Chapter 39: Pause

Sometimes there is a moment that changes everything…a death, a birth, a piece of news, a shot fired, a disturbance in the Force.

I will give you a moment, because shit’s gonna go down.

So take a pause. Things are coming up that will offend some of you. This is all the disclaimer you’re gonna get.

Ready?

Play.

The doctor sits back in her chair, looks me straight in the eye, and delivers a bombshell.

“Are you having unwanted sex?”

BOOM.

I finally shatter. It takes an instant to break down completely before this woman I have known for all of ten minutes. And I am inconsolably incoherent for the next ten.

And OF COURSE I’ve been having unwanted sex! It’s not DH’s fault, it’s what the church told me to do! The verse is “Do not keep yourself from your husband” and I’m not allowed to make him not my husband, so yeahh, I’ve been pretending my way through this, mentally going somewhere else, anyplace else, the entire damn time. And she can tell this from a five-minute exam of my body? How?? If I weren’t so busy losing my marbles, and I can almost hear them CLAKKITY KLAK KAK KAK bouncing everywhere and rolling irretrievably under the furniture, I would have been wondering at just what voodoo school she had received her training in the paranormal. Not sure what exactly she felt in my pile of guts that magically ratted me out, exposing shamelessly what my mouth was determined not to tell.

After I calm down enough, she asks if I am having trouble getting out of a relationship, well duh, and I tell her my story in that choking staccato voice you have when you’ve been crying really hard, gasping through the sentences. I feel ridiculous, and I vomit the entire story out of me in a twenty minute torrent. Gross. She listens patiently as I empty years of everything, scraping the bottom of the bin, hosing it out with a power sprayer. All of the churches, all of the belief systems thrust upon me, all of the rules, all of the yes sir, no sir, whatever you want, sir. I feel an unclenching of sorts, after 25 years of wrapping duct tape, Krazy glue and anything else I can find to paste this mess together, I’m allowing it all to burst open until it’s a huge fucking mess that looks like it belongs on a really good episode of Hoarders. Get yer popcorn and check this out, folks, on today’s episode, life exploded.

I lose track of time, it feels I’ve been crying for hours, though doctor’s office rules dictate that’s not really possible. She asks do I want to get out? And I’m finally honest and I finally say YES. Are ya kidding me? She talks me down and we come up with a plan, though this still seems as impossible as going across the ocean on an inner tube. In January. Naked. With a school of sharks in tow. She gives me support resources, and in the time I’m in this office, I receive the tools to leave. I’ve been in Alcatraz and that guy who escaped that one time has shown up at my door with picks, shovels, and an inflatable boat. Exit this way, why, absolutely I would love to get the hell out of here, thank you very much.

And at last, I finally say yes to someone I should have been listening to all along. A forever neglected bit of actual Monica rises up, a tiny baby phoenix popping out of a smoldering heap of ashes and saying IT’S TIME.

The doctor, this wonderful soul, this woman, this angel, this knightess in shining armor sets me up with a few different types of therapists, and after twenty three loooooong years, in one hour a door blows wide open. But this person I’m holding onto for dear life is merely a buoy in the middle of the ocean, and eventually I am going to have to leave her office and make the swim of my life back to the San Francisco beach, where I can stand, view of the dark prison behind me at last.

She finally cuts me loose, and I leave clutching a pile of papers representing my pardon, stumbling down the hall, my head spinning. I can barely see straight, I feel drunk. I am in shock. I meander out to the parking lot and commence the Olympic chain smoking event of a lifetime. I feel I at least deserve the bronze. I call BF (best friend from a few chapters ago) and talk for what seems to be hours. I call a musician friend of mine who had gone through a difficult split. I’m pretty sure I called a few others in my nicotine-stained daze. I can’t recall who, but I would have called anyone to avoid going home a little longer. This wasn’t going to be easy.

And I finally sit alone in my car. The dashboard is memorized.

I think about the years given away. I think about how much I had let others run my life, to the eventual decaying of my own body. I think about the unknown, what this will cost me. It’s impossible to tell. How will Pastor Almost react? Will my children, now in high and middle school, be okay?

And, finally, I think about Monica.

I remember a time before I gave up all of my own choices and decisions. I remember a determined, feisty fireball who wouldn’t give up on anything until she achieved her dreams. It’s like a whisper on the wind, a faded hint of long-gone perfume. Can I find her again?

I get in the car and start the engine.

Time to blow shit up.