He leans in to kiss me. I turn away.

What the hell? It has changed seasons since this clown ghosted me (ask your kids), and I am now definitely in a committed relationship with Prepdude.

Hovercraft was the guy I had been friends with for many years who was divorced and had been helping me navigate the tumultous waters through my own split, then swooped in on me as soon as it was over. I, being wide eyed, gullible Monica, grabbed onto the excitement and chemistry, but then he silently Caspered out of my life several weeks before I met Prepdude. I was wondering what happened to him, he just stopped texting and calling.

Interested guy suddenly stops communicating with no explanation? Say it ain’t so!

Yet here he stands, acting like we are still some sort of item. As if I’m his girlfriend, and he’s shocked that I’m not responding. What the hell could he possibly be thinking? I resist his advances and explain to him that I am seeing someone. He is shocked and dismayed. Hmmmm….. what??? He looks totally crestfallen, and says his strategy didn’t work. You heard that right, STRATEGY. Turns out he was purposely not talking to me so I would like him more (Guys, this doesn’t work, okay?), the idea being when we met again at the wedding, after weeks of withdrawing affection, I would jump into his arms like Reese Witherspoon in a Hallmark movie, be twirled around, and beg to be with him.

Hovercraft was so convinced this would work that he got us a hotel room for the evening. Seriously! When I flatly turned him down on his generous offer of a lavish evening at the local Super 8, I thought he was going to cry. Did he think I was just going to wait around for him? There’s a lesson in here for you, gentlemen. He lost his chance, because while he was busy with his Einstein strategy of not talking to me, I met someone else. Honestly. I don’t know why he chose this bonehead move. He even called me later from the hotel room distraught at his $59.99 free wifi included! room with no woman in it, all alone with his blue balls, ESPN Sportscenter the only company to be had. This was straight out of the middle school act-like-you-hate-her playbook, boy rides banana seat bike through girl’s yard pretending to ignore her, even though she’s all he thinks about and doodles all day in his Transformers! Trapper Keeper, right next to the crudely drawn Van Halen logo.

Bad move.

Hovercraft didn’t even realize he had been batted to the curb.

I didn’t know at the time, but this was just the beginning of my education in relationships.

I am dumber than a crash-test dummy at a chess championship. Naive is my middle name. Spending my entire adult life in the church has given me zero preparation for this. I have a friend who says bad decisions make great stories, and I am set up perfectly for the motherlode.

Let the games begin.

When I start seeing Prepdude, who lives in a different part of the state, we travel back and forth to visit each other. In Tinytown, he visits me at my apartment. I visit him at… His cousin’s house. Restaurants halfway between. Other relative’s houses. Friend’s houses. Destinations. Parks.

Have you found the red flag? I, of course, did not.

Prepdude…lives with Mom and Dad.

He’s 50.

He has some sort of story about how he had a house, then sold it, made it sound temporary. I was in for over a year before I discovered he had been living with Mom and Dad for more than ten years, out of his marriage and right back home. In his childhood bedroom. Hmmm….. as someone who moved out at nineteen and refused to accept any support, this is weird. But is this really a red flag? I guess it may not be for everyone, but for me, the struggle through ministry followed by the fight to get my life back, finding places to live, taking care of my kids, and making a way to pay for all of it? Being with someone who never had to have that fight in him was a definite mismatch, though I was blind to it at the time. He would complain about things that, to me, were extremely minor. It’s raining. Why does it have to rain so much? This isn’t ironed properly. They didn’t make my sandwich right. Why don’t they do something about the mosquitos in this place? Why is it so cold today? Why did the Packers have to lose?

Speaking of which, unpopular opinion alert – if your team losing ruins your day, you are emotionally soft. I am legendarily not into spectator sports, and part of the reason why is I recall going to my first Super Bowl party (I think I was like 34, ha) and, well, you guys can probably tell me what year it was, because it was the year the Packers were in it, and lost.

There was this huge buildup by only everyone who knew I was going to a Super Bowl party for the first time about how amazingly fun this event was going to be, and what a blast I would have.

Until the other team won.

Children were crying, crabby-ass dads were slamming doors and speeding their families home, couples snapped at each other, everyone was stupidly devastated, did someone shoot everyone’s pets? Nope, Packers loss. Major disasters happen with less emotional response. Oh, the humanity!

And I just watched, amazed at how people could all be so emotionally manipulated by a game they watch others play. The moral of this story, as far as I can tell, is if I get “into” some kind of sportball, and watch an event, I have a 50% chance of having a good time.

As opposed to the 100% good time I have if I do music.

See how logical that is? That was easy.

Back to the story, and speaking of music, I have a gig in TinyTown. DX and I still play together, and we are hired to play at a local place, and throw down an incredible evening of jazz and rock. Afterward, I quickly pack up and buzz out to go spend time with my kids.

Bump ahead, ohhh, maybe two or three days.

I get a call from DX. He sounds something near sheepish, but not quite. Something is up.

“Ummm…. I have… a weird… questionforyou….”

I am totally stumped.

“Wwwwwhen we played out the other night…were you making out with a girl at the bar?”

I take a moment to pick my jaw up off the floor.

“WHAT??…NO!!”

What the hell with this town?

Turns out, a friend of his who worked as a cashier had a friend of hers come in and tell her she saw me making out with a girl at the place we had played at that evening. A cashier working in the next town over. This wasn’t even in Tiny Town! That’s how rumors were spreading, far, and wide, and fast. I pointed out that he knows I left immediately and not only did this absolutely not happen, but also wasn’t even physically possible.

I have had it with Tiny Town, the gossip central location where everyone knows me, knows DX, knows what happened, apparently knows more about me than I even know about myself, and has a fabulous time making up shit I didn’t do. That should be my next book. Shit I Didn’t Do, Fabrications of the Rural Midwest.

I remember once being accused by a bandmate’s wife of cheating with him. He calls me one day out of the blue, “Will you please explain to my wife that we are not having an affair?” After I pick myself up after rolling on the floor laughing, I call her and leave a voicemail explaining merrily, that indeed, no we are not having an affair, and that, not only had this never crossed my mind, but that I was kinda bothered that she just assumes I would do this. I and that bandpal still joke about how we wish we could remember how fun the “affair” was.

It’s like that in Tiny Town. Ohh, yes, I did a couple things that were risque, but dear God if I did the things that were rumored? I would have been on my back so much I wouldn’t have time for a job. Or maybe they think that is my job. The accusations are running rampant, and looking over my shoulder all the time is getting wayyy old. The reality is that I’m taken, and I take commitment very seriously. I have Prepdude in my life now.

And Prepdude doesn’t live in Tiny Town. He lives hours away in Big Suburb.

He visits me in Tiny Town one week, I visit him in Big Suburb the next.

Big Suburb is nice.

Big Suburb is new.

Big Suburb doesn’t know Monica the Deposed Worship Leader.

I have an idea.

I open my computer and start typing.

Three maniacal females whoop and holler like a bunch of wild banshees (I don’t know what banshees are, but I know we were louder), and run for the ocean, flung bikini tops sailing in the air, sprinting for the water. I feel an intoxicating sense of liberation as we tear for the shoreline, bodies free. SPLASH we hit the turquoise water and we are in, and I feel the warm Caribbean salt water waving hard against my skin…

Oh, did I skip something?

Let’s back up a minute… Sorry to kill the excitement, but I really must return for a hot (cold shower?) minute to Sarah’s house at Christmastime, and I have just met Prepdude, and I’m … interested.

I should. I shouldn’t. I can’t. I won’t.

I do.

Aaaand just like that, I’m in another relationship… again.

Too soon? Not too soon? Do I care anymore? Here’s how it happened…

That fateful night at Sarah’s, we all head to the lower level and arrange ourselves around a beautiful antique wooden bar. The last spot left is…well, next to Prepdude. We play Cards Against Humanity, and he is sitting next to me, and at some point, he decides to touch my arm.

zap

I say I’m cold, he takes my hands and holds them, warming…

zapzapzap

I swipe right.

We stay up long after everyone has gone to bed, the one casualty remaining his drunk relative, who is still in the next room speaking hack Russian, a Yakov Smirnoff facsimile rattling off his comedy show long after everyone is in their rooms. Hysterical. We wind up cuddling together, no sex, no sir. I know better, and hold my ground. I want Prepdude to respect me, unlikely to happen if I’m screwing around right away. We talk in whispers for hours after the rest of the house is sleeping.

He wants to take me places. Florida. Mexico. A tropical cruise… this is all completely alien to a girl who has had three dollars to her name working in ministry, and I am wide eyed and fascinated. There is so much more to this world than I had thought, and Prepdude pulls these fantasies out of the clouds and makes them real possibilities. While I was cloistered in church leadership, people out in the real world have been doing some really cool shit. It isn’t untill I notice it’s getting light outside that I realize the entire evening is gone, having talked about endless adventures to be experienced.

Phoenix Monica jumps up and down and flaps her wings in excitement.

Should I have gotten involved with someone months after my own split? Would anything have been different otherwise?

It’s really hard to say, although in retrospect, I learned a ton about relationships and dating by, well, experiencing a lot of relationships and dating. I’m not sure how much you learn about relationships sitting alone on the couch and not getting into the pool. How can you know how to manage water if you never get wet? I recall a woman who avoided dating for FIVE YEARS after her marriage ended, only to wind up remarried to a complete asshole anyway. Not jumping into the fray is no insurance policy. I became immune to assholes through exposure, not avoidance. Most worthwhile immunization ever, by the way. I think advice to avoid dating after a split is written by people who are miserable and hate to see anyone enjoying themselves so soon after divorce. This may be an unpopular opinion, but it’s my book. Don’t like my advice? Go write your own damn book.

I am following my gut instinct for once, and I am really starting to enjoy my life.

It is blowing my mind open, as I live outside the church, it’s dawning on me that the church is quite the bubble. For years, they drilled into my head how evil and rotten the world is, but ironically, I am meeting a ton of wonderful people out in the world… in all of the forbidden places, those naughty taverns, those evil dance floors where they gyrate into the evening, just begging for trouble… Sorry, folks, I’m just not seeing it. I am discovering lots of non judgmental people who are accepting me for who I am, and don’t care how I choose to dress or that I’m wearing obscenely high heels (For those of you who don’t know me, I am Oompa Loompa height, and wear the tallest shoes possible. I’d use stilts if they looked cool.). I feel I’ve lived my life in a cellar with a guard who keeps telling me it’s horribly dangerous outside, and there are monsters, and demons, and I’m going to die if I open that door, and I have opened the door not only to discover Eden, but also that the proverbial snake is nowhere to be found. Speaking of Eden…

Prepdude has a company party in the Caribbean. I’m so inexperienced at travel, it took me three tries to get the spelling of Caribbean correct. We fly there with his wild partying, extremely fun group of work friends. This is throwing me out of the church world HARD. I didn’t just climb out of the cellar, I found myself a trebuchet and shot myself miles away from the door. Everything is an amazing new experience. We pull into the all-inclusive resort, and are handed glasses of champagne as we tumble out of the bus. We are sorted into our rooms, and float down the hall, bouncing on balmy tropical air. Within a few hours, we are all drinking like fish and baking in the sun like a pile of alcoholic shrimp on the grill. After a couple days, I get to know his work friends pretty well, and a few of us women are talking… and decide we would like to experience, … Well, a bit more freedom, shall we say?

Ohhhh, this is exciting… and extremely taboo in my previous world.

We begin by discreetly asking if there are topless beaches around. We get a few ideas, but they are all too far away.

One of the ever-attentive cocktail waiters overhears our conversation and says the words that will launch this story in marvelous broken English: “You are free to go topless here.”

And that, my friends, is how we wound up pitching our tops with yells of liberation and laughter, the entire rest of the company sitting maybe thirty feet back as we plowed into the surf at top speed.

We are giggling like only three topless girls in the ocean will, and one of the girls point back to the shore “HEEEYYY!!” and we look back in time to see one of the guys, of course, run a wide curve down to the shoreline, scooping up every square inch of precious swimsuit material.

Oh no.

Are we just staying in the water till midnight??

Several minutes later, Prepdude mercifully reprocures our tops, and we are able to dress our female parts once again. It still stands as an incredibly liberating experience for me, and a whole new level of comfort and pride in my own body. I am Monica, you do not touch me unless I damn well want you to. I am having the time of my life.

We have an incredible time the rest of our stay, and even on the flight back, my inner Monica phoenix is soaring inside, having found another feather, another piece of myself.

Immediately as I return, there is a wedding I have to get to, which Prepdude cannot attend, and I pitch my bags in my apartment, pin up my hair, don high heels and jump in my car. I break speed records screaming to this event, and tear into the overcrowded parking lot on two tires. I hop out and walk/run, scut-scut-scutting across the parking lot in stilettos that really should come with a complementary walker.

I open the heavy oak door to the banquet hall, and stride in with my head held high, as if I fully intended to be here now, and not an hour earlier like I was supposed to be.

My eyes widen.

Hovercraft approaches and hands me a glass of Chardonnay.

I walk boldly out the front door of the hotel into the bright sun, shoulders squared, head high.

Icy wind whips the tails of my long black coat, and it floats on the wind, my Superhero cape. I am freezing, but don’t care.

I am alone, and it feels delicious. Alone Woman, out to seize the day.

I am Monica, the free. I am Monica, the self-sufficient.

I am Monica, and I need to get breakfast for the girls. I hunt and gather, haul my kill back to the room, and lavish them with doughnuts, breakfast sandwiches, flavored coffees and other high carb delights reserved for stays in hotels that inevitably excuse high calorie behavior. Bring it, Dunkin’.

As I consider the evening, I know this will not happen again. It was a breaking free, a snap of Pangea to create my own continent, dammit. And I feel the freedom. Let it ring, baby! DING DING DING, I won, letssee my prize.

Changing my surroundings always seems to help me think things through. Out of town, on vacation, in a completely different setting, feels like removing the roof from a house, tipping it over, and looking at it sideways. The perspective is so different, rendering problems easier to solve.

As tempting as it is to connect with someone, and as exciting as Wonder Woman’s evening with Funnydude was, I am only at the very beginning of this game. I’m on the Price is Right and they haven’t even yanked the jumping, screaming, crazy-ass contestants out of the audience yet. There’s a long ways to go before the Final Showcase, one being a spectacular two weeks in Puerto Vallarta and the other lame patio furniture. And what was the deal with that silver Dum-Dums microphone anyway? It’s the only place that bizarre mic exists, as if they shamelessly hijacked it from the set of Plan Nine from Outer Space, a silver spray-painted Styrofoam ball impaled on a dowel.

Although I took a massive leap forward leaving other’s expectations behind, and forging ahead in my self-determination, I have a lot to reconstruct. Changing direction in life is less like a hairpin turn on a jet-ski, and more like making a 180 degree turn in a cruise ship. This mess ain’t gonna be fixed overnight. But the key is the shift in direction, and as any pilot can tell you, a teeeeensy shift of half a degree in your direction now will make a massive difference in your eventual destination. Problem: I’m not quite sure where I want to go, kinda necessary to know before I take off. I have to figure out who I am first, something people usually do in early adulthood, but in my case has been delayed till my mid forties.

I am yoyoing up and down each day. Excited at the possibilities, freaking out over how I’m going to pay for everything. Alternately excited and miserable at being alone. Happy about what I won, depressed about all I lost. Enjoying the cool place I live, yet knowing it’s a temporary rental and I still have to find a permanent dwelling, as well as the furniture, silverware, and every other single solitary bowl, cup and fork necessary to a household by the time this temporary rental expires in May. I don’t have a bed. Or a chair. Shit.

I had my breakaway evening, and it was amazing and empowering, yet it is time to work on reconstructing Monica, and that is a solitary work. I exile myself, so I am not tempted to break this commitment of figuring out who I am. It’s time to repair the years of being under the thumb of the church and living in the perpetual fishbowl. At the moment I am mostly a product of what I have been told I should be, a walking, talking Do’s And Don’ts list who just crushed a major Don’t. I’m Breaking Church, ha.

Phoenix Monica perches alone, and considers…

Days, weeks, months pass, and I continue rebuilding, tiny two-stud Lego bricks being used to build the Taj Mahal. I work, raise teens, stay home… as you may recall, I’m still the town pariah, and avoid going out in Tiny Town. I read a small library of books about how to find myself, my own live action version of Where’s Waldo. It’s Missing Monica, and I can’t find shit in this massive crowd of confusion. I just keep finding that same guy with the striped pants and melting ice cream cone. My life feels like a crater left where there was once a city, and asteroid having hit, I am now at ground zero building sandcastles.

I don’t need sand, dammit, I need concrete and rebar. Where’s the store?

This is going to take a while.

Enter my friend Sarah.

Sarah is from a larger city and has a cottage in Tiny Town, and is insisting I come to her holiday gathering. She knows I have been exiling myself, and I am reluctant, being protective of my self-development project, but it’s just a handful of her relatives, and a nice family cocktail party seems like the right thing to allow myself to enjoy. Safe. I decide to take the rare outing, and dress up, and climb in my car, excited about actually doing something for once.

I ring the bell and wait in the falling crystals. Diamond snow, it looks like I’m surrounded with sparkle, as much as I hate winter, tonight is beautiful. I try to soak in the moment, that’s really all we have is this moment right here and POOF it’s gone, if you don’t enjoy it right then, you never get it back…

The door opens, and I enter her cottage. Christmas music is playing, and twinkle lights wink at me from everywhere. Lovely. She takes my coat and hangs it up, and we are off, talking about everything and nothing, her friendship has been priceless to me throughout the divorce, and I have nothing but kind feelings, a bottle of Chardonnay, and an appetizer for her. She introduces me to her husband, a delight of a gentleman I instantly like, a spark in his eye telling he may be a bit up to no good. I feel welcomed. Her cottage is full of memories, she has traveled the world and is showing me… this sculpture is from Japan, these wall hangings are from Ireland, those figurines are from Germany…

Sarah continues the tour, and I ascend a handful of stairs to another room, a living area with a massive sectional and a wall of windows with what I know has to be a stunning view, though it is night and it is a wall of black with only Christmas lights from nearby cottages glowing in the darkness. This is absurdly quaint. Comfy, cozy. It feels like a resort. I could spend a week here. I could spend a month here. As we chat, I hear activity down on the lower landing.

She wants to introduce me to the rest of the relatives, and we descend the stairs.

A man approaches me.

Tall. Slender. Slightly greying sandy hair, every one perfectly in place. Pressed crisp dress shirt. Dress pants. Alligator shoes. Tan. Looks like he just walked in from the Hamptons.

Teal blue eyes like the Carribean sea.

Sarah’s cousin.

Ahhh, shit.

It’s 3 am and I can’t find my crown anywhere. I give up and leave.

What’s that, you say?

You want to know what happened??

We went to a cafe and talked till 3 am, gosh coffee is amazing!

No, we didn’t.

Want the real story?

I enter the hotel bar. Funnydude is waiting. I hold my head high and approach, one bold Superhero making dreams come true. He rises and greets me with a big hug…

BOOM.

Just like that, I realize chemistry is possible for me! And this is absolutely major chemistry happening here. Zing. Tingles. Butterflies. The shit they write about in songs and poems, and here it is, right in front of me. Here HE is. Slight build, medium height. Bright pale blue eyes like clear summer skies with a mischievous twinkle that looks like trouble. Fair warning. Brown hair, flecked with grey, tousled into almost spikes. Oh, this is exciting!

He draws out a bar stool for me and I slide into it, nervous, awkward. I am clearly very new to this, and completely naive, I’ve never met a guy in a bar for a drink in my life. Bars were banned from the menu in the church, and with DX we never really dated, just kinda hung around.

This is My First Date, though I don’t know if I can really call it that. More like My First Can I Buy You A Drink.

He takes his bar stool, open position facing me. We already hit it off when we met, and we immediately are back to our rapid-fire conversation, punctuated by laughing so hard my stomach hurts. We have a delightful connection. and as he talks he touches me conversationally at first, then his arm finds its way around my waist, then he’s stroking my arm. It’s amazing zippity zap chemistry and I don’t stop him. The bartender makes reference to us having a great marriage. We look at each other and just crack up. Oh, honey, if you only knew. I may not have been able to Laugh My Way to a Better Marriage, but I am definitely laughing my way to something tonight.

He is fun, flirty, and affectionate.

He is also wicked smart, and has degrees in science and psychology, two areas I would have studied had I not taken that left turn at Albuquerque and gotten involved in church leadership. I really should have taken notes on the fact that having cerebral conversation is important to me, I could have avoided lots of bad dates later on had I realized that I match best with an intellectual. But, then I wouldn’t have the next seventeen chapters, and you would be bored.

We talk about church, and groupthink, and mob mentality that happens so easily when a mass is told what is right and wrong by a respected leader, the tendency being that once an individual has a following, the followers rarely, if ever question the leadership. They no longer think for themselves, the leader can figure it out for them. Human beings have a tendency to be drawn to quick and fast rules, simplifying life down to do this, don’t do that. We don’t favor grey areas, preferring to color boldly in black- and-white shades of ABSOLUTELY YES and HELL NO. You see this all the time. Trust something in a textbook? Is it true just because it’s printed and bound by MacMillan, gospel canon because the paper is thick and yellowed? People watch news anchors and assume they know what they are talking about because WOW is that girl on channel 12 hot! They can’t just make things up… can they?

Not only do many tend to believe those who have the appearance of authority, they are even willing to obey authority figures to the point of causing pain to others, as evidenced by Stanley Milgram’s sobering studies in the 60’s, in which volunteers were willing to cause pain to a stranger just because they were instructed to do so by a person who had the appearance of one in authority. This does not speak highly of us, and yet there it is. Humanity will listen to authority figures until millions die, as has been recorded repeatedly throughout the annals of history, and they will drink the koolaid as instructed, resulting in the macabre scene of hundreds lying dead in the hot Guyana sun, followers obedient till the bitter end. Why are we like this? Why are we so damn suggestible? It has nothing to do with intelligence. Listed with the devotees of oppressive regimes and religions are highly intelligent people. Doctors, lawyers, scientists, professors. In spite of their supposed high intellect, and assumed higher level of critical thinking, even these types of professionals are numbered with those who still follow authority without question. And you would think we would have evolved past this, but society evidences that critical thinking is easily overruled by the words of someone behind a podium. Bonus authority points if you add an expensive business suit or a lab coat, one-up if you add a stethoscope. People believe anything if you have a stethoscope. I probably gained authority just by spelling it correctly.

He talks about mindfulness, a new construct for me. Be present… close your eyes, focus on what you sense around you… be in the moment, enjoy the moment. He says most people live in a trance, never really paying attention to what is going on in their lives, how much better it can be, and it’s totally true. I snapped out of my life-trance, but most people I observe do not, choosing to stay comfortably numb rather than go through the hell of changing everything. He says most live in the past or the future… how true!! This is where you find the aging jock STILL reliving his dreams of that fourth-quarter Hail Mary pass, or the many who have their life on permanent pause because they can’t let go of love lost. And the future is where people place the dreams they will never actually pursue… I’m going to to this someday, I’m going to achieve that, with zero action it simply never happens and remains a dream not come true. He says pain comes from the future… obsessing, worrying, the sky is falling, oh nooooo! The media keeps society in a constant and obsessive fear over what they say might happen, is going to happen, could happen, but the real news flash is they are not God and they don’t know. The sad part is that many choose to live in fear, by fear, of things threatened that mostly never come to pass. Fear kills dreams, and can keep you imprisoned by your own mind. And the more you fear, the more your brain creates superhighways of bundled neurons, myelin binding tightly around them so the fear impulses can travel even faster…

Funnydude’s day job is as a hypnotist. Seriously. This power over the mind is fascinating to me. The events that followed had me thinking… did he hypnotize me? Will I ever know? What he helps people with, besides the obvious stop-smoking lose-weight hypnosis so common to the field, is getting people un-tranced so they can live their lives free of paralyzing fear of the future or being stuck in the past.

Very cool.

Okay, you’re waiting for the good stuff.

Fine.

We talk for hours. I know I am unlikely to see him again, he lives states away from me. But that doesn’t matter, I have learned well enough at this point to appreciate what is in front of me. We could be gone tomorrow, who knows? I am determined to enjoy my life WHICH BELONGS TO ME and I no longer need to clutch all these life instruction pamphlets people keep stuffing in my hands. No! I don’t want them.

Phoenix Monica soars high, and sees exactly where she wishes to land.

As we talk, he goes from stroking my arm, to holding my hand, to rubbing my back, to touching my leg…The conversation is heated and charged, incredible communication happening verbally… then physically.

It is finally super late, and he asks if I’d like to come up to his room for a nightcap.

I know damn well what this means, and I, half thinking lightning is somehow going to strike me right here in the hotel bar, double check my phone to make sure everyone is safe and sound and no emergencies have popped up… but my phone remains a silent witness to the events that transpired that evening, thank God. In a final act of rebellion, passion, and self actualization, I say, why yes, capital idea. He pulls me close and kisses me. Holy shit. This is what I’ve been missing? We are a hot mess of passion in the bar. Yeah, yeah, I know people hate PDA, but I had a 43 year dry spell, and I respond as one coming off a 40 day fast and being presented with a seven course meal at the Ritz-Carlton.

I kiss back. I have my hands in his hair. He has his lots of places.

We leave the bar, a moving twisted human pretzel meandering awkwardly toward the elevator, and have a precious thirty seconds of uninterrupted making out before the doors reopen. We tumble together down the hallway, hands, arms, and bodies finally arriving at his room… he magically produces a key from somewhere, and we are in.

And in a final middle finger salute to everyone who has been telling me what to do/what not to do with what was supposed to have been my own life, the second hotel door I pass through that evening shuts with a satisfying CLICK.

I stare slack-jawed as the woman lurches across the stage, elbows flapping, BAWK BAWK BAWK… oh my GOD this is actually happening…

Let me backtrack a minute…

I’m doing it.

I’m living in possibility, and it’s a blast.

I said I lost everything, but did I really?

I sit back and assess what I have… I don’t have a house, things that go in a house, a husband, a mom, a church or the friends in it, or a career. These things are gone.

I scrape up everything I still have in a small, but very important pile.

What I do have is myself and everything this crazy life has driven into me, mad hairdresser skills, two amazing children, and a few close friends. I have family, none of them live nearby, but I still have them.

And I have freedom, and opportunity.

I had always lived thinking cool things belonged to other people. Travel, good restaurants, destinations, doing crazy fun things, now I can do them, too.

It starts with a trip to Chicago to see my brother and we talk… what I have been through, what I have lost, what I still possess. It’s my first outing by myself, hey look at me! It’s Monica and I’m driving alone through Chicago! This feels stupidly empowering, and I drink it in. I can drive wherever I want, ha. Seems absurd that this is a big deal to me, but when I was working in ministry I had never had the time or the money. We meet and I unload all that had happened. He tells me to get out there and be the badass he knows I am. No worries, bro, that was already on my agenda. He thinks I will be wayy more successful on the outside. I mean, I am going from working like crazy for little pay to actually getting paid and acknowledged for what I do, and that is a whole new world for me. I am striving to be confident and strong, embracing and amplifying my newly budding boisterous personality like I couldn’t in the church, because that was considered prideful and was promptly judged. No playing meek and discreet proper lady here any more, pal. The chains that once held me back are all gone and I am freeeeee, FREEEEE!!! It is incredibly ironic to me that the freedom I sang about week after week in the church wasn’t discovered until I got up and left. And Guilt Monkey is just a tiny shadow of his former self, I have a whisper of his presence but it’s not overwhelming like before.

I don’t smoke. I didn’t even try to quit, and I can’t remember exactly when, but it’s almost like I forgot i ever smoked at all. The funny thing is, I always felt like a nonsmoker who was smoking, and now that I’m becoming Monica, it just kinda went away. I have no interest in it any longer, and I’m puzzled as to why, and honestly wish I could bottle it up to help others who really struggle with quitting, but I have no answers. Once I moved out, it gradually went away. Smoking is a major inconvenience and I don’t miss it at all. I am too busy building a new life to suck on a cigarette for five minutes.

My next adventure after Chicago finds me at a rather large convention at a hotel, and my teen daughter had her best friend with her, which left me a bit of a fifth wheel to their giggling and rather loud shenanigans. They have costumes, and what the hell, I decide to dress as Wonder Woman. Perfect and poetic. Love it. Red bustier, black extensions, those wrist thingies that deflect bullets, a pair of jeans, golden lariat, red patent leather boots I’m still really mad I got rid of at some point (WHY WOULD I DO THAT??!), and of course, that awesome tiara.

I am Monica. I am killing it at momming, rebuilding my life, and having adventurous new experiences. I am woman, hear me kick ass.

I am at this convention feeling single, strong, empowered. Phoenix Monica stalks around her new territory rather proudly, now that pride is allowed.

The girls have an event, and I am left with nothing to do, which never lasts long in my world. I wander around marveling at how fun it is to be alone at an event like this, and I peruse weapons, try on some cool steampunk corsets, and look at a shit ton of crazy props. Too much fun.

I mosey on past a sign shouting HYPNOTIST COMEDIAN!, 100% of those words are fascinating to me, so I enter and take a seat.

Enter Funnydude.

He monologues a bit, but then it goes from funny to fascinating. He invites oh, maybe twelve or so people onstage, and there they sit in folding chairs. Then he proceeds to place them all in a trance, and there they all slump like ^insert simile here^. He tells one person she is being tickled, and she laaaaaughs on in her chair. He tells another he is an ape, and off he goes doing ape things. And this is where the chicken-lady at the top of the chapter makes her rather awkward debut… this is nuts! And guess what it looks like?

Only in church have I seen this, and a major monkeywrench just got thrown into my thinking. If the power of suggestion is so strong that people can be hypnotized to do all this crazy shit, is it possible that’s what’s going on in the churches where they have people falling down/doing crazy dances/name another wacko thing that goes on in church? It looks shockingly similar! In between wrenching gut pain from laughing so hard, my mind is racing. I am watching groupthink and mob mentality right before my eyes and I am loving it, and I am fascinated, and I MUST TALK TO THIS GUY because this is wayy too close to what I observed in the church.

There is a long line of people waiting to chat with Funnydude, and I wait, my legs bouncing with excitement. The last person finally leaves, I know my question is going to be a Pandora’s box of religion and psychology.

His eyes connect with an impatient Wonder Woman, and I sense he is not going to mind my lengthy question.

He finishes with the last person in line, and turns to … oh, nice blue eyes! Up close I feel a little twinge I haven’t felt… well, ever??

So I start with my questions and theyyyy’re off, Strict Religious Practice tailing Charismatic Wonders with Freaky Church Shit in the lead. Worship Leader Gone Astray and Struck By Lightning come around the bend threatening to overtake Narcissist Pastors and Whiny Church Members… aaannd Yes, I worked in ministry for 23 years and observed things just like this in the church. Yes, there is a connection between the two, Yes, mob mentality takes over, yes, yes, YUSSS! We are flying to the stars with this conversation, too much to talk about, we race through a litany of topics for about twenty minutes and then he suddenly asks…how about I meet with him for a drink later and we can talk some more? What? …Wow. Hey, umm maybe… Wonder Woman blushes in spite of herself and says not sure, but let’s touch base later. Cell numbers exchanged, she exits to her room, figuring this will go nowhere because the girls will want to do something.

Nope, they are exhausted and already in bed, though it’s rather early, they have had a crazy day.

Pause.

Wonder Woman receive a text message.

She replies.

She tells the half asleep girls that Wonder Woman is taking her invisible jet out for a little bit, text if they need anything.

She places the golden tiara boldly on her head, walks out the door, and the hotel room shuts behind with a loud CLICK.

Thirteen days.

That’s how long it takes, but none of us know this yet.

My parents burned their snow shovel and retired in the Southwest with a cactus and a set of golf clubs shortly after I got married. I, of course, was busy all these years with my “calling”, and never got around to considering the fact that they might be gone someday. We had done what we thought was the right thing to do, not really worrying too much about money, how much more important is it to save a soul? So, we just shoestringed along, trusting the teaching that God will magically take care of us.

What could possibly go wrong?

My poor Mom, my beloved Mom, the Mom I have only seen a handful of times because I was too damn busy saving the world, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. And she has little time, she is given 8 months with treatment, 3 months without. She was a nurse for 60 years, and knows exactly what the macabre side effects of drastic cancer treatment look like, it’s a big NOPE, and she has little time.

All of us kids are scrambling to book emergency flights. I call the airlines, and schedule the soonest trip possible. This is how I discover that airlines don’t really give a fuck about your dying loved one. I am going to Arizona to spend as much time as I can with Mom. I’m still afraid to tell her what’s going on. I’ve had such negative reactions, and I carefully rehearse what I will say, how I will explain to her and my dad that I have failed at my calling, that I left it burning in the trashbin, that I just divorced the family Pastor they respected so much. That I’m a Bad Girl now.

You would think that it would dawn on me that this is the least of my Mom’s worries, but the desire to not let down my parents, especially at a time I felt my Mom would want to feel proud of the children she’s leaving behind, is a strong one. Guilt Monkey, smugly perched on my shoulder, whispers in my ear that I shouldn’t have done it. I am a disappointment and a failure. My parents were absolutely sure I would be a scientist, or a neurosurgeon, or a forensic pathologist, all options I was solidly aiming for before I went into ministry, and now even the calling I had given up my scientific career to pursue is lying in ruins, buried under a Pompeiian heap of ash, only this is no act of God. This disaster is my own creation.

A call from Arizona, just days after diagnosis.

Mom is dying.

NOW.

This memory is etched permanently on a rock wall in my brain…a moment of regret so staggering I will never, ever forget it.

My brother is already in Arizona, he is crying. I am in the passenger seat of my sister’s car. I have been determined to get across the country to see Mom…but I won’t. He says he will hold up the phone for her.

I can hear her voice, but she is beyond repair. She can only make a kind of grunting, whining noise. Still her voice comforts me. I hate this so much. I make my last minute confession, and I can hear the absolution in her voice, though I can’t understand her exact words, she still loves me. And I love her, very, very much. And I hate myself for having been so distant.

And I wonder how I ever allowed the church to keep us apart.

I had thought the church to be the highest calling, and the church body to be my family, and I was wrong. They are gone.

This is how I finally discovered how important, how precious family and close relationships are. I had poured my time and energy into the wrong people (except, of course, the handful of amazing friends who stayed by my side through the whole mess) and now, my precious mom, matriarch of 8 children, the woman who patiently set my hair on those pink foam rollers for picture day, and put up with my ADHD craziness from birth, who drove us to school and regularly choked us to death by applying her heavy Azuree perfume in the car, windows rolled up, was gone.

So fast.

I remember a woman I met in the church who became a client of mine, a very kind lady. Problem… her daughter shacked up with her boyfriend and had a child. My client’s beliefs were strong enough and strict enough, that she did what they call “giving them over to Satan for a season” i.e. she kinda sorta disowned her daughter, in hopes that this strict treatment would make her come back to the ways of the Lord.

It didn’t work.

As the mother tearfully shared the story with me, my heart broke for her. And I knew she would never win, that they were probably never going to reconcile. Oh, the absolute futility of trying to keep lovers apart, if you think you’re gonna win that battle, I have Shakespeare, a dagger and a bottle of poison to prove you wrong. And so, every six weeks my beautiful hearted yet ill-informed client would come in sobbing over a granddaughter she had never seen, and likely never will.

Life is too short for this bullshit.

This story is for entertainment, but if there is someone who comes to mind as you read this, bury the fucking hatchet and move on. Stay close. You never know when they’ll be gone.

Sometimes, you don’t get a second chance.

I finally make it out to Arizona, just in time to go through personal effects. My sisters are here, and we go through a mountain of memories, and set up my grieving Dad in assisted living. He lasts a month and hates it, my mother was his soulmate. He never really recovers from her absence. He returns, choosing hired assistance in the house they shared. My time there is too short and before I know it, I have to leave and go figure out my mess of a life back in Tiny Town.

My time at the cottage expired, I move into a temporary winter rental, a furnished condo in an idyllic setting with a balcony overlooking a lake. It’s all frozen, rendering it very affordable, and buys me a few months time. And I am alone.

Alone.

ALONE.

Not being able to talk to my Mom, I realize how alone I really am.

I’m going to have to make this work, all by myself.

Eric Carmen pathetically wheezes out “All By Myself”

I chain smoke out on the balcony. I contemplate all of the lost opportunity, about the way I have lived, fearing reactions and responses, letting others determine my fate.

And I realize how finite it all is.

The kids are going to be off to college soon. I have vast freedom. My mind floats away, I have visions of travel. I can finally get out of Tiny Town. I could live in Dubai. I could go to Mexico. I could start a different business. I could start a business in Dubai and Mexico. So many ideas are coming to me, I’m discovering a hidden goldmine in my situation. The possibilities are endless.

The beauty of losing everything is, I have nothing left to lose.

To this day, I don’t fear losing it all, I’ve already done it. Bought the T-shirt. Writing the damn book! I see people hung up in their fears, so afraid of what they will lose by pursuing what they really want, by ending a bad job or a negative relationship, and they are trapped like I was. It’s very sad for me to see, watching prisoners starving behind bars while I’m out lying in the sun sipping some exotic pink cocktail with a little paper umbrella. And I view them through my sunglassed eyes as I bake to a toasty brown on my lounge chair, and they have the goddam keys RIGHT THERE… It’s in your hands!! But they stay…

I…choose to run straight into my fears, funny thing being, the closer I get to them, the tinier they become, until I am at war with a ridiculous tiny army of Barbies and Kens who can merely nip at my ankles with their angry plastic teeth. I tear their legs apart. I rip their heads off. I’m simply not listening to them anymore. I resolve to take opportunities I never have allowed myself. I am going to become the Jim Carrey Yes Man to everything. I am going to try it all. I am free, I can go anywhere. I can do anything. I’m going to make the cliched bucket list a lazy alternative. I’m going to make Red Bull commercials look boring. You got wings, Mr. Red Bull? Well, I just got myself a goddam rocket. I strap my jet pack firmly on my back and light the fuse.

I am flipping this fucking script. I have nothing left to stop me, nothing left to lose. The zealots are gone, the town hates me anyway, I already disappointed everyone I could, why not live out my wildest dreams and fantasies??

Teenage phoenix Monica recklessly takes flight, careening through the air and marvelling at the possibilities. Amazing what you can see when you’re above it all.

And I’m ready to do some crazy shit.

It all begins the night I was Wonder Woman.

Pendulum: (n) A weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position, and beyond; the higher the pendulum is raised, the more power to swing up on the other side…

I unlock the door and step inside.

I am shivering with cold and excitement.

It’s a crisp, clear October night under a bright full moon and a gatrillion swirling stars float in the darkness. The silence is intoxicating. Bearing clothing and a makeup table (priorities, ammiright?), I enter a sympathetic friend’s furnished cottage, they will keep it open an extra month for me. It’s a wayyy oversized sprawl of rentable space on water, and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Handmade quilts are on the beds, and it’s cozy, and warm and wonderful. There’s even cable, haven’t seen THAT for years. My daughter promptly gets addicted to the cheesiest show ever called Baggage, where contestants decide what emotional garbage they are willing to deal with in a significant other. I haven’t seen a show this brain dead since Jackass.

Perfect.

I am free. Everything is a wonder to me living on the outside. Baby phoenix Monica runs amok through fields of daisies. It’s like a dream. I never thought I would escape. I feel so lucky. Ironically, being excluded from everything and all people church is doing me a world of good. No expectations, for the first time, ever.

I don’t really go anywhere except work and the grocery store, this Pariah prefers to stay at home. Guilt Monkey still savages me daily, but I’m getting used to feeling guilty all the time. I do it guilty. I do it scared. I do it anyway. I’m getting my damn life back. I may be a pariah, but I am no longer hanging my head. Therapy and the books I am reading are helping me to understand how to be strong in myself, and I am gradually caring less about what any of these church people think.

I’m still a little chickenshit, though. I haven’t even told my parents yet, or most of my family. I can’t imagine what my mom and dad would have to say to their disgraced daughter, them being lifelong devoted Catholics who were respectively considering the nunnery and priesthood, till they met each other and decided celibacy wasn’t so much fun after all, and proceeded to bear 8 children. Overachievers. They live 2000 miles away, so it’s easy for me to avoid, at least for now. I have close friends, but I mostly bear the burden myself. Which turns out eventually to be a very, very good thing. And, my kids are doing fantastic, the way we have it set up we are all together at some point every day. DX has been wonderful. The divorce, thanks to a treasured family friend who happens to be a great attorney, is all of 500$. Yes, you read that number right, I did not forget zeros, it is possible, folks. Unlikely, but possible.

Every day I sense the knots loosening, the pressure lifting. It is, of course, replaced by a how-the-hell-am-I-going-to-make-this-work panic, but it’s still better.

I soulsearch, I journal every day, I figure things out. I research like crazy.

Yeah, about research. I see many suffer and struggle for years because they don’t even try to search for answers to their situation. Hey, here’s an idea, when you’re struggling with something, research like crazy. Read like your ass is on fire. Dig through books, articles, ask people who have been there. Because you don’t know that the fifteenth book you are studying won’t have the answer on page 154, paragraph two, and suddenly the pieces fall into place, a slide of a final narrow block of Tetris, four rows magically no more.

Click.

In the middle of all of this noble soul searching, after 43 years of oppression…something rather ignoble happens…The pendulum has been pulled so hard for so many years in one direction, that the cable snaps. I’m going Wild.

I have lived someone else’s life for wayy too long. Costumes are for sale everywhere, but I am in the process of removing mine, shedding my religious mask.

I stop caring what people think. I really can’t care. If I am to drive this bus to my new destination, I absolutely can not listen to those old windbags, Far Side gramma backseat drivers insisting they know better, turn this way, no that way, stop here, NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT!

I’m simply done with the all of it. The pendulum broken, all of the rules, regulations, do-this-and-don’t-do-that in my life has been stuffed in a box and emptied in its new home, helloooo, Mr. Landfill. Enjoy my former life.

But what happens when you empty the box? You don’t automatically get a new life of some sort, a prize at the bottom of your Lucky Charms, though that would be freaking awesome. When you lose your life, you have, well, nothing. There is an empty space inside where my previous life existed, and I haven’t quite figured out yet what is going to go in there. I’ll have to find my life again, go shopping at the What Now? emporium.

I could be stuck here clutching my empty box of Unlucky Charms with no prize, and just grow resentful and complain to everyone who will still talk to me about how difficult this is…and, of course I go there sometimes, but what I really need to do is think about what I’ll put in my box (get your mind out of the gutter) to make it Lucky Charms again.

So, I exit the prison and enter the candy shop instead, wide-eyed at the extravaganza of colorful treats before me, likely going to overindulge. Uh oh.

I run right past the signs I normally obey, NO! STOP! WARNING! DON’T! (Fuck you, Willy Wonka!) and reach my greedy hand right into the bin of chocolate, grabbing fists full.

Enter my first flirty friend after my great Exodus, lets call him Hovercraft, because in retrospect, he really did kind of descend upon me at my weakest, jumping into my empty cereal box, a stealth paratrooper of racy ideas.

Having met DX at 18, I had VERY little experience with dating, or with men at all. I am an extremely compliant, very naive, affection-craving person who has just been dumped into the Planet of the Singles. What could possibly go wrong?

And, yes, I know that there are all manner of rules… don’t date after divorce, focus on you, you need to heal, bla bla bla… There’s even some sort of stupid formula some idiot came up with, stay single for every five years you were married… What Fucking Moron takes someone’s life away like that? What if you were married 40 years and you’re 60? You’r’e supposed to wait 8 years to date, even though you may have been checking out the AARP silver fox hottie next door mowing the lawn in his golf shorts? Accept that glass of lemonade and a Werther’s from him and enjoy life, it’s all too damn short! Have a Harvey Wallbanger and play strip dominos, who cares? Healing is different for everyone, some need more time, maybe I should have taken more, but I’ve already lost a couple decades and I really am not interested in putting any more time on the chopping block.

Yeah, I just exited the whole wide world of rules and have exactly zero interest in going to your Divorce Care class.

You are welcome to argue the morality of all of this with someone, but I… Well, after the Great Escape, I just don’t give a shit. You’re welcome to stop reading. I doubt you will.

Hovercraft had gone through divorce and had been helping me with the practical details of how it works. As I write this, I am laughing at my naivete, I’m positive he radared in on me like a wounded deer in November. In a good tracking snow. With an easy-to-follow blood trail. I might as well have flashing highway signs, VULNERABLE WOMAN HERE. But all I see at the time is a long distance friend, now that I’m out of the house he’s starting to get a bit flirty with me. Oh, this is fun. Wait, I can feel chemistry? I didn’t know I was capable!

He lives in another state, so I feel pretty safe, what could possibly go wrong? I’m not going to actually see him and consider anything physical. Our conversation is mostly texting with the occasional phone call. Well, flirty soon turns kinda dirty, and things pop out of my fingers I never imagined I would say. I’m enjoying it more than I probably should, but I just can’t find it within myself to care any longer. The pendulum lies on its broken cable, forgotten in the corner. I’m 43 and have to laugh to myself. I need to make a meme captioned WHEN YOU NEED YOUR READERS FOR SEXTING. Bit of a different ballgame when you’re older. And I don’t go out at all, so this becomes my new secret pleasure. I’ve never had one before.

But in the middle of this newfound little bit of illicit fun, I get a phone call.

My mom is dying.

I see her look away and execute a quick about-face, making a sharp turn into the next aisle.

I am having this reaction all over Tiny Town, and I stop going anywhere I don’t absolutely have to go. Familiar faces quickly glance away, stilted “Hi, Monica”‘s from people I know really don’t want to see me at all, much less say hi. The Churchies I know from three different churches look down their pious noses in disgust and vindication. They should be grateful. I’ve given them prayer chain (gossip) material to last for months.

Most of Tiny Town turns their back. There are very few who will speak to me. I am a contagious leper, watch out, she’s been infected with Divorce! Unclean!! I have a scarlet letter emblazoned on my chest. I am anathema, I am wicked, I have given myself over to Satan, whatever. I am a Worship Leader Gone Wild, and the town is sitting at the edge of their seats with a bucket of popcorn, collectively waiting for the inevitable lightning strike to come and prove their point that women who dare make a public exit from their spouse will be punished by the Creator Himself, with a biblical burst of fire licking up even the moisture from the ground.

Heck, I’m even waiting for the lightning strike. I’m a Bad Girl now, and with one decision, I have destroyed my precious reputation, jumping up and down on it until it is only tattered remains of what it once was.

I am the town Pariah, and they are having a fabulous time coming up with stories. She MUST have had an affair… who’s the guy? I’m sure they were frustrated that they couldn’t find one, that they never saw me quietly sidle up to a hot someone in a dark bar corner on the shady side of Tiny Town.

And oddly, they are doing me a huge favor.

All of the expectation, all of me trying to please others, all of the obligation and pressure was bundled tidily into this Good Church Wife, and these smug and righteous villagers came with their torches and pitchforks and tossed her screaming into a vat of lava and she evaporated into a puff of volcanic smoke.

She gone.

And, sorry, I just don’t care about being the Good Girl anymore. That died in the lava. I don’t even have parts left to scrape together a future Darth Vader, Frankensteining together a new, improved church-version, Ministry Monica 2.0, accessories not included.

No Vader, no ministry career, the slate is wiped clean.

nothing left…

I am alone.

I take a bath.

I soak in the tub, holding my own body tight.

All is lost, except for one extremely important thing.

Actually, a whom.

Because what I still have… is me.

Monica.

Hey, there, girl, come here often? You doing okay?

And there in the too warm water, clutching my own naked body for dear life. . . I make a commitment.

Never again will I allow any touch to this body I am not comfortable with. I will only allow touch I want. No pastor, no church, no belief system will take control of my body, or my life. Ever. Again. NO MORE.

Little two-ounce baby phoenix-in-the-ashes Monica sits up and smiles. I don’t even know if I will ever want anyone to touch me again, what if my reluctance to be touched… well, what if it’s just me? What if I’m just bad at physical connection? I had some abuse in my past, maybe I’m just incapable. I am leaving not knowing if I will ever feel okay with anyone touching me. But I’m perfectly okay with me touching me, and I stay in that damn tub until my body resembles a wrinkled 97 year old leather skinned granny who spent their entire life in the sun, the water having been reheated over and over again, it’s too cold, it’s too cold, it’s too full. I watch my old life float away on the shimmering waves. I wish I had bubble bath. Whatever happened to bubble baths, anyway? They were kind of awesome.

I’m learning to love Monica again. I can feel the self-care after years of neglecting my inner gut feelings. In the very beginning of my involvement with the church, I was taught that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, and not to be listened to. Ironically, following my heart, my gut is the one thing that would have kept my life from veering so off-script. Your gut knows. It always knows. My life is in ruins, and yet in my gut I have a warm feeling, a ball of kindling just starting to glow…and it drives me through the fear I feel, through the great unknown of what the hell do I do now…I am all that remains.

The guilt-monkey is ever at my ear. I don’t have the heart to take anything but myself away from DX-dear ex, formerly DH. I will leave everything behind, I am taking only my clothing, things that are clearly mine that DX would never use, and a few personal things. I have an amazing friend who will allow me to rent her cottage for a month while I figure out the future.

My career is gone in a poof of magical smoke. No way will I be hired at a church while I’m going through a divorce. I tepidly look at posted worship-leader/director positions, but in my heart, it’s over. I can’t go back to someone else having authority over my life. There is a significant shift in direction here, this time I kick the driver out of the car altogether and leave him sitting dazed on the side of the road wondering what the hell just happened. I climb in the seat, wrap my hands around the smooth leather wheel, and peel away, tires skkkkreeetching and gravel flying, speeding away like an 18 year old with a new five-speed manual Camaro in a completely new direction. No more allowing the next pastor who comes along call the shots in my life. No more pastor at all. I’m done.

My full time job is gone. I had been working part time as a hairdresser, a big step back from the position I held at the church, but I am grateful that I have something, and I’m really good at it. This is what I will have to do. I have no idea how I will come up with enough money to make this new life fly, but I have to make this work.

Every day I am afraid, every night I cuddle up in my little basement-nest of pillows and blankets and wonder about the future. And I hug and hold my body, which I discover to be a vastly underrated way to care for yourself, and I laugh, and cry… and I am alone, and in spite of the chaos, there is a spark inside me that is fanning into a flame, and it feels delightful. The freedom is intoxicating.

I would rather swim through an ocean of broken glass than go back into the doors of Pastor Almost’s church, and DX, in a great act of mercy, goes in and empties my office for me. And once again a parade of sound equipment, instruments, sheet music, and other musical miscellany marches on home, lone trumpeter echoing TAPS over the corpse that was my career for over 20 years.

I have a few close friends who stay by my side. BF is shocked that Pastor Almost has taken this approach. In the recording of the following service, there is an audible GASP as Pastor Almost announces that we are getting a divorce and have been fired. And the rumor mill grinds on…

I have friends, even close friends I have had this entire time, who never speak to me again after this happens. I have friends I lose because they are mad that I didn’t let them in on my Dirty Little Secret sooner. I can hear Pastor Jock, Sportie Spice and Joe Sham shouting a smug I-Told-You-So from here. Pastor Almost is mad that I didn’t tell him sooner, though I’m not sure how that would have worked out any differently. I lose Facebook friends. My phone stops ringing. The world hates me.

Here’s the thing.

In order to accomplish this monster task of getting my life back, I had to be ready to piss off the world and lose my reputation. I knew there would be talk, and that people would come up with whatever theories they felt like having. I knew I would likely lose my job, and career. I knew this little town would take a bleak view of this, at least the churchgoers. I had to be prepared to lose it all, to look this Goliath monster in the eye, and do it anyway, ready to die. It’s one of the two scariest things I’ve ever done, the other will come up in a bit…

And one of my music pals who had been through divorce already, who helped me through this ordeal, suddenly shifts flirty with me.

VERY flirty…

I did it.

I can’t believe it, but I finally did it.

I returned home from my appointment with the good doctor and finally had The Talk with DH. He has seen this coming the entire time we have been together, and he’s not surprised, though of course he is very sad. My guilt is overwhelming, and a grotesque nagging monkey who never sleeps clutches to my shoulder shouting in my ear day and night “THIS IS WRONG! YOU CAN’T DO THIS! TURN BAAAACK!!”… but for once, I shut out Guilt and listen to Monica. And Monica’s newly discovered tiny voice is quietly whispering this has to stop.

Sorry, monkey. Not today.

We discuss the future, and agree to walk through this together, resolving to talk daily about progress through this uncharted territory. He’s a good man, and I tell him he’s just a beautiful fish in the sea, not the right one for me, but one I am sending back to find the right person for him, who will be what he needs, what will make him happy. We commit to remaining friends, and we are to this day. It’s very bittersweet. We discuss how to make this as smooth as possible for the kids, parenting together while living apart.

My life is my own for the first time since I was 18.

I set up a little spot to sleep in the basement while I figure out where I could possibly go from here. I start seeing a parade of therapists, including the original doctor who diagnosed me with You Really Should Get Out Of This Relationship.

And the bit of Monica inside me starts getting fed at last, taking a few tentative bites…and slowly pushes a tiny sprout through the soil.

But I have a problem… we have yet to tell Pastor Almost. My dear BF- best friend, thinks he will take it well, and allow us to work through this with the church folks who have become our family. DH and I come up with a plan… since I am the one requesting a divorce, I will take some time off while he takes over leading worship for a while. Since it’s totally amicable, and we are committed to making everything as smooth as possible for all involved, we think this just might work.

Or it will all blow up. I am taking a huge risk…

…She pulls the heavy brass door open, takes a deep breath, and enters the dark shadows of the casino. It takes a minute for her eyes to adjust to the dim light within, and the smoke hangs in the air, the set of a drama about to take place surrounded by the DING DING DING’s and “OH!”‘s of excitement and “Awww”‘s of disappointment…

We have been spiritual leaders in three churches in Tiny Town for over twenty years. I am known by everyone as DH’s wife in this community. I’m about to shock a village.

I am TERRIFIED.

Being brave has nothing to do with lack of fear, it’s being scared shitless and marching alone, straight into the enemy encampment, head held high, knowing you could be shot down at any second and doing it anyway.

We set up a meeting with Pastor Almost. The guy who has a near-perfect Harlequin Romance marriage. The man who is with the woman of his dreams. I know, because he talks about it constantly. It’s super annoying. He is entirely clueless as to what my situation would be like. And I absolutely will not be telling him what’s going on with my body.

We enter the building that has held my full-time job for five years. I walk past my office, urban sprawl of instruments, mics, music, cables, and papers everywhere. I have written out hundreds of event plans and sermons and charts and setlists and schedules in this room. My heart pounds on in my throat, snare drum beating out a morose soundtrack for this march. I walk past keyboards, drums, guitars, music stands, sound equipment, wayy too many instruments for this size church. This worship team stands at 22 members, most of whom are professionals. I love every beautiful one of them. I lead teams. I preach the Sunday sermon at times. I love all of it. I can’t believe I’m doing this MONICA WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU LOVE THIS JOB!

I’m about to take a one-in-a-million chance…

… “Place yer bets, Monica is placing her entire life on Black 22, and let’s spin that wheel, folks,”….and the watching crowd quiets as the shiny steel ball is cast, and round and round it goes, a light reeling sound amongst the clinking glasses and chatter of the casino…

A note I had once written hangs from the tambourine instructing UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS THIS TO BE USED WITHOUT PROPER TRAINING. Ha. My guitar, a hybrid Michael Kelly that was a gift from Pastor Almost, rests in its stand, beckoning me to play but remaining mute, a silent witness to my journey. I walk past a million memories, and descend to the basement conference room. This is my green mile, and it takes days to get from the parking lot to the folding padded chairs below that somehow exist in every church. Hello, my name is Monica chairs (Hi, Monica). We sit around a white plastic conference table.

I drop the bomb.

DH and I are getting divorced.

His immediate reply hits me sideways.

“Someone else?”

Pastor Almost instantly assumes I’m having a fucking affair. He didn’t even hesitate.

I sit in shock.

SHIT. I didn’t see this coming. EVERYONE is probably going to assume something like this. I hadn’t thought through the fact that nature abhors a void, and since I’m sure as hell not going to tell the whole world the rather intimate details of why I’m getting divorced, Tiny Town will concoct their own sordid tales. I can tell already, even Pastor Almost doesn’t believe me. Great. All of the ideas people have about why this is happening will get fed into the ever-hungry steel jaws of the Tiny Town gossip mill, grinding out delicious sausage for all of the community to devour. People love this shit.

I say no, it just isn’t working and is never going to work. We have been together 25 years, and I just can’t do it another day, pushing water uphill with my bare hands, liquid spilling out the sides and through my fingers… I tried everything, and nothing worked. I want DH to be with someone who can be what I will never be for him, I want both of us to be happy, but I can tell that Pastor Almost, indoctrinated in the Assembly of God his entire life, Mr. Picture Perfect Marriage who once filled his wife’s car with rose petals, is NEVER going to get it. He will never understand. My explanation to him is like Nerf darts volleyed at a concrete wall, and absolutely nothing I say…is Ever. Going to make it through.

We tentatively explain our idea of how we could proceed through this gracefully, and a shred of hope remains within me…

…the ball continues, round and round in a dizzying trek to its final destiny, slower now, the outer conflagration of numbers in its opposite direction also now slowing…slower…slooooowwerrrrr….

He says he needs to speak to the board of elders. I already know the board of elders includes a cynical fiftysomething woman who tragically never met the husband she prayed for all throughout her strict Christian upbringing, and another guy, happily married with small children. And Pastor Almost’s wife is a very conservative woman who still strongly believes in submission to your husband.

I. Am. FUCKED.

At around 11 am the next day, my phone buzzes, the banner proudly announcing… PASTOR ALMOST.

and I weakly answer…helloo??

Pastor Almost has a plastic, overfriendly tone. The elder board has met.

I am fired, they would like my office cleared out by the end of the week.

…The ball falls into place with a firm CLICK.

“36 RED, FOLKS!”…

the grinning dealer reaches out around the pile of chips and she watches them slide away and vanish across the table

END PART ONE

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.