My Jeep sits in his driveway.

The headlights cast a stern, disapproving glare at me.

I stand barefoot on the warm concrete. Our eyes meet for the first time in months, and a warm glow envelops me. My steely resolve is now cheap grocery store taffy. His icy blue gaze measures me… Evaluating? Judging? I guess I’m not really sure what he’s thinking.

In the end, I folded faster than a hotel laundry during a pornstar convention. One stupid text message knocked me over like a paper domino. I thought I was so strong, I was not. I caved faster than a sandcastle in a shitstorm. Whatever idiom, you get it. The minute I thought there was a chance with him again, my new life collapsed like a pile of Chardonnay-soaked soccer moms playing Twister.

I allow him to take me into his arms. The tough attitude of the last five months is dissolving into dust, and I can feel it rapidly fading away, the ghost of a strong person, an image, a spectre gone with the first puff of wind. Poof! Just like that. I mean, he must really love me if he’s back, right? And it is a thrill to be standing here with him at last, love having won out after all. That’s what’s happening here, right?? Being together has to be his endgame if he’s here with me, doesn’t it?

Back at the campground, I had zero thoughts going on about any men whatsoever. Unpacking camping gear I chose, setting up the ridiculously plush inflatable bed I picked out, doing something I love to do and that I planned with my amazing daughter… all fabulous self-empowering and independent thoughts came screeching to a halt as I stared dumbly at the message. The Message. THE MESSAGE that was destined to take me down. And I allowed it! Oh, did I ever. WHY, OH WHY did I not have his number blocked?! At first I was just longing for what turned out to be a painfully absent message from him. Then, when I was picking up the pieces, I was so absolutely sure he would never contact me again after what happened, well, I guess it never occurred to me to actually block his number. Maybe I was actually keeping some hope alive, some little shred in the back of my mind that maybe, just maaayyyyyybeeeeee…

And here it is.

His text message is a syringe pregnant with the divine anesthesia of heroin being placed in the death grip of a junkie, and my hands twitch with the excitement of the blessed fix. I text back instantly like a fucking dingbat high school girl, in between twirling my pigtails, automatically programmed to respond immediately to such things. Why, yes sir, I will, of course, promptly respond to your text without a single solitary thought as to how this will affect the life I’ve been painstakingly assembling.

And half-built chunks, the Tinkertoys of my life go splintering to bits as I stab the needle in my long-scarred vein.

Ahh, there it is.

I am drowned in warm honey again, the dopamine-rush of being in love.

I know better than this. It’s even a meme, a joke amongst the dating, the girl waiting by the phone, nails chewed to shreds…why isn’t he responding? Whyyyyy doesn’t he calllll??? Meanwhile, the guy is totally oblivious (In all fairness, I did a search on this and discovered that girls do this to guys as well. Sorry, guys.). I don’t want to be that meme anymore! But I’m the literal screen adaptation tonight. I respond to his out-of-the-blue text, instead of leaving him waiting indefinitely for an answer that never comes like he did to me, and of course, he replies, and then we have a stupid conversation going again, and my feet robotically step their marching orders to the Jeep, climb in, and autopilot over to his house the minute he asks me to come over.

I’m a walking cliche.

A decrepit hand erupts from the dirt before a moldy gravestone. It turns and twists, clawing its way free from the earth. This is ungodly, unnatural, abnormal. He should have been long gone, remains buried deep in the ground.

Jackdude is clawing his way back out of the grave where I left him.

Jackdude: How are you doing?
Me acting casual: Good, how about you?
Jackdude: Great, can I see you?
Me: I thought you said you never wanted to see me again. You walked out on me.
Jackdude: Things have changed. I got another DUI.

I know.

I can hear you groaning from here. More warning signs than Chernobyl’s visitor center, and I did it anyway.

Pathetic.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Monica, that is the stupidest fucking reason I’ve ever heard for a guy wanting to see you again. But I am in love, in LOOOOVEE with him! What if I never find anyone better? What if he’s The One? What if he stops drinking now that has gotten a second DUI? And all of the excuses in the world as to why I should give into my heart’s yearning to see him file into my head. Little protestors in my brain, carrying their wee cardboad signs and chanting GIVE HIM ANOTHER CHANCE! GIVE HIM ANOTHER CHANCE! My brain is overwhelmed, my higher powers of reason wanting to be heard but being choked out by my heart, which refuses to see the very obvious fact that seeing Jackdude again is a No Good Very Bad Idea.

Sadly, it colors my thoughts for the remainder of the time I am with my daughter, creeping around the shelves of my brain like a Brooklyn rat in a dank cellar. I think about it, but not near critically enough. And as the weekend comes to a close, and I drop my daughter back off to college, my body is on autopilot…brushing on makeup, getting in the car, somehow I want to prove to him how much stronger I am now, how much better. My Jeep reluctantly carries me over to his house, and I am sooo excited to see him again.

I pull in and he is already outside, waiting.

We chat. I say I’ve missed him. He says he missed me.

We kiss. We reconnect. He invites me in, same half-empty bottle of Jack on the counter. I waltz right by Red Flag Central, and jump right back into believing this is gonna work. And the next twelve hours is the heavenly bliss that only a denial-based reunion can be. I mean, denial exists because it is the delicious flaky buttered pastry coating assisting the ingestion of the creamy poison filling that will kill you. But I’m so hungry, and it’s dinner time, and I am savoring every last delicious and deadly morsel. I don’t even ask him the one thing I really want to know, the reason my mind convinced me to come over, the million dollar question.

Why did you walk out on me?

But I don’t ask. I wouldn’t want to trouble him. I am thoughtful, after all, and shouldn’t ruin the moment. I’ll ask him later.

Only there is no later. The next day, I message him.

And the next.

And the next.

No response. He’s not taking my phone calls. He won’t respond to my texts.

Almost a week later, he finally responds, and I stare at my phone in ragged disbelief.

I crumple into a heap at the bottom of my bed, scrapped.

The wheelbarrow creaks away, bearing what’s left of me.

Is there anything better than adult children?

My daughter rides shotgun as we bounce along in my yellow Jeep, whose bumper advertises to the world that I am HYPRR. Five months now I’ve been recreating my life, and the results are pretty amazing. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

I am a woman possessed with building an amazing life.

A Dr. Frankenstein wannabe in her lahBOARatorrry, I have been experimenting. What works? What doesn’t work? I’m pouring beakers of chemicals together to see what happens. I go to various Meetups, card game nights, board game nights, but at a lot of these, I sense in many of those I meet that same old desire, that same need I used to have, looking to another to find something you can only find in yourself. I decide the Meetups aren’t really helping, except for one.

I join a hiking group, and we trek through a variety of Wisconsin terrain. I’m a ladybug, little person with giant backpack. Or a Mutant Ninja Turtle, whichever you find more entertaining.

I hike alone as well, visualizing waves of positive energy radiating from me as I walk through this world, undulating as ripples in a river indicating the presence of some unknown object beneath the surface. I talk to God, even though my thoughts on that are unsure at the moment. I talk to the Universe. I talk to myself, continually readjusting my dreams, my vision of what I want, now that no one is stopping me.

I want to bring joy. I want to spread love. Not romantic love, rather the unselfish kind that builds into others without the expectation of anything at all. And I envision these waves flowing from me, changing the world around me. This visualization may seem a bit silly and woo-woo, but 1-it is a fantastic tool to change your approach to humanity and 2-you can’t prove to me that this doesn’t have some sort of effect we humans just don’t understand yet. Maybe I’m wrong, but what if I’m right? I’ve read one too many studies about visualization being a freakishly powerful tool to not believe in it. I’m going to attract what I want in my life. Like begetting like, magnet drawing steel. And I’m going to work like hell on it, too, not merely envisioning, but putting action to it, studded mountain-worthy tires fully equipped to carry this vision to its destination.

I get ideas from the mountain of information I am processing. I listen to two or three audiobooks a week. I listen while I clean. I listen while I get ready for work. I listen while I sleep. I even listen to subliminal meditations meant to reconstruct your thoughts while you sleep, though I know damn well they’re probably bullshit.

I read Can’t Hurt Me, and start writing my inspirations on little notes glued to my makeup mirror, reminders of the person I want to be each day. I read about how to create better luck, and yes, it’s actually possible. I read The Secret, still not sure about that one, though I have attracted some pretty amazing and surprising things into my life soooo… well, why not? I read about minimalism and everything by Marie Kondo, and conclude being a neat freak will absolutely never be in my DNA. Like Pigpen, I have a perpetual cloud of creative clutter in my wake, detritus from my latest idea explosion. My only hope is if for you to tell everyone to buy this book so I can hire Mary Poppins to follow me around and pick it all up.

And I start remembering who the hell I am. I find a picture of the time I shared the stage with a major artist, both of us trading vocal licks on one of the more amazing days I had leading worship. I frame it and set it where I can see it every day. I change my profile picture and background on all my social media to performance shots. And I want my body back. I print a picture of Arnold Shwarzenegger with an awesome quote on it and hang it in my bathroom. He’s still there, proudly looking buff while I pee. Everywhere I look in my house I create a source of inspiration, positive energy, and information for my brain.

I love incredible food, and begin visiting the best restaurants in Big Suburb, not on a date at all, but alone. I sit at the bar and order adventurous appetizers and wine, and meet fascinating people. My life is becoming amazing, I am a chick pecking her way out of the egg, and I’m just starting to see an amazing new world through the crack in the shell.

I keep pecking.

One of the biggest keys to being content by myself turned out to be working on me, getting in there and tinkering under the hood to see what can be improved, can we get some nitrous in there? How about some rocket fuel? Whenever I find myself alone, I now view it as the Universe’s cue it’s time to get out the hammer and chisel and start chipping away at character flaws, and shoring up the qualities I want most prominent. A deeper groove here, a more pronounced cheekbone there. The best part? NO one can take away what you build in yourself, unless you die, and then you won’t know anyway. So I tear down, and prune, and shore up, and build.

The band keeps growing, and we create a little acoustic offshoot band, so we can play more. I go out, but no longer look at men like an endless buffet. They are just people, getting through life just like the rest of us.

I plan vacations and take time off to do things I always wanted to do.

Something I always loved, in spite of being the only one out of eight kids and two parents who enjoy it, is camping. I buy a single person hammock tent and sleep under the stars. I get the whole camping kittencaboodle, including a campfire coffee pot and cooking kit, a campstove that runs on a little canister of butane, a regular tent, one of those little things that supposedly puts off fumes that make mosquitos go away, and 100% DEET spray. If you are complaining that this is toxic, you haven’t hiked where I have. I also get a really expensive miner’s light I lose almost instantly, a hiking day pack, and enough dry goods for a small army of Monicas.

I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m gonna have a blast finding out!

I book a waterfall chasing trip to see the tallest waterfal in my state (OVER 150 FEET TALL!! brags their Chamber of Commerce.)

So, on this radiant summer day, we are busting down the road to Korean pop, one of the few types of music my daughter and I can agree on. I haven’t heard an English word out of the radio for four hours. The sun blazes through the gaping, and gratefully intentional hole in my roof, and it all makes me really happy.

We pull into the campground, and I haul all my camping gear out, and setup commences. Tent, fire supplies, cooking gear, coolers, and a wayyy too big queen size inflatable mattress the size of a bed at the Ritz-Carlton. It’s like three feet tall. We inflate it at the ranger station and haul it back to the campsite as the other campers stare. I’d like to think with great envy.

Camp set up, I go for a run. OH my God is it beautiful. Waterfalls exist because there’s something the water falls from, so the surrounding terrain is usually quite spectacular as well. There are little falls all over the place here, and I’m fascinated. It’s a tough run, it’s super hilly, but I finally finish and clean up in one of those push-the-button-and-it-runs-for-like-three-seconds showers.

I love the all of this.

We go look at the Biggest Waterfall the next morning, and it really is amazing. You know how you lose all sense of perspective at the Grand Canyon because it’s so fucking big your brain can’t handle it? It’s that size. It’s massive. It’s tall. Totally lives up to the press release. We take pictures like the dorky tourists we are. We talk, we laugh, we listen to more K-Pop.

We pull back into the campsite at the end of the day, worn out, happy, tired.

…but in one moment, a sound chills my blood to zero.

A text message tone I haven’t heard in months, yet there it is, and it’s totally unmistakable. I can’t fucking believe it.

A dark form comes crashing through the skylight of this wonderful new life I’ve been building, falling smack in the middle of my new, no longer pristine living room. My beautiful new showplace is covered in shattered glass.

With one simple hey how are you doing? I am undone.

It’s the only person who has the power to sabotage my journey to myself.

The wind blasts my hair into my face and I push it back with my hands “AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” I yell into the blazing summer sky.

It’s the first car I’ve ever really chosen, and I got so picky about it that the ony one available in the entire continental United States was in Cincinnati and had to be shipped here. A blinding yellow Jeep Renegade with vanity plates, a removable roof that converts into a sunroof, the complete winter package: heated seats and a heated steering wheel which is totally underrated because if you have one, you never need to wear gloves and I always forget them anyway, and a buncha other things I probably haven’t discovered yet. I immediately replace the seats with leather, too, no spilled coffee is going to ruin my life with threats of forever stains, never again. I am getting really good at answering an extremely important, life changing question.

What do you want?

Such a simple question.

So rarely answered.

Go ahead, call it selfish. It’s really not. It’s a boundary question, designed to pry you away from living a life of obligation to another person, place or idea. And the car is just a representation, a talisman parked in my driveway daily reminding me it’s perfectly okay to make my own decisions regarding my own life. This was a complete me decision, I didn’t consult anyone else at all before buying it except for my daughter, who got dragged along to the wonderful and enlightening world of the car salesroom. (Does anyone else suspect they starve you out in there? Naked and Afraid wouldn’t survive buying a car.). Poor thing, I owe her one, it’s CPS report worthy to put your offspring through this. But we make it through, and the big yellow Tonka looking thing is mine. Completely my own decision, uncolored by another’s opinion.

Go, Monica!

For the first time in my life, I am intentionally spending great swaths of time alone, purposefully and carefully rebuilding my own foundation.

Some of what I’m replacing isn’t very high quality material. I have told my story and it sounds like this is all circumstantial, something that happened to me, some sort of cosmic safe that fell on my head in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, leaving me a walking accordion. Victim of circumstance, that’s what it has seemed for 75 chapters now.

But that’s not quite correct.

I could have prevented most of these things from happening. Oh, yes, I most definitely had things “happen” to me, but one of the more valuable tidbits I pick up while voraciously studying how to grab the steering wheel of my own life is the necessity to take 100% responsibility for your role in everything, and I most definitely did play a role. Oh, yes, I did.

And as tempting as it may be to make it all sound like someone else’s fault, it isn’t. The concept of taking responsibility is popping up everywhere in my research, like aggressive dandelions in May, and after seeing its relentlessness, it starts to sink in.

You know those “lucky” people? The ones you see who happily bounce along in life with great relationships, nice things, the ability to add into others lives?

They earned that shit. And as tempting as it is to criticize, to say they’re selfish people who are just making a power grab, this hasn’t borne out in the lives of the truly successful people I’ve known.

But they do know who the hell they are, and they aren’t wasting their life’s energy sitting in a bar waiting for someone to complete them. They are already complete, and I am learning how to be complete, but there is a price involved here.

So, I swallow my pride, and figure out my role in all of it.

From the very beginning, I mentally revisit my childhood, in which I had previously viewed myself as victim, small and bullied. I think harder about this and how, just because I could use ten dollar words and understand science better than most, I was kind of an insufferable know-it-all. And no one likes an insufferable know-it-all. I would have beat myself up, too. And there really is something I could have done about this. Rather than view myself as “special”, as a brainiac who was on some better level than these lowly morons I had to deal with every day, I could have asked them, hey, how are things going in your life? How are you doing today? Been honestly concerned about others. And yes, I fully understand that I wasn’t likely to become best friends with the bratty cheerleading crowd, but this isn’t about them. I’m under the hood of my life, not theirs. I can’t fix anyone else, only me, and I’m tinkering away with my pneumatic wrench, replacing the things I should have dealt with long ago, a walking version of It’s Never Too Late To Change! up on cinder blocks getting the work done at last.

My husband? I could have broken it off, knowing it was never going to work, instead of stringing along a guy who could have been dating others who were far more appropriate.

I could have dug in my heels about college, sorry pal, I’m going and you can’t stop me. Did he lay in front of my car and prevent me from going? No, it was just too easy once he was getting his Master’s degree to say oh, I have to work so he can do this. But I could have said nope, I’m taking classes, too, whatareyagonnadoboutit?

In the church, I could have walked away when I knew my relationship still wasn’t working, I could have divorced far earlier and determined a different career.

And when I moved, I could have immediately gotten involved musically, instead of feeling sorry for myself and hoping some knight in shining armor would come fix my pathetic life and give me a reason to get up every day.

But another person can NEVER be your reason for getting up every day. Not if you really want to LIVE.

So, I’m on the mat today, and I’m beating it out of myself, and I vomit up the truth, that a hell of a lot of the more traumatic things in my life, a ton of the pain in these pages could have been prevented by me taking responsibility for my own life, and being adamant about what I wanted. And it’s going to be an unpopular opinion, but here it is.

It’s your own damn fault when you stay in a bad situation.

Are there consequences for getting out? Of course there are, but ultimately, isn’t it better for everyone if you’re being your true self?

And the great, and widely unsung benefit of taking 100% responsibility for any mess you created, is now you have taken back your life, now you own it, warts and all, and you full well damn realize that the biggest thing standing between you and what you want… is YOU. It places you in the driver’s seat, in control, holding the joystick, having the game controller, whatever euphemism you want to use, it really gives you the knowledge of something many never realize.

YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR OWN LIFE.

Staying in a bad situation is like lying under a fallen log as people walk by, observing, feeling sorry for you, jeez it sure looks miserable under that log. Day after day you lie there, unable to do anything but allowing your body to fall into disrepair, because at some point staying under the log became easier and more comfortable than the harder work of working up the strength to get out from under it, and tolerating bruised or broken bones as you continue your journey.

And life’s road is sadly littered with folks who refuse responsibility, alms-requesters at the roadside who tug at your heartstrings but also cause bystanders to wonder why doesn’t she just get out from under that log?

You may think you’re being noble just plodding through your shithole like a big martyr, instead of leaving it for what you know you really want, but you are not doing what you are made to do, you are not fulfilling your true calling. You may think you’re being noble, but you smell like shit and aren’t doing near the good in this world you could be doing if you actually were living in the world of What You Really Wanted.

So, what do you want?

It sounds selfish, but it’s not. It’s becoming exactly what you were designed to be. Only you know what drives you, what you started out loving to do when you were ten, what you could spend all your time doing versus what feels like nails on the proverbial chalkboard to suffer through.

Any person on this planet has had someone else have a different idea of how they should live their lives, often in an intention of helpfulness, yet just a distraction of what you really should be doing. Anyone who attempts anything will have those around them questioning all the way. Even Mother Teresa had those around her determining, gee, you really should stay at the convent instead of serving the extreme poor.

What do you want?

As my floor becomes littered with books and information designed to dig out who I am from this mess, I finally know some things about me.

I am music. It’s in my blood, will always be there. Constantly in my head and on my lips, this is my lifeblood. I need to sing, I need to write. I will never allow myself to not do this again.

I love public speaking, the excitement of contributing helpful information into other’s lives.

I love the outdoors and everything outside, open windows, lying in the grass looking at the sky, the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, the sand in my buttcheeks.

I adore adventure and want to seek out paths untaken and roads less traveled.

I live for contributing into other’s lives, making them feel amazing, helping them to see the brighter side of everything, telling them they matter, that they are essential to this big ball of dirt continuing to have meaning.

I’m in the driver’s seat now, and this is where I’m going. And, did you think I’m driving a car? I’m not. This is a rocket, pal. I am nearing fifty and don’t want to waste another minute.

I WANT to be a walking fucking ray of sunshine, brightening up every single person’s day I come into contact with.

I WANT to write, to craft a story in such a way that the reader is on the razor’s edge of their seat, voraciously devouring pages to see what happens…who shot J.R.?, desperately seeking the long awaited answer to the question I created.

I want to tell my story… THIS story that you have been following for over 75 chapters now.

I want camping gear.

I want a Sunshine Yellow Jeep with a removable roof.

And I’m going to get it. It’s all right outside that door, just waiting for me.

I pick up my phone and start booking trips, but of course nothing is ever this easy.

My new, fabulous Jeep is about to drive me straight back into something I never should have revisited, and I will be sorry.

Oh, I will be soooo sorry.

I don’t know if I’m being a savior or a little shit.  

I sit across the table from Prepdude. 

Same beautiful blue gaze. 

He holds my hands in his. I feel the chemistry, but know not to fall for it. But I can’t leave him alone right now, I just can’t. 

I was with him for almost three years, I can’t just walk away and let him die alone. 

I was busy running victory laps over my revived music career when the brief message entered my world. But come it did, and once again I am amazed how a single sentence can change things. And I probably should have just said no, should have just let him figure out his own issues. But this is life and death, and I can’t pretend I don’t know. I am more than a little frustrated, there are no easy answers here, and for the gatrillionth time, I wish for a how-to manual for my life, do this, don’t do that, watch for the third step because there’s a loose board that’s going to kick up and smack you in the face, that sort of thing. But we never receive an owner’s manual for life, in spite of the vast need for one.

Therefore, I am at a loss for what is the right thing to do. I don’t even know that I asked anyone’s advice, my usual modus operandi, and possibly something I should have done, in retrospect. 

Prepdude’s friend had been calling me intermittently since the breakup, to remind me that I was missed and boy, wouldn’t you like to give this another try? I don’t even know if Prepdude was in on this, if he was having him call, but I kind of doubt it, he wouldn’t have wanted me to know that he was struggling when it came to all things Monica, that he still wanted me back, that he was depressed and lonely and…  I did love him when we were together, though in our relationship I was a forgotten toy on a shelf, there when you want it, neglected when you don’t, an unwitting appendage to be used at will. This was the guy who couldn’t be bothered to drive the twenty odd minutes to see me when I was in the too-bright emergency room, doubled over with a mysterious searing pain in my side.  So why the hell am I here?

Because I still love him. I always will, in a way. Not the go back to him kind of love, but I most definitely care if he dies. And as silly as it may sound, I don’t want him to die alone. 

Prepdude needs brain surgery. 

The tears were instant and prolific the second his friend told me. This guy, who keeps asking me to reconnect with Prepdude, has finally discovered the single solitary event that might actually cause me to do so. 

So, here I sit with the man I once loved, hearing all about the surgery he will have to undergo. They have to remove a cyst. He had surgery to repair this fifteen years ago, long before I was around, a surgery and recovery that turned out to be spectacularly traumatic. It’s back, and though they have a better solution this time around, it still involves cutting the skull open and poking around in gray matter the texture of Jell-O. And I can’t handle the idea of him thinking he could die alone. 

I’m going to make him think we’re possibly going to get back together. 

Is that shitty? Maybe, but I don’t want him going into this situation by himself. I want to give him the strongest will to survive he can possibly have through this surgery. And if he doesn’t survive, at least he exits this world feeling not alone, having love in his life even as he winks out. If he lives, well, I’ll deal with that when the time comes. See? Little shit, I am. 

We talk about the breakup. I ask why he didn’t tell me about his checkered past, his affair and ensuing extra child, the length of time he lived with his mom and dad. He says he was embarrassed, and I feel nothing but compassion at this point, my own halo banged up, tarnished and hanging askew off an ear, a blaring testament to my own fuckups. Though I never did cheat. I always considered it an extreme betrayal, connecting your lips, and body, to another then pretending nothing happened to your significant other? How do you do that? How do you not tell? He knows how, yet I see no guile in his wide eyes today. Which may mean he’s just really good at lying, though I suspect he’s learned some serious life lessons since his past indiscretions. If I can change, why can’t he? I extend this grace to him, not enough to permanently return, but enough to walk by his side through a dark place, until tunnel exited, he is safely in a green meadow again.

I’m pretty sure this was a codependent move on my part, but it’s nevertheless what I did, and what I did is the tale I tell, so I shall commence.

We talk, and reminisce, and before you know it hours have passed and it’s time for me to go. He kisses me gently, and I know he’s no longer the same person, and neither am I. He’s broken, and I feel terrible for having been part of what broke him. I go home still feeling ambivalent, not knowing if I’m doing the right thing. I still don’t know.  

I meet with him a few more times before his surgery, he’s excited about the possible reconnection. I allow all of this. Get him through the tunnel, honey, just get him through the damn tunnel. 

Then he has this ridiculously high-risk surgery. And his friend calls and informs me it went well. Good. I’m very happy this worked out for him, that he can live a normal life. 

Weeks pass, he recovers well. We communicate, albeit intermittently. I know I can’t stay in this, I just couldn’t handle the idea of him feeling he was all alone going into a life-threatening surgery. So shoot me. 

He is finally in the meadow on the other side, and I make the inevitable phone call, and explain to him though I will always be his friend, it really isn’t going to work this time. I can’t unchange who I have become, the progress I’ve made since our breakup. I know in my heart I would never date him now, I’m getting to know the real me so much better, and this is absolutely Mr. Wrong. Good chemistry and cerulean eyes notwithstanding, I know he’s a terrible match. The algorithms at any dating site would give us a big fat goose egg in compatibility, and I finally realize it takes so much more than just chemistry, more than PLEASE touch me now!!

Feeling a bit sad and a thousand years old, I drop the phone back on the table, difficult conversation concluded, knowing this hurt him, but hopeful for his future, major surgery solidly in his rearview mirror. My bizarre mission is accomplished, he didn’t have to fear dying alone. Life is weird. 

I’m such a little shit. 

But at least I’m my own little shit. 

I think this little shit is ready to do some cool shit. 

piff piff piff my feet hit the pavement in little puffs of dust.

God, I love running.

When I was first going through the process of divorce, I was running six to ten miles a couple times a week. I was lean and mean then, now I feel like I’m dragging this dead yak of an ass behind me, damn near 50 extra pounds, giant anchors pressing down each foot, forbidding me to move another step. Lead foot has a whole new meaning. I lug each foot ahead anyway, forging ahead, regaining myself with every single step.

I’m gonna have to do a better job at defending this fort of a body. I’ve been allowing all manner of garbage in, sentry asleep at the guard post with his unused and worthless cork gun. I gotta fire this guy and hire some ninjas and sharpshooters to protect this temple.

So I run, and abstain, and start treating myself well, and I have lost almost twenty pounds, and now the dead yak I’m dragging down the street with me is really more of a dead goat (sorry for the mental image, the extra weight just seems a lot like hauling around a large dead animal. Or like heaving your one-wheel-resistant-every-time luggage through the airport. See? Dragging a dead yak. Do I have to apologize to yak owners yet?)

As I run, I listen. One of my favorite life hacks when I have a problem is researching the ever loving hell out of it until I get an answer. I can go through so many books and suddenly, there the answer is, page 158, third paragraph, second sentence in, and BOOM! Lightning strikes and everything is reframed. I have a greater understanding, birds chirp, planets align, unicorns fly high above farting extra oxygen into the atmosphere. You get the idea. Things click, and finally I am able to avoid the gaping and obvious pothole I was previously running over every single time I’d hit the road.

One of the titles I have been listening to is a get-over-it breakup book. After the disaster of Jackdude, an ironic name with its Titanic mess of a situation (and Jack totally could have fit on that floating door if Rose would have just moved over her selfish society ass), I read a truckload of books about relationships, how to identify a good man from a complete player/asshat/douchebag, how to get the ones in your life to stop treating you like shit, and why he Just Isn’t That Into You, and much of the advice is bullshit, but some of it is gold, glittering sparkling advice I tuck away for future reference. And this book happens to be my current favorite, an awesomely accurate book titled It’s Called A Breakup Because It’s Broken.

This is the book I recommend to anyone who just can’t let go of lost love. It’s designed to get you back on your feet again, the main premise being that if you were meant to be together, by golly that person would be sitting at your breakfast table with you right now. They would be eating dinner with you. The two of you would be cuddled on the couch watching Office Space for the twenty-third time. There’s no way they would leave you alone, at least not for long. If that chair remains empty no matter how long you wait, if they aren’t blowing up your phone when they haven’t heard from you, if they stopped texting, it means something is fatally wrong with the relationship. It’s dead, and you pretending it’s not doesn’t make it any more alive than disco in 1985. There’s a common tendency to attempt resuscitation of dead relationships, but it’s like Norman Bates having tea with his decedent mother, playacting like she’s still alive when even the flies know she’s long gone and should have been respectfully buried months ago. Dead things rot, and a cadaver of a relationship is something that needs to be six feet under, or it’s going to stink. Just ask your friends, trust me, they are tired of the smell, too.

Along with a lot of practical advice for getting over lost love, this book also has a plethora of ridiculous stories of how much abuse we will take from a significant other who may be horrible, but from whom we just can’t seem to loosen our death grip. From overly extravagant gifts of gold jewelry, vacations and massive flat-screen TV’s with little in return, to letting them overstay their welcome on the premises until even the dog doesn’t want to talk to us any longer, we are willing to put up with a stupid amount of bullshit from those who have stolen our hearts. We excuse bad behavior, tolerate being taken for granted, and gush over obviously cheap and lazy gifts while we painstakingly choose just the right thing and generously break the bank to give lavishly to this insignificant other, sometimes even allowing free room and board, naively permitting them to use up our everything, all in the hopes that they will love us once again, desperately dreaming of the day they treat us with equal priority.

THEY WON’T.

And it’s time for us to realize this and move along folks, nothing to see here. Nothing to experience. Nothing to make our lives better, no addition, no benefit. Vacuums up a lot of time, energy and resources, though. And that’s just one reason why staying in an unfulfilling relationship can destroy you.

So, I run. I run away from the church. I run away from Dudes. I run from everything that isn’t me. I run for my life, toward all the Monica I can be.

The irony is, now that I’m no longer interested, now that I’m building my own life, now that I’m rediscovering who the hell I am, guys are coming out of the woodwork. Suddenly it seems everyone wants to date me. I swear to God, there is some kind of radar guys have when you are unobtainable that suddenly makes them give chase. Men seem to want what they can’t have, the forbidden buffet always preferred, even though it may only have Tofu Tetrazzini and goat milk. Why do I keep writing about goats?

Youngdude calls. I walk him through his latest situation, and encourage him yes, you should stay with this girlfriend who’s actually your age.

Fundude wants to connect again. Sorry, Fundude, I can be friends, but I am considering you an independent contractor and as such, there will be no benefits.

Guys chat me up when I’m out, but I no longer buy their stories. Just like what happened in the church, I’ve seen too much and now it’s difficult for me to believe them, to trust the glimmering facade being placed before me. I’m calling bullshit.

In the midst of carefully placing life puzzle pieces back together, I don’t want to interrupt the process of construction. If I add guy pieces, the final creation will only last as long as they do. Nope, not doing it.

And so, I run, and build, and…

Oh wait, you’d probably like to know what happened at the Irish event.

Where did we leave off?

“Who ARE you?!”

And I stand there with a grin bigger than a stoned Cheshire cat, rattling off my pedigree to the musician who heard me belt out the request to pay attention. He is raving about my voice. We wind up singing songs for quite a while after the event ends, harmonizing together on old classics as I stack chairs and tear down wall hangings. We sing Beatles. We sing Elvis. We sing other cliches of music everyone generally knows, and I am having a blast. He takes my information and sends it over to a friend of his who has a band. You gotta hear this singer, ASAP. And, the very next day, a text pops in would you like to audition for our band? I reply: Absolutely! When?

… tonight?

Holy shit, they want me to audition tonight! I don’t even have time to think about it!

And just like that, after all of the time being here and doing absolutely nothing musical, a forgotten relic gathering dust in the attic, I have an audition. I dust off my trusty cordless Shure Beta 87, and head excitedly across Big Suburb, butterflies on cocaine flittering away in my gut.

I pull into the driveway, and am face to face with two of the biggest dogs I have ever seen, a pair of 200 lb Great Danes. I can’t get out of the car, these Cujos are gonna get me. As I’m ready to peel out, junkie butterflies in tow, The owner calls off the horses, and I tentatively set foot out of the car. I introduce myself to one of the guitar players and head into the basement.

And the minute I walk in, it feels like home. I instantly like these people, I can tell right away they are my brothers, friends to the end. Well, at least if I can pass this audition.

I plug in my microphone, and I’m tossed into a litany of rock songs I barely know. I improvise my way through many of them, and I’m doing Tarzan swings through this music, barely catching the end of another vine before I’m swoooooping through the air again to the next one, hanging on for dear life.

And suddenly, they are all looking at each other.

Bass player: “Does anyone have any reason Monica shouldn’t be our singer?”

And no one dissents, and they are murmuring unanimous sounds of approval. They like me! They really like me. And I am totally ecstatic at making music again, at fronting a band and being my crazy self onstage, doing what I was created for.

I pick up a massive chunk of Me that evening and walk out the door, feeling like the King of the World. (What’s with the Titanic references today?)

Until I get a message from Prepdude’s friend.

“Is this damn snow ever gonna quit?”

A Wisconsin cliche from the well-dressed businessman sitting next to me. Total Chatty Cathy. Meh, that doesn’t work, try again, Monica. Chatty Chip, there it is. Chattery like a chipmunk. This guy would talk to a chunk of granite strung out on Xanax. But he’s fun, and we are having a nice, albeit rather one sided, conversation. Since I now go out alone all the time with zero intention of dating, the people I’ve met have gotten wayy more interesting. I’ve met ski guides, personal trainers, horse and dog whisperers, mediums, I won’t say larges even though that’s what immediately popped into my head after mediums, and countless other fascinating people from a thousand different walks of life. It’s amazing who you meet when it’s no longer dating options, just various people with their ways of living. But this conversation is going to be a keystone, though I don’t know it yet. And it’s confession time.

There’s something you don’t know about me…

At least I haven’t really spent much time talking about it. Not near as much as this guy is loading into my ears.

Ever since I was working in the church for Pastor Real, I have been performing on the side. I may have not been allowed secular music in the earlier church days, but nature finds a way, and I have been singing and working hard on my voice the entire time. Studying the voices of singers I love and respect, practicing, learning. I read everything I can about voice. I study materials from experts who teach celebrity icons how to sing. I study how to sing super high notes. I practice vocal exercises from top opera teachers. I study how to make your tone buttery and rich, homemade melted caramel for your ears. (Now I just want homemade melted caramel). I was a thirsty sponge, seeking knowledge I wasn’t allowed to go to college to learn. Fine. I’ll figure out another way. And make another way I have, all the way up until I moved to Big Suburb and became so Dude-distracted I forgot my dreams.

Way back during my tenure at Pastor Real’s church, and after an absolute kickass morning of worship music in which we had hired extra musicians to beef it up (when was the last time you heard the phrase kickass worship music?): “Hey, Monica…,”, a question from my musician pal who was expert on trumpet. “Would you be interested in singing in my band for a wedding?” My jaw dropped, and I picked it up in time to say HELL YEAH… -actually HECK YEAH because remember, I’m still in the church. He saw me lead worship and needed a singer for his band for a wedding reception. He thinks I’m good enough to sing jazz! Of course, I jumped at the idea immediately, and commenced work on a setlist of jazz standards, staple songs common enough that most jazz players already know them. I started by learning All Of Me, which turned out to be My First Jazz Song Since College, and built up from there into a full repertoire. This was an important piece of myself returned, being a jazz singer was part one of my original destination before I was railroaded into the church world.

That first gig I was so uptight, my black sheath dress barely hid my anxiety over singing secular music. This was forbidden fruit, and I was absolutely positive I would be struck down by lightning. Oh, but I chomped down hard into that controversial contraband, and it was absolutely delicious! From the very first note I sang that night with the wedding band, I was in love. Mother Nature played along with the game by providing one hell of a massive thunderstorm. I was positive this was god’s retribution for singing anything edgier than Kum Ba Yah, but in spite of the massive sky fireworks and a heavy midnight storm that left us all packing up sodden cables, music stands and damp sheet music at the end of the night, I remained alive, heart beating beneath the silky black fabric of my somewhat risque dress. I was playing with fire. And I loved it, and my eyes were hypnotized, obsessed with the blaze.

I’m hooked.

More like obsessed.

I’m a tweaking addict ready to do anything for the next hit of blessed performance. I loved everything about it. Nothing had changed since my first foray onto the stage at age six. Onstage, I am fire, all systems go, doing exactly what I was created to do. I set a practice timer and made sure I practiced at least an hour each day. I memorized. I practiced various kinds of scales, the foundation of improvisation. I hunted down a top jazz singer and studied with her for six years. I had first a jazz band, then added a rock band. And, all along I sang for weddings, funerals, and anywhere else you might need Somewhere Over The Rainbow belted. I joined a ten-piece band with a horn section, one I’m with to this day.

But once I moved to Big Suburb and away from all the musicians I knew, I lost myself. I was so involved with Dudes, I forgot who the hell I was. I forgot the stage I shared with the nationally known jazz singer. I forgot the electricity crackle that poured through my body when I performed. I forgot to keep those golden vocal chords in shape. I forgot how this fed my soul. I had been wasting all my time trying to find a partner, instead of pursuing the dreams of the one person who would never fail, who would always be there. That person was me. I had spent so much time worrying about being by myself, whatever would I do alone? I became a faded shadow, a photocopied image that is so wet and dilapidated you can barely tell what it was. Just a hint left… just a memory.

Until now.

I’m talking to Chatty Chip, and it turns out he is president of a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting music in Big Suburb. And he needs help with this fledlging venture. He needs help putting together events. He needs help promoting his organization. He needs help creating fundraisers to draw attention.

He needs help with all the kinds of things I did in the church!

I excitedly give him my number, the most fulfilling number give away to a man I’ve ever done, and go home to wonder why in the hell I waited so long to resurrect the skills I have.

I commence working with Chatty Chip, who turns out to be awesome, and he, I, and the team of ten or so of us start creating some pretty amazing events.

Which finds me in the middle of an Irish event in March, a generous libation-infested soiree to celebrate St Patrick, whom I really hope is sitting on a cloud in Heaven witnessing all of the drunken revelry he has unwittingly hosted over the years. Cheers, St. Patrick, we raise our drinks to you in gratitude. And raise them again. And again…(Repeat until you fall over).

I pull an all-nighter to paint the set of an Irish pub, complete with storefront and headers in a lovely Celtic font. Our team heads in to transform the venue into a giant Irish party zone; backdrops, tablecloths, decorations, centerpieces and all of the rooms decorated to promote an Erin Go Bragh blast. We stop short of turning the river next to the venue green, but definitely come close.

And have the Irish party we do, and it is a hit, all manner of the community coming out to drink Guinness and imbibe delicious Jameson and Tullamore Dew whiskey accompanied by sublime Kerrygold cheese and crusty soda bread to the tune of the Irish musicians we had hired, who just happen to be kicking ass around the block at their awesomely social pub songs. People are having such a great time, and it is noisy, boisterous fun. I love putting together parties like this, and the evening is a wild success.

Just one problem. And sometimes all it takes is one tiiiny domino to fall to make the direction of everything take a hard, jarring right.

We have the silent auction. And no one is paying attention to the woman running it, as she tries to shout over the crowd. The Irish duo of musicians behind us patiently wait as she attempts fruitlessly to gain the attention of the eighty or so inebriated attendees. I have an idea…

“Gimme the damn mic.”

“HEEEEEEYYY EVERYBODEEEEEEEE” I wail with a blues-driven, church years-seasoned Gospel voice I had honed for years. I haul it up from the basement and blow out the cobwebs. “IIIIFFFF YOU WAAAAANT TOO-OOOO WINNN ……you’re going to have to PAAAAAY ATTENNTIONNNN! IT’S the SIII-EYYE-EYYYYE-IEEEEEEEELENT AUUUUCTIONNNN OHHHHYEAYEAAAAYEEEEAAAAH” I belt into the mic, improvising a blues melody, and for a split second I am back where I belong, back onstage with a mic in my hand, entertaining, Monica show on for a brief reprise. And they do pay attention. The crowd laughs, and applauds, and I hand the mic back to my friend, and she continues on with the silent auction. And all would have been business as usual except for one thing.

I turn around and both musicians are staring at me.

“Who…are you??”

I smile bigger than I have in five years.

I’m tooling down the highway on the kind of winter day in which the sun is reflecting so hard off the snow you can see veins when you close your eyes. Forget California, Wisconsin is where you REALLY need sunglasses.

“DON’T MAKE ME CLOOOOOSE ONE MORE DOOOOR, I DON’T WANNA HUUUUUURT ANYMOOOOOORE” shit what are the words again? “I’M WAHHN MAAAAH BAAAAAAAHWAAAADAHWAAAAAAH, MAHDAMAAAAAAADAAADAADAAAAAAAAHHHH…” oh cool I know this part “DON’T WALK AWAAAAAY FROM…” DING my phone blinks with a message, interrupting my bastardization of 80’s hits.

Holy Hell, I cannot believe who it is.

Okay. I have to admit I’m totally tempted to turn this ‘who is it’ question into a clickbait Who Messaged Monica?? and lead you through a thirty-seven page slideshow to find out an entirely unfulfilling answer on the final page, after 453 ads placed exactly where you think you’re supposed to click the NEXT button leading you into videos that blare DO YOU NEED TO ENHANCE YOUR SEX LIFE all over the crowded Starbucks where you’re waiting for your eight dollar overrated sugar bomb latte, but unlike the SOB’s that create these nightmares of modern tech life, I have a conscience. So. Here it is, no clicks necessary.

Back in Chapter 63, you met a bevy of boneheads to whom I gave wayyy too much airtime, but let me give one concrete cranium a bit more. Unworthy of even a Dudename, albeit because the author couldn’t come up with a good working word for exactly what kind of bullshit this was, remember the guy who showed up one night at the bar with a woman whom he claimed was his Platonic Best Friend For Twelve Years? This is the guy! The night we originally met, she waxed sentimental about how perfect we were for each other, how he had been looking for someone like me, how we made an absolutely lovely couple. She was shoveling along the relationship at the rate of an exhausted mom offloading her twin three-year old boys at daycare after they raided the stash of Mountain Dew. She was claiming she wanted this for him, but it seemed a bit three-dollar bill variety disingenuous.

Oh, and this wonderful man fell hard for me. He professed his undying love and devotion…hmmm, let’s see…best thing that ever happened, most amazing woman he’s ever met, you’re not like other women, you’re The One I’ve been looking for. It all seemed like peaches and rainbows and I was saddling up my horse for the ride off into the sunset when I get a phone call from him that this “Best Friend”s partner has commenced departnership with her, and boy, he just always wondered what would it be like to hook up with his best friend? I mean, he just HAS to know. Buuuuut wait, Monica, would it be all right if, well, just suppose this Bang Your Best Friend Fantasy doesn’t work out, can he call me back and see me again? Kinda like pulling the leftover potato salad out of the fridge and giving a good sniff to see if it’s still edible before it gets pitched in the trash. What’s my expiration date, again?

Yes, THIS is the asshat who graces my voicemail on this brilliant Saturday morning, interrupting my gleeful butchering of Whitney Houston lyrics and casting a shadow over this 5000 watt day.

I listen to the message. I should be pissed, but my reactions have shifted and I instinctively snicker as I listen to his pathetic overrambling message. Is he drinking? He sounds like it, but crying out loud it’s ten AM.

In Wisconsin.

Never mind. Totally possible.

The message: “Hey, Monica, ummmm… well, it didn’t work out after all with my best friend…soooo…I’d like to see you. How about an adult beverage(who even calls it that?) tonight?”

Yes, this actually happened.

In addition to the idiocy of asking a woman to wait for you till you decide if you’d rather have what’s behind Door #2, something he doesn’t know is in my post-brief-relationship hashover with a bartender who knew him, I received a red-alert warning: “Monica, you should be glad. Guy’s a total drunk.” When a bartender in a mildly divey bar thinks you’re an alcoholic, hmmm… and, of course, this is a fantastic reminder of the kinds of guys I kept getting caught up with, the latest sticky Labrea Tar Pit to start sucking in my foot, then my leg, up to my hips, finally dragging me down to a Neanderthal demise, leaving me with my last thoughts as the tar is smothering my face thinking I could have been a T Rex slayer! (Yes, I know they didn’t exist simultaneously, so knock it off with the hate mail, nerd.) I’ve been stuck in these familiar pits a million times.

Today, I don’t get stuck.

I have been learning how to avoid this for months now, and I know exactly what to do. I ditch the Ten Dollar Prize for Second Place In A Beauty Contest Community Chest card, and instead, choose to win the whole damn game. I’m buying hotels on the blue-chip properties, and you better believe I’m collecting rent.

At the next stop, I draft a quick text message: Oh Wow! So, it didn’t work out with your best friend? And you’d like to see me? When would you like to get together? and you think you know where this is headed, and the shell of myself I was before would have been excited about this scrap of attention, would have accepted the leftover crumbs, would have been satisfied with the cold fries at the bottom of the bag, grateful for the second-place trophy. But I have been putting myself together for months now, and I’m no longer in this Dude’s league. I’m not an alcoholic, I know what I want, I have my shit together. I no longer have any interest whatsoever in this second rate, going nowhere, Dad bod, waffle deciding, flaky, pickled Dude. And I have a map! I have my navigation dialed in and can see a clear and obvious path through the tar pits this time, and I sneak around them, Ninja Monica silently stepping my way around the very pits that once terrified me, that once sapped away my life force on a daily basis. I am in charge at last, and it feels wonderful. Phoenix Monica is soaring, transformed from prey to apex predator at last.

Red flag one: second place. Red flag two: want to get together tonight, incapable of making plans. Red flag three: drunk at ten am. There are more, but even one was enough.

He almost immediatel texts back: Yes! Yes! Tonight at the bar by your house.

I easily block the move and throw the first punch:

Oh, I’m busy all weekend. How about next week sometime?

long pause.

All weekend?

Yes, sorry.

What he doesn’t know, but I do thanks to the extensive work on myself, is that alcoholics are commonly incapable of making long term plans. He texts me the next week and wants to get together, same old meet me tonight? once again, and I pull the same ninja move, requesting an actual date over and over, until he can’t keep up with the fact that his substance-addled brain can’t handle scheduling shit, and the tar pits become a dark and stinky blob in my rear view mirror. I won’t look back, I don’t miss the tar pits and have no desire to become a salt pillar, either.

And StinkyBlobdude learns a lesson in how not to treat a first- place woman.

And I will never be anything less.

But for sure I will become so much more…

And the next guy I meet in a bar…has nothing to do with dating whatsoever.

I perch at the edge of a 40 foot precipice.

They want me to do what??!

No! I turn back. My butt is tingling with that weird feeling only people with acrophobia know. But I will conquer! My head spins, I’m dizzy with adrenaline and drunk with the euphoria of accomplishing something I have wanted to do just forever.

And I climb over the edge at last and hang for a moment, suspended high in the air, slowly rotating in a harness. This is my new world. I survey my domain, still feeling the uneasiness yet loving the heady sense of hanging in the air three stories above mere ground-dwellers beneath.

I am no longer listening to the voice of fear.

And fear still hollers away, now hoarse with desperation because I’m not listening anymore LAA LAA LAA fingers in my ears. Shut the hell up, fear, I’m busy up here doing the cool shit I always wanted to do, the things others said I couldn’t accomplish. I absolutely cannot fear if I am going to do what I intend. Funny thing about fear… the less you pay attention to it the smaller it gets, until it’s just a tiny blip on the radar. It’s still there but it’s no longer an incoming ICBM threatening to blow apart your life. It’s now a mere smidge of dust on the screen. I easily blow the piece of dust away and continue.

I plant my feet on the wall and let out a little rope, bouncing down, down, down as my head fills with giddy knowledge that I am doing something I always wanted to do. I don’t think anyone else even knows I always wanted to do this. I do my victory landing, my feet firmly on the ground.

I have won the day.

When you’re climbing 40 foot walls, everything else seems a bit easier. Bill in the mail? Phhht. Car broke down? Ha. Impossible client, No problem. I already scaled a 40 foot wall today, gimme a real challenge.

Once I made the decision to turn out all the Dudes, my life went into hyperdrive. I am cruising along, riding my pain-powered life machine, and so far it’s working really well.

I don’t drink. Alcohol brings back strong memories of Jackdude, foggy recollections of tipsy evenings viewed through an overly optimistic Vaseline smeared lens, frustratingly making the past appear better than it really was. I want to hop in a plane and jet away the exact opposite direction, racing through the sky, the glistening emerald city of Monica’s Hopes And Dreams gleaming in the distance.

But it’s not that easy. Instead, I pull up to a cave. Bright yellow tape warns CAUTION, a haphazardly painted sign warns DANGER! DO NOT ENTER but I have a crowbar and make short work of weathered boards concealing the mouth. Pitching all of this aside, I feel the cool air, click on my miner’s light, and start my journey into the dark cavern. I press ahead, pickax and shovel on my back, entering the gold mine of my own mind at last. I’m a deranged, half toothless, bearded vagrant prospector THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THERE HILLS!! frantically shoveling after nuggets and panning the river for every last tidbit of dream I ever had.

I make list after list of things. Things I love to do. Things I’ve always wanted to try. Things that are specifically my own, my ideas. Things I’m not going to do anymore, that were never my dream, just someone else’s you know what you really should do?, someone else’s obligation. Things I absolutely MUST accomplish, or I’m really going to be kicking myself on my deathbed, yet another soul drifting into eternity, dreams still colors of paint on the palette, never having made it onto the canvas. But these paints are not staying on the palette, and as paint to canvas, ink pours onto paper, and the real Monica begins to take shape. Just a skeleton, but it’s a start.

I love to run.
I love to write.
I love to create.
I love being onstage.
I love writing music.
Singing is my lifeblood, I can’t live without it.
I love public speaking and still can’t believe that it’s the #1 top fear for most people. I’m missing that particular fear gene. I could get up in front of ten thousand people, and punt. Wouldn’t be the best, but I could do it and would still love it.
I love being the center of attention, the life of the party. It’s taboo to admit this, but there it is. It’s not a sin, by the way. Are you listening, church people?
I love people, for the most part… connections, relationships, coffee dates and dinner engagements.
I love parties.
I love adventure.
I love health food.
I love being outside.
I love water.

And the things I want to try…

I want to create things.
I want to be a public speaker again.
I want to be in a band, or actually in some bands.
I want to travel.
I want a Jeep.
I want to dance.
And, of course, I want to climb.

I am building my Mpire, and right now I’m choosing the bricks. And god it feels amazing!

And I draft a list of things I DON’T want in my Mpire, just as important.

I don’t want Dudes.
I don’t want to be around people who aren’t going to support my hopes and dreams.
I don’t want to spend any significant time with negative Nancys, Debby Downers, or Drama Dianes. Although, this really is a misnomer, because there is also Negative Nick, Dave Downer, and Drama Danny. Guys, you can be just as bad.
I don’t want to be around alcoholics.
I don’t want to watch “the game”.
I don’t want a relationship at the moment.

And I move forward into my construct, and can just about feel shackles falling from my wrists and feet as I claim myself, claim my life. I am climbing into the drivers seat, and baby we are going to bury this needle!

At night I go to bed sober and alone, in the morning I wake up and write, and write, and plan, and scheme, and dust off gold nuggets and place them in my growing pile of treasure. The best part? The treasure is me, and no one can take that away. I feel it growing, a fire burning behind my breastbone. And Every. Single. Bit. of the pain of loneliness, the agony of my broken heart, the sheer regret of all the time wasted are all massive chunks of coal being shoveled heartily into this blaze, feeding the fire, driving me forward. Makes me wish I had figured out this strategy a long time ago, but that’s water under the bridge, long drifted away with all of the old leaves and detritus, far beyond decay, now mere humus. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I can’t change things long gone down the river, but I sure as hell can change them now, and I splash right in and start moving the banks.

Each day I sense the positive energy building inside. I can feel it. When I walk, it feels like I’m a rock in a river creating waves that touch the world around me. I am feeding positive energy to everything surrounding, and the world is responding! I’m not going to claim I know why, or how, but this little bundle of positive energy is starting to change things. Friends notice. Sisters comment. Strangers respond. I don’t understand it, but something other-worldly is happening, though you’re never going to convince me it’s because I’m a Libra or because my moon is rising in the house of Venus, though that does sound cool. Fuck it, my moon is rising in the house of Venus. I, as ruler of my Mpire, deem it so.

Ha.

I had been taking all of my energy, all of my life force, and giving it to someone else. It’s the equivalent of opening up your wallet in the middle of the Mall of America just to set it slap in the middle of the food court, walking away yelling “TAKE AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE!!” and then wondering why it’s empty.

So what happens when all of this energy, resource, time, effort, skill, all of the everything is feeding back to me?

My heart and life is filling at an astounding rate and I’m constructing this amazing founda…

DING

Oh my God, he’s back.

This damn chair is freezing my ass.

I clutch a cup of watery coffee for dear life and wonder how many cups of this tepid brew will get me any caffeine whatsoever. I’m never gonna wake up.

“Hi, my name is Monica.”

“Hi, Monica.”

Eleven of us sit in these godawful frigid folding chairs in a cliched church basement. A waft of mildew, old paper, and wizened nuns bearing rosaries and discipline rulers hangs in the air. I can practically hear knuckles being rapped, a years-past favorite nun pastime that ruined many a piano career.

Let’s back up.

Desperate to discover why I keep messing up my life, I recall the AA meetings my pal had taken me to when I was still in the church and struggling with my marriage. The circle of recovering drinkers related tales of broken promises and concealed contraband, of where do I hide all these empties? and the twelve steps that paved the way out of their self destruction, and made me honest with myself for the first time about exactly what was going on in my marriage. I had difficulty relating to them, yet many of their personalities felt soo familiar, the worn old shoe of impossible to please older siblings, of pastors and people I worked for in the church, of the role men took in my life…

The final colored face of the cube rotates and clicks into place, and I finally have solid colors. RED stares its angry and obvious face at me, and I finally understand something about myself I should have figured out long ago.

Why did I keep giving myself up? In my mind’s eye, pins start connecting to strings, threading themselves around the metal and tightening into knots…Many, if not most of the men I have been dating have something in common. Most were heavy drinkers, possible outright alcoholics. Jackdude was only the latest.

Prepdude certainly had his drunken rants, laying into me about my latest perceived offense until the wee hours of the morning, me trying to appease, trying to defend myself from his vicious verbal attacks on games he imagined I was playing. They were awful conversations, and he would come at the same perceived offense a thousand different ways, looking for the chink in my armor into which he could thrust the fatal blow of his spear. It was always late at night, always when he had been drinking. And how much did he drink? I have no idea. I was pathetically subservient and wouldn’t think to challenge him.

I recall a work party of his and he is stumbling and slurring, yet insisting on driving me home. His friends are all staying in the hotel where the party is, but he doesn’t want to pay the $118.00 or so to stay in a room. I volunteer to pay the room fee. I threaten to take a cab. If this were today. I would have Ubered my ass out of there in a hot New York minute. We argue. I cry. I don’t want to ride with him. But of course, he gets his way and I sit in the passenger seat watching him waver between the lines on the ride home. I know, he could have hurt someone. And this is exactly the problem with the way I’ve been living. I’m living someone else’s values, someone else’s idea of what they want to do.

Somehow, when hearing the story a recovered alcoholic is telling about how they lived their previous life, I realized that I was on the other end of the equation. They would tell about how they lied, cheated, manipulated, abused, were extra nice to make up for the abuse, and suddenly there was a hard SMACK of realization to my face.

I’m the fucking enabler.

I always have been. In school, oh, you’ll be my friend? You’re a cheat/liar/thief/user? That’s okay, I need a friend. I’ll help you. I’ll make everything okay for you. I’ll fix your life. I’ll pay. I’ll provide all of the affection. I will sacrifice my own life to make sure your life works well. And I thought in some sort of karma-producing magical poof of smoke, that this would work. The problem? Life doesn’t work that way, and I keep pouring my life energy into someone else, only to have them waltz out the door with their greedy little fists on all the gold from my heart, the whole treasure chest of my life. It happens again and again.

In church: Oh, you need it done yesterday? You need extra resources/time/someone just called in sick and you need me to watch six babies? Sure, I can handle anything. I’ll be the tough one. I can take anything. I was the one people would come to if they needed something done, and I was proud of it. I went out of my way to be nice to everyone, regardless of how they treated me. I made things happen for people. I absorbed their pain, their anxiety, their responsibility. And then they would walk away with my soul.

And the men who are drawn to this compliant enabler? More similar to watching the nursery than one would hope. The men came in and I would smooth over, make their dinners, pay the tab, spend two hours making myself look like a princess only to have to help him tarp the swimming pool in the middle of a rainstorm, carefully waved hair be damned. They want me to look a certain way, but bitch, you’re taking too long to get ready. They pick me apart to make themselves feel good. And why shouldn’t they? I most definitely haven’t been working on me, on building my world. I don’t have a whole lot built into myself, since I spend all my time making someone else’s life work. They are selfish, and keep hauling bits of me away in their big wheelbarrows, come on, get in! What could possibly go wrong?

But after the last wheelbarrow, I had a revelation.

If I quit getting in wheelbarrows, they can’t haul me away any longer. I can never seem to properly identify this threat until they are already wheeling me off, as I gaze back and my dreams fade into the distance, bumping along in a vehicle I was never designed for and don’t need.

Oh, and I was primed for that damned wheelbarrow. I was primed by a childhood in which I had very little control over what happened to me. I was primed by the merciless daily bullying in school. I was primed by sexual abuse. I was primed for the church, which then primed me to play the oh my God am I stupid card with men. I was like a light for selfish man-moths, and they flocked hungrily to my beacon of self-sacrifice. I am throwing myself on the sword for these assholes.

My background made me the perfect foil to the selfish man.

But right now, I’m jumping up and down, Phoenix Monica doing the victory dance in the middle of what may be the final pile of ashes. I found the key, the common thread, a consistent motif. Almost every single one of the Dudes was selfish. Some more than others, but I found the thread, and I’m pulling it hard and all of the bullshit is tying together into a clear picture of what’s fucking me over. They complain, I comfort. They berate, I receive my L. They throw a tantrum, I’m wide-eyed, waiting to hear what adaptation I next need to make to be their Ideal Partner.

I lost so much of myself in Jackdude. If I stay on the same track I may lose myself entirely with the next Dude. Hell, I would have lost myself entirely had Jackdude not walked out! I would have stayed with him for life, wouldn’t have been a very long one for me given my low alcohol tolerance. Never knowing where he is, never knowing what is coming up, never pursuing any of my own dreams, giving up myself for a farce of a relationship.

But Jackdude did me the grand eternal favor of marching out the door, and now I am at Chapter One of a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and I’m opting out of the Dude chapters. I’m choosing the Monica chapter, and the strings that I have been observing, the strings that are tying up the common threads between all the Dudes, the final neat bow is hanging on a single call I need to make.

A client I have who was once married to an alcoholic. “Hi!…oh hey, you know that meeting you go to for families of alcoholics? Can you find me one?”

I’m not at A.A.

I’m at Al-Anon, the support group for the enablers. It takes two to tango, and I’m making a dramatic and final exit to the dance floor at last.

And that’s why I’m here in my cold metal chair getting ass frostbite listening to several strangers tell me story after story, a familiar song and dance to which I already know every step. Putting something special together to have them not show up. Cancelling at the last minute. The inability to make any plans. Our constant adaptation to their latest whatever. Not confronting what is obviously right in front of us. Being the “tolerant” one, the one who will put up with anything, yet still stay. Cleaning up their messes, a skill that for me was vastly sharpened in the church. Compensating and covering for their bad behaviour. Taking care of any “adulting” that needs to happen. And the biggie, Sacrificing My Hopes And Dreams To Make This Selfish Asshole’s Life Easier.

When I broke up with Prepdude, he had a very difficult time recovering. I don’t think for one second it was because he loved me. It was because I made his life easy. Need food? I’ll whip it up. Cuddles? Done. Don’t feel like talking? Okay, I’ll give you space. Need me right now? I’ll drop everything and come right over. I was the Joan of Arc of people-pleasing, and I would march into the gates of hell and fight the demons of Hades for a stupid Dude when I wouldn’t do it for myself. And as I sat there in that dank, chilly, magical, miraculous, heaven-sent epiphany room, I determined this would never happen again. Once again I am taking my body back. Now nobody gets me. The toy is taken away and put on a high shelf, out of reach of the grubby Dudehands that are smearing the wall trying to reach it.

I finally say NO.

I listen to the women talk, some of whom, in their seventies, were still with their horrible selfish alcoholic partner. Oh, hell no. They have been married to Dudes for years, sucking the life out of them daily, 250 pound mosquitos slowly killing their host. Oh no. I can see where this road ends, and I am NOT doing this.

I make a commitment.

I know what I want. I want myself back. I want to be Monica. I’m done thinking my hero is out there ready to save my day. I’m saving my own damn day. I will treat myself like I think the elusive prized knight I keep seeking should treat me. Because honestly, that’s the truth. All along I’ve been looking for someone who treats people like I do, who makes things fun like I do, who pushes life forward like I do. So what happens if I start treating myself this way, if I am on the receiving end of all of this sacrifice?

I’m going to marry myself.

I will make myself the top priority and treat myself the way I’ve been treating all these worthless assholes. I am done screwing around. If an actual amazing angel-man descends from the clouds and tries to sweep me off my feet (unlikely), this time it’s going to take a commitment. I have discovered that if I leave any other doors (or legs) open, bottom-feeder men can smell it a mile away and flock in like piranhas smelling blood to tear all of my flesh away, strip by painful strip. And guess what, guys?

I can buy my own fucking diamond ring.

Ralph Lauren is having a bad day.

Skirts, pants, tops, preppy styles and conservative lengths all go sailing out of my closet. I’m mining through depths of clothing as if the answer to life, the universe and everything simply must be in the back hiding from me like a deranged clown doll under all the brickabrack. Brik a brak. Bricabrac? Is there a right way to spell this? I’m not even sure I’m using it right. Bricabracadabra. Ha. I am feeling a great weight lifted as I sift through my mess of clothing, whilst kicking myself for all the wasted money trying to keep up with the Dudes. Single is definitely going to be cheaper. So why do I find myself pitching my Pradas?

The morning I left Fundude’s house, I got out a notebook. Tired of my alcohol fueled pity party, I have decided to exit the Dudetrain before it travels around the track one more time. I close my eyes and dive off, preparing for the jolt of the ground as I tuck and roll. The leap from the train hurts, and I sit in the grass watching it chug-chug-chug away, my train full of Dudes, who look back at me with a puzzled expression but how will you ever make it without us? Bye bye. They shrink and disappear around the bend.

And just like that, a decision is born. No more Dudes.

My eyes were chronically swollen and burning from an ocean of tears over Jackdude, but why? Why allow him one more minute of my life energy? Why am I wasting my life on these Dudes?

And I do realize it, and it’s plain as if someone is holding a giant whiteboard six inches in front of me with huge block letters while also yelling in my face “YOU ARE COMPROMISING YOURSELF FOR THESE GUYS!” and I see the truth at last. As long as I’m riding the Dudetrain, I’m not steering the ship. I’m bound to whatever track their train is on. But I’ve jumped, and now I’m free.

So now what? Now that I’m committed to being alone? I have to figure out what I want.

ohh, but the loneliness and pain is ever present and gnaws at the aching hole in my chest. Hazy, sentimentally enhanced and probably somewhat incorrect romantic memories interrupt my mind constantly at first. What if I had done this, what if I had done that…Images of Jackdude and the wonderful times we had keep waltzing through the dance party of regret in my mind and I’m just stuck in this cycle of pain. How can I deal with this when I’m in pain… the pain… the neverending always present….

Wait just a minute.

I want to change. I feel constant pain.

I am going to use the pain as a driving force. It’s always there, running like an energy-draining app in the background of my life, I might as well use it.

I determine that every time I feel the ache of losing Jackdude, or miss any other Dudes, or want a Dude in my life, I will use it as a cattle prod to my brain to keep working on myself. I effectively started powering my life with a drivetrain called Pain, and I am going to use it to power my trip to my next destination.

I’m going to get my damn life back.

I’m going to change everything.

I’m going to make my life fucking amazing, and this time, I’m going to do it by myself, so no one can march out the door with my life.

Ever.

AGAIN.

I’m going to build a Monica Empire.

And I’m starting by pitching out every reminder of every Dude. Every bit of clothing I bought because I thought some Dude would like it. Harley-Davidson shirts, gone. Slinky, overrevealing tops, gone. Prepdude used to just looooove taking me shopping for Prepclothes. He’d pick out the clothes he wanted me to wear, and I would pay. God, was I really that fucking stupid? GONE! Sports team logo shirts gone. Sportsdude would be so disappointed, but Phoenix Monica is getting out of the goddamn ashes for the last fucking time, and gives zero fucks what any Dudes think any more. Because Phoenix Monica knows you can’t soar if you’re tethered to the Dudetrain. And soar I will, baby.

You see, when I took out that notebook, I wrote down WHO IS MONICA?… because I need to figure out who I am without any external influence. Who am I? Who do I want to be? I am in an archaeological dig, and I’m just starting to hit pay dirt on the first few pieces. Oh, I’ve picked up a few along the way, but without any Dudes, getting back my pieces goes into hyperdrive. I start thinking back to that precious span of time in which I wasn’t under anyone else’s influence. When I was alone. Who was I then? No one was telling me what to do in the many hours I was by myself growing up. I was the youngest child, and my seven older siblings had their own reindeer games while I sat alone with my red nose. I spent a ton of time by myself. I make a list of the earliest things I loved doing by myself:

Science experiments: My parents were convinced I was going to blow up the house. Hey Mom, we’re out of vinegar/baking soda/Borax/dishwashing liquid/bleach again. And don’t look in the laundry, I think I might have ruined a few things, heh heh.

Climbing trees: I would climb all the way up until I was holding onto the swaying branches at the top, drifting back and forth on the breeze that also swept away my mother’s panicked voice thirty feet down. God, that was fun.

Exploring: New paths, mysterious abandoned houses, ruins of any sort, places I haven’t yet seen. The more forbidden, the better. I would loved to have been one of those storming Area 51. Even if it’s risky, my curiosity tends to win out and I will go places I shouldn’t go. I have always had dreams of mysterious houses with stairways leading everywhere.

Knowledge: Weirdly, at a rather young age I loved reading the dictionary and the encyclopedia. We had an entire new set of World Book Encyclopedia, and I wanted to know it all. I would let the muse carry me into whatever my mind desired, spending endless hours poring over the heavy hardcover books. I even remember the new-car smell of the glossy pages.

Success: We always had a library in the house, a practice I highly recommend, because rather than play my sibling’s favorite game Let’s Tumble Monica In The Dryer On Fluff, I preferred digging through my dad’s expansive collection of books on success. I devoured the works of Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, Dale Carnegie and anything else self-enriching I could get my dirty little fingers on. I have to attribute a lot of my success today to the fact I was exposed to these books so early.

Fitness: I always hated team sports but holy shit did I ever love silent sports! When I was 15, I started getting up at 5 am to run, do yoga, exercise along with Charlene Prickett In the Morning! back in the day when it was called Aerobics, complete with leotards and leggings. I even owned a Unitard, which looks just as stupid as it sounds, and ran with a cassette Walkman the size of a pizza box.

Dance: One of the stupid decisions I kept making was dating anyone who doesn’t LOVE to dance. My dad would be the one tossing money at the band to keep them playing… just a little longer, please?? The number of guys I dated that wouldn’t dance was just stupid. I adore dancing, why would I sell myself short on such an important point?

Music: music, MUSIC! I’ve been onstage singing since I was six, and have loved it the entire time. I have to get my music back!

Sass: I hid my boisterous, wild personality because my goodness, guys might not like that! Especially in my church years, we were taught to be demure, quiet women, not firecrackers. Up until I met my husband, I was a sassy hyper wild girl with a razor sarcastic wit and a mouth like a sailor who just dropped anchor directly on his foot. Prepdude told me right out he hates sarcasm, just one of a thousand reasons I never should have been with him.

I pick up these pieces like a Lego set and I’m’ carefully setting them in place. I’m using Krazy glue this time to make absolutely sure it all bonds together into a solid, unbreakable piece.

And one last thing needs to be dealt with.

I pick up my phone and dial…