer I put it off, the less important it felt. The longer it went unaddressed, the less I felt like I needed to. Acceptance? Kind of. And, frankly, I kind of came back around to the mantra that's helped me stay out of clinical depression, lo these last 13 years... I just didn't want to take ME to that negative place... I didn't want to make ME feel shitty and used and stupid and let all that negative energy take me to a place where I lashed out and let it make me feel bad inside.
So I left it.
Then signs.
So here I am.
And here I go. Only now, it's from a very different place.
Sparky and Little Man - after a year of Sparky being such a solid, special, good person to me and coming to feel like he was maybe in my top 2 best friend category (because so far, LDD's always held number one since I've never found that partner who could usurp her) for all the support and guidance and friendship he'd given me since Navy's chaotic, destructive departure, the continued fallout from that, etc. - had come to be so very special to me and I started building my weekends around them whenever Sparky came to town.
Despite the crushing beginning to that New Year when I thought I'd die and would never, ever, EVER recover (my mother used to call me Sarah Bernhardt... I still say I'm not a drama queen. ::ahem:: LOL), went by quickly and quite contentedly.
And then things began to change...
I had always found Sparky attractive; his less-than-youthful physique never bothered me - it was his mind, his spirit... his eyes. LOL! AH-mazing eyes. :) Anyway, I'd always had those "what if" thoughts, even when I was WITH the man I thought was the love of my life. I guess we all do sometimes. But working with him over the months planning our high school alumni party... Facebook chatting... and finally, dancing with him at the party... it always flitted through... what if.
Well... I guess things took a natural progression... what do they call that phenomenon where you feel romantically for someone who's your care-giver...? Whatever the reverse of the Florence Nightingale syndrome is... that's it... I really started to feel very differently about Sparky. I adored spending time with him and Little Man. Just hanging out, watching movies, eating, talking, drinking, spending time... I struggled for some time to find the word to describe how I felt and it came to me as I was blogging Ode to Your Face, Part I... content.
I was, for the very FIRST time in my life, utterly content with where I was and who I was with. I didn't feel a restless need to "have a talk" because I was unhappy or to walk away because I was miserable. Both things I've felt in literally EVERY relationship I've ever had. It was new and amazing and... and now I'm tearing up because I'm mentally wallowing in that feeling's remembrance... new, amazing, and I was deep-down happy for the first time in my life with someone who seemed to have "partner potential". Starting as friends and building? Like the experts and the party of "they", I highly recommend it.
Anyway, a few months after Navy took his departure, I'd started seeing another fellow I'd/we'd gone to school with. He and I even went and spent time with Sparky and Little Man July 4th of that summer. But things with us were progressively getting worse - I found myself feeling unimportant, forgotten, "convenient". So that January, I broke it off.
To be frank, Sparky was a part of that. It wasn't that he was overly attentive or there was some torrid affair going on... it started with a very innocent sleep over. I'd gone to the boat to hang with Sparky and Little Man, we'd had drinks, watched an old movie I'd never watched because I thought it would be too corny (Goodbye Girl - which I totally loved), and it got late and I was tired. Sparky took my hand, took me back to the bedroom, and we lay down and he curled up behind me and we spooned all night, fully clothed, and I slept like a baby feeling more protected and safe than I ever had in my whole life. And though he was a wonderful, good man, it was then I realized then how very dissatisfied and unhappy I was with The Ex. That was December.
Sooooo, Sparky and I carried on together from winter through spring and I was just damned giddy - happier and lighter of spirit than I ever remember being. A lot of first-time-ever's with Sparky. I'll always be grateful for that.
He was seeing people in WV, I was seeing people here, we were seeing each other the couple of times a month he was in. And I told him... this is good... until it isn't. I knew, KNEW, there would come a time when I was attached enough that I wouldn't want either of us seeing other people... and I was right. And being a grown up having been through enough casual relationships, relationships where one is more into it than the other, relationships where the boy was a boy and what was love to me was fucking around to him... I knew that time would come that I'd feel like that and - again with Sparky and a first - for the first time in my life, I wasn't going to be a pussy about speaking up... Sparky gave me that freedom solely from being who he was... with him I was unafraid to speak candidly, and so, for the first time to speak up and say something difficult even when I want to be easy to get along with and not rock the boat was liberating... I was unafraid to say I knew things would probably change and that for that moment I was fine with how casual we were - until emotion got too intense and I wouldn't be.
In the meantime - a very incidental side-bar, though he said otherwise at the time - Sparky was on the scent of getting a child support reduction for his daughter who was set to graduate high school. Since I work for a judge and attorneys do "favors" for us all the time, I set him up with a very good, very respected local attorney who, when his secretary quit, I did all the follow up and file/pleadings chasing for that was required, just so this would be fast tracked for Sparky. Oh. And he did it for Sparky for free.
Fast forward to June. Sparky's child support reduction hearing is set to be heard in juvenile court. We're spending time together while also dating in our respective home areas (even having a conversation one night about how a patient of his had asked for his number to give her daughter and how he'd hesitated but given it to her and "we'll see". I'm listening to this tidbit, wobbling on the line of trying to be "grown up" and realistic and not be white-hot jealous but figure at 3 hours between us, I had to suck it up.
And then it all hits at once.
The Ex gets in contact. Texting at odd times like when I'm on the boat with Sparky. Facebook "Like"ing things. And it bothered me. You see... it's like this...
I can't stand it when people say things they don't mean. If you don't mean it, just shut the fuck up and don't SAY it. Not EVERYthing requires verbal spew.
When I broke it off, it didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped...
It was my FIRST time ever breaking up with someone... EVER... and like telling Sparky I was ok for the moment with how we were hanging, I wanted to be grown up, not be a pussy and soft pedal. So I was firm and explained what my problems with us were and said I loved him, which I do, and that I didn't want to walk away angry or lose touch - we were friends first. I thought. But his response was to say he "couldn't have contact" with me any more... he had to "cut off any contact" because it was too hard...
So he gets in ACTUAL contact, texting, we have polite conversation, and he says he'd like to see me, he'd like to talk. Ok. Lets. A direct by-product of having a mother who accused me of anything and everything whether it made sense or not, and punished me accordingly (my step-dad later admitted, long after their divorce, that he abhorred the way she treated me... hinted that it wasn't entirely rational...), is that I can not STAND it when someone misunderstands me or thinks badly of me. I try to please to the point of detriment to myself... a habit I struggle with always. So yes, let's talk.
We get together on a Friday, we go to an after-5 city held "party" to have a few beers, talk, hang... and I see Lenny. Recently back in touch because of the alumni party and Sparky, I race over, give him a big hug and say hi. The Ex in tow. No reason not to if Sparky and I are both seeing other people while we see each other, especially if this wasn't really a "date"...
Except perhaps there was.
You see that's when it officially "all hit at once"...
I had plans to spend the weekend at the boat with Sparky and Little Man the following weekend... Sparky's child support hearing was set for Monday...
The Ex and I go on our way that night, I go home, talk to Sparky on the phone the next day, go to work Monday and *WHAM*!!
I get a phone call from Sparky, positively apoplectic... the attorney had called him at work in WV, at the hospital, in the depths of the nuclear med department, cell reception was shit... told him the child support wasn't going to be as low as he wanted but the rest of the conversation was lost to cell fuzz...
Sparky sounds far too angry for that to be all the problem... attorneys wrangle this stuff outside courtrooms all the time and the attorney I got him was far and away in a higher league than his ex's (NOT the case the FIRST time he went to court with her and was reamed)... but I know he's frustrated and feeling used and financially nuked so I try to soothe him and tell him it's ok, the attorney will make things happen.
And then it happens...
Sparky literally goes from restrained anger to absolute spittle flying, vein popping, incoherent RAGE in .02 seconds...
And then the call drops.
I call back. Voice mail.
I won't bore any further than I already have but I'll say that I called repeatedly. Emailed incessantly. Begged, pleaded, cajoled, reasoned. All to voice mail. I email back and forth with the attorney who says Sparky didn't show (which he said he wouldn't in his meltdown) but that if Sparky will get in touch with him, he'll make it happen - the ex-wife didn't seem to give a shit about the money, she was more pissed that he hauled her to court and then didn't show.
Now the story I'd gotten all along was Sparky said he paid $1K for the two kids and that when he'd switched jobs and his income was reduced he'd never asked for a reduction because he didn't want to take it from the kids. He never had two nickels to rub together and he told stories of poverty living to get by just so the kids were taken care of. At that point, he figured it was finally time for some relief since if one graduates then support should be half... but he REALLY wanted less than that since insurance, he felt, should be figured differently... so there we were.
A few hours after his atomic blast, I get a call that my son has been involved in a car wreck that involved the vehicle he was in, and a CINDER BLOCK WALL HEAD ON.
Now I'm a wreck. I press on. I'm beside myself. I know Sparky's upset, but the figures he's provided the attorney don't match his payroll records so all the attorney needs is something that shows the lower amount Sparky reported... I call repeatedly telling him to get the proof to him so he can fix it.
Guess what? None existed.
Sparky flatly refused any communication from that time on. No matter how much I apologized, begged, pleaded, or cajoled. Ignored it when I finally got pissed because he put up a snarky blog saying it was all because of the attorney and how I'd fucked him over setting him up WITH that attorney. Ignored it when I spent the anger and returned to apology for hurting him.
And now I'll, far too late, cut to the chase...
These are the things I've figured out in retrospect.
Initially, I suspected Lenny had burned up the phone to Sparky about seeing The Ex and I but when he went nuclear and blamed it all on the attorney, I doubted myself... no one ever knows what will make someone that angry, reasonable or not. But every time I doubt myself in a relationship, I ALWAYS find out I'm right...
This time is no exception. This is what I've finally surmised after a lot of facts and information coming to light over the last year and a half...
Sparky was bullshitting me when he said he'd been out on dates since we'd been spending time in flagrante delicto. He was bullshitting me when he said the woman had asked for his number to give her daughter. He was bullshitting me when he said he had no money because of support, he was living in a hovel with no cable, no electricity and no water because of support, that he ate pot pies every night because of support. He was bullshitting me when he said he was NEVER speaking to me again because of the attorney.
Here's how it really went down...
Sparky is EVERY bit the 8th grade romantic he professes to be. SO much so that, despite saying he's completely honest and open with his feelings and emotions and longing to ride on "the love train", despite declaring contempt for anyone who's too afraid to show their feelings, emotions, to let someone in... he's not.
He's afraid. And he kept himself closed to me at the same time he urged me to be open and take chances without thought for being hurt. He didn't admit to me he was feeling exactly what I was...
And side-bar... I'm not really pointing a finger here, I didn't admit it to him, either. I WAS afraid of getting hurt by him even though I truly felt he would never hurt me maliciously. I'd just never felt about someone the way I did with him except Navy. And I had been so crushed by Navy that I KNEW that if Sparky fucked me over, I might end up in a place I haven't been since before counseling. So I kept my belly covered, too.
I was wrong, though. He did hurt me. And he did it maliciously. But I realized in hindsight, of course, that it was like an animal striking out of pain... I hurt him going to talk to The Ex that night. He wouldn't admit it when I finally figured it out. Still hasn't. Probably never will. But I hurt him.
And JUST like the hours after his last phone call, I will always apologize. I truly am sorry I hurt him. It didn't matter to me then, nor does it now, who was right or wrong, I was wrong for not telling him I hated the idea of him giving his number to someone for a date. I was wrong for not giving him the whole of my heart and faith. I was wrong for holding back. He was too. If we had BOTH been honest with each other - and the funny thing is, we were both very open and honest about SO many other things that it's ridiculous and ironic we weren't about our feelings - I don't believe we'd be where we are now. With a year and a half of silence between us.
Well. Not total silence. I went to Richmond by way of WV about a month after everything hit the fan. I waited across from the hospital entrance and attempted to follow him to where ever he was going so I could get down on my knees and apologize. I had a thousand romcom scripted scenes about it in my head. I lost him. I went to both gyms he said he spent time at. Nothing. I went to the library where he surfed the net. Nothing. I drove aimlessly in the direction he'd gone hoping to see him. Nothing. So I went to the restaurant where we'd had the one official date we did and I sent him a text with a picture of a cold beer and the menu and told him I was there and would wait. Nothing. So after a horrid night sleeping in a rest stop parking lot (no hotels when the friggin' PGA is at the Greenbrier), no response to any of the texts I'd sent, I went on to Richmond to my friends'. One of my oldest girlfriends, her husband, another female classmate friend, and a guy friend from the days of my first ex-husband (also a school mate - yes, yes, I knooooow!!)... they all patted me on the back, dried my tears, assured me it would be ok, he'd cool down eventually. We had dinner, I drank, too much, and I tried to forget.
But he never cooled down or broke the silence.
Fast forward to last October, I'm having a Facebook convo with Old Guy Friend from first ex-husband days in the wake of Sparky announcing his engagement on Facebook... everyone checked in to see if I was ok, much to my chagrin because by then I just wanted it to go away... and in the course of the convo Old Guy Friend mentions Sparky sent him an email right after my summer visit. The summer visit when I went to WV to TRY TO SEE HIM and do whatever I could, whatever he'd let me, to make things right, the visit I made despite not having the money to, the visit I made where I spent the night in a rest stop JUST in case he returned my text and said "Ok. Meet me."...
And frankly, the shit Sparky put in that email is just that... shit. It said I was a "SHARK". Said I was hunting for a husband, I'd had 3 and would do anything to make him my 4th, I'd done it with Sparky, then with The Ex, and that there was something so inherently wrong with me that despite 5 hours of sex, I didn't orgasm... and it ended with "She has a nice smile but that's where it ends."
Yeauh. It's all about the attorney. Not a thing to do with me and The Ex.
And even though I've rambled FAR too long now and really shouldn't defend myself... it goes back to that mom-accusing-me thing... I'd told Sparky how I wasn't sure I ever saw myself getting married again, especially after Navy, that it cut too deeply, hurt too much. Neither Sparky NOR Navy had a pot to piss in OR a window to throw it out of. And finally, while I've never been Speedy Gonzalez in the orgasm department (hell, I was 27 before I had my first one!), 20 minutes is average for a woman and I average that +/- 5 minutes and when I came with Sparky he was afraid that despite me putting the pillow on my face my screams might wake his son so he shut all the doors on the boat.
Dammit.
Anyway. It doesn't make me mad any more. I didn't strike out at him maliciously in order to hurt him; he did, me. And yes, it still hurts me some that he wouldn't even give me a chance to say "I'm so very sorry.". I would have honored it if he'd heard me out and still said he didn't want to see me any more. I'd have thought it as unfair as this silence, but I'd have honored it. Because the truth is - we both fucked up. We both protected our underbellies and tried to be "grown up" and "with it", when in fact, we both enjoyed the other's company on many levels and should have damned well each told the other we thought they were great and we'd like to take it deeper.
So anyway, he posted for a while last fall about this new Filipino love, their engagement, his trip to see her, their break up... then accused HER of being evil... which he did his ex wife, his ex girlfriends, me, and now her... and I'm sorry, but we're NOT all evil. Dumb as hell. Some are scheming. But we're not all evil. I fit the dumb as hell group. And the regretful as hell.
If I had it to do again, I'd've talked to him about The Ex wanting to talk. I'd have told him I hated the idea of him giving his number to someone. I'd have told him that every time I'd gone to dinner or bike riding with someone, I was thinking the whole time about how much I wish I were with him and Little Man. But I didn't. And foolish pride fucked me in the drive through again. Fucked him, too, really.
And what's there to do? Pride isn't important. It's just not. It doesn't win friends. It doesn't influence enemies. All it does is leave you negativity and failure. And I failed him by listening, essentially, and putting to practice, EVERYthing he told me in my recovery from Navy. And then not listening to the most important thing he told me. Be open. Let love in. Don't let fear keep you from riding on The Love Train.
That last sign? Lenny at MY neighborhood bar looking right at me?
I was going to ignore him. And did. Until I got up to go to the bathroom and he walked up to me and played stupid.
I can take a LOT of dissemination and bullshit, but DON'T play stupid.
"Don't I know you? Didn't you go to Botetourt?"
I swear to God. I was speechless. A thousand things went through my head. All those things you want to say but don't. All those things you think of 30 seconds too late as you're watching them walk away.
But I DIDN'T fail this time. Like when I told Sparky I was ok with where we were, until I wasn't? I was brave. And for once, properly righteous. I smiled. A look flitted over his face... confusion? I don't know. But I took him by the arm and said "Come..."... and I walked him to the front door of the bar.
"Lenny. While I want to tell you exactly what I think of you, I won't. I know you know who I am. And I know you called Sparky that Monday after I saw you when I was with The Ex."
"Sparky?"
"Yes. Sparky. And you know exactly what I'm talking about." The look changes... nervousness?
"You told Sparky something that wasn't true. Something awful. I don't know what and I don't know why and it really doesn't matter any more... but I know this... whether you thought he was spending too much time with me, or because you were interested and figured you'd torch the two of us for your own benefit... it was ugly and mean-spirited I am so disappointed because I honestly thought we were friends. I'm not angry with you any more - I was. Furious. I'm not now. Take care of yourself."
And I walked away.
And that was the final sign it was time to finish "The Ode".
I miss Sparky. Nearly every day. I so sorely missed him when my granddad died - the only constant man in my whole entire life, who loved me unconditionally and always to his last breath - that it truly made losing my granddad harder. I needed Sparky SO much then.
I needed him again when Navy, as Sparky predicted two years ago, showed up at my door a couple of weeks ago. Wanting to reopen old lines, reach out... and I had to tell him I couldn't. It wasn't ok. I wouldn't. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done and all I could think was how much I wished I could talk to Sparky. I like to think he would've been proud that I remembered all the things he told me... that I didn't lessen myself, cheapen who I was, that I for once - heh - had enough self-value to say no.
When I walked away from Lenny, for the first time in my universe I was SUPREMELY proud of how I handled myself.
When I told Navy I wouldn't, I alternately ached for Sparky to be there and felt pride and strength that I said no.
So.
This is the true end of The Ode, it's finally going to bed... and maybe, if I'm very, VERY blessed, one of these days I'll find another Sparky in my universe. Someone who will stand right beside me, hold my hand, walk me through, support me, be my true friend first... and, dare I say it? Love me like I think Sparky may have to some degree.
Because I certainly loved him in a way more pure and deep than anyone since maybe, ironically, I was in grade school.
And, if Sparky ever surfaced again? I'd ask him to forgive me. Not because I did anything malicious or sneaky or dishonest. But because I didn't open up to him first so he would feel he could open up to me. Because I didn't understand. Because I struck back at him out of hurt and anger.
And I'll apologize. Again. For hurting him. Because it doesn't matter whether I knew talking to The Ex would hurt him or not, what matters is, it did, and I was the cause. And I never wanted to do that.
Post script: I was sitting with my 20 month old grandboy last night and in the quiet, holding him on my chest while he slept, I went over this blog in my mind. I went over finally purging it from me. I thought of things I forgot to include, things that were too intricate to include (since it was already a stinking novel), and I thought of Sparky and Little Man on the boat.
My mind keeps going back to one particular night. Little Man was down below and Sparky and I had taken drinks and chairs out onto the dock. We sat facing each other, feet up on the other's chair, sipping and talking quietly in the dark. All kinds of things... music, personal get-to-know history, movies, relationships... and Sparky talked about Chad. His best friend. Gone FAR too soon. And he exposed his underbelly. Just a little. He didn't tell me how it TRULY affected him to lose Chad - a mutual friend of ours told me that some time after the blow up - but he did tell me how close they were, how much he missed him... he said, without saying, how much he loved Chad. And later, when our mutual friend told me how devastated Sparky had been when he lost Chad... how he got rid of all his beloved music, instruments, things he and Chad had shared a love and a passion for... when he told me how Sparky had kind of cocooned and gone completely off grid... I realized. I realized at least part of why Sparky is so fragile and keeps himself protected while urging those around him to be open.
If you don't get close... if you don't invest too much of yourself... if you don't let someone into your heart and mind... if you keep rigid control and then walk away at the least sign of danger...
You don't get hurt. Not as badly as if you invest your whole self, whole heart, whole mind... not as badly as if you get close and let someone get close back.
And I was reminded of that sitting in the dark with the baby on my chest, sleeping quietly, the house silent around me like the dark dock that night.
And I know why Sparky walked away even more than ever before.
THAT is the regret I will live with.
That right or wrong, justified or unjustified, I was the catalyst for him snapping his armour down and in my universe I'd do anything to right that wrong.
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