Untittled (Comments Welcome)

[Shanna]

Less then a year ago I divorced my husband of almost 10 years. The decision to leave was my idea; we were separated for over a year and a half before the final court date. The divorce was his idea. I knew he was just looking for an easy out. I paid for the whole thing; he didn’t even hire a lawyer. I got custody of the kids (3 girls) and child support but that’s about it other then the clothes on our back. I could have gotten more, maybe I should have. My family didn’t understand my generosity, but then they never understood my love for him either. I just wanted him to be happy. I didn’t make him happy.

In the middle of last August I went on my first date in over a decade. A blind one at that. Saying that I was nervous would have been an understatement. He was an Ag pilot and the original plan was that he was going to fly me to a town with a nice restaurant and then we were going dancing. He rented a car and everything even though the airport provided cars for visitors. They are generally pretty beat-up clunkers. He called me a couple of times to get everything set up. He was worried that flying in a little 4 seater Cessna might scare me. I laughed and revealed a bit about myself. My grandfather is a USAF Retired helicopter pilot and many of my favorite childhood memories involved he and I in just such a plane testing limits. His limits as a damn fine pilot and the limits of an aircraft not designed for aerobatics.

The weather didn’t cooperate though and we were forced to make other arrangements for our first date that night. I was impressed with the simple fact he wanted to impress me.

The friends that had setup this whole thing kept the girls for the night. He picked me up and we drove to a not bad Mexican restaurant/bar about an hour away. He was incredibly good looking which made me even more nervous. It didn’t take long for that to disappear. There was something there that later we both described as “comfortable”. A couple of weeks after our initial meeting he used that term and then couldn’t figure out why I laughed. The night before in my writing I had used that exact word to describe how I felt with him. That first date was an incredible night. We played a game of pool with a couple of guys’ there before we left. One of them asked how long we had been married. He was surprised to learn it was our first blind date.

So things were going swimmingly. Two days later he took the girls and I to the county fair. The next night my mom kept the kids and we went back to see Gretchen Wilson and Emerson Drive. The next day he took the girls and I flying. It was a great weekend. The girls loved him immediately. My family loved him too. There was some serious chemistry between us and we had fooled around a bit but I wasn’t ready to have sex yet. Mostly because well it had been so very long since I had and I wanted to make sure it (he) was right. I didn’t want the girls around either. He agreed. Most nights he stayed with me until four or five in the morning then he’d go to work. How could I not fall in love with this guy, he was content to hold me all night. More then that he liked just holding me. For the first time in my life I felt that a man wanted to be with me for me not sex. Most men can’t get past my neatly packaged body to discover the heart and soul that resides within.

The next weekend I took the girls to their dad’s. Friday night I brought dinner home, we watched a movie and then we set off the fireworks. It was worth wait. The next day he surprised me by flying me about 40 minutes north (three hour drive) to a city with a store he wanted to take me too. We ate breakfast first and then he took me shopping. He bought me a couple of outfits, a nice windbreaker, and a new pair of Ropers (boots) that matched his. That night was just as comfortable as all the rest. Sunday we went to brunch. My Aunt and Uncle happened to be there too so we sat together. (It’s a small town and it was the only place open on Sunday morning). Then we went to my grandparent’s house for a visit. He and my grandfather talked “pilot” incessantly for almost two hours. For once my grandmother and I couldn’t get a word in edge wise.

I bet this is all sounding pretty fairytalish huh. I thought so too. Don’t worry, it’s about to get nightmarish.

Sunday afternoon we made love one last time on the couch before I went to get the girls.

He had given me his extra cell phone so we could talk whenever we wanted to for free. (He’s from another state.) We talked that night and I knew something wasn’t right. That next week he only came over once. The morning he went home I talked to my friend and told her that I didn’t know what was going on but that I was going to be surprised if I saw him again. We were still talking on the phone every night for a couple of hours but I knew he was holding something back.

I did get to see him one more time. Later that morning actually, he showed up at my house to tell me good-bye. I was confused and tried not to cry. I did okay actually until he took me into his arms apologizing for his behavior that last week and then he made me a barrage of promises. He was coming back in a month. October would be better for us and next spring would be even better. He said he wished he had met me at the start of the summer and that he hoped I wouldn’t hate him. This confused the hell out of me. It’s over a twelve-hour drive to his home from here. He spent a few of those hours on the telephone with me.

Don’t ask me what we talked about. We just always seem to find things to talk about. Our history, our desires, our beliefs. We’re both conservative and given the world we live in pretty traditional. The last conversation we had before he got home was a good one. He was just about half an hour from his son’s house. He was going there first then later that night he was taking his ex-wife’s daughter to the state fair. She has never known any other dad. She was eight at the time. It was a week before I heard from him again. He was ignoring my calls on the cell phone. I finally used my home phone to call his house.

His ex-wife answered and somehow I managed to ask for him. I told her my name when she asked. She was listening to his side of the conversation and he let me know that they were moving her back in and they were going to try it again. He never let on to who I was and I pretty quickly hung up on him. The cell phone rang less then an hour later and he tried to explain. It was all for her little girl. She was going to deny him her daughter if he didn’t try. He said he was sorry. I said very little. What I did say wasn’t very nice. It was our first fight. It was too much to fast. He didn’t want me to hate him and he hoped that some day I could forgive him.

I talked to my mom trying to sort this whole thing out. One week he’s telling me that I was perfect for him, then the next week he’s moving his adulterous ex-wife back in. I loved this man, and I felt like he was making a mistake. Doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. I talked to him a couple of days later and told him just that. I explained that initially I left my ex for my kids. It was wrong for them to grow up thinking that it was acceptable for men to treat women the way their father treated me. I loved the girls’ father but my first obligation was to my kids. I had hoped that my leaving would have been his wake up call. It was more work then he wanted to do though. It had been one of the hardest things in my life but then I subscribe to the theory that the right things in life are rarely easy. He told me that he didn’t think he had ever known anyone who had left a relationship for the kids without physical or substance abuse issues. He knew people who stayed married for the kids though. I could hear admiration in his voice when he told me I was a good and strong woman. We decided that we would try and just be friends. I thought he might need a friend in the near future.

While he was gone for that month I began diligently working on something I had accidentally started. My mom had decided the weekend after I had found out about the ex-wife moving in that I needed a mini-vacation. She took the girls to meet their dad for the weekend and I went to the Rockies in Colorado. He lives in the Rockies though much further north then Colorado. For some reason I wanted to feel close to him. It was an incredible weekend. I reconnected and in the process I started a new journal. I didn’t know what I was going to be writing when I purchased the notebook I just needed to write. What came out was one long ass letter to the pilot. It was me, raw and exposed and in my heart it felt right. My brain was screaming that I could never give it to him. I couldn’t leave myself vulnerable like that. It was just wrong my logical self demanded. I was going to at least write it though. I wrote most days for at least an hour. Usually more. I filled half the thing up. I told him things about myself that I hadn’t shared with him yet. I spelled out hopes and dreams and reveled fears. I wrote about my flaws and frustrations. Whatever sprung to my mind I wrote it down. I didn’t censor or edit myself for the most part. The only thing I didn’t say was that I loved him. That wasn’t what the notebook was for. The first time I had told him that he told me I was confused. The next time I said it was the day he left that time he didn’t refute it but I knew it made him uncomfortable.

We talked a couple of times a week for the next month. I let him call me. He needed to set the pace. It was always while he was working (his dad owns a trucking business that he runs when he’s home) and that was most of the time. The conversation was pretty superficial for the next couple of weeks as far as I was concerned. One morning he called and told me that the night before he had busted down the bathroom door and taken a bottle of pills and a gun away from his ex. He didn’t know what to do. His brother had committed suicide a few years ago and now that’s a huge fear of his. They couldn’t get the gun away from him. I think she was playing on that fear to get him to do what she wanted but I couldn’t tell him that. I just reassured him that it was my experience (yes, I have a bit of experience) that if someone really wanted to kill themselves they don’t just hand over the gun. I thought she needed some help beyond the scope of what he could provide. He agreed but couldn’t talk her into it and he wouldn’t try and commit her. He told me he hated her but he still loved her. He even admitted that a small part of him had wished she had succeeded. She had cheated on him while they were married. I told him that if he wanted to make his marriage work it was imperative that he forgive her. He said he didn’t know if he could. He said he couldn’t look at her the same way.

I answered the phone at six am on my birthday to hear him singing me happy birthday. I got lots of birthday calls last year but other then my kids he was the only one to sing to me. Then about a week and a half before his scheduled return in October I noticed a change in him. Our conversations had progressively gotten deeper and more personal but then one day he turned the conversation down right intimate. He referenced the last time we made love. We now refer to that event simply as “The Couch”. He confessed that it had scared him. The intimacy of it was more then he expected. I told him I had recognized that when it had happened and that it was okay.

He called me as he rolled out of his hometown. I could hear relief in his voice, as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He told me he was a bastard to his ex he didn’t know how to stop. I had a hard time believing he could be the man he described. Certainly not the man I had fallen in love with. I told him that he need to find a way to stop saying mean things to her if he wanted the relationship to work. I told him that there had been many nights that I wished my ex would just hit me so I had the physical marks to go along with the emotional ones. Then leaving would have been easy.

He called me again that night as he settled into bed. He was staying with a friend he hadn’t seen in a while. He’d be here soon. He confessed his nervousness at seeing me again. I told him it would be okay. He said “Goodnight Sweetheart” as we hung up. I didn’t know what to expect when he returned.

I arranged for my mom to stay at the house with the girls the night he got back. I was going up to see him and I didn’t know how soon I’d be home. I just had to be back before the girls got up for school the next day. He had a couple of sub sandwiches waiting for us. I hugged him and then yelled silently at myself for it. I vowed I wouldn’t kiss him first. I didn’t have long to wait. We got into his travel trailer and he kissed me. His kisses are out of this world. My pulse races even now just thinking about it. They are soft and gentle yet somehow hungry and full of something that only he and I understand. We sat down to eat our sandwiches and talked. He told me he had missed our easy conversations. I agreed. Finally he asked the question I’d been waiting for. How soon did I have to get back home? I told him we could talk a while longer. We talked for a couple more hours. He smiled sadly at me around 10pm and asked the question again. I grinned and fearlessly asked him if he was ready for me to leave. No he told me, it wasn’t that, he just didn’t want to piss off my mom. He couldn’t believe she’d agreed to this all to begin with. I told him he might be surprised to find out who his fans were in my family. I told him that if he was tired that I’d head home. He said I still hadn’t answered his question. I told him I just had to be back before the girls got up in the morning. His face lit up as I quickly added that I had no expectations but I wanted to be prepared for any eventuality.

“Let’s go to bed honey,” he said to me. I was a bit hesitant. Don’t get me wrong I wanted him. I’d been in a perpetual state of desire since I first laid eyes on him again that afternoon and his desire was well shall we say evident as well. It had been a while since “The Couch”. The hesitation was because I wasn’t sure if he was emotionally ready for all this. I didn’t want him to regret being with me. I manipulated the situation so that our encounter was all very one sided. I never spoke the words that night but for just over an hour I showed him in every way possible that I loved him without making him commit similarly to me.

He slept well that night; I had a hard time going to sleep. I did finally fall asleep and I woke when I heard him roll over and cuss that we were late. He kissed me gently and started dressing as I stretched myself awake. He growled under his breath as he watched me and asked where my keys were so he could start my car. He didn’t want to piss off my mom. I was putting on my shoes as he came back in. He thanked me for coming up to see him as he hugged me and I started out the door. Just as I was getting ready to step down his hand was on my shoulder and he was spinning me around to him. One last kiss goodbye. It remains the single most intimate experience of my entire life so far. A simple kiss. It’s almost a forty minute drive home (Just over thirty minutes that morning though) I think I had my first coherent thought about five miles from my house. The power of that kiss was so overwhelming. It touched my very soul.

I told my mom that he’d have his ex here before the weeks end. She didn’t believe me. The ex was here though, three days later. I don’t know how I know these things about him but so far, I’ve had an eerily good track record in this department. The third day after he had initially left I told my friend I was scared that his ex-wife was going to try something. I knew that his stepdaughter called him twice a day and that felt like a set-up.

He finally called me again a couple of weeks later. We had lunch together. He apologized again. I told him that all he had to do was be honest with me. He told me that he didn’t know what he was doing. He was so confused. I had some theories but I didn’t share them with him just yet. I told him that he didn’t have to bring her here just to avoid me. While I disagreed with his decision I could respect that it was his decision. I wouldn’t do anything to undermine it. I just want him to be happy, how he gets there doesn’t matter. I didn’t tell him that I still thought that happiness would be found with me, he has to figure that one out all on his own.

I gave him the notebook that afternoon as we said goodbye. He asked me if I was sure I wanted him to have it. Yes, I told him, it still felt right, hard, but right (remember my theory?). He hugged me tightly; I think maybe he was having a hard time not crying (He hates hurting me). God knows I was. He walked backwards down the sidewalk to watch me leave. I never actually saw him turn around.

Now I have to tell you why he had come back that October. See he’d gotten into a bit of trouble up in Sturgis during bike week that summer before meeting me. A DUI was issued. He had to serve 10 days in jail up there to get rid of it all and not have it affect his pilot’s license. He also had to write a letter to the FAA. He can’t fly commercially but the Ag stuff and private flying is okay. I didn’t hear from him for about a week. The Monday after Halloween I called him and left him a message. I wanted him to know that I’d been thinking about him on Halloween (it’s the anniversary of the day his brother shot himself in front of the family) that I was still there if he needed to talk. He called me back in less then an hour. He said he couldn’t believe that I remembered that. He told me that I was an incredible writer and that I ought to be publishing stuff. I told him I wasn’t that confident in myself. He told me he’d be leaving for South Dakota later that day. He asked me to help him write his letter to the FAA. Of course I would I told him. He told me that he’d sent his ex home a few days before. I didn’t have a whole lot to say about that.

He called me the next day and told me that he was getting ready to go into the courthouse. He wouldn’t be able to call me for while. I wished him luck and told him to behave himself. I made him laugh as we hung up the phone. I had a feeling that I was his final phone call. Don’t ask me how I know. He later confirmed this.

My friend called me while he was gone and told me that one of the girls she worked with had confided in her that she and my pilot had sex right after his ex-wife left. For some reason I wasn’t terribly surprised. Hurt, just not surprised. I knew what was going on in his head. Betray me before I could betray him. Just as he had abandoned me before I could abandon him (moving his ex back in).

A week and a half later my friends had the girls again. It was the anniversary of my dead son’s birthday. I had waited years to mourn (something I wasn’t allowed while married). I was lying on my couch (yes, “The Couch”) listening to my son’s song and crying. It was two am and my phone rang. He was back. He’d been back since that afternoon but he was having a hard time sleeping so he thought he’d give me a call. We fought. Only the second fight of our relationship.

I was angry. I didn’t want to grieve alone. He couldn’t help me he told me. I assured him that he was the only one that could. He told me that he could only be my friend. I still hadn’t reveled what I knew about his exploits after his ex had left. I didn’t hang up happy with him at all. I couldn’t sleep. I had to work in a few hours. I got up at three in the morning and took a shower and got ready for work and headed to his trailer. I stopped and got us each a cup of coffee. I knocked on his door just after 4am. He was in bed. His door was unlocked and when I told him who it was he told me to come on in.

He wouldn’t get out of bed so I went back and sat on the foot of his bed like he asked. He rubbed my leg and butt with his foot as I sat there. We argued some more. He told me to come lay down. I put my head on the other pillow ignoring his outreached arm. He told me to stop it and snaked his arm around me pulling me tightly to his chest. I told him that he had told me he loved me in his sleep. He didn’t deny it. I told him that I’d had men call me before as they got ready for bed, or in the middle of the night when they couldn’t sleep, or as they were getting ready to be out of contact with the rest of the world for any length of time but they had all loved me. He didn’t deny it. I told him I had never lain like this with a man who was just my friend. He didn’t deny it.

With his arms wrapped around me I quietly revealed that I knew about his sexual exploit before he’d left. He was shocked that I knew but said he was glad I knew because he hadn’t been sure how to tell me. It had just happened he told me. I got up to leave for work. I told him that he had betrayed and abandoned me before I could do it to him. I told him those were his two big fears, bigger then the commitment issue that most men face. I told him that growing up without a mother had molded him into an emotionally retard man. He had revealed very early on that he hadn’t loved his ex-wife when he married her; he grew to love her eventually though. I threw this up as well. I wasn’t overly nasty or viscous when I said these things. It was just time for me to reveal all my thoughts, to purge my brain. He didn’t deny any of the things I said. I felt a little better as I left for work but I was still angry.

He made up an excuse to come down a few hours later and stopped in to see me at work. He was making sure I was okay. Again another instinctual thing. He was flirting with me again. He commented that it wasn’t fair that I should look so damn good considering my sleepless night. His eyes smoldering as he looked at me. I got busy and he left. Again as he walked to his truck he was watching me instead of where he was going.

He called me a couple of times that week. Mostly it was at night when he was ready for bed. He came to see again the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I knew it was to say goodbye even though he didn’t tell me that. He stayed for about an hour. He hugged me tight before he left. Yeah I knew I was right. The next day on my way home from taking the girls to their dad for the holiday he called. He was halfway home. Guess what, he was once again sorry. I was angry and hurt. Just once it would be nice to be wrong about these things.

He called me occasionally after he got home. We never really talked about his home life but he was once again working an awful lot. He asked if he could buy the girls and I something for Christmas. I told him only if it wasn’t too extravagant. I was thinking of the three hundred dollars worth of clothes that he had bought me. He called a couple of days later wanting my address. I gave it to him. He mentioned the letter he needed to write again and I told him to call me when I was home so I could get the information from him. He called me later that afternoon and we talked about the letter. I wrote it the next morning and called him with the rough draft. He had me make a couple of minor technical changes and I mailed it to him. He seemed very pleased with it and was grateful for my help. Then two days before Christmas we had another not insignificant fight. The mixed signals I was getting from him on the telephone were driving me outright mad. Lack of patience is probably one of my biggest faults. He somehow managed a phone call to the girls and I Christmas morning at 10am. The girls were very happy to talk to him and thanked him for his gift. It was the Disney DVD game “Scene It?” I was surprised to hear from him that day but didn’t let on. We talked for about half an hour before I had to get ready for the family gatherings.

I didn’t hear from him again for two months. I had decided less then a week before that I was going to write him a letter and have it waiting for his return. Some legal issues had cropped up in my life having to do with one of my daughters and a lawsuit I’d been fighting for about five years. My life was going to get very complicated very quickly. I didn’t need the extra complication in my life of a hotshot Ag pilot messing with my head. He called at 2am February 25. He knew how I felt about the 2am phone calls from men in my life. I had turned down a steak dinner that night from my grandparents. I was expecting the call. Don’t ask me why.

It had been a tough couple of months for me. I had shoved all thoughts of the hotshot way down deep inside of me. I hadn’t dated anyone. I shot down anyone who even thought about it. I can’t do that kind of thing. Not when I’m in love and let me tell you I was still deeply in love with the jerk.

I wondered why he hadn’t called me.
He wondered the same thing.
I quickly explained that I’d never had any running away issues and felt like he had to set the pace of this thing. I thought he would call me when he was ready to talk. I thought he was mad at me because of our last real conversation.
He thought everything had been fine on Christmas day. For such a bright man he can be vastly obtuse.
I told him that was a nice call but not the one I was talking about.
Oh yeah that he said.

We talked; I ended up crying despite my best efforts. I know he hates it when I cry. I didn’t tell him yet about the letter I had written for him.

He told me that he missed me.
I told him I missed him too. I told him that the last couple of months had been hard on me.

He sent me out into the winter night. I didn’t want to go. I knew what he was going to do. He was after all the man of my dreams. The one that isn’t suppose to exist. There was only one thing the man of my dreams could send me outside in the middle of the night in my PJ’s to do.

He asked me to look at the moon.
Okay.
Right next to the moon was an extremely bright star could I see it?
Yes, I think it’s Venus.
Yeah he said to me it’s about the right time of the year for Venus to be there isn’t it? Are you looking at it he asks?
Yeah sweetheart I am.
So am I. Maybe we aren’t quite as far apart as it seems.

Yeah he was the man of my dreams all right. Find the planet named after the goddess of love so we can feel connected.

He’d be home soon he told me.
You are home. I reminded him.
You know what I mean.
No I don’t. What do you mean? It was my turn to be obtuse. Damned overdue in my opinion.
I just wanted you to know that I’d be home soon. That I missed you. That’s all.
I need the words. I told him.
You know the words he said. He’s getting close to panicking.
I need the words. Right now with all the shit in my life I need to hear you say the words.
You know the words. I’ll be home soon.

For months I’d listened to She Daisy sing “Come home soon” and thought of him.
I still imagine your touch.
It’s beautiful missing something that much.
But sometimes love needs a fighting chance.
So I’ll wait my turn until it’s our turn to dance.

I was yet again defeated. We talked until 4am about everything and nothing at all. He tried to flirt with me. He told me that he was naked in the hot tub. I didn’t comment. Instead I gracefully dodged and he dropped it. He later confided that he thought I hadn’t heard it. He dropped his cell phone in the hot tub and after drying it out for 20 minutes he finally called me back and told me he’d call me later. Our two-hour middle of the night conversation was on indefinite hold.

He called me a couple of days later on his work cell phone. It was after 9pm. His private cell phone was fried. We talked for an hour. More of the same, everything and nothing. He finally reveled that he had told his ex to leave. She threatened to call the FAA on him with a bunch of trumped up stories. He let her stay. He had stopped all the abusive talk. I told him I was proud of him.

I still didn’t tell him about the letter I’d written him. The logical part of my brain said it was right. My heart said it was wrong. I talked for a long time about it with my mom. I didn’t want my focus split away from my daughter. I get obsessive, another one of my faults.

He called again a few days before I started a week of cross-country traveling hell with kids in tow for the lawsuit. Two round-trip plane trips four days apart with a four hour drive one way to the airport. I explained to him what was going on. I told him I had a letter for him when he got back but not to call me anymore until he read the letter. He was hurt. I could tell but he said he understood and would respect what I asked. It killed me to hurt him. I told myself that I was protecting my daughter. It was wrong. The day before the first trip I called and left him a message to call me. He called me on my way home less then two days later. He had been worried about me. I could hear the relief in his voice when we talked. I told him that I had been wrong. Not to get use to it though, it didn’t happen very often. He laughed and agreed. All was right in the world. I had two messages on my machine when I got home. Yeah he’d been worried all right. He called me that night at 9pm.

We talked a couple of times a weeks. We decided that we would take things much slower. I told him that I was worried that it would feel wrong to be around him and ignore the physical stuff. He told me not to worry. If he wanted to kiss me he would. If he got slapped oh well it would be worth it.

[nimbus]

Well, it would be an understatement to say that your heart has been given a working over. Since Im not you, I wont even try to say that I know what you are feeling, or what you have gone through. We all have our own troubles, and our own trials. We all face them in our own individual ways. I know that you may feel weak, and powerlesss in situations like this ( I know I did when a somewaht similar sitituation happened to me.) But I read all of what you wrote there, and that not the writting of a weak person, or of a person whos run out of options or of hope.

Dont give up, because thier are dark clouds, or because it seems that you can predict all the bad things that are happening, and cant seem to stop the chain of events. I dont know how ya feel, but I do know this. It wont last forever. Either the sun will break through the dark clouds, or you will find that you have moved on past this storm, and have found your way into new light again.

Stay as strong as the person who wrote all that, and dont give up the shining hope that I see in every line. You can do it, and you can see it to a bright tomorrow.

We'll be here if ya need to get more off of your heart.
And we wish you the best of luck and the best of Love.