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Super Secret Agent Spy

I am a writer. And a doodler. And an eater of Twizzlers. And the mother of MuShu, the wonder puppy. I love long walks on the beach, fast cars, fine din. . .whoops. Wrong website. . ....

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For the Love of Forgiveness

Amy Fagan

[On the subject of forgiveness. . .please forgive me for not writing for over a week. Between work, work, work and work. . .and now THE FLU, I’ve been down for the count. I’ve missed you ladies terribly and am going to spend the next hour. . .or as long as my flu-riddled vision will hold up, reading and catching up on your lives and musings. Loving you all xoxox]

I have a friend who claims that she is “friends with all of her ex-boyfriends.” She is a bit of a brag about it and slightly belittles the rest of us who haven’t quite the grace to say good-bye without including a certain hand gesture and a hearty “f**k you.”

We do not, of course, have the entire background on the relationships that she’s left behind so peaceably. I wonder, whenever she regales us with stories of happily left lovers, if any of the relationships we passionate, heated or deeply hurtful. I never really know. . .it’s not something she’s shared. I only have one “big breakup” experience under my belt, and that was my first marriage. (High school boyfriends don’t count. I recognized that none of them were an “everlasting” love.)

My first husband came into my life as I was exiting a very difficult time in mine. I met him less than two weeks after my release from an. . .ummm. . .errr. . .institution, having been treated for depression. A girlfriend of mine and her boyfriend, had decided that Dan and I were perfect for each other; that he was perfect for me. They thought that he, in his steady nature, would bring about some safety and peace into my tumultuous life. The night we first met, I ended up with a migraine. I told no one, but informed Briana that we had to leave. As I was leaving, he stopped us in the parking lot of the apartment complex and said “It was really nice to meet you. I hope your migraine gets better.”

I was shocked. I’d told no one about the headache and when I asked, months later, how he knew, he said “I had a girlfriend once who got migraines really bad. You had that same look about you.” Never in my life had I had someone pay that much attention to me. I was 19.

I should’verecognized the foreshadowing of what was to come, considering that our first date was a camping trip to a place called “Rock’s Pond.” He and several of his friends all packed up camping equipment, a tent from Custer’s time, fuel and. . .beer. I didn’t realize until we arrived at the campgrounds that there were no marshmellows for roasting. . .only beer for toasting. No hot dogs, hamburgers. Nothing. I’d been told to bring only my “beautiful self.”

And while I could write a blog about every rotten thing he did to me – the mental and emotional abuse, the manipulation, the demeaning and disrespectful way he treated me after our marriage, I don’t really feel like it. I have no need to relive the crimes he committed against me. Besides, I would then have to acquiesce that I was party to The Demise as well. I mean, how can someone give you what you want when you don’t tell them what you want? Or, when you let them go for so long doing what they do, expect them to change just because you can’t take it anymore?

Depending on the part of his personality I focus on, I alternately dislike and feel an oddly warm sense of kinship with the man-boy I left behind. After all, we were with each other from the ages of 19 until we were nearly 30. And while I don’t think of him every day, I do think of him more than anyone thinks I do.

On bad days, I remember when he said to me “Why can’t you be more like Lale?”, the hippie, earth-mother wife of a friend of ours. I tried to be like her for a while, but it didn’t fit. I’m not like that. Or when he asked me “Why can’t we live that way?” when we exited a luxury yacht full of drunk, horny vacationing crew members (they were in between charters). I remember thinking “We can’t live like that because I’m not like that. . .and why would you want to live such a tacky, scary existence?”

On good days, I think of how he used to make me laugh. I think of how he gave me gifts that only I would understand – a broken piece of glass from the Morris Island lighthouse, shark’s teeth, Gummi Savers, a bracelet made of blue coral hammered into silver; I think of how he asked me to marry him under fireworks on New Year’s Eve. I remember how we used to call this hideous, green, flannel blanket “The Lettuce” and fight over who got more of it when we were cuddling on the V-berth of our sailboat.

More than anything, in those small, fleeting moments that I think of him, I hope that he has found what has made him happy.  I hope that he knows that I don’t hold any of those old ghosts against him. I hope that he knows that I forgive the late nights/not coming home, the drunken tirades informing me that I alone held him back from the life he really wanted. I really do forgive him.

So, while we aren’t exactly friends, I don’t hate him. I don’t miss him. I don’t love him. I don’t think I ever really did. I think I focused more time wanting him to love me, trying to make him love me more so than reflecting on what my true feelings were; ignoring the inevitable fact that we were not compatible; that we were not made for each other. Unto ourselves, we were decent people. Together, we were some kind of toxic mix, poisoning everything around us.

I hope that somewhere in his heart, he’s made peace with me. Although he was the one battering against what bond we’d formed and what ties I’d created throughout our entire relationship, I’m the one who finally fired the fatal shot; I’m the one who said “No more,” in the only way I knew how: With an abundance of coldness and just as much cruelty. 

The truth is, a small part of my soul wants to thank him. I should thank him for being with me and teaching me lessons that are so valuable to me now: I do not take my happiness for granted. Through his behavior towards me, I was able to realize that I am someone worthy of being loved. . .if not by him, by someone who will appreciate my odd quirks and mental short-circuiting. I’velearned that my worth is not reflected in the eyes of my lover, but of my own vision as I see it.

I am not the broken down, insecure girl he met and married. I am a woman who is content with a greater part of her life. I am a person who no longer feels the need to tear someone down in order to feel better about herself. I am no longer a woman who is awash with insecurity the moment I see someone more. . .ahh. . .”domestically suited” to married life than I am. In leaving that relationship, I grew light years and for the most part, like the woman I have become.  . .which is nice, because it’s freed me up to like other people and let them in a little more than I used to.

We are not friends. We are ex spouses. We have no children and thus we have no need to contact each other except on those rare occasions when we bump into each other’s orbit, exchange our pleasantries and move along. I have a wonderful husband whom I actually do love, very, very much. And Dan has a wife that he actually loves very, very much. And I like it this way. It’s not like he “never existed.” It’s more like. . .like the dream of a life I once had.

Not friends. Not enemies. Just people who pass gentle waves of forgiveness in the time it takes the Universe to blink it’s eye. . .and I like it that way.

So, please forgive me if I don’t feel the need to contact him three or four times a year to see “how he is.” Forgive me if I don’t always think of the good things about him. Forgive me for not being like you. . .you who can be pals with your exes. Not everyone works that way. It doesn’t make either of us a better person. It just makes us different.