My Sweetie (part II)

I still can't believe we will have been married 5 years tomorrow. I'm going to finish this story no matter how long it takes. Warts and all.

When I first moved out from husband #2, my apartment was not going to be ready for a couple of weeks so I stayed with a co-worker until I could get into the apartment. So as not to freak out my daughter, the weekend that I had custody (She stayed with her dad in the summer, but the every other weekend thing stayed the same), we stayed at Mom's. Kate was pretty ambivalent. On the one hand she wasn't so thrilled about having her life change, on the other hand, she was not too keen on her step-dad. She was almost 11. I finally got into my apartment and worked my butt off to get homey and familiar looking. My Sweetie came over most evenings for a few hours and on the weekends I did not have Kate. Eventually he started staying over some week nights (it WAS a lot closer to work). Then he brought his cat over (Jake). It's funny, I just realized that Jake moved in with me before My Sweetie did. MS had been living with his sister and her family, so basically he just eventually brought over clothes and a larger TV. Early November, he decided we should do an official move-in and wanted to rent a house. I had a lease but had been next to a shooting in the complex parking lot and used that to get out of my lease - I sent a dramatic letter about being traumatized by the shooting (which was true - one of my biggest fears for years was death by stray bullet) and cc'ed the parent company of the complex and the Star-Telegram. They agreed to let me go. So we found a crazy ass house across the street from the middle school Kate was attending. Part of our deal was to do some paint and tile work in exchange for a pet deposit. We spent the Christmas holidays working on that house. We still refer to it as the "cracked house." People always think we are saying "crack house." No it was a cracked house, with serious foundation problems. There was one room you could only vacuum in one direction because the hill was so steep. Like trying to mow a hill, you go back and forth, not up and down. It had a lot going for it though: Across the street from the school, very close to the freeway into downtown, 3 full baths (we each had our own!) and two large living areas and a bonus sort of sun room. The kitchen was horrible (though large), but I made the best of it. The best we could figure out was that all the changes and additions were done by drunk monkeys. Our first official day there was 1/1/96.

September of 96 my Best Boss Ever gave his two-weeks notice. On his last day, they announced that Rude Hideous Bitch from Hell was going to be my new boss. I gave MY two-weeks notice that day. I had heard great stories about Art Squad, a temp./freelance venue for graphic artists. After my two weeks of basically taunting RHBfH (her name was not on my resume), I had my going away party and left my favorite job. (I should add here that we were about to merge our ad dept. with another company - we were all owned by a parent company - so EVERYTHING was going to be different.) So back to My Sweetie in all of this. I think he was a little shook up about my quitting my job. We'd lived together less than a year and he was probably thinking WTF? He acted supportive enough but I could physically feel his relief when Art Squad called me for my first temp job.

At some point in 1997 My Sweetie turned into The Guy Who was Always in the Den Playing Computer Games. At first, I just sat there alone night after night watching TV in the living room. He was addicted to computer games and I was addicted to attention. Yeah, those don't work so well together. In early 98, I got a call from my old employers from the printing place.

Now you know how people say women forget how horrible things were in the past and that's why they continue to have babies? Well apparently it applies to more than childbirth. I had been miserable working for those people. What happened was Computer Addict and I had pretty much disconnected in a lot of ways, so I figured a full-time regular job would be more stable - just in case. They told me about this new Heidelberg digital four color press and that they would send me to Illinois for training and offered me a salary that sounded nice. Not only that but they were going to remodel and I could pick out everything for my new work space - which had one whole wall of glass. Really, it was an offer I couldn't refuse. It started out great, my new office was fabulous! I had temped at so many ad agencies, I knew exactly what I wanted. I got to pick out everything. I even made those cheap a-holes buy me a high end color printer (seriously, you can't show color work proofs in B&W! What were they thinking?)

Well slowly but surely they turned back into the hideous bosses that I remembered from the first time I worked there (probably how a woman giving birth the second time says, oh yeah, I remember this. WTF was I thinking?). It started over my not putting an astronaut on an in-house marketing power point presentation I put together. Their son was going to make the presentation at a fancy club luncheon and he wanted an astronaut. I had no internet access there. Did they expect me to pull an astronaut graphic out of my ass? I guess they thought I was some sort of wizard and was just being rude. So being an unhappy person at work and at home, I spent a lot of time at happy hours after work. Especially the Fridays that Kate's dad had picked her up. On those Fridays I might stay out til midnight. This is bad, but sometimes on school nights, I'd get a to go order at 8:00 or so and show up at home. Sometimes, I would call home and just tell them to order pizza. I was miserable and probably making everyone else miserable.

Kate had had a party that spring of 98 and shortly thereafter our house was broken into. It was some of the boys that had been to the party. Everyone knew who it was, but we couldn't prove anything. When we gave the names to the cops they already knew who these guys were, but there was nothing to do about it. We were tired of the cracked house and wanted to move into some gated apartments. In early June, on a Saturday morning (Kate was at her dad's) Computer Addict sits down and tells me that when we move out, he is moving out on his own. No one had ever broken up with me before. I calmly said okay, got up, took a shower, went to the bank, cashed out a CD and went apartment hunting. This sweet old lady was showing me an apartment and all I could think about was how disappointed Kate was going to be and I burst into tears and cried on her shoulder as she patted me on the back saying "There, there, you poor thing." amongst other sweet platitudes. I spent the afternoon in a bar dazed and in shock. Finally I drove home. The radio played No Doubt's "Don't Speak," and I just burst into wild wracking sobs. I went straight to Katie's room and just curled up on her bed. I was sad about so many things.

I don't remember anything about that evening except that I slept in Kate's room. The next morning I woke up very early. He had stopped smoking so I went into the den - the farthest room from the rest of the house - to smoke a cigarette. I was sitting at a small glass topped table. He walked in and I said, "What are you doing in here? I came in here so the smoke wouldn't bother you!" He sat down and said he had made a mistake. He apologized for putting me through hell. I kept thinking, "I cashed out a fucking CD and took a penalty!" We talked and talked but not about everything, but decided to stay together.

Well we found a nice, but very small apartment (the cracked house was HUGE - hell our bedroom was bigger than some people's living rooms), and were moved in just in time for Kate's freshman year in high school. We lived through a truce of sorts. I didn't disappear anymore. I did go to my bar to play the NTN games on Friday nights when Kate wasn't there and he played his computer games. In September, I told my horrid bosses that I had made a mistake about getting into a regular job and that I was going to go back to freelance, as I was tired of missing so much of my daughter's volleyball games. In October I flew to N.C. for my Dad's retirement party. The first night we went to my nephew's birthday party. The next night was the retirement party where Dad died. At the restaurant. At his retirement party. (But this post isn't about that. That's for another time.) Well, things changed again.

I had to stay in N.C. longer than planned, for obvious reasons. He and Kate wanted to come, but I said no. I did not want her to miss school and frankly I was in a weird place. I realized later that I was suffering from post traumatic stress. When I got back I tried to go back to normal life. I took a short term job doing catalogue imaging for a leather factory and then moved onto some other place that was weird. And I was starting to lose it. I started to have a serious panic attack at the weird place (I have absolutely no memory of what the company was but it was like a bad surreal movie in my memory. All dark, under construction, plastic sheets and what not) and realized that when I changed purses that morning, I did not add my xanax. I went to lunch and had two Zimas. CHUGGED two Zimas, I should say. This was January of 99. Also through this time I had been dealing long distance with my brother over the estate and legal matters and so forth, and also flying back occasionally. Well Art Squad called and asked me how I was doing. I said , "Not so good." They told me that the weird place had smelled alcohol on my breath. I apologized profusely for embarassing the company, told her I had a panic attack, forgot my xanax and asked her what I should have done. She was very nice, but I said, you know what, let me deal with all this estate stuff and I'll call you guys back. Yep that was January 99. I didn't call back.

I spent the next several months doing very little. I drove Kate to school, picked her up and cooked dinner. The rest of my time was spent sitting on the couch, drinking beer, watching TV and bursting into tears every time they showed the chest shock paddle things on TV. And let me tell you, if you're noticing those things you will find they show them on TV shows A LOT. That summer I realized the anniversary of my Dad's death would set me back even further and that's when I got the idea to call Lolo about going to Vegas that October to celebrate Dad. I should also mention that I had a good little bit of money now. I was pretty good. I bought some good furniture and took some trips. Well, now we come to 2000.

As you can imagine, My Sweetie and I were just co-existing at this point as I was in my own little PTS phase and having my inheritance and stuff. Well 2000 came around. I broke my foot. Everything changed. My being helpless totally brought out the Paladin in him. (If you are unfamiliar with the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paladin) To this day I can't put my finger on it, but we totally fell back in love. I sometimes think it wasn't that, but that we maybe fell in love, real love, for the first time. We got married December 2nd 2000. Oh and about the proposal, not one for the books. Here's how it went. We went car shopping for his new car and were discussing buying a house. We pulled into the driveway and he said, "I guess we should get married."

These have been the happiest 5 years of my life. Happy Anniversary Sweetie!!