In a year and a half a lot has changed, and yet again, very little. The house has settled into her new skin. The renovations have ceased – not because they’re finished, but because money won’t allow. The last effort was the bathroom. A construction nightmare to say the least. You try living without a shower for almost 9 weeks and tell me you’d do it again without question. But it’s like any other traumatic experience, time makes us forget the pain. Or at least makes it seem inconsequential in the grander scheme of things.
The bathroom looks fantastic. Like it’s been part of the family since the beginning. No trace of the bad ‘70s redo. No fiberglass tub, no chipboard vanity, no fake marble countertop, and no white tile stained beyond cleaning by any of today’s modern miracle industrial products. And even though the new fixtures are a mix of traditional and contemporary, and all the materials are brand spanking new, the result is a deceivingly original looking w.c..
She’s embraced it with all the appreciation I’d hoped for.
These days I spend most of my time in the living room. Occasionally watching some program recorded on the dvr from the previous week. Usually playing video games to help escape from reality. And sometimes just sitting, and staring , and smoking, and thinking about all the things happening around me – good and bad – and what my role is in each.
I’m alone. Again. After almost a year and a half of a turbulent, painful, less than rewarding relationship, I finally mustered the courage to end it and face the world on my own once more. He was a good man. He still is. But he’s lived a life fraught with pitfalls and uncertainty and developed ways to cope that most people find frightening in themselves. His past both intrigued and repelled me. There was an edge to him, a sense of danger. He’d been a bad boy for a long time. But I saw flashes of the shy, slightly insecure, almost meek man inside and I thought he was ready to leave the bay boy behind. He said he was ready to leave him behind. But all of that is relative, isn’t it? Our perspectives were different. Vastly different. It makes sense that they would be, after all, we’d led very different lives. It never occurred to me the skin I thought should be shed and left behind, might continue to seem necessary to him.
For a long time I convinced myself that circumstances created the tension between us. But the situation was a distraction, not the cause. It allowed me to push back the inevitable. It allowed me to deal with situations from which other people would run. Fast. Screaming. But not too long ago I realized, that while he was telling me that at the core of things he was happy. That through all the secrets and shouting and empty threats, when it came down to it, he was happy. His life was safer, and more secure than it had ever been before. He had everything he needed, and almost all that he wanted. He was just trying to figure a way to reintroduce aspects of his past life that he knew would make me uncomfortable.
I was not happy. I hadn’t really ever been happy with our relationship. From the beginning it wasn’t what I’d hoped, but thought over time we’d find our level. We’d create something that worked for both of us. It never happened. Granted my vision for a perfect life included a white picket fence and a fresh batch of cookies. I saw myself as June Cleaver sans the beav. It’s a hard image to live up to, especially since Barbara Billingsley didn’t have my heavy beard, but how could striving for that kind of television dream be bad?
He wanted more grit. He was used to that. He’d lived that way for most of his life. I found it disturbing. It crept into places it didn’t belong. Like sand in your bathing suit. And that surprise you feel when you’re still washing the beach out of unmentionable places two days after the vacation ended. I’m not a beach person. I never have been.
So now I sit in the living room and look at all that surrounds me, and feel relief that I still have what resembles a life. Weak and wounded at the moment, but at the heart of it still beating. And the house has closed in a little. Almost embracing me. Comforting me. With an understanding that time will bring more change and we will both still be here. Together.
