It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog. -- Joseph Conrad
The fog is like a cage without a key. -- Elizabeth Wurtzel -----------------------------
I kissed WAW yesterday.
She'd come to see Themselves, and after we put them to bed she stood leaning against the upstairs balcony, surveying the house below.
"We don't have much to split up, really," says she.
I don't understand what you mean.
"Property. We don't have much property to split up."
Are you kidding? This house is full of crap.
"But not contestable crap. It's symbolic. Anyone could walk in here and know what's yours and what's mine. There's no 'our' stuff."
And she pointed to this and that by way of illustration, and in fact she was correct -- anyone who'd known us for 30 minutes or more could readily identify which things were "hers" and which things were "his."
"I'm not going to fight you over [Smiley's Person's Thing]."
Why bother?
"Exactly."
We do have to account for the things you took when you moved out. And for the things you're going to take, like [Mrs. Smiley's Person's Thing].
"What do you mean, 'account'?"
The value. We'll have to get a valuation. If you take [Mrs. SP's Thing] out of the house, I'll need half its value in cash or kind. It was bought with community money.
"Same thing with [SP's Thing]."
Exactly.
"Exactly."
And there she paused. We went downstairs and gathered up the things she was taking back to her place (kids' clothes for their weekends there, odds-'n'-sods mail, and the like).
She did the thing she does, which is to go to the door and then, before walking through it, start in on a topic that she knows we can't finish.
"I imploded our marriage."
Yes.
"Totally imploded it."
Yes, you did. (Pause) Are you crying?
"Yes."
Want to sit down?
"No. No. I'm just sad, is all. It's all backing up on me. I was happy and determined; then I was a mental case; now I'm sad."
Oh you were a mental case alright.
(Laughs) "It's just sadness. I'll get over it."
Sad.
"Yes."
And so we talked about that a bit. It's the newness, you see. It's worn off. The excitement of living on her own, the time, the space. Now the coming-back to a dark townhouse, still in that half-sorted/half-unsorted, moved-in-but-not-settled-in limbo isn't nearly as...swell. And of course there's no Signore. There's early mornings at the gym.
"Working out is a substitute for sex. Not a great one, though." (Laughs)
Well at least you're fit. (Pause) So... Sad. Sad and determined.
"Pretty much."
Me, too. Sad and determined.
"When did you get determined?"
I don't know exactly. A while ago maybe. Maybe not so long ago.
"When you hooked up with Someone."
No. No, that came after. That was made possible by getting determined.
"What's with Someone?"
I don't know. I really don't. I like her.
"You have a lot in common."
Yes. Though not the most important things. (Motions to the bedrooms wherein Themselves lay sleeping.)
"No, not that. But then we hardly have that in common."
I don't understand.
"I left. I said right out that my happiness was more important than theirs."
You were in The Fog. That's what you people do.
"Are you in The Fog about Someone?"
A bit, I think. I'm on the White Ship now. So I'm trying hard to keep my head clear, to make sound decisions. Maybe not good ones. But sound ones.
"What's the White Ship?"
Do you remember that story I was telling you about when we were in Resort Town? When you were so angry because I kept reading all the time? (Received with blank stare) Never mind -- it's nothing. Just a metaphor.
"I don't do metaphors, remember?"
Yes.
"See what I mean?"
No.
"Symbolic. It's like with the stuff -- we're two entirely separate people. We always have been. You're poetic, I'm practical. We just don't move through life the same way."
No.
"So what next?"
I don't know. We're still going to Fabulous MC#2. We're talking. That's something. We're almost like Normal People.
"Almost." (Laughs)
I'm not going to lie to you. I did what you asked. What you demanded, right? I "caught up" to you. Now that's happened, you don't like it so well. That makes me sort of angry. And suspicious. I mean, all of a sudden I don't look so bad, but only because someone else thinks so. It's a good trick, I suppose, for getting your wife back, but it's an irritating one.
"I can understand that. And I'm not really upset about Someone -- I mean, not like that. You should explore that. I want you to. If we ever did get back together, and you didn't, it would be out there. You'd always wonder about it. So would I."
Maybe. I'm not sure it's that serious. But we'll see. That's what I'm talking about, though. I'm not doing that future-prediction stuff right now. It's The Fog.
"Are you seeing her in Big Midwestern City?"
Yes.
"That should be nice."
I hope so.
"I just wanted space. I couldn't be married anymore. (Crying again)."
I know. That's what you said. And do you want to be married now?
"No. I just don't want this...."
Limbo.
"Limbo."
And with that I walked her through the door and out to her car, where we loaded up the front seat. She sort of hung there, in time and space, and went on for a few minutes, revising the story.
And she revised and revised and revised. And I reminded her, That wasn't you story before, was it? So I pointed out some of the things I'd heard her say, some of the arguments she'd made on behalf of her chosen course-of-action. I reminded her that, as she'd said just the day before, if you've talked smack about someone you ought not go around pretending you like them. So what happened to all of that?
"I'm just feeling sorry for myself."
It's easy to do in this situation. Hell, I specialized in it for weeks, months even.
(Laughter)
Look. I don't know where any of this is going. It's a fog of fogs to me. But we don't have to make those decisions right now. We'll just go step-by-step. We'll talk. We'll learn who we are. Maybe you'll like me and I'll like you and there'll be a new relationship for us with each other. Maybe not. I don't know -- you don't know. So we'll see.
And then came the Main Event.
"It's really trust."
What?
"Trust. I don't trust anymore. I mean, if our marriage wasn't what I thought it was, if it wasn't real, then nothing is what it seems. I can never trust anything again."
Well, now, you can't let her get away with that -- can you?
Don't do that. We've both said it. It was great, then it was not-great. It was real when it was great; it was real when it was not-great. But you can't take Right Now and project it backwards onto 22 years. This is this Thing with you. Everything is either-or. Life isn't either-or. It's foggy. Just a muddle. Muddles are real. But you can't go around questioning whether things are real just because they're all muddled-up. Look at me -- I don't question the way I felt about you just because I'm all muddled-up with Someone.
And she gave me this look, sort-of half-fear and half-expectation, so I suddenly closed the distance between us, took her head in my hands, and kissed her -- and held it there, for 15-20 seconds or so, though what she gave back was just an old MGM kiss.
(Do you know the MGM kiss? It's the very chaste kiss you see in old motion pictures -- watch for it the next time you're wrestling with insomnia and farting around the old movie channel. The actors pull their lips in, so it's really not a kiss at all. But I gave it all the mojo I had.)
"I have to go."
Yes; yes, you do. But that? That was real.
And I -- quite without thinking -- patted her on the bottom with one of those "on your way" pats on the bottom, went up the steps, and into the house. See? Muddled!, I said, waving over my shoulder. Ye gods, what could she have thought about that? Nearly 7 months with only the rarest of civil words passing between us, and just about the first time we have an actual conversation where she's actually open, I more-or-less commit a sexual assault on her. Oy vey.
We haven't spoken of it. She did confirm the babysitter for the next session with Fabulous MC#2. And asked me if I'd like to "grab a bite" afterward. Okay, awkwardly phrased, but the point is clear.
So that's Smiley's Person today. I'm still going to see Someone in Big Midwestern City. WAW's right on that score -- I need to see it through. But, following the sage observation of @Kettricken, WAW is a prospect. I'm treating her as such. Watchful Waiting.
And me? Adrift on the White Ship. Fog-bound, even. I hope I'm not hearing the music from the Land of Cathuria, which may well lead me to my doom. But I'm hearing something.
Quote:
In the Land of Sona-Nyl there is neither time nor space, neither suffering nor death; and there I dwelt for many aeons... I spoke with the bearded man, and told him of my...yearnings to depart for remote Cathuria...which all believe to lie beyond the basalt pillars of the West. It is the Land of Hope... The bearded man said to me, “Beware...” [but] I boarded the White Ship, and with the reluctant bearded man left the happy harbor for untraveled seas. ...
On the thirty-first day...we beheld the basalt pillars of the West...shrouded in mist...so that no man might peer beyond them... The bearded man again implored me to turn back, but I heeded him not; for from the mists beyond the basalt pillars I fancied there came...notes...sweeter than the sweetest songs of Sona-Nyl, and sounding...the praises of me, who had...dwelt in the Land of Fancy.
So to the sound of melody the White Ship sailed into the mist... But when the music ceased and the mist lifted, we beheld not the Land of Cathuria, but a swift-rushing resistless sea, over which our helpless barque was borne toward...the distant thunder of falling waters...the titanic spray of a monstrous cataract, wherein the oceans of the world drop down to abysmal nothingness.
Then did the bearded man say to me..."We have rejected the beautiful Land of Sona-Nyl, which we may never behold again. The Gods are greater than men, and they have conquered." And I closed my eyes before the crash that I knew would come.... -- "The White Ship," H.P. Lovecraft (1919)
Let her come to you now so you can experience it. Ye of little faith.
Cheers Coach
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
Okay, just a thought here (geez, I can't worthily communicate with someone quoting Lovecraft so early in the morning!--but fwiw:) I think you oughtta try the stealth kiss again. Gotta be stealthy. See how it feels to you. See how it feels to her (you'll know). I know for sure that if at some point my xH had taken my head in his hands and laid one, genuine kiss on me, it would have bent my end of the time-space continuum. It would have been real, as you said, instead of me trying to figure out just wtf is going on in my head or in his. It would have cut thru the crap--maybe not thru the fog, but thru the crap. Tangible reality, not confusion, mucking around, intellectualizing, rationalizing.
Just a thought.
Last edited by hoosiermama; 09/15/0901:44 PM.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
That was good. It's good that she own that, and that you didn't use the rescuing words this time. And yet the rest of your exchange was full of grace and compassion.
And I think it only fair that you go to Big Midwestern City.
Me 45, H 46, S 23, M 26, Together 30, Bomb 6-2-08, S 6-19-08; H left 12-29-08. H home 12-09, Still MLC in 2012! Me- I have my big girl panties on. Bring it.
"My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand." Thich Nhat Hanh
"Trust. I don't trust anymore. I mean, if our marriage wasn't what I thought it was, if it wasn't real, then nothing is what it seems. I can never trust anything again."
The kiss, the pat on the butt...the invitation to dine with her after MC...that was not received as a sexual assault, it was received as what it was, "real".
Damn, that post was a real emotion stirrer.
You're in a good place SP. Good, courageous and uniquely vulnerable while still in control. I'm proud of you.
