that repeats in my head, like rachel said it on friends.

i wish it weren’t true.

couldn’t even swim

every moment was another tiny death another stab another reminder

i don’t know what keeps me hanging on. sleeplessness nights are probably not the best times to try and sort things out, but that’s how it goes anyway. why would i continue to compromise my heart like this? i feel empty. again. punched in the gut. this is stupid. i am being stupid. i am holding on to NOTHING. there is nothing here.

and finally, i ask myself, why would i want to be with someone who refuses to acknowledge we are together? who acts ashamed of being with me? who doesn’t want anyone to know he is married, that we are together? why am i willing to accept this? being hidden, being told over and over again that i am somehow deficient, not good enough. never measuring up. never enough. i can’t live like this. and since i can’t die and leave my children, i have to suck it up and end it. i just wish it didn’t hurt like this.

some day i won’t care at all.

yeah. i know.

i’m pretty easy to fool, i guess.

more than anything else, it was always important to me to have my children have the same father. this is directly as a result of being the only child of my own parents. although i have (many) siblings that i grew up with and feel very close to, there was always a sense of separateness that came from knowing that everyone else shared a father that i did not. i felt i looked different, and i felt lonely at times.  so i never wanted that for my own child.

going back through some old writing, i found a dream i had almost exactly a year before my new baby was born. i dreamed i gave birth to a chubby cheeked girl with a head full of dark hair, and i caught her myself as soon as she was born. how prophetic! i am so glad i wrote it down, as i would not have remembered at all. i know she was meant to be here, in my life and in her sister’s life.

i hope my daughters will be great comfort and companionship for each other. i hope they can be good friends and allies. i am glad they will not have the emptiness that i felt.

———————–

today my infant is 4 weeks and 1 day old. we went and saw our midwife today, my babies and i. i love my midwife. she is so dear and comforting to me. i want her to be my friend. it makes me sad that in 2 weeks i will see her for the last time. when i told her my baby’s name for the first time she said, “OH, that was the name i always planned to name my baby girl!” (she had 4 sons.)

we sat after the appointment and just chatted for 30 minutes. i feel such a bond with her, which i suppose is easily attributed to the intense experiences she has shared with me. she sat with me and gave me comfort as i unintentionally cried over my broken home, and she shared with me her similar story. i feel blessed by her presence in my life, and grateful that i have had her support and care during a time so filled with so much that is unpleasant and painful. she has always been gentle and supportive, and that is such a rare thing to find in the world.

yeah, so you fucked another woman’s husband in the house she used to share with him. sleeping on sheets she purchased, under the blanket stained with blood from the birth of their daughter. under the comforter his mother bought as a wedding present.

did it feel good to walk through the rooms of my former home? see my things hanging on the walls? the clocks i bought, the microwave that my friends bought me as a wedding gift? the stainless steel trash can in the kitchen, the last thing i bought before taking maternity leave with L. the candles in the bathroom, the picture in the bathroom, the calender in the bathroom. where my nail polish and lip balm still sit on the counters. in the shower with the bath poofs i bought and used on my skin, the soaps i bought. did you cook food on my cast iron skillets? the ones i bought from that store across the street? did you see my jars of spices and herbs in the cupboards, labeled in  my handwriting? next to my teas, my cookbooks and recipes? did you put your mouth on my wine glasses? the glasses i bought, just like i bought the coffee mugs and silverware and spatulas and spice racks and wooden spoons? did you eat off of my dishes, the ones my mother gave to me as a birthday gift years ago?

did you enjoy sneaking around, hiding and skulking like a dog as i worked across the street? sitting in the living room littered with my daughter’s toys? the things hanging on the walls there, i bought them all. the green birds on bark paper, that was a gift i bought for him years ago. the cloth picture, a find at a yard sale for $1. that branch, hanging above the clock in the living room? that was a souvenir from our honeymoon. found on a beach in key west.

i hope you felt my presence on your skin, all around the edges of everything you did and said. i hope it was as heavy and palpable as the sinking feeling in your heart right now. all your whining and complaining. the disappointment just waiting for you. rejection, it aint fun.

at first i was furious at the notion that you would move out here. but as i thought about it, i laughed. go ahead. do it. i wish you would. i’d love to see you destroy your life by uprooting it and moving to fucking oregon. what a joke. what a joke. living here would kill you. you’d hate it.

mostly, i’m baffled. i dont really understand how another mother could take part in destroying a family, how she could move with no conscience into another woman’s life. how she could plan a “vacation” days away from the birth of a baby. how she could feel okay about the man she is fucking canceling midwife appointments and changing birth plans so he can get a little pussy.

is it because i’m white? you think my blonde hair means i’m not entitled to respect, or dignity? or to a man with mexican blood? maybe you should tell that to his white mother, a woman as pale and blonde as i am. maybe you should tell that to his daughters.

perhaps i should just be sorry for you, instead of angry. sorry that you are so flawed and broken you are willing to toss everything, including your own children, at someone so destructive. someone you scarcely know. move to a place you’ve barely seen, take your daughter away from her father, your children away from their family and the only home they’ve ever know, to move to some dreary, rainy place so you can get a little dick.

i pity you.