We Have to Talk

The Ex and I started marriage counseling in January.  In a way, it was very much like how you see it on television.  We came in and sat down next to each other, facing her.  She asked us about our hopes, our expectations and what we thought our problems were.

The hope was to keep the marriage intact.  The expectation was that counseling would provide us with a neutral arbitrator and medium through which we could express things we were incapable of saying directly to each other.  The Ex thought our biggest problem was this massive communication block we were having; I wasn't so sure but hoped that if we could finally learn to talk to each other again we could talk about what was actually bothering me.

It's no secret that I am more emotional and expressive than the Ex.  I cried for the first three weeks of therapy, apologizing between sniffles while the Ex watched, not unsympathetically.  It was so much easier talking to the counselor about everything.  I felt like I could finally lay all the cards on the table without feeling cowed.  She was a safe zone; my hackles weren't automatically raised when she asked me a question.  There was no sense of needing to immediately defend myself.

I tend to avoid conflicts where I can.  I would much rather agree on some minor point than to have a long drawn out battle.  I don't care where we sit in the movie theatre.  I don't care which appetizer you want to split with me.  It honestly doesn't matter whether you want to open the bottle of Cabernet sauvignon or merlot. Whenever the Ex wanted to talk about our problems, it was like he was assailing me.

Part of the reason why I'm reluctant to argue with people is because people disregard my arguments because they seem emotional.  People try to beat me down with LOGIC.  People have made me feel like a child sometimes, telling me they won't talk to me until I'm no longer heated.  Meanwhile, I think my points are clear and thought out, if a little passionate.  I've always been ashamed of my feelings and my general sense of intuition.  It's difficult to tell coldly rational people why something "just feels right."  I've definitely gotten the impression that some people think I'm flakey.  Is it because I'm a girl? A pretty girl?  Do you not take me seriously because I wear make up and heels?

Sometimes I just feel a certain way and I don't know why.  Sometimes it will upset me when the Ex doesn't do the dishes when he says he will.  He would always have a good reason why: tired from a long day at work, big project coming up - and rationally, I know having dirty dishes in the sink for one more day won't kill either of us.  So why does it make me so unhappy?  I have felt so guilty for being angry that I either tried to completely disassociate myself from my feelings (thus becoming withdrawn) or berated myself until I was even more upset.  I needed to be punished for being upset when somebody else did something that angered me.

Take that, logic.

So it was a very big step forward that I could admit I was not happy with some of the things in the relationship.  It was extraordinarily helpful that the counselor simply acknowledged how I felt without passing judgment.  See - emotions are just this thing, right? They are there and it's okay that they exist.  Ultimately what matters is what we do with them.

I think we were probably this counselor's most insightful couple.  There was no screaming or name-calling.  We walked into her office knowing exactly why we were there.  We knew why we had the communication habits that we did.  What we didn't know was how to become unstuck from these destructive patterns.  The counselor gave us homework.  She made us roleplay.  She had us guess at how the other person felt.  Through all this, it dawned on me that any improvements in our communication style was largely up to me.  After all, I was the one not speaking.

It took a lot of courage for me to start telling the Ex how I felt, particularly when it was negative.  It seemed so counterintuitive to me.  We were having problems; I felt like I should be smothering the marriage in nothing but love and praise.  Instead, I told the Ex everything that made me unhappy despite the sensation I was sabotaging the relationship.   I had so much invested in this, so much to gain and one wrong word felt like I could be dooming it all.  My greatest fear was that I would ask for something and the Ex would be incapable or unwilling to give it to me.  Better not to ask at all, was my thinking; better not to want something that could be ruinous.

But he listened.  I was heartened. 

I wrote a note to the Ex one night and vowed to do what it took to save the marriage.  I left it on his keyboard, where I knew he would see it.  For the first time in months, I was feeling completely optimistic about things.

In Law, Out Law

Before the Ex and I could start marriage counseling, Christmas arrived.  There was no point in starting therapy with the Christmas holidays interrupting the sessions and I secretly hoped that the joyous season would bring us closer together.  We would be visiting family and we would be away from the doldrums of everyday humdrum life.  We would also be staying at our own respective family homes, staying apart from each other.

May absence make the heart grow fonder.

What I was forgetting about was the fact that these festive times tend to do nothing but increase stress.  It was a juggling act spending a fair amount of time between both families and picking and choosing which dinners to attend.  There was the driving from one house to another restaurant to a third pub and then finally to the fourth house.  There was the cold and the snow. We were also harbouring our unspoken burden of the separation from our families.  How normal did I act during those two weeks? 

I think I bore the secret better than the Ex.  My mother stopped me one day after Christmas, and asked me if the Ex was all right.  He was quiet and distant; there was an air about him that he was incredibly unhappy to be at my mother's house. What could I tell her? Absolutely nothing.  I smiled and shrugged and made some lame excuse about him being stressed about work and fighting off a cold; then I drove him home.  I had gotten very used to making excuses on his behalf.  After all, he was hardly by my side at social functions and I was far too independent to stay at home simply because I wasn't being accompanied by a man.

Everybody must have thought his boss was a slave driver.

Did anyone suspect how strange it felt to be smiling in my in-laws' family Christmas photos, knowing this could be the last one with them? There was the realization that if the Ex and I split up, I would miss these people, my in-laws.  They had always welcomed me with open arms; I had never not felt like family with them.  I wasn't just losing a husband - I was losing an entire branch of my family.  I wasn't just fighting to save a marriage, but a family.  I loved these people.  We had been to weddings and funerals. I had driven or flown hundreds of miles to visit them.  We had a history there.  I was in their photo albums!

There's a photograph of the Ex and me at his family's Christmas lunch that sums up neatly the whole Christmas holidays.  I'm sitting on his lap, I'm wearing my wedding ring and I'm grinning.  The Ex has his lopsided smirk but his hands are positioned away from my body and close to his chest, instead of being draped on me in an easy going manner.  We have brave smiles and nobody knows the truth.  We had just had a fight about 15 minutes prior.

There was one day where I did throw my hands up in frustration and thought maybe a divorce wasn't such a bad idea.  It was a big Christmas dinner with my extended family.  Big dinner with lots of food, games, gift exchange and so many options for dessert that I almost wished I hadn't had second helping of the turkey.  The Ex was feeling out of sorts; he pulled me aside at one point and asked if we could leave after dessert.

I glanced at the clock.  Barely past 9 p.m.  The Ex and I have always fought over when is the appropriate time to leave a social event. He wants to leave when it's in full swing and on a high note.  I want to close out the night and drag my arse home after last call.  But I agreed because he had always said I never compromised with him, fighting down the sudden flare of anger that spiked through me.  I saw my extended family perhaps two or three times a year; I cherished every possible second I had with them.  The Ex wanted to cut the night early so he could go home and ...what, play video games with his brothers?

Dessert took longer than expected.  It took time to get everybody assembled at the table.  It took time to individually cut the pieces of cakes and pies, to dole out the ice cream, to pass around the platter of homemade cookies.  By the time dessert had finished, it was nearly an hour later and the Ex was sitting at the table, head in hand and completely disengaged. 

It was mortifying and humiliating.

I made some excuse as to why we had to go, thanked my hosts for a lovely evening and bundled us off in the car.  There was a stony silence as we drove down the dark and snowy highway.  What I did say to him came out in short, clipped tones.  The 20 minute drive seemed to take forever and it was only exacerbated by the storm outside; when we finally reached his house I was so relieved.  Relieved that we had made it safely and relieved that he was exiting my car.

Because I turned around and drove right back to the party, snarling and hands clutching the steering wheel for dear life.  "Well!" I thought to myself. "If I die in a car crash on the way back to the party, I'm blaming him."

The Ex was right. I was incapable of compromising.  But these people meant too much to me and I saw the situation as win/win.  He got to go home and I could return to the party and be with my family.

This was my sticking point.  This was probably what caused me the most grief in the marriage.  But I felt so incredibly shallow.  I knew, in my heart of hearts, that the Ex was a kind, loving, generous man with so much love and support to offer me.  He had always been there for me, when I really needed him.  He had held me in countless nights while I cried, or fretting, or worried, or just complained.  He was just a bit of a loner.  Was I willing to give up a man with all his good qualities because I wanted a friend to go drinking with?  After all, I wasn't going to be a wild party-girl forever...right?

Or was I allowed to want something too, no matter how frivolous and shallow and petty and silly?

I was never happier to see a holiday season end.  Merry freakin' Christmas.

You Never See the Bullet That Kills You

November 15th 2009.

That's the date that everything changed.

The Ex and I had been having problems - on and off for a few months.  We had had our biggest fight back in August.  Maybe I should have been more alarmed by how things were, but a lot of the shifts I attributed to the natural fading of the honeymoon glow combined with the fact that the Ex and I were living together, in a different city and away from home for the first time. 

If that's not a period of adjustment, I don't know what is.

There was more to it than that and the Ex saw it all - or perhaps he wasn't content to settle for what was.  Part of the problem seemed to be that we just couldn't communicate as effectively as we once did.  This was highly frustrating for two people who used to be able to talk endlessly for hours upon hours.  I would often come home from school, stressed and the fact that some minor chore hadn't been done would turn my mood for the worse.  The Ex can read me like a book; he can tell by how emotionless my face becomes, the slight downturn of my mouth, the hardening of my eyes and the deceptively cool, passive expression that I'm livid.

Being a talker, he'd always would want to talk about it.  His first girlfriend had always said never to go to bed angry.

Being a secretly tempermental person, I would want a cooling off period.  I was always afraid of saying something I would regret in a heated moment when I lost my temper.  I can be so very mean so I'm constantly reining myself in, checking myself.  I'm also very careful about the fights and issues I do choose to bring up.  Not everything is a big deal; not everything is worth fighting over.  Being ruled by emotional whims all my life, I've learned that some days, when my mood is black - one dirty sock left on the floor will trigger nothing short of an avalanche of anger.  Other days, I wouldn't notice an entire hamper of dirty laundry in the middle of the bedroom floor.  I've learned to wait, to see if the stormy feelings would pass - or not.

The Ex took my silence to mean I was avoiding the problem so he would press the issue.  I would further retreat.  He would question me, with the good intention of resolving things amicably.  I'd glower at him, feeling attacked and feeling like my wishes not to talk were not being respected.  We fed into each other's biggest annoyances.

I was sitting on the couch, laptop on the coffee table in front of me.  It was about 2 a.m.  The Ex had gone upstairs to try to get some sleep about an hour earlier but I heard his footfalls as they thumped down the steps, back into the living room. 

He was carrying himself in an odd manner.  "What's wrong?" I asked.  While he could read me like a book, I wasn't entirely clueless about him either.

The Ex hesitated for the briefest of a second.  I remember he looked at me and his whole body language changed.  He almost seemed defeated, like he had been caught red-handed and cornered.  He told me, as he walked towards me on the couch:

I'm not happy; I don't think this is working out...

I actually don't remember hearing his exact words but I remember feeling them.  I remember how this coldness hit me in the middle of my chest, right above the breastbone and radiated outwards.  My arms were heavy and numb; the outside world was buzzing a little in my ears.  The cheap Ikea lamp was suddenly too bright as to make the room hazy.  The Ex was sitting next to me on the couch now and I managed to croak out, "Are you asking for a separation...?"

He looked taken aback at my question, as if he had only planned on telling me he wasn't happy without further thought into the next step, but he replied in the affirmative.

I burst into tears. 

That's truly the only way to describe it.  Any ounce of pride or strength withered as I broke beneath the weight of the news.  The shock of it all struck me like a blow to the face; it left me reeling.  I was gasping, between sobs, "I can't believe this is happening. Oh my God. I can't believe this is happening."

I really couldn't.

This was all wrong.  All wrong.  It wasn't supposed to turn out this way.  When I married him, there wasn't a whisper of doubt.  I was sure.

Divorce is something that happens to other people.  Not me.  Not to us.  It never occurred to me that divorce was even a possibility.  Sure, we had our problems but I never thought it was that bad.  We had never had the screaming rows, we never threw things at the other - we were never blazingly angry at the other. 

But that's why it was deceptive.  You don't need a relationship to shatter under the hammer-like force of one fight. It can be ruined by a slow, steady erosion as well - a wind which slowly wipes away the details of why you were together in the first place.  Somehow, when I wasn't looking and paying attention, the Ex and I had drifted apart so badly that he wanted out.  They say you have to work hard to keep a marriage together.  I always thought that's what I had been doing: I cooked him his favourite meals, I did the laundry, I went grocery shopping.  I thought I was being a stellar example of a prototypical 1950s housewife, apron, iron and all.

But it's not what he wanted.  He didn't care about the carefully planned dinner or the immaculately folded shirted.  The Ex wanted an emotional companion; he would have been perfectly happy eating bagels for the rest of his life if it meant we could have stimulating and challenging discussions when he came home from work.  He would have been happy wearing rumpled T-shirts if it led to fewer chores and more free time.  I thought I could do both and have an efficient household and be a loving wife, but the former often left me totally exhausted and incapable of doing the latter.

What did I want? I wanted the life that was consciously stitched together.  Good clothes. Good food.  Good times.  I wanted us to feel assembled, pulled together; a young, ambitious power couple.  The lawyer and the doctor.  For whatever reason, I had assumed that once we moved to The Big City, the Ex would become an urban explorer with me.  We would go to museums, and cafes and see shows.  Fine dining would be involved, possibly shopping at quirky boutiques.  We would grow and blossom in this city together.  Instead, I found myself heading to cafes alone and going to off-Broadway shows with Robby.  Reflecting back on it now, I understand it was unfair of me to expect such a drastic change from the Ex - why would I have married one man and expect him to turn into somebody completely different?  He had never once, in the years we had been together, shown a disposition for constantly going out.  He was a homebody.  But he was my homebody and now I was losing him.

I cried for well over an hour, leaving The Ex to try to console me with the suddenly new limitations on our relationship.  How much could he hold me without it crossing the boundaries?  I didn't think I would ever stop bawling; I was shaking so hard, hunched over and hugging my knees.  A mountain of crumpled tissues built up around me.  I kept thinking back to the wedding, the 200 guests, the vows, the pomp and circumstance - what did all that mean in the end? Nothing?  How would I be able to face anybody, ever again?  The deep mortification that I had failed in such a spectacular and public manner loomed.  The label of ex-girlfriend doesn't carry the permanency of Divorcee. First Wife. Starter Marriage.

Failure.  That's what I was.  I couldn't even get my marriage right.

When I calmed enough to speak without hiccoughing, we discussed logistics.  We agreed nobody would move out; we even agreed to continue sharing a bed.  But most importantly - we agreed to seek counseling before anything drastic and final took place.  This calmed me the most; I was sure I could wrestle this relationship back from the brink.  You just don't toss away something special and we had something special.

If I hadn't been working hard and fighting for my marriage before - dammit, I was going to do it now.  I just hope it wasn't too late.

Wreck of the Day

Wreck of the Day

I was a wreck by the end of the summer.  I forced myself to constantly go out to movies, and pubs; restaurants and parties.  I made myself to do things, even though the only thing I wanted to do was lie there and die there.  Less thinking, more moving. People always say that time heals all wounds so I thought if I threw myself mindlessly into activities, enough time would pass and I would wake up one morning feeling like my old self.

If you go through my photo album from last summer, you'd be amazed at how much I did. I didn't turn anything down.  I drove myself to the point of exhaustion because that was the only way I could sleep at night.  I have flipped back through my calendar from those four months and there's nothing but scrawled dates and times, people and places.

But with the close of summer, and the approaching school year, I realized I wasn't feeling much better at all.  I worried that I was wearing out my welcome with my friends - after all, I had been so emo with them for months.  No - it was time to seek professional help before everybody decided they were fed up with my lack of discernible progress.  Apparently, you have to do more than just bide your time.  Apparently healing is an active process.

Like most people who are thinking about going into counseling, there's a moment where you have to check your pride.  Bess had never believed in therapy and head-shrinking; she thought depression was a load of baloney that you could overcome by sheer willpower alone.  Of course, this was a girl who was so mentally tough that she had actually watched a friend get shot and die in front of her and never even once considered talking to the grief counselors they had on staff.    A part of me felt incredibly soft for finally caving and admitting I needed help.

But so many others told me that I was actually pretty strong for admitting it and getting the help I needed to get over it and get on with my life.  In a way, it would be a lot easier to wallow eternally than to face all my issues directly.  Going to therapy means dredging up all the things from the murky bottom of your brain.  And if you want your therapy sessions to actually be productive, it means being scarily honest about what you want, what you feel and what you think. 

I think over the years, I'd gotten very good at lying to myself. 

So I entered therapy the way I do everything else in life: feet first, 100%, determined to be the best patient ever.  The first month of therapy I didn't do much beyond tell the therapist my sob story and cry.  I told her everything - about the Ex, John, Bess, Heather, Robby - and beyond.  Because what had shaken me wasn't just the loss of those relationships but how I was completely shook up at all.  Three years ago, I stepped into this new phase of my life confident and fearless.  And now I was quailing on a therapist's couch; I grieved as much for the loss of my imperviousness as the loss of people.  I went through boxes and boxes of tissue; it got to the point that I began bringing make up remover to my sessions so afterward I could wipe the raccoon-eyes off my face before heading to class.  I surprised myself at how much I could still feel about everything.  It had been months of repression and pushing everything aside; you would think something would have faded by now.

Every fear, concern, paranoia, wish, desire, thought, feeling was dragged kicking and screaming from the dark recesses of my mind and held up against the scrutinizing light of day.  There was something about saying these things aloud, with somebody else in the room whom I could trust entirely - it made everything more real.  But in making it more real, it made it flesh and blood and mortal instead of undefeatable skeletons and shadows lurking in my closet. 

There was the more sinister side of bringing everything to the forefront all at once, of course.  You list and then detail every disappointment and hurt of the past three years in a few hours and it suddenly seems unbearably overwhelming.  Having all my anxieties displayed on a table at once, like some poisonous feast, was one of the reasons why I had decided to kill myself in October.  It just all seemed to pointless; even if I could put all this energy into getting better, was it even worth it?

Even when you're at your own personal low, you can always go lower.  Life doesn't get better; you just solve one problem after another so it only seems like it's improving by comparison.  Instead, you're really just running on a treadmill that is slowly speeding up.

You could say I tripped and fell.

You can't reason with me when I'm feeling suicidal, which has to be extremely frustrating to those people in my life who are coldly and robotically logical.  Rational thoughts and well-timed arguments don't work because I'm driven by something purely emotional and primal.  It's this maelstrom of energy I need to get out of me.  I get annoyed when people attempt those tried and true phrases; I know they mean well and I know they don't know anything else to say.  I know those phrases are tried and true for a reason.  I know words are sometimes a poor substitute for a hug or a physical presence but in this day of texting and instant messaging and emails - it's sometimes all we have.  But it feels like I'm screaming at the top of my lungs and all people can do is paste fake plastic smiles on their faces.

Brock was the man who gave me the words that gave me pause.  He was the only one who knew of my plans and he said very simply, "I don't agree with it, but I understand."  He didn't try to force feed me unicorns and happiness, hope wrapped up in ribbons.  He didn't try to spin me 'round til I found the light at the end of the tunnel. He wasn't condescending; he didn't try to guilt trip me into staying.  It can feel like those who are not suicidal are flaunting their 'happy to be alive' status when they perkily tell me that there is so much worth living for.  You can tell me until you're blue in the face but I will never see it, I will never process it and I will never take it to heart. Sunshine can be unbearable for those hung over; I felt hung over by my existence and the last thing I wanted or needed was somebody yanking the curtains back. Brock just let me rant and rail until it was exhaustion that took me to sleep instead of my own hand taking me to a deeper peace.

Like a dutiful patient, I told my therapist about my decision.  Alarmed, she referred me to a physician, who prescribed Wellbutrin.  Suicide became less of a pressing need and was relegated to the background, like a dull buzzing in the recesses of my mind.  Any extremes in affect was blunted; the drug just didn't let me get helplessly sad.  I don't think I'll ever completely banish these thoughts and feelings.  I suspect they stem from a deeper need of mine to be in control of my ultimate destiny, but it's no longer driving me at 100 miles an hour over the edge of the cliff.  My foot might be on the gas pedal some days but I know how to brake - even if it's at the last minute.

Inhale

My pillow misses your scent
Aftershave pulling memories through the woven thread
Mingling with soap on skin on a Sunday morning
It's the only part of your touch that lingers
When the ghost of you slips from my grasp
Into the hurrying dawn

Once Bitten, Forever Shy: Part 5

Part 5: You Deserved Better, Maggie

Of all the relationships and friendships I've had end in the past few years, this one is probably the one that I deserved the most.  The details aren't important and probably would be far too disjointed to explain fully.  The key thing to understand is that I lied and betrayed one of my closest friends.  The intentions were good, or at least I was telling myself this; I told myself I was protecting her.  In the end, Maggie was rightfully hurt that I underestimated her own strength and resilience.  I should have told her the truth and then let her decide what to do with the information and dealt with the fall out, one way or the other.


Maggie forgave me but it was clear we could never go back to our tightly knit bond.  Some things, while forgiveable, may never be forgettable.  Some things strike the very core of a relationship and an infinite number of apologies won't help.  I'm Canadian and I say "I'm sorry" as part of my national greeting; even those proffuse offerings will never fix my friendship with Maggie.

As children, we're often told by our parents to go apologize for something hurtful we've done and just as often, the parents of the corresponding child will tell their own child, "Ok, say it's all right and now you guys go back and play." 

"I'm sorry for pulling on your ponytail."
"I'm sorry for wrecking your sand castle."
"I'm sorry for taking your toy."

But as adults, "I'm sorry" isn't a magical incantation that will erase the wrongdoings of the past.  We're taught to say I'm sorry and too often we assume that we'll be forgiven and things will go back to the way they were.  But this time,  I can't run back to the playground with her.  No take-backs.  No resets. No restarts.  No reloads.

But since I deserved it, I'm not asking for your pity.  It's a hard lesson to learn. It's a hard friendship to lose.

I think all this comes with the territory of being an adult.

Once Bitten, Forever Shy: Part 4

Part 4: Dear John

Dear John,

It's been over a year since we've spoken in person.  What closure I had hoped to get is no longer necessary, which is the only reason why I can write this letter to you - a letter of course, that I will never send you but will instead post on the internet for all those curious enough to read.

We were never supposed to fall in love - not you and I.  We made about as much sense together as fire and water or predator and prey.  Being together meant one of us getting consumed by the other and we always knew it would be me as the victim.  You were always too dominant for it to work any other way and I always wore my naked heart on my sleeves for all to see.

You were the exact opposite of any man I'd ever been interested in.  It fascinated me and you knew this and you used it to your advantage.  I didn't mind because it gave me everything I ever thought I'd wanted and everything I thought I'd needed to move forward with my life.  I had never been with a man who worked in the glossy glass high rises of the downtown, who fitted himself into suits and ties with professional ease.  I had never been with a man who always brought flowers, wine or chocolates when he made a social call. I had never been with a man who would take me to dimly lit Italian restaurants and who never expected I do the fake reach for my wallet.  To do so would be an affront to your chivalrous, masculine upbringing. I loved that you were tall and broad shouldered; even in my stiletto heels which clicked smartly on the marble floors next to you, I was never taller than you.

It would have been easy to think that I was nothing more to you than mere arm candy or a prize on two long legs if you hadn't been genuinely happy around me.  Can you fake that?  Can you fake the evaporating stress and worries that you always displayed when you were with me?  I saw what you were like at the office.  I saw what you were like with your friends.  I saw what you were like at the grocery store.  And you were so different around me - you laughed with a big booming ease and your lopsided grin never left your face.  There was a tenderness when you touched my face and an eagerness to please me that would have surprised those who knew you as the Big Bad Suit.  I could soothe the beast that was in you.

You always said the sweetest things.  What was it that you said that one cold afternoon in the park as we both clutched our coffees to keep our fingers warm?  That you had lived around the world and had met thousands of girls but none were as amazing as me.  I stared into your earnest baby blue eyes and believed it all.  You had this feral, animalistic gaze that always left me pinned and helpless; our first kiss left us both flushed and breathless as our hands scrabbled for purchase on shirts, and necks, hair and lapels.  You carried around a raw power; you had a presence that commanded.  I was willingly under your spell.

But I never seem to go for the easy ones. The catch here was that you were seeing another woman at the same time as me.  So as amazing as you thought I was and as perfect a girlfriend as you claimed I was, it was never enough for you.  You had your reasons of course and I sometimes think some of my demons of this past year came from you.  You came from a conservative religious family and the fact that I was divorced was an indelible stain on the white sheets.  In a society where people marry and divorce with frightening impunity, my post-marital status was for the first time a problematic stigma.  You once admitted you would have a problem with being the second husband.

Very well.  We had what we had, whatever it was.  I never wanted you to stop seeing the other girl.  I knew I would never marry you nor would I be so foolish as to seriously consider a long term relationship with you.  You were charming, intelligent and funny and I didn't trust you further than I could throw you - which wasn't very far at all.  And yet - despite both of our cautions not to take whatever it was we had to the next level, we somehow both tripped and fell and lost our grip on our promises.

When did it happen for you?  It happened for me late one night, on the phone with you. I was curled up on my couch and we talked about those nothings and everythings that lovers talk about in the wee hours of the night.  You were using the soft, private voice that you only used around me and I could feel myself slipping and protesting all the way. No no no no - I can't fall for you like this, not this hard.  The first rule of having a fling is not to fall in love!  This is such a bad idea, a terrible idea, the worst ever.

Whoops.  A mistake, but not a regret.

I don't know when it happened for you but I know when you told me.  It was after a cocktail party and we were both suffused with enough alcohol that you were struggling to take your black dress shoes off and I had tossed my jacket on the back of the kitchen chair because coat hangers just seemed so damn complicated.  You were staying over because the trains had stopped running hours before and we both didn't have anywhere to be in the morning.  You were lying on my couch and I was sitting beside you, and we were going through the photographs I had taken of the evening while we waited for our tipsy buzz to subside.  I put the camera down on the coffee table and smiled down at you when suddenly you sat up and pressed your forehead against mine.  Your voice was thick and fervent, low and throaty as you said hoarsely, "I love you."  There was no more speaking after that.

A spontaneous albeit drunken declaration.  I would have dismissed it as an inebriated confession had you not repeated those three words the very next morning, stone cold sober.  I replied in kind.  You hugged me and then went back to your condo. 

I basically never saw you again.

We live in a society of easy and virtually limitless methods of communication and you were silent to me on all fronts.  For the first week, I was in denial and blamed your work schedule.  Hadn't you said you were involved in a merger? A deal about to close?  Didn't you say there was a big shareholders meeting? Was it the fiscal year end?

By the second week, it was clear you were avoiding me.  It takes less than a minute to send a text hello.  Before, even when you were at your busiest, you always contacted me at least once a day.  It destroyed me in a way I vowed never to be hurt - but oaths are meaningless against the heady rush of being in love.  This was a runaway train and the best I could do was hang on for my dear, sweet life. 

I hung on. For weeks, I kept hoping.  Then when hope faded and became bitter, I moped and mourned something I wasn't even sure had truly existed.  I went through the motions of life, hiding my wounds as best I could but I was unspeakably devastated.   You had cleft me into two and my ghost circled my still living corpse - angry, hurt, confused and unable to move on.  There could be no closure when you steadfastly refused to answer even my most innocuous correspondence.

When you had joked one evening that you loved spoiling me and would ruin me for other men, I had no idea how true this would be.  You ruined me but not in the way we both assumed.

It took me almost another year before I trusted myself enough to re-enter the world and not flinch under the attention of men.  It took months before I could walk past our favourite spots without feeling the pangs and seeing the wisps of a once happy couple.  I cried until my body threatened to throw up what meagre meal I had managed to eat; alternatively, I would stare at my bedroom ceiling blankly while the dark hours whittled away.  I'll never really know why you left as abruptly as you did.  I've ventured a few guesses and mutual friends have their own theories; I have long suspect however that you aren't even sure why you left. 

But I think you were afraid.  I think you were afraid of what it meant when we both finally admitted our feelings aloud.  It terrified you that this would signal an irrevocable shift in our relationship - and one you could not handle.  It would mean you would have to choose between me and the other girl; it would mean introducing me to your family.  It would mean traveling down a path you never thought would make you happy but did.  You were never good at pursuing what truly made you happy and instead did what others said would make you happy.  I always knew I was a forbidden thing to you and then when the temptation was too great, you fled.

I rocked your world and turned it upside down.  So you left in the most cowardly way you could.  You know this and I know this.  I know by the way you won't meet my eye when we bump into each other at parties.  I know by the way you'll always hover near me while I'm conversing with our friends but never join the circle.  Your presence has somehow diminished; you're not as shiny to me as you once were.  Time and friends and a lot of introspection sewed me back together; I'm changed because of you but I would never want to go through love and not come out the other side unchanged.

Last I heard, you had asked the other girl to marry you.   I wish you both nothing but happiness. Good luck with that.

All the best,
Artemis

Once Bitten, Forever Shy: Part 3

Part 3: Friends With No Benefits Robby


I should have seen it coming with Robby.   I should have suspected that a man couldn't possibly be that nice to me without ulterior motives - but at the time, I was in a long term relationship and then later married to the Ex.  Robby knew about the Ex of course; there had been full disclosure.  I had always been clear that he was a friend and nothing more.  I don't make it a goal to lead men on; I derive no satisfaction from toying with hearts.

This isn't to say that I didn't cherish Robby.  We always had what I affectionately dubbed "Ar&R" time - adventures around the city where we'd go to the opera, attend a gallery opening, grab ice cream together.  We had an easy going chemistry where dinners together were marked by non-stop chatter and peals of laughter.  We often strategized over his love life - here was a fellow who was sweet and intelligent and kind beyond compare and he was single?  It seemed like he was completely incapable of catching a break when it came to girls.

Who knew that I would soon be counted among this crowd. 

Perhaps I had underestimated a person's ability to hope.  Perhaps I had underestimated the temptation of unrequited love.  Perhaps I had underestimated how tenacious these unresolved issues can be.  All I know is that a month after the Ex and I announced the Big D, Robby came over one night with sushi and a movie.  Like all of our dinners, it was amusing, enlightening and entertaining.  Robby was a solid presence in my life who provided thoughtful and sensitive words whenever the world spun out of control from beneath my feet.

Robby was telling me about his current girlfriend.  They had been serious for quite a few months and in two months time, she would be moving to town and moving in with him.  They had been quarreling lately and it had him worried; Robby always knew that if she moved in with him, he would marry her - whether out of some sense of nobility, duty or guilt that he had caused a girl to uproot and move 1000 miles to be with him - I'm not sure.  We attacked the problem from various angles: were they fighting because of the upcoming stress of the move?  Were they fighting because she had just quit her job in anticipation of the move?  Were they fighting because Robby was overwhelmed at work?  We nitpicked at the words exchanged and the sentiments behind them.

Towards the end of the evening, Robby broached the subject in a different manner.  "I think..." he said slowly, "I think we've been fighting more since you said you and the Ex were breaking up."

My eyebrows shot up incredulously. "Really..." I looked at him warily. "Why's that?"  The Divorce was still so fresh in my mind along with all the stigma attached to it that I was sensitive to being blamed for other couples' woes.  After all, I had read that study that said that friends of a couple going through a divorce are more likely themselves to go through a divorce.  I felt like my divorce was this pink elephant in the room, stomping petulantly on everyone's daisy fairytales.

Robby seemed to struggle with himself temporarily.  I could see the conflict flit across his face but he soldiered on. "Because I think subconsciously I'm trying to sabotage the relationship."  He faltered and that slow creeping feeling of dread started working its way up from the pit of my stomach.  "When you married the Ex, I thought that was the end of my chances.  When you told me that you were going to stay with him despite the problems, I decided that I couldn't wait around anymore so that's when I went out and started dating seriously. That's when I met Annie. And now...now I don't know..."

He looked at me like I had answers, instead of just staring at him, dumbstruck and dumbfounded as the dread crawled into my throat.  Robby plowed on, "I've loved you since I met you. You have always been the number one girl in my life."  My mouth was dry and my tongue was numb.  He added passionately, the coup de grace, "You're perfect to me.  I know I could offer you everything those other guys did and more. I'm better at everything they can do.  I could make you happy."

There was that unspoken question in the air.  I heard it. I felt it.  It was thick between us, as it hovered over the half-eaten meal and the chopsticks poised mid-air.  The dread was heavy on my brain. It didn't seem quite real, as I answered him.  I almost stepped outside my body; I sounded rehearsed. "I'm sorry...I just...don't feel that way about you."  So cliched.  He had just poured his heart out to me, left it a quivering bloody mess next to the sashimi, and all I could give him was this line. 

A part of me desperately wished that I could feel that way about him - after all, we did get along fabulously and he fit the laundry of list of what makes a good partner, mate, spouse.  But something was missing - something that I yearned and searched for almost to the extent of overlooking otherwise glaring flaws.  That spark, that click, that intangible that I sought in a lover.  It's not something that can be cultivated or groomed or developed.  It's a lightning strike or it's not.  My breath didn't catch when he looked at me.  My cheeks didn't flush when he flashed me a coy smile.  There was no surge of feeling when he was near.  There were no butterflies; there weren't even caterpillars.

Robby nodded slowly, his face a carefully constructed calm disappointment.  "I know.  And you can't change how you feel.  You just do."  Even after I'd struck the fatal blow, he was as understanding as ever.  "I'm sorry I turned into another one of your friends who fell for you but...you have this way - Artemis, men can't help but fall in love with you.  You're too nice and it's going to get you in a lot more trouble in the future."

Robby stood, "I have to do something...and I'm sorry, but if I can't be with you, then I can't talk to you anymore. I have to focus on my relationship with Annie and I can't, if you're in my life."

Ever had a friend break up with you? How do you respond to that?  There's no guidebook so I did my best to navigate these unusual, murky waters.  "I understand. And I want you to know that if you ever decide you want to talk to me again, I'll be here. And...and...I won't even make it difficult or awkward for you.  You know I'm good at that!"  I somehow thought that by making it easier to come back to me, he wouldn't leave in the first place.

Robby's lips quirked into a smile, a half of one, and the corners of his eyes crinkled up. "No, I want you to make it hard for me.  I don't deserve to be completely forgiven for what I'm doing.  No real friend would do this."

He left the apartment then and I watched him leave. What do you say? Have a nice life? He left me contemplating what had just happened, over smushed wasabi and spilled soy sauce. 

Did it hurt? It did. In the stream of abandonment I was going through in those few short weeks, this was another.  Did I understand? I completely did so I could not begrudge him his actions.  Did I hope he'd come around soon?  Of course I did - but it has been over a year since and the only time I heard from him was a short and sweet text sent to me on my birthday.  It has been effective radio silence.

But beyond that, what he had said about men falling in love with me haunted me.  Had I brought all this upon myself?  Could I save myself headaches and heartaches in the future if I was just colder and quieter?  Could I protect all those hapless enough to encounter me by never responding to texts or emails or Facebook pokes?

But was it my responsibility to do all this?  It took me days of mulling this over before the thought that I had to change who I was in order to save others from themselves made me bristle.  I am who I am and I am a friendly, warm, generous, patient and effusive person.  To be anything or anyone else would be denying myself and I would be cheating all those who would get to know me in the future from knowing the real me.  How is that better than lying, even if the intentions were noble?

So I remained friendly, warm, generous, patient and effusive and yes it's gotten me into trouble since his dire warnings but it's worth it for knowing I can be myself and knowing I can deal with the consequences - the good, the bad and the ugly ones.

Once Bitten, Forever Shy: Part 2

Part 2: It was Tough Loving Bess

I'm not writing about these people in any particular order - just as their stories come to me.


For a while, Bess and I were joined-at-the-hips-finish-each-other's-sentences kind of best friends.  Until I befriended her, it had been a few years since I had a bosom buddy that was female; the majority of my close friends had always been male.  So when Bess and I met and became fast friends, it was like I had found the Carrie to my Miranda.  Bess was interesting in all the best ways; she did fascinating things with her time and never shied away from any adventure or new experience.  Spending time with her was like walking around a movie set and being the star of a music video.  She gave off this magnetic aura and I was so happy she wanted to be my friend.  She was the kind of girl that every guy wanted and every girl wanted to be.

But our friendship was never punctuated by jealousy.  I never actually wanted to be her (sometimes it's more fun to hear the stories of a wild life, than to actually live it); what I cherished was how understood I felt when I was around her.  We were on the same wavelength.  Here was a girl with whom I could talk about every topic from shoes to the ethics of New Age religions.

I'm not really sure where things went wrong but they went wrong in a rather colossal sense.  It wasn't like our friendship skidded into a ditch; it ended up being a 15 car pile-up on the freeway with casualties on both sides.  I feel sorry for all of our mutual friends, because the implosion of our friendship tore a closely knit group of comrades apart.

We had had minor tiffs before and the usual disagreements between friends, and at first it seemed like all could be forgiven and forgotten.  Bess and her boyfriend split up after 5 years of living together and I was there with her every step of the way through her break-up: when she was thinking of getting back together with him, when she was looking for a new apartment, when she moved, when she started dating again. 

But it was impossible to deny that she had gotten a touch meaner after her split.  Understandable yes; but was she justified in taking it out on me, I'm not entirely certain.  Suddenly everything I was doing was not quite good enough for her.  She became the master of 'negging', or giving backhanded compliments, all wrapped up in a joke or sarcasm, so I could never actually call her on it.

I bought a winter hat that I really liked - just a simple black floppy beret. If you've seen me the past 2 years, you've probably seen me wear it.   I told Bess about my purchase and her immediate response was, "Ugh I hate those hats.  It's so trendy, all those girls in the magazines are wearing them."

Uhhh thanks?

She always looked down on my modeling, saying that I wasn't an artist like her and that a model had no input into the creative process - after all, all I had to do was stand there and look pretty for the camera.

Excusemewhatthefuck?

I would change my profile photo on Facebook and she would respond with some kind of jokingly scathing comment, about how my clothes made me look cute but like I was 12, or how the angle of my face made it look like I had been gorging on potato chips haha lol j/k.  She hated all the art I put up in my apartment because it was either popular, made me look like a poser, made me look like I was just jumping on the bandwagon, or it wasn't made by a real artist.

What really ended the friendship for me however, was after the Ex announced he wanted a separation.  I tearfully went to her, to try to talk it out - to try to glean answers.  Why was he leaving me?  Why was my marriage ending? Was it my fault?  Bess gave me some dodgy answers about my behaviour; she claimed I was just a child playing house and I was not very mature so it was no surprise that my marriage was ending.  Her comments gave me pause; and then I very calmly asked her if she respected me.  I suppose it had been building up to this point all along. Bess responded very simply that she didn't respect me.

I'm not certain what was hurting more at that moment: the impending divorce or losing a best friend in your hour of need. People expect divorces; people don't expect best friends to jump ship on them so suddenly.  You know what to do when a boyfriend leaves you but who do you go to when a best friend breaks up with you?  I suddenly could not stand to be talking to her anymore so I told her we should take a break from our friendship until I got my life sorted out.  Even after she had hurt me so much, I still took the onus for ending the friendship.

Bess was incredibly upset by this, which surprised me.  Why would you want to be friends with a person you did not respect?

We attempted a few times to reconcile our friendship.  Bess explained to me that she felt I was a child because I had never lived alone before and I hadn't moved out of my parents house until I was 26, whereas she had moved out at 18.  Because of this, she was of the opinion that I was a weak, needy and dependent person.  She had the gall to tell me it was all right and she would still love me even if I was weak, needy and dependent so long as I would stop selling myself as a strong, independent woman and be true to who I was.  Bess further explained that she felt I was not committed to our friendship because I was unwilling to do the hard things, like be tough on her and tell her to suck it up, princess.

It was almost amusing sitting there and defending my notion of what made a person strong, if my blood wasn't boiling over.  I told her about being with my father through out his battle with cancer and staying by his side when he died.  I explained to her there were different methods of being a listener: some people were problem solvers, others were empathisers.   I never told her what to do because I have faith people know what is the best course of action for themselves, deep down and that my role as a friend was to be there no matter what a person decides.  I explained that my decision to live at home was a smart one economically as I was able to save on 8 years worth of rent and move out completely debt free.

I was on trial and she was my judge, jury and executioner.

This was when I realized that Bess' framework of what an appropriate life was fairly narrow. It was her way or the highway.  When we were in sync with one another, it was easy to get along with her.  All my decisions mirrored her philosophies.  But whenever I struck out on my own, I was wrong.  I was vastly unhappy in this relationship; it was bordering on abusive by now.  For the sake of my own sense of self-worth, I had to walk away.  It had to be a clean break with no further communications.  After all, any explanation to her would continue to treat her like she was a parole officer who deserved a reason for seemingly truant behaviour.  I could never win with her and I knew it.  If I told her I felt she was being cruel to me, her response would have simply been that she was being honest and it was my fault for not having a thick enough skin.  It never occurred to her that there could be different 'right' ways to live a life.

Bess attempted to contact me a few additional times, once apologizing for how she treated me. She explained that she held all of her friends to the same standard that she held herself and that she couldn't blame her friends for failing to live up to her perfect standards.  Then she berated me for not responding to her Facebook messages, saying she was sure I would find some twisted way to justify my behaviour to make it seem like I was right for ignoring her.

I laughed. Then I deleted the email and did not respond.

Once Bitten, Forever Shy

 Part 1: This Too, Shall Pass

One of the most important life's lesson that I learned last year was that human relationships - whether it be of a marital, romantic, sexual, friendly, affectionate or professional nature - are fragile. Temporary. Frail. Evanescent. Quite frankly, I'm a little surprised it took me this long to learn this invaluable lesson but maybe it's not because I'm slow but because life has been kind to me.

I generally don't bemoan the loss of a relationship through natural drift.  We cannot remain in touch with everybody we have met over our years on this Earth and as easy as Facebook has made it to be 'friends' with people, you have your "friends" and you have your friends.  People need shared space, shared time, shared interest in order to stay friends; you take away these key elements and it becomes exceedingly difficult to maintain that bond.

No - this past year was the year where I lost relationships through intentional severance. After such a loss, I think it's natural to want answers and whether they are real or contrived, it doesn't matter.  My knee-jerk response was to place the blame squarely on me; after all, I was the centre of this maelstrom.  I was the lynch pin. I was the only common denominator.  I lost several of my best friends in one fell year because I was a bad person. I was one reason on my laundry list of reasons why I wanted to kill myself: I was a terrible person and I didn't deserve to live.

Eight months of therapy later and I'm finally starting to see things in a different light.   Will it bring these people back to me? No.  Will it help me maintain relationships in the future? Not at all.  Will it help me cope with being a human, moving in human circles? Yes, probably.

It was a lesson in how fleeting everything human truly is.  To wish for eternity is a fool's game; it's grasping at straws that do not even exist.  Any pithy or cliched beliefs about true love being forever, about BFFs, about blood being thicker than water - it's a salve we apply because we're afraid of being alone.  It's a religion that is nearly universal.  Well - it's a religious doctrine with which I no longer agree and I'm going to explain why. Not because I have to justify myself to anybody (thanks, therapy!) but because writing it out makes it more real for me.


Besides, why should I feel the need to pander to you? You won't be here in a year's time anyway!

Knowing Where You Don't Belong is Just as Important as Knowing Where You Do

I grew up in a small, socially conservative but economically left wing small town.  It was a town that was big enough to aspire to be a metropolis but small enough to not matter.  It was a good upbringing - the people were kind, the neighbourhoods were safe, the streets quiet and the pace leisurely. I learned and could appreciate ridiculous 'country' girl things, like how to bait my own hook when fishing, how to cook over an open fire, and what to do if you see a bear on your property.  Living 'up north' squashed any squeamishness I might have had about bugs, dirt, foul weather, blood, guts and death - I dare anybody to call me prissy.

Growing up in such a small town means, on the other hand, that there is a fairly narrow way of life.  Things are just done a certain way; differences are not celebrated but are threatening to the fabric of that society.  It's a subtle pressure to confirm but it's there and it wasn't until I had moved out that I realized how much I had shaped my life to fit into a mold that would have ultimately made me unhappy.  Where I'm from, you went to school, married your sweetheart, got a job that paid okay even if it was completely unrelated to what you studied or were passionate about, got married, bought a house and a car, had kids... It's a beautiful, suburban existence.

It's not for me.

Many of my struggles in the past year has been coming to grips with this.  I thought I was defective, because I wasn't sure if I wanted children; I thought I was selfish because I had career goals.  Going 'home' during the holidays was incredibly hard for me because I didn't feel like I belong there.  People thought I was abandoning the northern way of life, that I was selling out, that I was a big city snob, that I was material and superficial.  They made me feel like I was making all the wrong decisions and when was I going to smarten up and move back 'home'?

My home is in my new, adopted city.  It's a place I CHOOSE to be in.  Before, I felt like a puzzle piece that didn't fit with the other pieces and I had a choice of either being discarded or being rammed into place whether I liked it or not.  Now I realized that I was just a puzzle piece that got mixed up and was in the wrong box.  Now, I'm a radio that has found the strongest frequency; I'm the needle in the groove of the record.  I flow with traffic and I don't fight the current.

I like the hustle and bustle of the city. I like the sirens at 2 in the morning. I like the lights and the noise and the fast pace.  I like the options that a city like this gives me - it is the world, quite literally, at my doorsteps. Every weekend I can do anything I want.  Jazz show? Rock concert? Experimental Japanese cuisine?  Indian fusion? Spanish tapas? It's all here.  For a person who craves 'newness' and 'experiences' and 'checking things off the bucket list' as much as I do - this city is a godsend.

Most importantly, I like the multitudes of world views.  Suddenly, I'm not aberrant and there are dozens if not hundreds of strong independent men and women who share my worldviews.  If they don't share my worldviews, then they understand and support it.  And if they don't, it's all right because I have millions of other souls just waiting to connect with me.  At 28, I feel like I'm finally coming into my own and that I am finally 100% me. 

I didn't just blossom when I came here - I was reborn.

Secrets - We All Have Them

I had decided to take my life twice last year.  I didn't follow through (obviously) on either plan for very different reasons.  Many people would at this point jump in and say, "Aren't you glad you didn't?"  I don't know.  I've gotten to a point in my life where I try not to have too much of an opinion on outcomes.  Who is to say that killing myself wouldn't have been the best decision?  We humans are not omnipotent and to assume that the current present outcome is the best outcome by default strikes me as faulty.

The first time was sometime in June and it was fueled entirely by hysterics.  If it wasn't for Judith coming over and keeping me company for the evening and night, I'm not sure what I would have done.  There was no concrete plan; there was just this swell of emotions that needed to be released and the only appropriate release at the time, at least in my mind, was a suicide.  To a person who has never been depressed, suffered mental illness or had suicidal ideations, you cannot possibly know or understand the blinding torrent of emotions. It doesn't make sense and it's not rational; it can never be explained in a logical manner.  To a healthy person with a healthy fear of death, ending your life is the most counter-intuitive gesture possible. 

It's not like I wanted to die but I really didn't want to live anymore.  It was an existence that had become empty to me. What once gave me meaning now gave me nothing.  I was trapped in this state of limbo where I was neither living nor dead; I didn't know how to become alive again so dying seemed like the best option.

The second attempt was a little more methodical.  I had been in therapy for about 4 weeks when I went back to my hometown, with which I no longer had any affinity or desire to visit, to attend a wedding.  The wedding was at the same hall where I got married.  A few days before that, I found out my ex-husband had started dating his co-worker.  It was just the perfect storm.  I came home from the wedding and decided that I would kill myself.  I was numb; unlike the first time, I felt nothing at all except for deep, unending relief - which led me to the conclusion that it was the right decision.  The only reason I didn't follow through was because I couldn't find a method I liked.

It seems like such a silly, funny reason but when you're about to do the most important thing of your life (i.e. your death) you just want it done right.  There would be no shooting: I live in Canada where it is much too difficult to acquire firearms.  It had been years since I cut, and I've developed a weird squeamishness about it so I knew slicing my wrists open was out.  A drug overdose appealed to me the most but then there was the issue of what drugs.  I no longer had access to dangerous and poisonous compounds; many of these substances would lead to a very painful death in any case.   I read many stories about people's failed attempts, who did not get the dosage correct and whose efforts rewarded them with nothing than a trip to the hospital to get their stomach pumped and then a stay in the psych ward.

Yikes.  I don't know why that was abhorrent to me but killing myself wasn't.  I spent a good week looking up methods that would give me the Triple Crown of suicides: painless, assured and easy.  But like in life, in death we can't always get what we want.

With some goading, my therapist convinced me to start taking antidepressants and by the end of the week, I was on Wellbutrin.  I wasn't expecting the medication to do anything but surprisingly, it did and in a very strange and subtle way.  It took away the extremes of how I was feeling.  Sure - I was no longer able to feel super-duper-awesome-happy but it also took away the devastating edge of sadness.  I never knew not feeling anything could be such a blessing.  Now while I go through the motions of this so-called life, it doesn't really upset me anymore.  I can fake it and I can grind it out and when it's time to die, it's time to die.

Good-Bye 2010

If I had to sum up 2010 in a few words, it would have to be: Personal failures, professional successes. Back in 2009 all I wanted was that 2010 be better than 2009...and yet it somehow ended up being worse.

2010 saw my personal relationships take a revolving door approach - people seemed to cycle in and/or out. Of note, of course, was my divorce after nearly two years of marriage. No matter how often people try to comfort you by saying half of all marriages end in divorce now - it never really takes the sting away. That was followed by a wild and torrid romance with a man I met, a man I can only describe as being simultaneously every girl's fantasy and mistake all rolled into one - but a man who taught me that the dissolution of my marriage didn't break me. Scattered throughout the year were timely exits by people I had considered to be among my 'best' friends and whose departures hurt me, or relieved me, or saddened me.

I've had time now to think things over, to lick my wounds, to step back and analyze what happened in the past 365 days.

I'm glad I tried the whole marriage thing. I was in love, I was optimistic, and it seem like the veritable world lay in wait for me and my husband. Reality set in quickly afterwards: love may soothe but it does not fix problems, optimism gave way to pragmatism, and the world wasn't waiting for us - it was leaving on the next train if we didn't hurry.

When the marriage went down the tubes, I had the very scary possibility that I would be *gasp* single the rest of my life. Horror upon horror, for a girl who has not been single since she was 14. I felt like I was regressing. At a time when my peers were getting married, having babies, buying real estate, working jobs - I was getting divorced, partying like a college freshman, buying designer shoes and still pulling all nighters in school. They were talking about nursery colours; I was talking about eye shadow palettes. They paid a mortgage; I paid a student line of credit. The older I got, the younger I became. In some circles, I was a failure because I couldn't keep my life and my marriage together, because my womb was barren and because I wasn't contributing to society.

Still, better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all...right?

There is such an unfair stigma attached to a person who reaches their mid-life who has never been married. What is wrong with them? The excuses for having a failed a marriage seem a lot more forgiving than for never having tied the knot. At least now when people judge me they can at least dismissively say, "Well...at least she's been married..."

It took me some time to figure out what I wanted after the break up. But I know now: I want a career. I want the six-figure pay cheque. I want the corner office. I want the well-tailored suits, the skyhigh heels, the leather briefcase. I want to have a valiant run at making partner in a law firm in Toronto - and even if I never get it, I want to know I tried my best. I know to achieve all this I will have to make sacrifices. And I know the first thing to be sacrificed will be a family.

I don't mean a literal blood-on-the-altar-chanting-to-the-dark-demons sacrifice. The truth is the legal profession isn't kind to female lawyers. We get pregnant, give birth and then we want maternity leave. All this takes us away from the office and takes us away from billable hours. We don't meet and exceed the yearly targets; we become trapped as mid-level associates. We quit and find other careers. It's not a hidden fact that half of all law school graduates are women but only 30% of lawyers in private practice are female.

I feel like the marriage odds are stacked against me. Female lawyers get married less often and divorced more often than their male counterparts. I also wonder how prevalent the 'success penalty' is these days. As Sylvia Hewlett once said, "the rule of thumb seems to be that the more successful the woman, the less likely it is that she will find a husband or bear a child. For men the reverse is true."

I may become another sorry statistic. If I happen to meet somebody who understands my particular ambitions, quirks and idiosyncrasies and who can love me in spite of it - sure, I'll re-evaluate things then. Maybe having children is in my future. But I refuse to dumb myself down to appease a man, I refuse to take a lower paying job to assuage his ego and I refuse to have children just to keep him.

There are compromises - and then there are compromises, which so fundamentally change you that you no longer recognize the person in the mirror. Not worth it for someone who can just as easily love you and leave you. Your successes you can always carry with you as it becomes a part of your history; love is ephemeral and can be dispelled as easily as fog.  How else was it possible for me to be utterly and completely in love with two totally disparate men in one year?

The Artemis of 2010 probably would have sunk into a fit of depression at the thought that she would forever be known as a divorcee the rest of her life and have to celebrate her Christmasses alone. The Artemis of 2011 is actually ok with this strange new concept. She goes to restaurants alone, she works in cafes alone - she still hasn't quite worked up the courage to go see a movie alone - but she'll get there one day. Being alone does not mean being lonely; some of my loneliness nights occurred when I was married. I can now be unabashedly selfish; I can do whatever I want. I never understood how being alone could be so freeing until now.

I don't want to date because I see it largely as a waste of time; I don't have a personality or a lifestyle particularly well-suited for dating. I have so few free hours now and once I start working full time I'll have even less leisure time. Why would I want to spend it sitting across a table from a stranger, telling him where I went to school, what kind of music I listen to and defending my favorite movies? I would rather spend my precious time doing something that I find personally meaningful and being happy. I have more hobbies than time and more friends than Fridays. I'll never be bored; I'm incapable of boredom.

People will look down on me for this decision and for the decision to vigorously pursue my career. Haters gotta hate. I know some people measure worth in having a ring, a man, a kid, a car and a home - and I have none of the above. People will tell me that when I die, it's better to have "Artemis - Loving Wife and Mother" on my tombstone than "Artemis - She Made Partner and Then Billed A Whole Lot" (just kidding, I'd want my tombstone to say "Artemis - Superhero, Model and Rock Star") but what if I don't want to be a wife and mother? Why should somebody else's standards of success be thrust upon me? Why is there only one road to success?

Fact: there isn't.

While there was so much missing from my life, there was so much I did have that I cherished so dearly. Sure I don't have a husband or babies, but I have awesome family and friends. Sure I'm behind in many of the milestones of my peer groups but how many of them have 3 post-secondary degrees? How many of them work as a professional model? How many of them can binge drink on Fridays and then sleep in on Saturdays guilt free? Yeah - I don't have a house but that's because I live in Toronto where real estate is stupid expensive but in exchange for that, I get to live the lifestyle I want in the city I want.

For every decision I make, there are natural consequences which opens some doors and closes other. I can't lament the closed doors; for every decision my friends have made they've had to lose out on opportunities too. I can't have my cake and eat it too. I'm finally starting to piece together a life that makes me happy; after all, the only person I have to answer to on my death bed is me. We live with others but we die alone.

I am not asking people to subscribe to my way of life nor am I saying my way of life is the only way. I am just asking people not to pity me and to at least tolerate my decisions. It took me most of this year to realize that I can't compare my life or my choices to anybody else's and it is unfair of them to judge me by their own framework. Seems like such a simple concept in theory but in practice it is a lot harder to adhere to. It was probably the indirect source of a lot of the falling out I had with friends this year because I changed so much.

I will fully take the blame for some of the friendship implosions. Sometimes there are no take-backs; things are said and they can never be forgiven or forgotten. I am inherently cruel and shallow. I've lied; I've cheated; I've stolen. Sometimes a person has to take their lumps in order to learn their lessons. I've accepted this; more importantly, I'm going to be a better, kinder person from now on.

But I refuse to take the blame where the burden is not mine to bear. I refuse to feel bad for walking away from a bully and I refuse to waste my time and energy on some people. I have extended olive branches - nay, entire Grecian olive groves - to some, only to have it rejected. In a year where it has taken every ounce of willpower and energy to keep it together, I just can't deal with the people who would trample me underfoot and keep me under heel.

Of course 2010 wasn't all doom and gloom. I've had very satisfying successes.

I finally got good enough at surfing to start using a shortboard.

I had the opportunity to work with fantastic photographers, make up and hair people and stylists on a variety of projects, including the Cineplex/TIFF 2010 campaign, a photo in Sheridan College's magazine, an upcoming Home Depot campaign (Spring 2011) and a look book for clothing boutique.

I started my legal career at a small tax law firm; it got my feet wet and reinforced the idea that this is what I want to do. I continued with my legal education. I secured an articling position at an exciting and growing law firm.

I had the best regular season record in my fantasy football league (10-3); I am learning the game beyond just a mere passing fancy and have started studying playbooks.

I continued to be involved in projects I am passionate about, including small animal rescue.

I did this all while falling apart at the seams, with a smile plastered on my face. As Buffy Summers once said, "I'm going through the motions / Walking through the part...."; I was on automatic pilot for a large part of the summer of 2010 and most of the fall. I'm only starting to wake from my self-induced coma now.

Will I continue to struggle with my doubts and insecurities into 2011? Yes, of course. I'll always feel pressured to live the life that others envision for me. I'll always want to please people. But 2011 is going to be the year where I please myself first and consequences be damned. I'll figure that stuff out for 2012.