WAW canceled Fabulous MC#2 ("I'm sorry; I just can't; I just can't handle it.") I called her: don't make any precipitous decisions.
"I can't. I'm too sad. I'm too fragile. I can't take it. I know you're angry. I know we agreed."
I'm not angry. But we're not canceling. Just take it one day at a time. See what the day brings. Go from there.
45-minute bus ride to Great Lake City in the Great White North. Talk-talk-talk. She agrees -- or admits defeat -- we'll go one time. And see.
Then 3 piteous e-mails from WAW. Maybe it's the full moon. Her freakout has completely freaked her out. She's gob-smacked that she's still so full of anger and rage -- and sadness.
"I know we talked; I know we agreed; but I just can't."
Now ordinarily I'd say Good Divorce-Busting, here kitty-kitty, WAW's on the ropes now it's time to press my advantage. She's back-pedaling. And various and sundry.
But what did I do? Gol-dayum if I didn't fall right back into the old patterns. Rescue. Total validation. Make it all about her. Make it all better.
It's as if I haven't learned a thing. It's as if I haven't experienced a thing.
But now, in Elegant Old Railroad Hotel, pecking at this keyboard (and feeling mighty peckish -- what is with Canucks -- restaurants close at 9:30? Really?), I hear echoes of Mrs. @Thinker and Mrs. @orangedog.
I'm very, very suspicious.
Now it's true I don't want her to hurt. I want her to model confidence and strength to the kids. I'm not out for revenge or restitution.
Like so many of you, I've crawled out of the abyss. I've had nearly 3 months of being really solid. Mojoriffic. I finally, finally get an equilibrium, get a balance, and with one fell swoop I'm right back to being the man she left.
Only now, maybe, she's not so sure she wants to have left. I've been living La Vida @Gucci, and it's getting under her skin.
Fish-or-cut-bait time. This is when Smiley's Person has to decide -- does he want to see about remarrying this woman or not? Treat her as a prospect, says @Kettricken, that's all you have to do, but give her points on the top for maternity. Fair enough. You're looking for reasons not to do that, says @aliveandkicking. I feel I'm being as objective as I can be, as analytical as I can be.
Honestly -- right now the "nays" are beating the "ayes."
I feel like myself, for the first time since I can remember (and I can remember a long way). I feel strong, motivated, confident. But most of all I feel happy. Genuine happiness. Real happiness, just at the dawning of the day. I'm going out of my way to chat with folks on the playground at school, talk with the jardinero, joke with the neighbors I've almost never seen. I am really, really liking my life, even though my job's in jeopardy.
Yeah, the Florence Nightingales did physical wonders for me. But that's all it was, for the boat-ov-us. Scratching an itch. And I'll tell you, it was good to scratch.
And Full Disclosure -- there's a Someone who could, over time, be Someone More. She's not. But I can imagine that, given the right set of circumstances (not these), there would at least be a reasonable chance of it (but then again, since the last time I dated Ronald Reagan was president, my instincts are pretty rusty in that department!).
She evidences no changes. Her actions, her words, her deeds, her (expressed) attitudes -- all Classic Mrs. SP. Even the way she dismisses my offers to listen, to help, to validate -- all Classic Mrs. SP.
Her thang with Signore didn't work out -- I can't help but be suspicious of the timing. "Snakes in the brain," @Coach would say. But what would @Puppy Dog Tails say? Am I really expected to believe that WAW just happened to come to her senses -- if that's in fact what's happening here because, full disclosure, I'm irritating @Gypsy here by mind-reading like a mo-fo -- at precisely the same time that her escape valve dumped her?
I've come too dam far, achieved too dam much for myself, learned too dam much about myself, to be the Safety Net. I'm sorry, sports fans, but there it is.
None of this is settled. None of it needs decisions tonight as I look out of the window towards now-dark Great Lake. She hasn't responded to my last e-mail, which basically said: "I am ignoring what you wrote last, but I will make you this deal -- YOU go to Fabulous MC#2 for IC. Do that, and I'll get off your back with the 'inappropriate' [that's how she described them in the previous e-mail] offers to listen. Anything short of that, however, and it's no deal."
So I dunno, guys. My head is spinning. I had a vision of our reconciliation, and she put the kybosh on that. Spit in my face. Physically attacked me. Talked smack to anyone who would listen. Told me to "move on" and "get over it" and "catch up" to where she was.
So I did the fire-walk. I jumped into the volcano. And I learned -- not that you could have convinced me of this for all the tea in China back in the days after The Bomb -- that I could make it. That I was o-kizay.
