Chapter 37: Hail Mary Pass

The single page letter trembles in my hand.

Someone hates me… and I dont mean just dislike, but visceral, passionate hatred. This isn’t your garden variety abhorrence. They want me completely destroyed. This is deep loathing, to take the time to purposefully and maliciously mess with someone else’s life, put in the effort to actually find addresses in the days before Google made it easy, type essays and construct memes, print everything out and pay to have it all mailed properly.

Oh, yes, this is more than hate, this is a vendetta.

I stare at the lengthy inventory of insults and vitriol.

I am a bitch. I am a hypocrite. I am a fucking piece of shit. I am worse than the vilest piece of worm-eaten garbage in the gutter. I don’t deserve to live, and most definitely do not belong anywhere near the church. The strongest curse words possible are used for this condescending rant; dense, single-space type jamming an entire page of damnation to Dante’s deepest level of hell. I am an impostor. I am a phony. it goes on, and on, and on ranting about the horrible person I am. And it is a threat. They know what I privately confessed to a couple of my best friends and sister, and will tell everyone they can broadcast this to in Tiny Town…unless I resign my position. Somehow, someone who REALLY hates me found out about my deep, dark secret, which is clearly no longer a secret at all.

Who would do this? Who would even have the time?

As I am trying to figure out the whom, I am sent another what.

This time it is a meme.

A photo of Obama. It is currently 2012.

The caption proclaims “I MAY GET ELECTED BUT YOU… MONICA BARDEN SHOULD LEAVE OFFICE! AA AND YOU DONT LOVE YOUR HUSBAND WHILE ON STAFF AT A CHURCH. DISGRACEFUL! I am guessing you didn’t resign. You better get ready for a shit storm you two faced hypocrite. Consider this news leaked.”

My guts are water. Who would want to see me destroyed like this?

The only person I can imagine hating me this much is Joe Sham, especially because I’m pretty sure he overheard us in the restaurant. I had been worried about this even before the postman started delivering bombshells, but I have no way of knowing if he is the one behind the letters…there are other possibilities, and it is years before the most likely suspect makes themselves manifest.

Within a few days Pastor Almost calls me into his office. He sets down a piece of paper, a Willy Wonka meme with all-caps screaming MONICA BARDEN IS IN AA …AND SHE HATES HER HUSBAND!! He tells me this has been sent to him and several members of the worship team I lead.

How far has this gone? The worship team at Pastor Almost’s church? The one at Pastor South’s church? The team I used to lead at Pastor Real’s? Everyone on staff? Everyone in the community?!

I shrink in embarrassment. This is being sent to the people who work for me, and God only knows who else. I am absolutely terrified. Who knows this much information? How do they know? How was it leaked? Who threw me under the bus, so carefully chartered, destination the Ruin Monica Convention?

I cower, and ultimately, give in.

The situation succeeds in scaring the everliving hell out of me, and once again I decide I cannot leave, and somehow have to make the best of things. I resolve once again, that dammit, I am going to make this work. And I desperately go to seminars, and do research, and read every book I can get my hands on to win this cliffside battle before it all topples over with a big Wilhelm scream, and in the midst of this high-peril drama, I discover a book called Act As If. And I have my answer.

I’m going to Act As If!!

I double down my efforts. Dammit, I HAVE TO MAKE THIS WORK.

I start doing everything as if I have a fabulous marriage. I force myself to hold hands, kiss, everything. I even journal about how a miracle has happened and now I am passionately in love with the man I married. I have no choice. Someone out there has it in for me, and I am making everything exponentially worse for all involved by having opened up my secret Pandora’s box. I’m busy stuffing snakes, demons, swirling dark clouds and all manner of evil back into this suitcase, and I’m sitting on the lid feeling it bounce beneath me as it all threatens to burst asunder.

I do the only thing I can do, and join the ranks of a million celebrity spiritual leaders before me who got their hands caught in the financial cookie jar, chocolate chip stained fingertips notwithstanding, or gave in to the temptation of a bountifully bosomed blonde secretary in possession of a delightfully whispery voice, or were caught receiving a massage with a very happy ending indeed, thank you very much, sir, I shall tip you quite well, please keep this a secret.

I go public, and confess to the church body that I have had struggles with my marriage, and that I have been going to AA. I commit to the congregation that we will work on our marriage, and I manage to put out this dumpster fire before it consumes my entire life. And it looks like it’s out, but there are embers that will never extinguish, at the moment I have managed merely to bury them.

And I read Act As If again, and again, and again. I am obsessed with this book, I have to be. At this point I have also read The Secret, and I’m playing create-your-own-reality chess, an eleventh-hour attempt to manifest chemistry where there is none, the desperate alchemist on the millionth try lying collapsed and totally frustrated pounding fists on the floor in the lab as a petri dish rests on the counter, once again synthesizing absolutely zero actual gold.

We go on a second honeymoon. We go on date nights. We stay in hotels. I even confess to DH that I was tempted to cheat with a guy who had flirted with me on Facebook. Nothing physical happened, but I feel terrible for the conversation, it’s the closest I ever came to infidelity. DH buys me a beautiful recommitment ring. He’s a good man, and he is doing his best. He buys me candy. He buys me flowers.

I suck.

I Act As If again, and again, and again.

And, because I am doing the Right Thing, the congregation embraces us, and supports us, and rallies around us.

And all is well.

Except I am starting to view death as a great option.