The Exes

I was going to put this up as a post but I think maybe it should be page. Kind of an open  letter to 4  women that may or may not give a shit. I’ve had an exciting turn of events in my life and I have realized something, and I feel the need to share.

Since I got divorced in 2000 I’ve had 5 girlfriends. Despite the fact that we broke up I really feel enriched for having them in my life. Each of them taught me something about myself and I feel that they are responsible for me being as happy as I am today. I’ve said before that things couldn’t be going better for me if I had written it as a script. These ladies would have to take credit for being the producers.

First there’s Mi Vida. we started dating in Lake Tahoe 2001, but we’ll come back to her. I ended up leaving my job and her in Lake Tahoe, as the restaurant industry post 9/11 was beginning to wear me down. I moved back to Ohio to live with my dad and set about getting a new career off the ground. There I met my dad’s neighbor StaMerri. She and I shared the common condition of lack of fitness and really motivated each other in the Gym. We both saw great results and she really showed me the power of encouragement. Once we both got some new confidence to go with our leaner bodies, we felt each other were the best candidates to get the rewards. We began dating. I saw StaMerri go through some real hardships and experience  severe personal loss. As much as I would like to believe that I helped her through it, the little encouragement I could offer was nothing compared to her overwhelming emotional fortitude. She continued to bounce back and showed me the true power of positivity.  I owe a lot of my personal success to my positive attitude, and I owe my positive attitude to her. I don’t think she’ll ever know how much she gave me. But she did, and for that I’m truly thankful. In 2004 I took my current job back here on the west coast. The distance and some other life events took it’s toll on our relationship. My desire to stay a bachelor was at odds with her biological clock, and it all came to a tearful end late in ‘04.

I decided that my next girlfriend should be some one who shared my passion for motorcycles. Choosing a girlfriend as a calculated move proved to be a mistake as I ended up dating a Raging Thundercunt who taught me nothing but how easy it is for me to be taken advantage of. She gave me my first taste of bitterness. And I hate to say she forced me to fortify my emotional defenses and the next two women that  ended up with me as a boyfriend had a much tougher time getting close to me because of it. Once I excised her cancer from my heart I found The Gift.

She was strong and intelligent and eloquent. She was a rare bay area native. She gave me a fantastic sense of history and a fabulous bit of music. Not like she gave me a stack of CD’s and said “listen to this.” She knew the music. She knew the bands. The simple fact that she introduced me as “My boyfriend [Motoproponent] “ gave me a similar access. Backstage and in various social settings. The ability to sit and chit chat with Vic from the Slackers, who is a true poetic genius is something I would never have gotten to do without her. And I got to do it more than once. Curt from Monkey is fucking Mensa smart, and the kind of intelligent funny that Jon Stewart tries to be. Ray, from the Soul Captives, is a prodigious talent. The Phenomenauts, Go Jimmy Go, Keyser Soze and The Aggrolites are all things I never would have discovered without her. And  bands like The Cat Empire, John Brown’s Body, and Eastern Standard Time are bands that I never would have known without having seen them as opening acts for the other bands. These have become the soundtrack of my life. The tunes of road trips and weekend rides. Music is no little thing, and I can’t express my thanks enough.  Honestly, Thank you very much.

But again my emotional defenses were too fortified. Even someone as true and honest and good as The Gift couldn’t manage to get close to me. She soon detected my detachment, and our relationship came to an end. I tried to make myself feel more for her. I took some drastic financial measures to try to cement her in my heart but I just couldn’t make it stick. I was lying to myself and her. It was over.

I was beginning to feel like I was turning into my dad. A bitter woman hater doomed to perpetual loneliness. Then it was like fate looked up my check list of what a woman should have. Red hair, a lust for two wheels, a sense for adventure. Rugged rough and tumble beauty that looks great in heels. Then I started to see her more often as our social circles intersected. CitizenR and I had a pretty instant attraction. I thought I had gotten over the wall that The Thundercunt had built but no. And as intensely as CitizenR and I started out I felt like it burnt out just as quickly. I have written before about how I had moved into a place but never threw away the boxes because I knew I would be moving again. I was doing the same thing with my relationships. I wouldn’t let myself get too close because I knew that sooner or later they would be ex-girlfriends. This was the fate of my relationship with CitizenR. As good as the good times were, I was incapable of being the boyfriend she deserved. Because she deserves the best. I knew I was going to break her heart. As soon as it was clear to me that I wasn’t going to love her, I ended it. But not before she made a more tangible impact on my life than anyone else. I saw in her, that it was possible to buy a house on your own. She was what galvanized my nerve enough to take the plunge and pull the trigger on the house. Home ownership has been the great pie in the sky for me, and she was the one that let me reach it. In her I was able to see the daily ins and outs of ownership. She did a lot to prepare me for the challenges, even after we broke up. She did nothing less than make a man out of me, at least what I think a man should be. I feel like my house has secured my future and is the cornerstone of my plan to not just make money, but to build some wealth. In the future as I climb the property ladder, and secure the fortune of my future family, and my own retirement, it will be because she showed me how it’s done. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank her enough.

As I moved on with my life I began to suspect that the landscape of feelings in my soul was a barren post-apocalyptic, wasteland. In the grips of an emotional ice age. There was some one else I wanted to date, but she didn’t deserve me as a boyfriend. The same way the humanitarian of the year doesn’t deserve a kick in the teeth. I’m sure she will read this, and I’m sure she knows who she is. It’s like a great tragic story. If you know how it will end, why even turn the first page.

 

I had pretty much given in to the fact that I was destined to be a bachelor. At least for now. I would just concentrate on my job and my house. Just keep plugging away at the goals. Short term and long term. Keep things on track and enjoy my life. I said I would get back to Mi Vida. This is the part where she comes back, literally. We had lost contact with each other 7 years ago when I left Lake Tahoe. The plan back then was that I would be gone a year. I would come back to her a better man with a better job. Having no idea how slowly the gears of the great federal machine turned, this was a very naive plan. When we lost contact I was crushed. I just knew it that she had gone on to bigger and better things, after growing tired of waiting for my naive plan to come to fruition.She moved and her number was no longer the same. My only avenues to reach her were now both dead ends.

Then a short time ago she came out of the blue. Actually she came out of Facebook, but still out of the blue. We talked on the phone, and emailed back and forth, and texted. She came to see me. I went to see her. It felt like the day after the last time I saw her. I began to feel like the nuclear winter of  my emotional tundra was coming to an end. All of a sudden I feel hopeful. I feel vulnerable for the first time, and I like it. I’m even beginning to question my stalwart atheism. I’m beginning to feel like there may be some guiding force. Some great fate or serendipitous plan for us all. What ever it is, this great string of coincidence and happenings, leads to a gift shop in the hotel lobby at the Intercontinental Hotel in Muscat, Oman. I was there in late January, missing her terribly. I saw a little hand woven book mark that said “I love You”. It took finding her, losing her for 7 years, finding her again only to be without her for 2 weeks for it to hit me. And this little bookmark was the hammer that did the hitting.

I love her.

But I would never have known it if I hadn’t broken up with each of you. I wouldn’t be where I am in life, or who I am as a person without the influence of you, my exes. I genuinely thank you.

Jeffrey