these boots are made for walking, part one

I left my husband because of a Tracy Chapman song.

Mine is an old story: older man/younger girl with daddy issues, dated for a while (which is an entirely separate post), lived together briefly, got knocked up, and then a shotgun wedding WAY before I should have even been considering marriage. I knew in my heart that it wasn’t forever, but I never thought it would be me who walked out. I always assumed he would eventually get fed up with the whole project. But what else is one to do? I was morally opposed to abortion but too immature and insecure to insist on my boyfriend using protection, a combination that produced the inevitable result. When he told me he wanted to get married if I was going to have the baby (his version of a proposal) and I knew it was a dealbreaker, it didn’t leave me with a lot of options. I couldn’t risk that Mom and Dad would separate themselves from me any further by asking for their help, and I wasn’t confident in my ability to survive on my own with a baby. The Lobbyist says I always do things the hard way, but it never seems that way at the time. I thought I was taking the easy way out.

The relationship took the usual turn. After the Hurricane I couldn’t do physical labor rebuilding, and had no real marketable skills or way to procure decent employment for the few months until the birth, even had anyone been hiring. (I did take a little part time work gift wrapping at a local department store for the holiday season.) He worked two jobs, for little money, and thank God for his parents who allowed us to live rent and bill free in their 2nd home. We did OK though, Mom gradually came around at the thought of a grandchild, and three days after she was born I was at the college registering, and six weeks later I was back to work full time. I was never cut out to be a house wife/stay at home mom (I would argue a mom at all) and eagerly jumped back into the work force. He was ready to take it easy after six months of supporting us both.

My mind turned to the future and our careers. He went to college, taking classes here and there, and I encouraged him to focus on something he wanted to do instead of working just to pay the bills. I had watched my father’s misery while he held a job only to keep the family in the lifestyle he had always provided, and I swore I would never live that way or allow my spouse to either. If he had to take an entry level position to get in somewhere, then so be it - I was making decent money. We didn’t lack for anything, so he took his time finding a job and I didn’t pressure him. Then I wasn’t making such good money, and we were lacking for things, and he still didn’t get a job. Then I got a second job, and he still didn’t get a job. Then I left.

I wish I could say that was the whole story, but it wasn’t. There was some emotional infidelity on my part, some drug use on his, and we were just roommates who rarely even spoke for over a year. (Oh, but I continued to have sex with him, because I didn’t know how to tell him no.) I begged him to go to marriage counseling, but he said we couldn’t afford it. When he wasn’t working. Looking back, I can’t remember when it started or how or why we disintegrated and now it does seem to have happened rather rapidly. We were only married 2 ½ years before separating. He thought I cheated on him for real, which wasn’t happening. Then he thought my (female) best friend and I were lovers, which was ridic. (Why is it that men cannot believe that sometimes you just don’t want to be with THEM? There doesn’t have to be anyone else.) I had been weighing my options, agonizing over should I stay or should I go. Then I was in the car, the radio was on and I heard it,

“Leave tonight or live and die this way.”

I was in my car that day, on my way to work that night, with a laundry basket full of clothes and nothing else. He followed me out to my car and just asked, “You’re not coming back are you?” I mutely shook my head. I had been hoping to have that conversation over the phone. (I already owned up to my immaturity.) He hadn’t seen me sneaking out of the house with the laundry. He just knew. I knew.

It took him two days to get a job. Then he began the campaign to “woo” me back.

Man, if you have to ask what it is, you’ll never know

I am leaving on a jet plane. Friday, to be concise, for an extended weekend visiting an old friend. Labor Day weekend is the second biggest jazz festival (second to nola, so I'm told) in the Windy City and I am on yet again another recon mission.

I know it is not feasible for me to move to Chicago. Or D.C., Seattle, or Denver, or any other places I have been visiting. But I want to experience these places, and see more of the country and that's as good an excuse as any other. I know in my heart I'll end up in the Dallas area, or somewhere in TX, but I'm not nearly as excited about that as I used to be. And I am ever more reluctant to leave my daughter, even as a maybe. But the thought of being here almost another decade while she finishes school is heart wrenching. Which is worse? Leaving her behind, or suffering silently for a total of 20 years? Can I really let my 30s pass me by without fulfilling any of the things I want to do for ME? Some would say that's what I signed on for when I became a mom, but I don't agree. I think that's what's wrong with kids nowadays. Before, parents made their decisions and expected the kids to acclimate themselves to it. Not so anymore.

(quiet reflection)

But I can't be responsible for my child's unhappiness, and if that means staying here, then I will. God, that's depressing.

Don't believe everything you read.

So my faith in all that is American has been attacked today.

To sum up: A friend of mine (more of an acquaintence) was allegedly involved almost a week ago in a domestic violence situation. Nevermind the fact that I read about it in the newspaper - leading me to AGAIN question the quality of my friendship with my "close friends" - but the newspaper got it all wrong, and I know this without even talking to The Accused.

The specific facts aren't important for the purposes of this post, but here are the basics: The Accused's daughter, the one making the report, has a history of poor choices (read: ignorant. Did I mention ignorant?), the most recent of which includes - at age 20- "He said I couldn't get pregnant in a pool." Two and 1/3 kids later, she continues to smoke meth and pot, drink, and then blame "being kneed in the stomach" for the miscarriage. Which no one except the police believes for a minute ever happened. The Accused weighs about a buck soaking wet and smokes a good amount of weed herself, a pastime not known to inpsire much violence, or activity for that matter. I've been around her stoned more often than not, and she's pretty much the silent, giggly type. Not to mention that she wouldn't hurt a fly.

She's not a typical or ideal mother/wife/etc. though and I wonder if that's why, in this backwoods town in the Bible-belt, below the Mason-Dixon line, the "authorities" were so quick to believe the charges. To wit: owns her own home independent of a husband (a rarity in these parts), is a Wiccan, got herself out of an abusive marriage, lost a husband to a drug addiction, and has helped raise, and provide for, her two grandchildren while having a tween of her own. She may not be the poster woman for good clean living, but she has a job, supports her family, and gets along as best she can.

My "come to Jesus" moment happened when I realized how much is left out of one seemingly benign newspaper article. (Benign if it isn't your reputation being maligned.) Where is the reponsible reporting? There was a witness to the entire incident, who was interviewed BY THE POLICE and reported TO THE POLICE that the charges were a falsity almost in their entirety. The newspaper never even contacted her OR The Accused. Granted, the article was true per se in that it covered the original police report, but isn't there an obligation to at least try to get all the facts? Not to mention the fact that the daughter saw a doctor ONE DAY PRIOR to the "incident" who told her that the baby was not viable and she would have to come in for a DNC if nature did not take its course over the weekend. Another doctor at the hospital even stated that he could not confirm the miscarriage happened as a result of the allegations. Where then does the newspaper get the headline," ...woman charged after injuring pregnant daughter, causing miscarriage." (emphasis added)

Add this to the background: The daughter is/was/who knows dating a man - who may or may not be the father -who was shot LAST WEEK and claimed he just thought it was a stomachache. This is six months after he was cleared for shooting a man IN MY APARTMENT COMPLEX in the back in "self-defense." I live in a nice place made up of mostly retirees and military personnel, in a nice town (pun intended) and that's by anyone's standards. Let me be clear: this is a small town, and these things do not happen everyday. This stuff makes headlines and the front pages.

And no one will care, because they will read that she isn't monied, affluent or whatever, and say that where there's smoke there's fire and that she has had legal troubles in the past, and condemn her based on her lifestyle and choices. Innocent until proven guilty, my friends. It's a shame that sounds so trite; no one believes it anymore.

I know, I'm a deadbeat blogger.

I haven't been inspired to write anything of late, and not having a computer at home makes timing problematic.

Until now....