Snow White’s Cottage by Thomas Kinkade
I have mostly forgotten what seemed like a nightmare. Those feelings, the wrenching pain, the shock, the sorrow, that night he said he had been having an affair. My world as I knew it collapsed entirely.
It’s funny, after every terrible thing I have ever been through that is what did it. A jackass of a man, a lying, manipulative, cheater. I let that take me down. How shameful I would feel, if I could feel. That is what changed me deep in the core of my being. That is what broke me. I spent my childhood severely abused, for reasons still unknown to me rejected of my natural parents, I endured endless abuse and bullying from adults and peers alike. I was neglected and hurt repeatedly. Yet I still trusted. I still got up every day, brushed myself off, and went about smiling like a Disney cartoon character. Not rape, not homelessness, being car-jacked, not going through 2 pregnancies without a lick of support, emotional or financial, did me in. It was when the person I trusted most in the world admitted their betrayal, admitted without words that they did not love me, after everything I did and gave for them it was meaningless. I was meaningless in his eyes. That screwing a stranger for a brief while was worth throwing me away.
He compared sex with her like going to a prostitute. He would take her out to eat and buy her things because he felt he had to pay for it. It wasn’t particularly good, but empowering, because he felt like he was controlling her, and the thrill knowing he shouldn’t be doing it was a great high. He said he felt like he could kill her and it wouldn’t matter, that she didn’t count at all. She was below him. He liked how gullible she was. He said she was too easy. He knew he could do it, so he did. The irony of it all made me sick to my stomach. Typical low brow thoughts, she was easy, not him. I forgot only men are allowed to like and have sex. This is the mind of the person I chose to make babies with? That alone was enough to make me want to rip out my uterus.
I never put up with it before, such nonsense. Now I am caged. Now I am a prisoner in my own home. How do you escape it? How the hell is this living? My mother, who is quite mad and dependent on Prozac since the devil invented it, tells me things work out, things are meant to be. What a load of crap, coming from a co-dependent, miserable, shopaholic who has hated her life as far back as I can remember. There is no such thing. Every time I stand up someone tries knocking me down, that’s what unhappy people do, try to take out the others because they’re so busy hating themselves it lights a fire within them to see anyone content. This whole planet is a mess, humans are a mess. We destroy everything, we make up some of the most idiotic rules, we bark at each other who is allowed to do what. It’s all nonsense.
I daydream of living in a fairy tale cottage in the woods. It’s quiet, peaceful. I wander about barefoot with my dog, letting the sun rest on my skin, warming me until I had enough and resort to shade. I imagine digging my hands into the cool, moist, earth, hopefully planting something that becomes edible. Other moments I’d spend my time painting, sculpting, singing, reading, writing, and having mad tea parties on the lawn. I don’t want much to do with this world anymore. I have no faith in it. The place is beautiful, the creatures are amazing, but the people are so damn destructive I’d rather not get involved anymore.
I used to to think it was silly to place value on love because it’s a damn emotion and emotions are fleeting. According to some scientists they now say love is an action, not an emotion, which makes it even more unreliable. They’ve proven during brain scans that blah, blah, blah (you’re not really reading this anyway) and different parts of the brain lit up when showing people photographs of their romantic loves, and not all those were sexual, and that you can have sexual love but not caring love, and vice versa, along with that other bit and, whatever. It’s somewhere on the internet, good luck finding it. I don’t really care. It doesn’t change anything. There are dozens of reasons why people cheat; they don’t feel appreciated, they don’t enjoy their sex life, they got caught up in the thrill of excitement, they did it in retaliation, they refuse to be monogamous, etc. In the end it’s always about them, their choice, their fault. If you don’t want to be with someone, in a balanced committed relationship, leave. If they’re cruel to you, leave (as much as you can, anyway, which I know from experience sometimes means while still under the same roof). That’s it. You don’t destroy them. You’re not allowed. You have no damn right to do it.
All that nonsense floating about ‘well if it hurt you that’s because you were already hurting’ is more guilt gibberish. If I punch you in the face are you going to smile and hand me a bouquet of daisies? Idiotic. Of course being lied to hurts, of course being shown by the person you love that in their eyes you are worthless hurts, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with hurting. It’s natural. It isn’t an illness. You don’t need pills to numb your brain from it. What you need is to let it out and then get the hell way from that pain inflicting, destructive, person so you can heal. It isn’t your fault and you’re not bad, they didn’t bring out bad things inside you, they put them there when they betrayed you and broke your trust. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s your fault, or it was your life lesson and you had to go through it. No, that person was selfish and mean and I am genuinely sorry you had to endure that. Now you pick yourself up and, at your own pace, you keep going.
People should come with warning labels, all of them, animal abusers, racists, cheaters, liars, every bad thing. It should be written on our skin in glowing letters, unable to be hidden, so we actually know what we are getting ourselves into. Only then could it really truly be our own damn fault. I am so sick of hearing ‘you attract what you are / what you want’. I never wanted a lying, cheating, rotten person in my life. I refuse to accept that guilt, that bullshit. I only wanted good, creative, honest, thinking people, like me, if not far better. I wanted peace, bitch.
He told me he didn’t want to kiss me because it would make him horny. He had no problem making out with her. In fact the first time he pretended to go to work and drove to another nearby city where she lived to meet her, he picked her up in my car, where eventually they made out and he said he couldn’t have sex because he had no condoms. He knowingly fooled around with her but refused to kiss me. Oh, because I am amazing and far better than her, he says. I deserve so much more.
I deserve more and better all right. Both have absolutely nothing to do with him.
Thinking (between) Li(n)es 