I remember

The way we met was so random. I had rear ended another car with my orange VW beetle and instead of anger, the guy could see the sadness that had clouded my driving and took the time to talk with me on the side of the road. At some point, I said I was a singer and he invited me to come with him to a recording studio that night where a friend of his was looking for someone to sing backup harmony.

I remember walking into his home and seeing you and thinking "I'm going to marry him." And suddenly the night went from a date with a man I rear ended to love at first sight with his friend. I remember the fun we had that night even if I don't remember the song. I remember that the name of the wife of the recording engineer had been Deborah, but she'd hated it and changed to something else. I remember being unable to stop looking at you. I spent the whole night wanting to learn all about the shy guy with the sweet smile that lit up his face.

You were so wonderful, gentle and kind and l loved everything about you. I loved being your girlfriend.

I remember how my sad we both were when you moved to the Bay Area to live with your father and work at his soda pop bottling plant. I remember the promise you made to come back for me. I remember the day you returned with your father's truck and took me away from the horrible things that happened to me after you left. I remember telling everyone you were my knight in shining armor who came and rescued me. I remember the driving through the orange groves that became silicon valley and living with you in a room at your father's house. I  being I remember your step mother cooking a thanksgiving turkey she'd had frozen with all the other's she'd won in golf tournaments and how that Christmas she gave us coffee mugs and beach towels she'd found on sale. I remember how fascinated I was watching the returned soda bottles as they rode the the track to be stripped of their labels, rinsed with steaming water then moving on to be filled again with honey and cream sodas and the day you got hurt working there.

I remember our first apartment and getting married in a forest and sitting in the sun by the swimming pool reading books by Phillip K. Dick. I remember sitting in my car with you watching fireworks when I suddenly realized my grandmother, Georgia had passed because her spirit moved through me. I remember the tiny brown kitten we found outside our apartment that I named Georgia and the girl who came to our door needing help and asking to use our phone who stole my wallet. I remember all the nights you would play guitar while we sang harmonies to old songs by the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly and Linda Ronstadt. I remember us waking up to find we were making love. I remember the recording studio you helped Jack build in his garage, and the bigger recording studio you built in the warehouse and recording my song "Don't you be blue" with Patty and Michael. I remember Jack killing himself in the apartment he'd built for himself above the studio because he believed he was supposed to die after a psychic had told him that when he did he would meet up with the love of his life when they were both reborn.. I remember holding up our open hands to let his course cremations fly with the wind over his favorite spot to watch the sunset.

I remember next recording studio and how much I loved singing in the soundproof room - feeling the beat of the drums and guitar you'd played and recorded and mixed down because there were only so many tracks and you had to make the most of them. I remember how talented a recording engineer you were and resenting all the late nights you spent recording musicians who had no money to pay you.

I remember all the trips we took together. I remember the Bucket of Blood saloon in Virginia City and stopping to look at the beautiful golden rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I remember spending the night parked on the street in affluent Santa Barbara in our VW camper van and listening all night for the police to knock on the windows to tell us to move and how we laughed the next morning that we'd gotten away with it. I remember our jokes about the walk-away tacos vendors on the streets of Tijuana and roaming through endless tourist stores that all sold the same rough Mexican rugs and colorful straw hats. I remember stopping at Moon Lake and driving through fern filled forests and the freezing rocky beach. I remember the trip to Victoria where we could not visit the gardens because of the thick fog and rain. I remember the cockroaches in the motel room in Maui and watching the wind surfers as we walked down the beach.

I remember the night we performed our songs in a makeshift band and the Hawaiian shirts we wore. I remember comedy at the Cellar every Friday night. I remember the Toons and being invited to come up from the audience and sing harmony to John's song "Where are you tonight." I remember all the friends we made and the dinner parties and how everyone loved us as a couple. I remember so much more that I could write and write for hours and still have more to write.

I remember the therapy I finally got for my depression and how it didn't help because no one realized I was bi-polar. I remember all the secrets I kept from you because I could not control my sexual impulsiveness. I remember finally leaving you. I told everyone it was because I was tired of being the only one of us making money, because I could not admit the truth. I did not leave you because I did not love you anymore, I left because I couldn't hold the overwhelming guilt and remorse of what I could not tell you I'd done. I left because you were my best friend and I'd betrayed you and I could not tell you. Somehow it seemed better at the time that leaving for the reason I gave would hurt you less than telling you the truth but realizing too late that did not matter because it was the leaving you that broke your heart.

I remember how you found another love and had the children I was not ready to have with you. I remember I lost our friends and our music and our trips and my best friend - you- but you never stopped calling me over 34 years since we broke up just to hear how I was doing, You were the first person I called when my husband of last 20 years broke my heart for the final time and I was leaving him. He'd been unfaithful to me over and over. I always found out, I called you, because I finally understood how it felt to be betrayed. Maybe I stayed with him for so long because somehow I felt I deserved what he did because for all the times I cheated on you and the husband I married after you.

I'm telling you now what I couldn't tell you then - that I'm sorry. I don't believe that there is only one person in anyone's life that they will fall in love with, but you were my first real love,

I will always remember you.

I share here what other lonely women share on Facebook...

I spent a year stuck in a life that had ended, forced to be a silent witness as my husband and the woman who had been his mistress went into public hand in hand while I spent nights sitting beside my mother in the final months of her life.

As time passed, some days I was so happy I could not stop smiling. Other days I wondered if I would ever smile again. Some nights I was giddy as I texted with friends or emailed back and forth with long lost loves. Some nights I cried so hard I couldn't breathe, then wonder why I kept breathing at all. In any other time in my life, my bi-polar medication was enough to keep me happy and normal, but they were barely enough when there was so much outside of me that was out of control.

I had a "team" who cared for me, but I could only bring myself talk to them when I felt "ok." When I was so sad there seemed to be no future, I didn't call. I didn't text. I did not want them to feel what I was feeling, I closed myself in my room and wished I was stronger, braver, younger, prettier, worthy. I wished for someone, anyone, to come and fill up the empty void in me where I used to feel loved. I didn't call because he had convinced me that I somehow deserved this. I didn't call because I was afraid he would hear and somehow it would all be worse than it already was I didn't call because I was ashamed. I didn't call because this is the life I had chosen and the path I put myself on and there was nothing that could do to reverse time and start over.

I share here, where my friends can't see, what other lonely women post on Facebook: "I just wish there was someone who could hold me and tell me it will be alright"  Links to videos on grief, depression, loneliness... they send out their cries for help that are buried almost as fast as they post by all the other posts and videos and photos and "take this test to see if you...."  The lonely women post and post and post, reaching out to a world that does not see them past their words on a timeline - if they see them at all. And if they are seen, their Facebook friends comment "You can always call me!" "We are there for you!" "You are the strongest woman I know!" "Hugs" "We love you!"

And here, in my little one women world of "what I would have said" and cryptic messages to people who will never read them - I know I am really only writing for myself,

Blown to bits

And when your life is blown to bits and scattered by the wind
Let the pieces fall and where ever they land
Take a deep breath in and out and start over again.

I should have known better

You should have known better that by breaking my heart

the space tight between us would be torn apart apart.

I should have known better.I knew what you'd do.
You never got past the pain that I put you through.

You should have known better that what I would see
would finally break down any  hope left in me.

I should have known better the path you would take
for mistakes in our past that you never forgave.

We should have remembered there is nothing more painful
than when the one you trust most in this world is unfaithful

Trust is built when words match actions over time

And it the actions change...What happens to the trust. Does it slip away a bit at a time? What happens when the words change or maybe they are just the same words said before that trust was broken before.

We started over. It was different from the other times, because this time you brought your apology from an honest and raw place. You changed. You admitted to everything.You said I could ask anything and you would answer me. And from that moment I accepted your words.There were things I needed to know and to hear, but I did not look for reasons to distrust you. I did not obsess. I held your words close over years and they grew till I trusted completely.

Words matched actions, until they didn't. The actions changed. All at once. I was told that there would be change and to accept it. That you were changing and people said it was good for you. What people? I thought I was your people. I've always wanted for you to grow and be able to do more than you were able to before. But this was different. I was told I had to get used to this new you. The new you made plans without me and did things we'd always done together without me. I doubted myself.  The more I worried you were putting me to one side, the more I looked for reasons. Was it going to happen again? And like that, the trust was gone, replaced with fear and the feeling I must be crazy. Crazy not to trust. Crazy and bringing it all on myself.

Fear and sadness. Worry and guilt. Confusion and frustration. Wanting to trust. Distrusting. So many times I've taken what was given and accepted. So many that I can't just let it all go and I'm once again pulled into a whirling mess of emotion. Wondering. Am I crazy?

I was told I'm not crazy. I've never been crazy.
I was told that while listening to my fears was OK, acting on them is not.
I was told to ask for what I need to make the fear and sadness and worry and guilt and confusion and frustration and distrust.
I was told to talk with you and let you know what was happening with me, why I was asking all the questions and obsessed with worry that you'd found a new love.
I was stop accusing you. To stop guessing. To face what was happening to me as what it really is. Actions changed and I was reminded of other actions another time and it hurt all over again. I was unable to separate then and now. It was not healthy for me. I needed help to stop.
I was told if you loved me, you'd understand what I needed to feel safe again.
I was told I needed to be given all the tools to trust. Transparency and honesty.
I was told that it would be given lovingly.
I was told there would be no push back or blame or intimidation or anger.
But there was. It hurts so much..."getting.snooped" Thats what you gave me for transparency. Passive aggressive bullshit. It does not make me feel you understand. It makes me feel even more unhappy and worried. It's like you are wanting to get even. I hurt you. You hurt me.

Maybe you think I'm bringing all this up to make you hurt for things you did in the past. I'm not wanting to hurt you by bringing things up, I forgave you,  the wounded woman who took you back over and over will never forget. It's a part of me, of us. It just is. I thought I would never be worried about us or you ever again. I thought I'd moved past that. I had moved past that.

Maybe you think I'm just a snoop who wants to control you. I don't want to snoop on you, I want to know there is nothing to find. I don't want to control you, I want you to help me control my fear and worry that it could happen. I need your help, not your anger. I'm in a dark place. If there is no reason for me to be here, reach out and help me. I need you to help me.

Trust is built when words match actions over time.
I no longer trust you.
You happiness does not match my sadness.
This has happened before
I think I am doomed to have this happen again.

And it did.
It was less than 24 hours when I found proof that absolved me from being crazy or unnecessarily snoopy. It was clear, I am doomed bcecause this time had to be the last time or I will be hust over and over.

Trust is gone.

The photos I found, of you and her were ones you so professionally set up and shot. A door from my living room in the shot, You and your undeniable tattoos back to the camera while you left nothing to the imagination. When ever I let even a bit of "maybe if", I look at that photo. The others don't have the same power that one has. You have no remorse, no guilt. It was a want and you gave it to yourself without thought to the consequence, or maybe you knew it would finally set you free from me. But your freedom came with a stiff price. Your children, my family, my friends and even some of yours who will never speak to you again. And you feel that they are the ones being unreasonable, as if what you did to me was somehow justified. I've been so accommodating, why would they hate you. The hate comes from the all the other times, like this one. And I know, you won't be able to stop. It will happen with her, sooner than you think, someone will shower you with more attention than she is and you will swept up into a new game of hide and seek. You are very good at that game. But I hope you don't do that to her. It's isn't her, its for you. If you could figure out the "why" you could control the "why not"

This post is my real life and I won't leave it up forever. You would be oh so very angry that I put into words what you feel is "our business and no own needs to know"   Well that would make it OK for you to have moved on since I seem so ok with hiding it for you. But for the first time in 20 years I the affect of your anger does not humble me. It reminds me of why this is the right thing for me.

Yes... Trust is gone, love is gone, our life is gone, your children are gone, you will never be the cool Grandfather. You will never be the funny uncle at the Thanksgiving table. You will have to learn to live on your own. What it means to have no one helping you remember. Soon this house will be gone.

I look forward to my new home, what every that will be. I look forward to the new friendships I will have once I can have them come to my home. I will be lonely, but I've been lonely for years. Lonely now will only help me go out into the world and take chances and see what and who is out there waiting for me to find it.

I am a rose bud slowed to open by the cold , but I will bloom. And I will be beautiful.

Justifiable

You are a mess. 

It's over but you can't let go. 

The same insecurities and self doubt that lead you sleep with him  - also filled you with guilt. You had to believe you were in love, You were the one who could change him - one he could not live without. You felt alive, sexy, desired, impulsive. The progression from flirtation to sex was easy once you had justified being in love.

It's over.

It changed nothing in his life.

You'd shared yourself intimately with him in ways you had stopped sharing with your partner. You imagined a future with him. You had to believe that or the angst would wash over you like ice water. You had to believe it was love or that ache your heart where you knew it was wrong would swallow you whole.

You said I love you and he said it back because he was not ready to stop fucking you. You gave your body to him time and again, but did not know he was in control until he grew tired of you and moved on. You saw him, intimate with another girl and it brought you to your knees. The longer he ignored you, the more obsessed you became, You had lied and manipulated your partner into believing there was nothing going on and now you could not share your pain with the one person who knew you best.

It changed nothing in his life.

But not in your dreams.

He is with you again. He is sorry for how much he hurt you, He pulls you into his arms and whispers that he never stopped loving you. The curtain of guilt rises and you leave everything and everyone to be with him.

The curtain falls.
You wake up