The making of a stalker and a mid-life crisis

Perhaps its because I am an investigator of sorts, but once I set my sights on finding out a piece of information, I don't give up.

So the other day I got to thinking about Berlin again, and I was sort of curious about this woman he is so gah-gah over. I wonted to know more about her - and let's just say I began using my investigatory skills.

I only really know what he has told me, which isn't a whole lot. I know she is a scientist and had come to the University where he worked as part of her research in Germany. He told me they met in an elevator.

He was living with his girlfriend, Stephanie, of eight years - a woman from Spain (I think he has a thing for foreigners), and he said the relationship was disintegrating. He didn't actually use the word "smothered", but he described her as "very controlling", and said she "told him how to feel."

This conversation came about one night as we were having dinner together at his house and I asked him how he met Marion. I don't know the details of what happened in that elevator, or how it managed to spark a full-blown affair, but I do know that it was his way of sabotaging a relationship he didn't have the guts to end properly.

"So what happened?" I asked him. "How did she find out about Marion?"
"I told her."
"And what did she say?" I asked.
"She was really upset, but she said it was OK. She said 'let's just move on and forget about it.' But I told her I couldn't forget about it. I didn't want to forget about it."
"Do you think you did it on purpose? To have an excuse to walk away?"
He shrugged.
"It's been suggested to me by other people that that was my real motivation. That I just wanted to blow things up."
"Sounds like a pretty fair assessment of the situation. What do you think?"
"I think they're probably right." He paused. "But sometimes cheating is justified."
"Like when?"
"When the marriage contract is broken. In you're case, you didn't really cheat on him."
"Of course I did. I was married. I'm still married. I slept with other men. How is that not cheating?"
"He broke the marriage contract. He stopped having sex with you. You can't go on in a marriage like that - it's not a marriage. The contract was broken - and he broke it first. You didn't really do anything wrong."

I thought about this logic for a minute. It was true. He had severed our physical relationship, and as a result, our emotional ties began to wither in the dry, parched, sexless desert. I felt shut out, abandoned and alone, and I sought out an oasis in someone else's touch. But my actions weren't entirely excusable -- Even my logic wasn't that warped.

"No. I did do something wrong. I didn't tell him. I tried to talk to him about it, about our problems. But I didn't tell him it had gone that far. I didn't tell him that I was so desperate that I wanted to be with another man. I could have gone to him and told hem enough was enough. I could have said that I couldn't take it any more and that I was leaving him. I could have asked for a divorce before I ever cheated. That's what I should have done. That would have been the honorable thing. That would have been the right thing. I could have given him a chance to make it right, by impressing on him the gravity of the situation. But I didn't do that. He did a lot of things wrong too - but that doesn't make what I did right."

He was quiet. I continued.

"I mean, you obviously weren't happy in your relationship with Stephanie. You felt smothered and controlled. But why didn't you just end it? Why didn't you just go to her and say,'this isn't working.' Why did you chose to cheat on her with someone else - and then - even worse - tell her about it -- so that she would leave you? That was cruel. The fact that you were unhappy enough to cheat should have been enough reason to walk away, and the right thing to do would have been to break it off before you got involved with someone else."

Berlin didn't say anything, but there was a pained expression on his face that made me think he knew I was right, and that, this was the first time he had ever really thought of that. I sensed I had pushed a little too far, and so let the subject drop.

But later I was replaying the conversation in my mind and I began to wonder if I wasn't just his next affair. He was unhappy with the way Marion treated him, but instead of just walking away, instead of confronting her about it and making a clean break, he was cheating on her with me. This would turn out to be more true than I realized, because back then I still was under the impression that their relationship was less serious than it actually was - I didn't really see them as a committed couple - -and so I didn't really fee like he was "cheating" as much as he was just taking the easy way out, or possibly using me as revenge.

You see, when we first met and he said he was chasing a woman in Germany, he left a few things out. For starters, he neglected to mention that they would be sharing an apartment in Berlin. I discovered that over some pillow talk one night when I asked him if he had found an apartment yet. First he described the place and told me the neighborhood where it was located. Which naurally led me to ask how he found it.

"We found it on the internet."
"We?"
"Maria and I"
"Wait, are you going to live there with her?"
"Of course. I don't have a job. I can't afford a place on my own. At least in the beginning I have to live with her."

He acted like that was the most obvious and natural thing in the world. Of course he was going to live with her! Did I somehow think that he was going to move to Germany for a woman who he didn't even know wanted to be with him? A woman who was living on her own and not necessarily inviting him into her life and her home?

Um. yeah. I sorta did.

Maybe it was the "at least in the beginning" part that kept me from collecting my clothes and my naked self and going home. But the concept was unsettling, and it was my first clue that he had misrepresented their relationship to me.

Other clues came later.

Like when I was helping him pack up his house to move and I discovered books that belonged to her, a woman's scarf, a piece of art she brought him back from Africa, and I started to wonder if she had been living there with him.

And when he told me that he bought a car so that she would have something safe to drive, I KNEW she had been living with him. This was not a relationship he was trying to pursue - this was a relationship he was IN. She was his girlfriend - and he just wasn't certain whether or not he should blow the whole thing up. He wasn't sure if he wanted to stay with her, so he was testing out the waters with me. MOTHERFUCKER.

Since he's been gone, I have wondered a lot about him and what was really going through his head - and in retrospect it seems an awful lot like man having a middle-aged crisis. He was 41. When he met, he told me he was 38. I discovered the lie when we became facebook friends and I noticed he had his birthday listed. May 10, 1967. I brought it up one day when we were walking his dog Maddie around the neighborhood.

"So I was checking out your facebook page and I discovered something interesting."
"Oh yeah?"
"Your birthday."
He sort of smiled. He knew he'd been busted.
"1968 ... let me see ... my calculus may be a bit rusty, but my arithmetic is pretty solid. I think that makes you 41 not 38."
"Your math skills are solid."
"So why did you lie? Who cares?"
"I don't know, but there was something sort of thrilling about it."

His face lit up when he said it and I could tell that the whole secret identity thing gave him a total rush. This was a guy who yearned to be somebody else. Someone who thought the idea of sowing his wild oats with a stranger he met on the internet, and shaving a few years off his age was thrilling.

Mid life crisis... CHECK!

This was a man who spinelessly ended a long-term relationship over an ill-thought out affair with a woman who wouldn't commit to him.

CHECK!

This was a man who had failed to thrive in his career - who had floundered in a lab as a post-doc for years without ever finding a faculty position, and felt he missed his calling as a doctor. Consequently he was quitting his job and moving to a foreign country - at age 41 - to start over and go to medical school

BIG, BIG, check.

And then I wondered how OLD Marion was. I googled her name. There was almost nothing. If you google Berlin's name, there are tons of links to his work, to papers he has written - to seminars and talks he has given. This is normal. By the time a scientist reaches the post doctoral level, as most do by the time they are in their late twenties or early thirties, you have already written a number of papers. you can be found on the internet, but outside of a seminar she gave at a conference in Austria just a few months ago, she was MIA. Curious.

But maybe it was because she was foreign, and google wasn't catching the German websites. So I went to PubMed - a comprehensive database of all papers in the biological sciences, including plenty of foreign journals. If she had published anything,ever, it would be there.

NOTHING.

It appeared that this woman - or perhaps a girl - did not even have her Ph.D. She might be 25. OMG. This is a 41 year old man who is having a mid-life crisis. He is giving up his career and chasing a flitty young foreign student, probably 15 years his junior, to a foreign country where he is going to go back to school and live like he did WHEN HE WAS 25. Maybe I should be glad this did not work out.

So what about the stalking? Well I really, really wanted to know how old she is, and the easiest way to find out is to look on HER facebook page. But I can't because we're not friends. But here's the thing. ANYONE can join facebook. Even, say, a fake person, who doesn't really exist. And people will add you as a friend, even if they don't really know you very well - or as I have discovered - even if they don't know you at all.

So I created a fake persona, with an email address, a photo, and a facebook page. then I asked a lot of random people to be my friends. Most of them said yes. Then I asked Marion and Berlin to be my friends. Berlin said yes. I'm waiting on Marion. so now I can spy on his facebook page whenever I want ... and maybe soon I'll know for sure if he is dating a child instead of a woman his own age.

I'll keep you posted.

Heart on Sleeve

It's late. I'm up staring at the door. Should be working. Should be thinking about something else but you surround my head, my heart, my soul my core.
Without your touch I feel inside out. I'm lost. Alone. A fool for sure.

I bide my time. Calm my restless heart. Wondering if we were fools to even start,
along this path that has no happy end. I'm stranded. Stuck. The truth like leather that binds our battered, yearning need together.

It's crazy thinking, but this melancholy rain has lit the fire that burns you in my brain.
There's no way out; my lungs, the fire, they breathe the same.
Glad it was you, that's what you said.
Glad it was you, like there could be someone else instead.

How did you know? To touch my hand, my face, that way? How did you know? Yes was the only word I dared to say. Could you see me, the way he can't? Will you see me, will you find me, in the darkness, reach out your hand?

How did you know? The eyes I longed for. How did you know? Your kiss would feed my empty soul. Sweet fate, that let you pass unharmed, out of the shadow into the shelter of my arms. Will you fight it? Will you run? Surrender is always much more fun.

It's crazy thinking, but this melancholy rain has lit the fire that burns you in my brain.
There's no way out, I am drowning in a sea of lustful shame.
Glad it was you, that's what you said.
Glad it was you, like there could be someone else instead.

Will you touch me, will you help me to forget? Will you love me? Will you want me in your head? Or will you find an easier path to tread?

It's never wise to fall so hard, to give so much, play all your cards. But tangled in our private reverie, stripped bare of all our senses, abandoning the life we knew. Here. alone. In this moment, there's no one else for me, but you.

-----------------------------------------

I wrote this song in New York City, on a rainy night after I met William. I'd been living there a few months on my own, having gone back to school for my master's degree. I left Nick behind at home (that's the husband from whom I am currently separated). It was just a 10 month program - we had just bought a house, and it didn't seem feasible that he could move to New York with me at the time.

Of course, looking back, that's perhaps exactly what he should have done. By the time I left he hated his job. He hated the city where we lived. He was depressed and unhappy with all the choices he had made in his life thus far - so if we had been thinking clearly, one of us might have noticed a change could have been good. Maybe he could have found a job in New York.

But the truth was, one of the things he wasn't happy with was me. We hadn't had sex in months. Maybe a year. I simply can't remember now. Just before I went to New York I got a fellowship to Germany for a couple of weeks and I talked him into coming with me. I thought maybe a vacation would do us both a world of good. But while he enjoyed the trip, he was still nervous the whole time. He never really let go, and he never touched me once. I was devastated. I tried to talk to him about it but he shut me down. He said sex just wasn't important to him. That he was depressed and I just needed to back off and let him get through this on his own. I sort of felt I had backed off long enough.

It's sad to admit this, but by the time I got on the plane to New York, I had already decided that if I met someone else who I had chemistry with I would cheat on him. In fact, I was sort of hoping I would. I was hoping that in my graduate program there would be some smart, cute, interesting guy who was wild about me, and that he would ignite the dead embers of my heart. Something inside me just snapped. I had been faithful to this one man for 12 years. Only once - before we were married - did I let another man kiss me. Aside from that, I was a picture of fidelity. But I was starved for affection. I was desperate. I wanted to be touched. I wanted to make love. I wanted all the hot passionate sex that a married woman in her early thirties was entitled too and I was going to get it.

I was disappointed however in the pool of available men in my class. They were all either too young, too arrogant, too unattractive or too unavailable. It looked like a torrid love affair was not going to just fall into my lap.

That's when the idea of posting an ad on craigslist first percolated into reality. At first I just flirted with the idea in my head. Then I started browsing around. his was prety new to me. I had sold furniture on craigslist. I had used it to find an apartment. But I absolutely never thought about using it to look for a date -- much less a sexual encounter. I used to work with some girls who were obsessed with the craigslist personals. During our lunch breaks at work we used to play the New York Times crossword puzzle online and read craigslist. We would read them outloud and laugh - some of them were so ridiculous. For example here are a few recent posts from my local listings:

Crossdresser STILL searching for friendly female - 35
HI, I am a 35 year old male to female cross dresser looking for a friendly understanding woman for friendship maybe more. I would like to find someone who would enjoy this and can help with makeup and shopping as well. She would not be afraid to be seen in public with me dressed as a woman. I have been told by many that when dressed I am very cute and passable. I am very safe and very sane, drug, alcohol and disease free. I own my home and have a steady job. If you are such a woman I would love to hear from you. I must ad, though I am open and accepting of others lifestyles and choices I am straight so please NO MEN!!! Unless you are also a cd or t-girl and passable. Thanks

He even put his picture, and I hate to tell him, he is not passable. He looks very much like a man dressed as a woman.

A lot of the posters can't spell much less string a sentence together, and sadly you can sort of see why they are still single. Like this guy:

Man looking for a Womans company
Here I go again.After 11 weeks of thinking that I found someone to start a relationship in hopes of getting married again,she F'n dumped me for her X.

WTF do I have to do to find someone again? Here are my dont's.

Its very easy---dont let your family control your personal life,nor have them invite your X to stay over while your in a relationship.And dont f__k with my head.

I have kids,so if you do,dont thats fine.
I have never smoked and would consider someone that does,only if its not around me.
Please have a personality,humor,job

.

Sounds like a real winner. I'll be calling him right up! There are a lot of sad and lonely people out there. That's the truth. But every once in a while there is a genuinely interesting post, something creative, and honest and reading a few of those got the wheels turning in my head. Well, that and the fact that I was incredibly horny and ready to do just about anything to get laid.

So I set up a fake email address and replied o a few posts. The results where, well - meh... so I decided to be a little more daring and try and write a post of my own. I don't remember exactly what it said but it was something to the effect of "Married woman living alone seeks intelligent attractive man for discreet affair. Send photo" With more of my usual literary flair of course. I was nervous as hell. what if I ever wanted to become a politician? My opponent could dig this stuff up! What if one of these guys later wrote a tell-all book about me? But sepite al reason, I decided to take the plunge anyway - and thus began my decent into the tawdry world of Craigslist - one that would eventually lead to my relationship with Berlin.

Now if you are shocked by my behavior (and probably thinking you would never do anything so stupid), believe me, you are not half as shocked as I was at myself. I mean, what on earth was I doing, pimping myself out on the internet like that? But I was SO curious! I really wanted to know who these people were. Were they all nut jobs, losers, and freaks? Or were some of them just normal people, single, married and unhappy, or divorced and trying to start over? I had to know. I just had to know that I was not the only one in this position. And what could it hurt right? It was all anonymous and I didn't have to reply to any of them.

But of course I did. Within hours the inbox of my new Craigslist alias was filled with hundreds of replies. Some of them were too old, not my type, or filled with stupid one liners. Delete, delete, delete. But eventually there were a few worthy emails, some intriguing exchanges, and a few dates. A handful of which ended in two tipsy, naked people in my apartment.

It was liberating, and I felt absolutely no guilt whatsoever. The sex was great. But none of it really lead anywhere, and I didn't really click with anybody I met. And then just about when I had begun to decide the experiment was over I met William.

He was adorable, a musician, and just about my age, and he wrote a response to my post that would make any woman stop dead in her tracks. It was so good I saved it.

I can imagine you've probably received a thousand emails in the last 20 plus hours. And you've probably stopped because I have a pretty good idea what most of them said. I hope you've managed to hang in long enough to read this one.

I thought your post was beautiful and just about exactly summed-up where I am right now. I'm a good looking, professional, married, 33 year old who has always identified as an artist and musician at heart. I'm a sensualist, not in the strict sexual sense but in that I endeavor to experience life richly in all ways. I seek beauty and I find it everywhere. I love knowing people in small ways others don't see. I love spontaneity and I don't really have much fear when it comes to doing things that are out of my comfort zone.

The problem is about opportunity. Work is enveloping, friends and family surround, the life routine becomes a groove that can be hard to slip out of. Your right, I do seek understanding and real connection and deep intimacy. I want a Lover. Not a sex partner or even a friend really. I want close-ness and someone with whom to quietly reveal to each other our secret selves.

I love my wife very much. We have just grown in different directions with age. If anything my appetite for color and beauty and passion has grown where as hers has been largely replaced by the desire for security and ease of a very well defined universe. I need more and I understand very well that I'm not a bad person for seeking it out. I respect her deeply and it's a gesture of that respect that I could never let know. I've never cheated. Not because my conception of a healthy relationship is much influenced by societal norms but because I've not been able to find the right one. The one who understands what it is... and what it isn't.

And that's really why I responded to your post. I NEVER respond to posts. I'm sure 'all the guys say that' but it's true for me. It just really looks so discouraging. But your post was special. You're clearly smart and emotionally secure and that can be rare on Craigslist or anywhere else.

I do live with my wife though I'm often out late for work related things and with friends. I'd love to have dinner one night if you'd like. We might find that have no chemistry. We might find something very beautiful. Judging by your post, I'd very much like to find out.

Do me one favor though. If you've read this, even if you're completely uninterested in meeting with me, just drop an email to let me know. Having just spent a bit of time writing I care to find out if you actually ever read it.

-William

We decided to meet at my favorite Cuban place on Prince St. When he walked up I liked him instantly. Laid back, down to earth, interesting. And did I mention totally hot? I am not kidding. Blond hair, blue eyes, well-built physique. We hit it off.

After dinner we snuck into a little bar and found a quiet corner to talk and have drinks. We got in at just the right time for New Yorkers - because within a half hour the place was flooded with people and we were literally walled into our little private corner by mingling bodies.

He told me about his wife and his little girl. And the fact that the passion had died in their marriage. He said she had been in a relationship with a woman before she met him, and he thought perhaps she was really more interested in women than men. In real life this might have seemed like too personal a detail to share- and too taboo a subject to discuss in public - but this was New York, we were strangers who had met on Craigslist and the honesty of this anonymity came naturally.
At some point he reached over and took my hand and I felt electricity ran through my whole body. We had some serious chemistry.

When we decided it was time to get out of there he offered me a ride home. This was an unusual turn of events. With the exception of cabs, I hadn't even been in a car since I'd moved to New York City. But he lived in Jersey and had driven over to meet me. I accepted this novel opportunity - and a chance to spend a few moments alone with him. We walked a few blocks to his back jeep. Neither of us mentioned the car seat in the back.

It was about 3 in the morning and the streets of lower Manhattan were completely empty. He pulled up to a red light and all of the sudden he leaned over and kissed me. It was, hands down, the BEST kiss I have ever gotten. It was tender and passionate, and restrained and full of desire all at once. He cupped his hand behind my head in just the right way and his fingers just barely massaged the hair at the nape of my neck and then slid gently along my throat. I caught my breath. I will remember that kiss until I close my eyes for the last time, honest to God.

"You are a really good kisser," I blurted out. I couldn't help it. I was so surprised, I just said the first thing that came into my head out loud.

"Right back at ya babe," he smiled wryly and reached over to the passenger seat and put his hand on my thigh.

This was going very well.

Two sweaty, tangled naked bodies later I decried the evening a success - and after he left, as I pondered this person who had sort of amazingly come into my life, and what it all meant, I wrote that song - for my new musician lover. He has never read it, though we continued seeing each other for the rest of my time in New York, and even once after I moved away when I came back to the big City for a visit.

He still loves his wife, had another kid, and seems to be satisfied with the concept of loving one woman and lusting after another. At the time I met him, I thought perhaps he might be right - that sometimes you find a partner in life that works for you in all ways but one, and so what's wrong with stepping outside the marriage to fulfill that one missing part? But later I came to realize that that sort of fractured relationship was not what I really wanted. I wanted it all: Sex and love. Family, fidelity, breathtaking kisses, and hot,sweaty sex.

William wasn't offering me that. Even my husband wasn't offering me that - but when my year in New York was over, I decided to go back to him and see if I could get it. See if a fresh start, and a happy ending wasn't in the cards.

It wasn't - but I couldn't have known that then. So heart on sleeve I went back to try.

P.S. The photo is from a website where a bunch of kids drew pictures of English idioms. I thought this one was aorable.

A Song for the Weathered and Weary

Sometimes life just gets the better of you. But you just wake up every day and keep going. You just know that day after day, one foot after after the other, you'll move forward, you'll move on, and eventually you'll find your way.

Paul Simon, said it best: Tomorrow's gonna be another day, and I'm just trying to get some rest.

The Long Road Home

This weekend didn't exactly go as planned. Earlier in the week I took my new beau Alfonso to the vet to get his balls trimmed and got some bad news.

I'm a bit low on stray-cat funds, and seeing as the Fonz was a week away from living outdoors in the snow I decided to take him to a cash-only low-cost spay and neuter clinic called "A snip in Time." Cute huh? Its this tiny, cramped, smelly two room clinic - which could be somewhat off-putting if you are used to the bright, cheery and sterile, environment of vets who cater to more pampered pets. But I decided to have a look and at least talk to the doc. The vet was a husky bearded fellow who looks a bit like Grizzly Adams, and as it turns out, is no less committed to saving the broken and discarded domestic cats of our city than would be St. Francis of Asisi himself.

He took one look at Alfonso and broke the bad news.

" I don't think we should do the surgery today."
"What's wrong?"
"Have you had him tested for FeLV and FIV?"
"No, he has seemed really healthy - hea eats, uses the litter box - is active ... do you think he is sick?"
He lifted Fonz's upper lip.
"Do you see how pale his gums are?" I nodded - they were really quite white. I had never looked at them before.
"That's a sign of Feline Leukemia." He shook his head. "I'll do the surgery if you want, but I'm out of test kits - and I don't think it's a good idea to do it until you know whether or not he's positive."

I looked down at the brave little fonz sadly. "If you're positive buddy I can't keep you - you'll infect my other cats." I was disappointed this might be the case, but until this point he had seemed normal and healthy, and I new some FeLV positive cats live long happy lives - there might still be a home for him where Leukemia was OK. I took him home and agreed that I would take him to another vet and have him tested.

And then, as if the vet had predicted it, everything changed. That night Fonz ate very little. The next day it was freezing cold outside and I felt bad putting him out all day while I was at work so I left him inside. He didn't eat all day. When I came home, he was lying in my closet, where it's cool and he didn't want to come out. I tried to feed him, but he wouldn't take any food or water. Eventually he used the litter box and-- unsteady on his feet-- wobbled to a comfy spot under my bed and wouldn't come out. He was still in the same spot friday morning, and Friday night when I got home from work. I knew something was very wrong.

So first thing Saturday morning I took him to the other vet for a test. This time it was the clean, bright cheery vet filled with cats and dogs, and new puppies there for their shots. I wrapped Fonzie in a blue towel and held him in my arms - he let me drive him the 20 blocks to the clinic with him in my arms like that while he looked out the window -- resting his little chin on my upper arm. His only real protest was a hiss and claw in my chest when he saw the dogs in the waiting room, but he looked up at me, eyes full of trust that I would make him better, and gave in without any real struggle. He knew I wouldn't let him fend for himself against the dogs. It's amazing how much a sick animal will trust you. It almost broke my heart.

Especially since even though I had hoped for the best, I already knew what the result would be - I could see it in the vet's eyes when she examined him. She had seen this before. When she came back and gave me the bad news I started to cry. She told me he wouldn't get better and this was the end for him - it happens fast she said. She recommended I put him down and, reluctantly, I agreed. I knew he was suffering and I wanted to ease his pain- but the idea that this was it, that we were going to say goodbye - well it was hard to accept. I hadn't realized how quickly I had gotten attached.

I had just gotten used to having the little guy around. He used to hang out on the neighbors porch and wait for me to come home. When he saw me pull up outside, he would come running and meowing. Begging to come inside and eat and snuggle. One time he even tried to climb inside my car when I was leaving - as if to ask me to take him with me - wherever it was I was going. I suppose it had to be better than being cold and hungry on the street right? I got a kick out of his devotion to me and had begun to enjoy seeing him. On nights when he didn't show up I found myself peeking out the window after him, wondering if he had found shelter elsewhere, or another sugar momma to fill his belly and scratch his ears. I really liked the little devil and sorta figured we were gonna be buddies for some time to come.

But there he was, with those big frightened eyes, looking up at me hoping I was going to make it all right, and I knew it was far from all right.

We had a few minutes alone together in the hallway while the doctor readied the room. I stroked his back and told him he had been a good cat, and that I was sorry it didn't work out. I cried and hugged his little body to my chest while he rested his tired head in the crook of my arm. I think he knew he wasn't going home to his spot under the bed.

I rubbed the back of his neck as the doctor gave the injection, and in seconds his little life was over. One minute he was giving a meow of protest at the pinch of the needle and the next the spark in his eyes had disappeared. Such a sweet, affectionate cat. The tears were rolling down my cheeks - life was really unfair. I only hope his last few weeks were filled with enough warm places to nap, meals of good food, petting and chin scratches to offset what must have been a hard early life. I take some comfort that instead of dying alone in the cold, he could look up at me and know that someone had cared for him. I hope he knew that he has been loved - even if it was for a brief time.

I paid and drove over to to see my husband. He had met Alfonso a few times and liked him too. - when I told him what happened tears welled up in his eyes and began rolling down his cheeks too. I knew he was thinking of our dogs and how he would feel if one day we have to put them down.

"I had really started to get used to him," he said. "Me too," I sniffed.

He was just that sort of cat. He just made himself right at home in your life and before you knew it you were in love with him. One more man who made me fall in love with him and left me in tears.

This really has to stop.

The things I miss

I went over to my old house the day before yesterday. My husband is moving out and he still has a bunch of my stuff that I figured I would have time to sort through eventually - but I never got to it. The place is full of boxes (some of them with my unsorted stuff), and I found myself wandering from room to room, opening up empty closets, looking inside all the cupboards and drawers. I told myself I just wanted to make sure he wasn't leaving anything behind, but in reality I was wandering around the rooms of that house - our house - and saying goodbye.

I was upstairs in the second floor bathroom looking at the empty linen closet when I suddenly burst into tears and began sobbing uncontrollably. I had spent an entire afternoon organizing that closet. Giving the extra soap, shampoo and towels a proper place. Arranging makeup and vitamins, and talcum powder. Taking a space and making it mine. Making it ours. Making a house into a home. Now that home was being packed up and it was just a house again. A house for someone else to make theirs.

I know its silly to hold onto a "place". It's just a house. But when we moved there it was supposed to be a fresh start - a new beginning - a chance to be happy. I pictured us grilling in the backyard, planting a garden in the spring, lying in the hammock I bought in Key West and taking mid-afternoon naps. I created a guest room on the third floor where I envisioned friends and family would come and stay - an office where I could write -and a space that might one day become a nursery. That house was a symbol of a dream I had for my life, and now that dream was being stripped bare, disassembled and packed into boxes.

I insisted on taking a few things right then and there- things I didn't really have to have at 10pm on a weeknight. Stuff like the printer, and a paper shredder and an ergonomic stool from Relax The Back store that I bought when I threw my back out and couldn't sit in any normal chair without pain. My husband helped me put them in the car, even though I could tell he was iritated that I suddenly felt I had to do this "right now." I think he knew I was cracking.

The whole thing made me realize how incredibly lonely I am, and how the hardest part of this is letting my dreams die. Letting go of the plans I had made for us and for our lives. There would be no happy afternoons lounging in that backyard hammock. No repainting the spare room for a new baby. No thanksgiving dinner gathered around the dining room table followed by a walk in the park with the dogs.

"This isn't how I wanted my life to be" I once sobbed to my be best friend Stephanie in Boston over the phone. My husband and I had just returned from the neighborhood block party, and hours before I had signed the lease on my new apartment. It was official, we were going our separate ways. But we decided to put in an appearance at the party anyway, and midway through I had to leave. I simply couldn't take it. The group was filled with young married couples who were all pregnant or chasing after young toddlers. The fathers played with the kids and the dogs and the moms chatted about this or that. And I watched the parents interact - working as a team - taking turns being on parental duty. Asking one another for another plate of potato salad or a beer, or could he please get little Michael's binky from the diaper bag? I sat watching these normal, happy interactions thinking "this will never be us."

My husaband was never happy. He didn't ever want to socialize or hang out with the neighbors, or have a beer with friends. Simple everyday chit chat was something he considered an imposition. He had become a loner, and he shut out even me. I could't even begin to imagine us laughing and playing with a child - me asking him for another diaper or toy and having him hoist the kid onto his shoulders to see the fire engine up close. I couldn't picture a happy family.

"I know," stephanie consoled me. "But you are moving on so that you can have those things. If you stay with him you know you never will, but by leaving, even though you'll be alone, even though it's hard, ther's a chance one day you might."

She is right of course. I knew it then. I know it now. But each time I am confronted with the broken dream I can't help but wish things could have somehow been different - and I ache with the need to make them so.

Do I miss my husband? Every day. But what I really miss is the way we used to be, long ago when we fell in love and decided to get married. I miss the person who used to be excited about hearing about my day, who used to take long walks with me on summer nights, who would drive the the beach with me on a moments notice and stay there all day in the sun getting tan and hungry before finding some seaside restaruant for dinner. I miss the nights we used to go get enormous amounts of sushi with from the cheap restaraunt across the street from our old Boston apartment and eat it on the living room floor while watching masterpiece theatre on PBS because we didn't have cable. I miss walking to Trader Joes and buying as much as we could carry - olives stuffed with blue cheese, proscuitto, goat cheese, fresh figs, wine, shrimp...and having our own personal anti-pasto with a VHS movie from the run-down neighborhood video store. I miss the way he used to rub my back with baby powder when I was sleeping until I would wake up to him caressing me gently, tenderly.

I miss all of that . All the things that made me choose him as my partner in life. All the things that made me think I would want to wake up to him every day. That together we would read bedtime stories and take vacations, and make a family full of happy memories. I miss it so much it hurts.

But missing something doesn't bring it back to life. Of course, sometimes I find myself wondering if we might not be able to revive things. Reconcile and go back to those happier times. I'm not sure. Perhaps I'm just lonely right now and mourning the death of those dreams. Maybe I'm just feeling uncertain that i'll ever find that dream again with someone else. Maybe he really will never be able to be that person that I need, and in order to have those things, I have to look elsewhere. But maybe he'll change.

I miss him. But I don't want to miss out on the rest of my life. I don't want to miss out on a family - a partner - a lover - a dream. I missed him even when we were still married - because he was already absent from my life in so many ways. And now metaphorically speaking, the things I miss are getting packed away - and the rooms of my heart are empty and filled with boxes.

Now, Blow.

I bet you think this pile of Kleenex is from me crying my eyes out over Berlin don't you? Well you'd be wrong. I WISH it was from crying. Instead it is from the nasty mucous that has been steadily dripping out of my nose for the last 3 days. I know. Too much information. The current physical misery I feel is a substantial distraction from my heartache, but oh my God, I really can't take it anymore. My nose is raw, my lips are chapped, my skin is breaking out -- I am an absolute mess. Even that bowl of green tea ice cream didn't make me feel better.

Besides, there is nothing worse than being single and sick. I had almost forgotten what it's like. 14 years in a relationship with one man, and I don't even remember what its like to be sick and be all alone. No husband or boyfriend to make you soup? No one to stop off at the store and buy you your favorite Citrus C Monster Odwalla juice smoothie? No one to draw you a hot bath or bring you aspirin, or a cup of honey and lemon tea? I am an independent woman - I don't need a man. Nope. I do not need a man. Except right now, I could really use someone to rub my throbbing temples and tell me (lie to me) that I look sexy in my jammies and unwashed hair.

My husband always did that - took care of me when I was sick. It used to drive me crazy. One of his neuroses is his cumpulsion about doing everything according to instructions, or some other regiented plan of his own device. He believes if the box of nyquil says take every four hours then you should take it exactly every four hours. He used to set his alarm and wake me up in the middle of the night for my next dose. Of course, there is nothing more annoying than being woken up from a sound sleep when you are sick so that you can take medicine to help you sleep - a concept he didn't quite understand. But his dedication - his persistance - to the task of making me well was very loving, and thinking back now it almost makes me cry. It's nice to have someone want to love you and take care of you when you are at your worst.

The Fonz

Meet Alfonso. My new boyfriend.

I know, I know. Your thinking it's too soon, right? That inviting a new man into my life is just a recipe for disaster? Well rest assured, he has his own life. He doesn't live with me - yet. We met for the first time before I even moved in. I was just coming to see the place, when he galloped up the stairs of my apartment and acted like he belonged there. Recently he has decided he likes me quite a lot. He is waiting for me when I get home. Always lurking around my house waiting for the chance to bump into me, hoping I'll invite him up for a cuddle and a bite to eat. His persistence is wearing my down like a man who won't stop calling. A man who shows up looking all sweet, and rubbing you just the right way. Eventually you go out with them, even though you know better, and before you know it they are in your bed and making themselves right at home.

That's sort of what happened with my husband. He showed up in my life rather unexpectedly when I was still pining after a boyfriend who had broken up with me for religion. He was Muslim, I was ... open minded. Too open-minded for him I suppose. After he refused to tell his family about me, we broke up. I was lonely and made out with his best friend fraternity brother, which resulted in some name calling, a fist through a glass-paned door, and an end to any and all hope of reconciliation.

For the record I really liked the best friend, but I had to learn the hard way that best friends are a bad choice for rebound relationships. In fact its best to re-bound for a while with guys you don't really like all that much. If I ever have a daughter with a broken heart I will *not* tell her to wait, and be patient, and heal and all that crap. Nope. I will tell her to go find all the cute guys she pleases, but not the sort she will fall for. I will tell her to have plenty of sex with any or all of them, so long as she uses a condom, and none of them are friends of the true object of her affection. In moments of anger, lashing out at the X by hooking up with his friend seems like the most brilliant act of revenge, but it never works. The friend knows about the X, and thinks you're a slut. The X- finds out about the friend and thinks you're a slut, has a fight with the friend, makes up with the friend and the friend dumps you. Now you are twice dumped and twice as miserable. Better to find a cute random stranger, or befriend a lonesome cat.

My eventual husband was a lot like Alfonso (who as I write this is sleeping soundly on my bed): he was very persistent, sweet, and he rubbed me just the right way - that is to say he rubbed my feet. Yes. The man took of my shoes one night and began massaging my feet. It began completely innocently (I think). I was in college and I had just had my car towed away because of multiple unpaid parking tickets. Those tickets amounted to a paltry sum compared to what it eventually cost me, including the towing and impound fees, and fines. I had to call my mother and ask her for the money- some four hundred dollars- to get the car out of the impound lot. She was understandably pissed, and I started to cry. I was lying on my bed, crying, and he, wanting to comfort me, slipped off my shoes and began massaging my feet. It was the sweetest gesture ...and it worked. I felt better. I stopped crying, and soon he was sliding his hands up my calves and helping me wriggle out of my jeans.

And I guess I adopted him, because before I knew it he was making himself right at home. Too bad he doesn't rub my feet anymore, or maybe I'd keep him.

Breaking up is hard to do

Even after all the things I said it's still hard to let go. I turned on my computer last night and skype opened up automatically. Low and behold there he was. Active. Online.

I stared at the screen for hours. I logged off of skype for a while, but logged back in. I didn't want to contact him again. I had said my piece. But seeing him there - it was almost like he was in the room with me, but ignoring me completely. it was maddening. I was becoming obsessed. It was ridiculous. Finally, I gave into temptation and opened a chat window.

"I feel like I should say something," I wrote. "But nothing seems appropriate."

I waited. A few minutes later he went offline. Message received - loud and clear. He was done with this. He was done with me. I knew what had happened. He had blocked me as a contact, so that from now on, no matter when he was online, I would always see him as offline.

Two can play that game. I considered doing the same. But then what's the point I thought. I needed to end it. I highlighted his name in my skype contact list and hit delete. And just like that - he was gone.

I removed him from my favorites list on my phone. He was at the top of the list. Every time I opened it I saw his name staring back at me. It had to go.

Then I went to my facebook page and looked him up. This one was harder. I update my facebook page a lot. I had a small fantasy that this link meant not only would I be able to see information about him, but that he could continue to see what I was doing - without my actually telling him.

I imagined, that he might look me up - and discover I was dating someone else. Or see some really cute picture of me and feel a twinge of regret. But I needed to be realistic. He had washed his hands of me, and he was not going to be checking me out on facebook. He was not going to be wondering what I was doing and following the updates of my life. That was my pipe dream, and if I was ever going to be free of this, I had to let him go.

I opened up the privacy settings and typed his name into the box that says "block this person"

I read the consequences of what I was about to do.

If you block someone, they will not be able to find you in a Facebook search, see your profile, or interact with you through Facebook channels (such as Wall posts, Poke, etc.). Any Facebook ties you currently have with a person you block will be broken (for example, friendship connections, Relationship Status, etc.). Note that blocking someone may not prevent all communications and interactions in third-party applications, and does not extend to elsewhere on the Internet.

That was it. Once I blocked him it would be done. Over. Finito. The magic of technology. It brought us together and now it was going to cut our ties.

Be careful what you wish for .....

I asked him to tell me he didn't love me. I told him I wanted to say it. I meant it. But that doesn't mean it hurts any less. I suppose I wish he could have done it more tenderly. I suppose I wish he could have said something about how he cared a great deal for me, and how he just had to see this thing with Marion through. How maybe if things had been different ....

I think the part that stung was the bluntness of his expectations. " I do not love you. I never expect to love you." He should have put that in the past tense. he never *expected* to love me. It just wasn't part of the plan. EVER. Motherfucker.

The final response was in my inbox the next day.

Writefromtheheart,
In my world there is a lot of ground between meaningless sex and "I love you". Our relationship existed in that grey area, and I thought that you knew that. You don't need to demonize the situation and draw big presumptuous conclusions about me and my psychopathologies, which must surely be plentiful, but then I don't laughably assert that I have ever taken stock of all of them, dissected them and put them neatly away. That is the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever said to me, it is in the nature of these hang-ups that they cannot be put neatly away and anyone who thinks they have is deluding themselves.

So, If I must say it, so that you can move on, then I will say that I did not love you and do not expect ever to love you. That is why we met where we did, because I was not emotionally available in that way.

Now you may think that i am a pig or a twisted pathological womanizer, and you are welcome to do so, but my value system (dare I assert that I have values???) allows two adults to have a very nice affair (which is what I think we had) without it having to lead to church aisles and white picket fences. I am sorry that I disappointed you, but I don't think that I ever misled you, and my only error was to not be brutally honest at the first moment that I suspected that you were feeling something outside the parameters of the nice affair I described.

With that, let me say that I bear you no ill-will, i like you quite a lot and hope that we can be more friendly from now on.

Berlin

Yes. That one hurt. Such simplicity. Such resignation. Such apathy. And never misled me? Who the hell was he kidding? I crafted one last response.

Berlin-
This is such a colossal fuck-up I don't even no where to start. You are defensive and angry - justifiably so. I said some things I shouldn't have. The stuff about you being emotionally stunted was below the belt. I do not think you are a pig or a twisted pathological womanizer. I had no right to assume I knew all your psychopathologies.

But try to put yourself in my shoes - You ARE very wrapped up in your own world. And as such, this affair was - well - it was whatever you needed it to be. Casual, uncomplicated, instantly gratifying with no long-term hassle. I don't think you ever gave so much as a thought to me regarding how I was taking the whole thing, my underlying motivations or desires. You offered very little, and figured, if I didn't like like it I could always walk away. It's what I should have done. But I didn't. So I guess I shoulder as much of the blame.

I will give you that there is a large grey area between love and meaningless sex - and that we were in it. But in the same way the lines between love and lust are blurred so is the spectrum of love itself. Love is not all church aisles and white picket fences. I don't want either - from you or from anyone right now. But what I did want was a connection - a real, and genuine connection to another person. A man who I let know me intimately, both physically and emotionally in the way only lovers can. Someone who would let me into his inner world and want to be part of mine. Someone who thinks of me when I'm not around, laughs when he sees something he knows I'd think is funny. Someone who desires my touch, my smell and my smile - and wants to hear me chatter on about my day, or complain about work, or comfort me when I'm having one of those low moments and need a hand finding my center again. Someone who genuinely enjoys my company, and sees me as a lover and a friend.

You see, that's love to me - it's the kind of love I want, and that is what I offered you while you were here. And you took it. And I kept sort of thinking you'd reciprocate. Not by offering some promise of forever - but by simply relishing the fact that we clicked - by offering something deeper of yourself.

I wanted a lover, not an affair. I didn't want church bells and diamond rings and down on bended knee - I wanted someone who was giddy with anticipation about the next time he would see me. I wanted to be the girl who stood out in a crowded room. The one you would surreptitiously brush hands with just to touch, make an excuse to be alone with so you could steel a clandestine moment when no one else was looking, and ravish in the bedroom (or the kitchen or the living room floor) alone at night. But I also wanted to know your heart and your hopes and your fears and for you to want to know mine. I wanted emotional intimacy.

But I guess you can't do that if the person you really desire that intimacy with is someone else. We played the little game for a while, and it was fun, but then it sort of fizzled - the attraction was still there - but instead of naturally progressing there was just sort of this emotional moat between us that you were unwilling to bridge.

Of course you have values. And we were two consenting adults who enjoyed a little bit of each other for a short while. But yes, I am disappointed. Perhaps it is wrong to demonize the whole thing - on the one hand I don't regret it. I can still close my eyes and imagine you touching me and get completely turned on. I can still smell you, and feel you and taste you- and it's nice - even now. But on the other hand, I settled for something less than I deserved.

I too as very upfront when we started this - I wanted someone who wasn't emotionally withdrawn. I wanted someone who had the capacity to let me in and just go with it. I have already had the affair with the married guy- and it was a waste of time. I never wanted to be in that position again, and if I had any real understanding of how serious this relationship was with her, I would not have even met you that night, and I would not have gone home with you most definitely.

And I'm sorry but you *did* mislead me. Yes - you told me about Germany. You told me about Marion. But you left so many crucial details out. Details that I only discovered little by little, that eventually made the picture sooo much clearer. Things like the fact that you two were living together here, that you were going to live with her in Germany, that you would worry about her health, or if a car was safe enough for her to drive. The fact that you talked to her every single day, that she texted you all the time. Little things that reveal what sort of a relationship you had.

And it's not like I didn't try to figure it out. I asked you if you loved her and you said you didn't know. You said you weren't sure if she even wanted you to come to Germany. Even very close to the end you told me you thought it was going to be "awful" and you weren't sure you doing the right thing. What was I supposed to think? That you two were a happy couple? Those remarks made it seem like there was a lot of unanswered questions in your mind about her and about the two of you as a couple, and that there might be room in your life for someone else.

But there was no room in your life for me -- not even for a real affair -- at most you wanted a little companionship and some sexual release. Be honest. Real love affairs involve something akin to love - even if it's not the white-picket-fence sort.

And if I had had all those details early on - or if you had really come clean and been brutally honest when I asked, and said - "listen, our relationship might be screwed up, but I love HER. I really love this woman. I'm going there to make a life and a home with her, SHE'S the one for me. And this - what you and I are doing is temporary - it's nice and it's fun, but it's just not going anywhere." If you had said anything resembling that, I would have bowed out early.

I would have walked away because as nice and pleasant as the sex and the limited companionship was, I wanted more than that. I always wanted more than that. And as many signs as you gave that signaled you were pushing me away, I gave just as many (and I think clearer) that I was looking for something deeper. You just didn't/couldn't/wouldn't look past your own needs, or my well-being wasn't something you put above your own.

But I'll take the blame here anyway and say, I should have asked the tougher questions, and I should have pressed you, and made us have the conversation we are having now 6 weeks ago. Very poor journalism. I didn't get the full story. I was emotionally weak, and craving affection. I looked the other way. I will never let that happen again. EVER. Life lesson learned.

So was this meaningless? No, certainly not for me. But I'm still not sure there can be much meaning ascribed to it on your end. If you never make a true connection with someone, never really bond with them, let yourself be vulnerable and raw and open - then what meaning is there in it? What do you possibly take away? You tell, me - did you feel some sort of connection, ever? A feeling that I was a person you wanted to open up to, and BE truly intimate with - not just physically but emotionally as well? Maybe you did a little bit. I got some glimpses,but really and truly, I don't think you did feel that - or if you did you didn't let yourself give into it. It's too much like falling in love. And if that's the case then we had some nice sex, shared some fun times, and that was about it.

So I have calmed down significantly. I am not angry anymore. I think I just had to let it all out, and I'm sorry that it was so venomous. But I guess I knew that if I never said anything you would just disappear and I would never hear from you again. You would never think of me, or wonder about me, or call, or write, and I would always be left wondering about you. I assume that because - like I said - it always was more about you than me. I was always thinking of you - and you were never thinking of me. I was always reaching out and you were pulling away. And it was just too insulting to let you walk away without so much as a response. The repressed anger, and frustration, and hormones (yes,hormones) just all made me lose it. Completely lose it. So I hope you'll forgive me, and try to understand .

I would like to be friendly - I would like to be friends in fact -though I just don't see that happening. Not real friends anyway. Perhaps I am different than most people. I don't have a lot of people I call friends, but the ones I do have are very close. They are the people I don't hide anything from, the ones I cry in front of, the ones who know all my dark secrets and insecurities, and sadness, and joy. Those are people that are really and truly a deeply intimate part of my life. I was trying to make you one of them all along. Perhaps the whole idea of love scared you off - but I love the people I am close to, and I felt close to you.

I don't really know any other way to be, and honestly, I think any other way is a waste of time. Most people, in my mind, are just a big, frivolous, waste of time. I don't need people in my life who won't invite me in to be a part of theirs. People who don't really want to be a part of mine. Life is just too short and my attention is too valuable and too limited. I have a lot to offer - I want something back.

So you either throw caution to the wind and decide I'm someone worth really knowing, even at a distance, or you say "it was fun, but no thanks. I just don't feel like we have that sort of friendship, or connection." It's your choice. But I don't do the gray area.

Either way, I wish you the best of luck.

-Writefromtheheart

And I sent it off into the internet night.

Biting off More Bitterness Than You Can Chew

When you tell someone that they are arrogant, self-absorbed, and - wait for it - "emotionally stunted" you are bound to hurt their feelings. That was sort of the point. Berlin had hurt me. He didn't love me. He wasn't even sorry to leave me behind. I wanted him to be sorry - somehow.

But these lovelorn tongue-lashings rarely get the desired response. That first email - the one that represented my move from depression to anger in the grief cycle was only four days after Berlin left. After I sent it I was thinking. Ha! Only four days and I'm already pissed off. I should be over him by next week. If only it were so simple.

When he didn't respond I was even more angry, and hurt. I kept checking his facebook page to see if he was communicating with anyone else. Nothing. I wondered if he even had internet. That would be so typical of him. That woman he was with was useless. She had been living there for months, and from his description of her (what little I got) she was the sort who couldn't do a thing for herself.

He bought a car when she moved here from Germany so that she wouldn't have to drive his old Mercedes in the winter. It was a used car - but sensible and safe. The old Subaru Outback that I met him in that first night was the car he bought with the money he got when he sold his house in the artsy east-side suburb of our fair city and moved to the "up-and-coming" neighborhood where he now lived. I found this out one day when I was helping him pack up and move his things and he told me someone was coming over to look at his car.

"But what are you going to without a car until you leave?" I asked.
"Oh, not the subaru. My other car."
"Other car?"
"I'll show you."

And sure enough, parked outside in his driveway was a cute little red Mercedes. One of those old ones, with a slightly fading paint job. Well-used, weather-worn, and quite cool. It was just his style. I liked it.

"You wanna buy it?"
"Um. No. I already have a car, remember?"

Actually I would have loved to buy it. It was just the sort of car I would have loved to buy - and it would have been practical too -- at least from an economical standpoint. I had a new car. I leased it the year before when it got too cold to ride my vespa scooter - which is the only transportaion I had since I moved here the prior spring. I rode that vespa back and forth to work - and through sort of a rough neighborhood I might add - from June until it actually began to snow in November. And when I couldn't take the cold I finally decided it was time to get a car - and that's when I got the Subaru.

From a financial standpoint it would have been better to buy a used car, but I didn't have a lot of money, and I didn't have a lot of time. I was working 12+ hour days on a regular basis, and every day it was getting colder. I needed to make a decision fast. I was also a little bit nervous about doing used car shopping by myself. I don't know why. It's not rocket science. But I was new in town. I didn't have a mechanic I trusted. I was terrified I'd buy a lemon and be out my hard-earned cash, and my husband had been zero help. He didn't really want me to buy my own car. He thought we could continue to share our one car, as we had done since we bought it in 2001. But I needed my freedom. I needed to have my own transportation. I needed to be able to put a suitcase in the trunk and drive away any time I pleased. He said money was the the reason he wanted me to wait, but I think he always knew that a car would give me the freedom to leave him, as I eventually did.

But that's not the only reason I was hesitant about this purchase. When it comes to making big decisions my husband freezes up - and over the years we had been together, the effects of his stagnation had begun to rub off on me. I had gotten to the point that I was afraid to do big things alone. I second-guessed my decisions. Decisions, that looking back, I would have easily made alone before I met him.

So when it came to getting myself a car, I knew I had to do it on my own, and it was a liberating step I was taking in doing it. I knew it, even then. All the more reason I had to get this right. If I did fuck it it up, get screwed with some junker, the man I was married to was never going to let me hear the end of it. Going into a dealership and getting financing was simply easier. I knew what I was getting, and I knew the car would be dependable.

So I got the subaru - with the four wheel drive so that in our notorious Midwestern winters I would drive safely in the snow - and I'll tell ya - I wasn't the least bit disappointed. That thing drives like magic in the snow. Money well spent. That's for damn sure.

"I don't think it would be very good in the winter time either." I told him.
"Does it drive well in the snow?"
"No - it's terrible in the snow."


But then I was curious. Berlin was very practical. By his own description he was even cheap. One night when I wanted to buy a pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream at CVS, he tried to convince me to get the cheaper kind.

"But we could get more of the same thing for less money if we buy that one," he said pointing to some off-brand vanilla."

I looked at him and raised an eyebrow, incredulous at the sacrelidge.

"First of all, we don't need more than a pint. We can't eat more. And second of all, ice cream is an indulgence. Like chocolate. You don't buy waxy, bad-tasting chocolate because it's cheap. It defeats the purpose of indulging in something delicious and unnecessary. For the same reason, you don't buy sub-standard ice-cream. You buy the good stuff. You suck it up and pay the $4 a pint because it tastes better. "

I could tell he disapproved of my frivolity, but he didn't say anything when I took the Haagen Dazs out of the freezer case. God, he really was cheap. My husband might be an idiot, but he valued good ice cream. He always bought me Haagen Dazs, and never once complained about the cost. When we got to the counter, Berlin let me pay.

The point here is that Berlin was not the sort of guy to keep two cars around when only one was sufficient, and I was suddenly perplexed. We hadfilled the back of the Outback with a load of Berlin's books and taken them to the half-price bookstore to sell - another testament to his cheapness, he probably got about as much money for those books as it cost to driver there and back on $4 a gallon gas - and on the way back I got to thinking about the car situation agian. I wrinkled up my forehead, as I do when I am pondering something that doesn't add up.

"Why do you have two cars anyway?" I wondered out loud.

And that's when he inadvertently told me a crucial detail about his relationship with HER.

"When I sold the east-side house, I had a little extra money, and I decided to buy myself a present. I bought this car ."

He meant the subaru.

"Besides, Marion was coming, and I couldn't very well let her drive the Mercedes in the winter."

The fact that he was just trying to sell me that car - a car I would undoubtedly drive in the *winter* was not lost on me. It was also not lost on me that he bought that car, not so much for him - but for HER. What was this? This was not just a casual relationship. This was more like a marriage. That's something my husband would insist on doing for ME. Wasn't I the married one? I let this sink in a little and I began to think about other things he had mentioned. Like the fact that she was too busy to help him make any of the arrangements to pick up the items he was having shipped to Germany. The fact that she didn't have any furniture and he was bringing all of his. I got the feling that she was the sort of women who needed a man to take care of her - or at least she let men take care of her - and he was happy to fill that role.

Looking back now, I can see how someone as independent as I am might have been emasculating. I already had a caretaker and I walked away. I didn't want anyone to do things for me - I was having the time of my life doing them myself.

So it was no surprise to me then that he had no internet, or phone. That would have been exactly the sort of thing she would have left him to take care of, and as a consequence he was not reading my angry email.

When I text messaged him that night about Obama's speech he told me he had no means of communication.

"So I think you owe me some sort of a response, don't you?" I had asked.
"Yes. I've been thinking a lot about my response," He messaged back. I just didn't think texting was appropriate. "
"Understood. And FYI, there is a rather acerbic email waiting in your inbox when you get o it. Let's just say I woke up pissed off." and then added, "And YES. Texting would be inappropriate. So let's leave it there and you can ruminate until you have learned the words "internet cafe" in German. Oh wait! They're the same.

I hit send on my iphone and I wondered if he would hear the sarcasm in my words as he read them on his screen. Of course I couldn't let it go at that. No, No. Writer that I am, I wanted to scream and shout and tell him how much I hated him. I wanted to pound my fists on his chest. So I did what I did what I do best. I wrote another email.

Berlin-

Well I am waiting for the final votes to be tallied up on the congressional races, and in the meantime I have nothing to do but "ruminate." And no one to distract me. So I am sitting here thinking I should apologize for being such a nasty bitch, but then I want to immediately kick myself for being so damned nice to people who only think of themselves, and who mistake my "generosity" for my lying down and being a doormat.

And then it hits me. It seems to me, that this is the sort of man I am attracted to - the selfish kind. Not obnoxiously self-centered and arrogant. No - that would be too easy to spot. To easy too react to and avoid. Nope. I go for the deep, thoughtful, mysterious sort who is also self-pitying, self-absorbed, and oblivious to the feelings and thoughts of the rest of his universe - which by the way revolves entirely around his problems. Seeing yourself in this picture yet?

I mean, why should I have ever have expected my husband to worry about me, he hated his job - he didn't like where we lived, he had to take the dogs for walks and unload the dishwasher, and run his life. He had problems bigger than mine, right? How could I possibly have expected him to really and truly understand how much pain I was in? Why would you have stopped to wonder how it feels to swallow your pride and put your heart on your sleeve ... quite foolishly ...only to be completely and totally ignored - I mean, after all - you had a lot on your mind, what with moving and starting a new life and all. I could hardly have expected you to wonder how all of that was making ME feel. That would have been unreasonable. No?

If there is one thing that has suddenly come into very clear focus, it is that I apparently gravitate toward men who are well-meaning but emotionally ill-equipped to manage anything but their own inner world. Maybe I just like the angst-ridden, melancholy sort and the self absorbed part just comes with the territory. I don't know.

What I do know is that I should quit it. I should find an emotionally stable and happy man (and I am sorry to say, you are neither) who has actually sorted through his own baggage and still has room in the closet for a little of mine. Enough room that we can tuck it away, shut the door and not think about it - possibly ever again. Do such people exist? Despite all that I have been through I actually think I really have dealt with things. I have dragged the good bad and ugly out into the light, dissected it, inspected it, folded it neatly and put it away. Is this a gender-specific ability?

Ironically, the x-husband is moving to the west-side of town - 3 blocks from me. Lately, we have been spending time together- walking the dogs -I made him dinner one night - and while we are not getting back together, he actually is starting to sort through his shit. It's like he suddenly is beginning to "get it", and he actually is trying to become a happier person, look inwards at his own issues and then see how they have damaged our relationship. And in the process he has become incredibly tender toward me, and I can feel his loss - our loss - and in some weird cosmic fuck-up, we are becoming closer friends - and much more genuinely emotionally connected than ever.

It almost makes me laugh, the absurdity of all of it. I mean, two months ago, I never thought he and I would get to that far. I thought you and I, on the other hand, would have been much closer. In fact, I expected ...I suppose I assumed we were making that emotional connection. And I assumed when the time came to say goodbye we would somehow be on the same page. Some sort of soft and bitter-sweet ending to a tender and fulfilling would-be romance. Now, I'm not even sure we were reading the same book. Life is funny. I am really quite deliriously out of touch.

So here I go, spewing my venom at you for breaking my heart, and blaming myself for not being stronger, more self-protective, more proactive and less oblivious to the red-flags of emotional unavailability. What can I say. It's 3 in the morning, I'm bleary-eyed and exhausted, and I have nothing better to do. And I'm letting it out as therapy. So that maybe I won't be so damned stupid next time and I will see the shit coming (and duck) before it hits the fan.

Perhaps you find it annoying -- all these tightly-coiled springs of my feelings unexpectedly snapping free in your face. I used to be so sweet, no? But that's what you get for getting involved with a writer. I may keep doing this for months. Or until I find that elusive emotionally together man with self-contained, pre-sorted and properly stored baggage, who permanently releives me of my pent-up frustrations. Hmmph. That might be a long time, if I extrapolate from the current data set.

Let's see how long it takes you to read this - and in the meantime I will attempt to mirror your apathy. It is an important skill I should have learned long ago, but I'm going to forgive myself. I am pretty damn amazing. If being cruel and heartless and detached are qualities I haven't yet mastered, I should be given a break. Seriously.

But apparantly I am quite good at being a nasty bitch when I want to be. So I'm just gonna go with it.

Carry on!

Writefromtheheart

Well I guess my snarky remark about the internet cafe did the trick. He did in fact hear the sarcasm dripping off that text. Two days later I was at work, trying to finish a story when suddenly an email pops into my inbox - from - guess who.

"Wow, you are a fucking saint aren't you?"

I could feel all the blood drain out of my face. The adrenaline was coursing through every vein in my body. I was trembling. I immediately shot an equally hostile email back.

Apparently. Is that all ? Jesus. I have no right to be upset? I have no right to say anything? What the fuck!!! You're the saint. I forgot. I am just an IDIOT. A STUPID, STUPID, STUPID girl. And I am so mad at you I am SHAKING. I wish I could say I didn't give a fuck what you think, or how you feel. It would make it a lot easier to tell you to go to hell."

Minutes later he replied.

No no, that is not all. You are not a stupid girl. It is just that you wanted more from me than I was prepared to give. I would remind you how we met. I never promised you any kind of love here.

I am incredibly sorry first, that you had to go through the ectopic pregnancy, and alone at that, second, that you had developed such strong feelings for me. They were not what I wanted to happen and were not really reciprocated fully on my end.

I am sorry that I let it go so far and hoped that we could be sort of casually having an affair that we both knew was self-limiting by circumstance. When it became stronger than that, I should have realized, did realize two nights before I left and didn't, no doubt because of my stunted self-centerdness, really know what I should do. How I could make good on feelings that I couldn't quite reciprocate. And that, from a practical standpoint, given my impending departure. Frankly, I was having some difficulty adjusting tho the idea that I was going to be here and dealing with Marion in person after so many months apart and staying with you in your new apartment in that domesticated arrangement was really bothering me. I am sorry that you now think so poorly of me. I am a shit for meeting you online and then not ducking out when I thought it was getting more serious for you.

Berlin

Yes. He was definitely a shit. But his apology softened me.

Berlin-
I shouldn't have asked you to stay with me. I knew all along ... you gave me all the signals of a guy backing off and I just kept pushing. I guess its because from the start I always felt that I had just sort of been an addendum to YOUR life - and I guess as I got to know you better I wanted you to be part of mine. It was my way of asking you to be part of mine -- and you didn't want that. It was clear. I guess I just really wished you could have said that. I really wish I just wasn't some girl you had meaningless sex with. Someone you wish you could just forget. I know how we met. But I AM stupid. I think that those things can somehow be something other than they are. I think the truth is I was never really looking for anything casual. I always wanted something real - and something serious, and I am stupid because I am foolish enough to think that something casual *might* accidentally grow into something more serious - for thinking it might grow into love. And in the beginning I really didn't know enough about your relationship with Marion to realize how off the market you really were. I didn't know in the beginning you were going there to LIVE with her - that she had basically lived with you - that you had bought a car for HER. You may as well have been a married man - and that was a road I never would have gone down if I had known. I put the pieces together too late. And you could have been more upfront.
I knew it was self-limiting by circumstance. But circumstances change. You gave me reason to think that things might not work out between you two – and all along I was left wondering how, if you took Marion out of the equation, you felt about ME. And way back then – lying in your bed when I was asking you those questions – THAT is what I was driving at. I was not asking whether you and I had some sort of immediate future. I was not asking you to stay with me. What I was asking was if you were developing feelings for me that carried any weight – feelings that merited being pursued if your circumstanced did change. If you got to Berlin and discovered you had made a terrible mistake. DO YOU SEE? I was trying to tell you then that I was beginning to feel something and I wanted you to cut me loose if you didn’t feel the same way – if you never would feel the same way no matter how bad things got with Marion.

You never really responded fully. You wanted to keep it going, and so you sort of skirted my questions – and you shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have let you either. I should have really pushed you harder – and I should have made you say what I didn’t want to hear. What I think you are telling me now: that even if there was no Maria, there would not have been an us. Am I right? That I am a sweet girl, and that we had fun, but that I was not the one for you. No magic.

I just need to hear you say that. It seems stupid to you, I am sure. I shouldn’t have been such a coward and been so afraid to just stand up and walk away. I should have just had some integrity and walked away!!! I didn’t because I knew you wouldn’t have come after me. You never did. Not that day when I left in a huff, not when I didn’t call for days, or when you went away to Boston, or now, when you are finally in Berlin. You have no interest in pursuing me, in any way. But I need you to say the words. Just say it, so I can put this behind me. Please.

I'm sorry for saying hurtful things. You hurt me a lot. Even if it was unintentional.

Writefromtheheart

The Letter

Dear Berlin;
I'm not sure you are much of a writer, but I suppose I have always felt that when you embark on a big change in your life it helps to write things down. Whether it's to remember the details of all the things you will take for granted down the road, or just to look back on how much of it you had wrong...

The truth is I've never been much of a journal writer myself. I tend to censure my thoughts, just in case someone else might read them one day. As emotional as I am, it's actually really difficult for me to sit down and be brutally honest about my feelings. Perhaps you're better at that than I am. I doubt it though. From what I can tell, we could both use some practice in that department.

So I don't know what you'll do with this book. I suspect it might fill some shelf in your new Berlin apartment and collect dust, lost in a jumble of papers and photographs and symbols of people and things that mean much more to you than I did. But nevertheless, I harbor a small hope you will write in it all the impressions and memories of your new life, and maybe one day when it's filled, send it back to me, so I'll know what became of you. Not just the boring stuff everybody else already knows –whether you got into medical school, or got married – but what became of your heart and the journey it traveled to get there.

I like to fancy myself a rather sensible person. Grounded. Realistic. Level-headed. But the truth is, at my core, I'm a romantic, and not the least bit sensible at all. I love too easily and hang on too long. I readily expose all my emotional vulnerability, and carelessly and recklessly offer up the most valuable parts of myself without demanding much of anything in return. On the surface it's foolish, and often extraordinarily painful. I don't know why I do it, except that I think to share who and what you are with someone else – to divulge that little bit of your inner sanctum, to risk your heart and its rejection at the deepest level, is really all we have to offer in this life. Because when everything else falls away, if you never let anyone really know you, if you never feel and touch the deepest vein of another person's core, then when you leave this life there is nothing left behind. No mark that you have left on those around you. So when I discover someone I think is worth knowing, I always let them in. I close my eyes and take the leap of faith. I certainly did it with you.

Exactly what I expected that night when I met you for the first time, I'm not entirely sure. I guess I figured you might be someone worth passing a little time with, a distraction from what is certainly one of the more difficult periods of my life. I didn't think I'd meet some one quite so extraordinary. I didn't think I'd meet this guy who comes from the same Italian town as my family. Someone who shares my love of both science and politics, can build coral reefs in a fish tank, knows what sheep sorrel is (and can find it!!) and thinks dogs are worth every hair they shed all over your house. A man who can cook, who enjoys restoring old and broken down furniture and homes, who doesn't think cilantro tastes like soap, and thinks a bottle of red wine and me naked make for a particularly pleasant evening. A guy who thinks the spectacle of feeding carp loaves of bread is hilariously fun, and would take a woman he just met there on a date. You are smart, and thoughtful, and sensitive. If only you weren't in love with someone else.

I knew I was in for a heartache the moment I found out about her. There I was on that bar stool, thinking to myself, "This guy is really cool." Then out of blue, there it was... the real reason you were off to Berlin. "I'm chasing a woman." My heart sank. That was the one thing I didn't want. The one thing I had explicitly requested. "No happily married men. You can be exiting a relationship, but honestly it has to be pretty much over." Chasing someone across the Atlantic Ocean does not exactly constitute closure! And then in nearly the same breath, you said "but I don't think she really wants me to come." There was a flicker in my brain. A moment when I considered letting the evening end with a few drinks and a nice conversation. Followed by a moment when I thought, "Maybe she really doesn't want him to come. Maybe it is over. It would be a shame if I didn't find out." And then you kissed me, and the risk seemed like the only possible decision to make.

I know I should have never asked you what I meant to you. I should have been content to let things remain casual. I should have repressed all those romantic and unrealistic ideas that there was some sort of instant connection between us that could supersede the years of what you felt for her – this woman who gave you cause to leave a relationship of eight years, a woman who you hang onto despite the fact she won't commit, who you would allow to flirt with other men right under your nose, a woman who despite everything, you would travel halfway across the world, quit your job, and change your life for. I don't know what I was thinking – or hoping. Asking those questions shattered the illusion we had built. Burst the protective bubble that provided our escape from reality. I regretted the words the moment I said them.
And still I had to ask – I had to say what was in my heart, because the worst thing in the world I can think of is not telling someone that you care about them and missing a chance. I suppose it's also that I have never been much good at detachment. My emotional faucets run hot or cold. On or off. Love or ambivalence, and not much in between. So even though I instinctively knew the answer to the question before it was asked, I had to spit out the words that were stuck in my throat. The words that seemed to stick between us.

Not that it helped. There is still so much that's unspoken. So much that I have been carrying around that I couldn't tell you. So much I probably never will. Even now, in a letter you are reading on a plane, knowing that I may never hear from you again, there I things I wonder if I should tell you. Things like how jealous I was every time you talked to her. Like how I wished I was the one you were missing while you were away from me, or the one you would want to call to recount the ups and downs of your day. How crazy it made me to find myself in the position of the other woman (I mean, really, the irony!). And how in the span of the two weeks while you were gone, I discovered I was pregnant, and while still reeling from the emotion of that discovery learned the life inside me would never be (it turned out to be ectopic). How it felt to be treated - alone and scared- and struggle through the anguish and grief of losing a child – that wasn't yet a child – but somehow I loved as if it already were. It's not something you could probably understand. It surprised even me, but in the ultrasound, I found myself waiting to hear the heartbeat with so much anticipation. Even knowing it was all the wrong timing, and totally unplanned, that if I decided to have it you may have resented me forever – still knowing all of that – I couldn't stop wanting that baby. I couldn't stop wanting to protect that life. And then there was no heartbeat. Just a great aching sadness, and a burden of loss I would carry alone. There are a lot of things I suppose I will carry alone.

So when you would ask me what I was thinking – it was all of these things and more. Thinking I was a fool. Thinking I was with you but really alone. Thinking that there was such a tremendous opportunity here, that was being squandered, because your mind, your heart and your energy were engaged somewhere else – invested in someone else. Wondering what might have been if we had met under different circumstances – and if that were even possible. Knowing it's pointless to wonder.
In the moments when we could forget all that, it all seemed so light and easy. Without all the heavy stuff, I would catch a glimpse of something that felt so completely natural and wonderful. And then she would be back. Texting. Calling. Always there, reminding me what I wasn't – a meaningful part of who you are. A real, acknowledged, part of your life.

I can't say I didn't figure it out early on. The truth is I knew I had made a mistake in Pennsylvania that afternoon on the park bench when she called you. The look that crossed your face when you told me who it was, the sort of pained expression of wanting to pick up the phone but knowing it was so obviously inappropriate. That look told me everything I needed to know. You needed to talk to her. You wanted to talk to her. I was suddenly an obstacle. You walked away from me to take the call, and that was the metaphor for everything I knew that would happen next. I knew then that this was just a last roll in the hay for you. An emotional escape from the gravity of what you were about to do. A last fling before the wedding, so to speak. But I needed someone, and even if only temporarily, it seemed so did you. So I put it out of my mind and hoped it would be worth it in the end.
I know that sounds a little bitter, and a little like I think you didn't have any real feelings for me. I don't actually think that. I think that you do care, very genuinely in fact. If I didn't think that I wouldn't have stayed, but I was always a little too aware that I wasn't the one you really craved. A little too cognizant of the fact that you had too much unfinished business to accept what I was willing to offer. I deluded myself about your intentions just long enough to get sucked in, and then it was too late. So even though I cherish what we did have, sometimes I'm a little angry with myself for selling out in that way. It makes me feel a little cheap –the idea that I am little more than a passing fancy, a notch in the bedpost, and a way to help you find your way back to someone else. It stings. I admit it. It hurts to be the one who hides the hole but never quite fills the void. And I was always conscious of that void.

It doesn't help I suppose that you have caught me at a moment in time where I am rather vulnerable. My emotional neediness is off the scale. I feel clingy, depressed, self-conscious and more alone than ever. I have projected a lot of that neediness onto you – rather unfairly under the circumstances – and I imagine it is both unattractive and a deterrent to establishing any real connection we might have had. I am weaker than usual and there are a lot of moments lately where I second-guess my value as a love interest and life partner—but that's what years of being with someone who won't love you the way you need will do. It will break you apart inside and make you lose sense of yourself. It will make you forget what it feels like to be cherished and adored, until you reach out for it in desperation in all the wrong places.

And yet, in spite of everything, I don't necessarily think that searching for affection and love in your arms was entirely the wrong place to be looking. There is a genuine, unappreciated tenderness in you. A part of you that seems guarded and a little lost. But still searching ... for something or someone, in many ways, not so differently from my own quest. I watched you nurse that kitten and saw a man with a beautiful and natural desire to nurture and love. It was such a simple moment, and yet it touched me deeply, and when Oliver was whisked away by his would-be middle-aged female protectors, I was sorry not so much for losing him but that that would be the last time I would get to see your paternal sweetness.

And even if it was all wrong between us, even if you never thought me more than a pleasant way to pass the time, it felt nice for a while, and I do think my life is richer for having held you in it, albeit at arms length. It did help propel me forward—initiating the necessary steps to control my own destiny and happiness, and I will always owe you a little bit for that. There is a nice expression in German for someone you hold dear. Ich habe dich Lieb. It doesn't exactly mean I love you, and yet it conveys much more than fondness or affection.

I know that you are moving on, and that you are making a home and a life in a new place, with a woman you love, or at least one you haven't quite gotten out of your system. I know that my affection for you is not reciprocated, and that this probably all seems immature and ridiculous, and that I am probably just a foolish grown-up girl with a broken heart, clinging to the smallest and flimsiest threads of generosity she has been offered. But be that as it may, I do love you. For whatever it's worth. I fell for you, and there is no real point in pretending anymore. I don't have to keep up the brave face.

So I hope you remember me fondly, and don't remain a permanent stranger. And for your sake, I hope she does love you, and loves you in the way you deserve, because I would hate to see you find your own heart in the sort of pieces mine is.

That's not to say I am broken beyond repair. I don't want you to go away thinking you have left this fragile, damaged thing behind – a victim of your irresistible charms. No. I will recover. I still have hope that I will find someone someday who will be all that I seek and more. Maybe even someone who will find me compelling enough to chase me to another continent. Someone who finds me as charming, and smart, and sweet, and creative, and amazing, and as hard to live without as I find you. But until that time, I'll miss you very deeply, and I'll think of you often.

Ich hab' dich lieb. Lieber als du denkst. Ich habe dich lieb – so lieb. Auch wenn du nicht an mich hängst. Ich wünsche dir einen Leben voll am Liebe und Freude, genau so wenn's nicht von mir kommt.

Vergiss mich nicht. Vielleicht eines Tages sehen wir uns mal wieder. Das hätte ich gern.
Küssen-
immer und ewig-
WFTH