Okay, for clarity sake, I’m not a stripper. So you won’t find me booty-poppin’ at the club. Not to say I never fantasize about doin’ my thang on the main stage at Sin City in the Boogie Down. But instead, you’ll find a slightly tamer version of myself swinging around a pole with a bunch of hockey moms, high school teachers, corporate professionals and nurses... in a pole dance studio where I teach the sensual, yet very athletic art of pole dancing.
But, I needed something in the here and now to liberate me from the pain of rejection and low self-esteem which is the unfortunate inevitability when your husband replaces you in bed with some other chick (or, chicks) and decides he’s satisfied living the rest of his life without you. The whole self-hatred thing is just part of the adultery/divorce package. I needed another escape. Something other than my new affinity for red wine.
It took a lot of courage, a cute outfit and a little lip gloss to approach “The Rock” at the gym that day. But knowing my time left in LA was limited, I had no other choice but to fast forward our relationship a bit. No divorce papers had been signed, but I was basically a free woman for the first time in eight years. Eight years out of the trenches made me a little gun shy, though. How the hell was I supposed to just walk up to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and interrupt his workout?
I never told my therapist about my botched attempt at lesbianism. I didn’t want her to think I was crazy. Instead, I devoted a complete session to divulging the details of my relationship with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Dwayne might not have known the exact depth of our relationship but I was fully devoted to my crush as it served as a giddy escape from my current reality.
The gravity of my emotions was absolutely insufferable, so I decided to duck and hide somewhere safe. I decided to become a lesbian. I know, could I have been any more cliche? Jilted wife seeks love, support, affection and friendship from the “safer” sex. But, for me, the male species and his anatomy had become metaphors for all things emotionally dangerous, loathsome and untrustworthy. Who needed a big strong shoulder to cry on? I craved pure estrogen!
I felt like the living embodiment of every negative feeling you could think of. Humiliated. Disrespected. Resentful. Worthless. Abandoned. Insecure. Frightened. Suspicious. Untrusting. Guarded. Insignificant. Unloved. Misled. Hurt. Add to that an endless cycle of sadness which turned to anger which turned to hatred and dissatisfaction with everyone, everything, every situation and every experience. How disemboweling to finally arrive at a place of forgiveness only to find out that the depth of deceit ran far deeper than a drunken 1-night stand.
All that self-help woo-ha couldn’t have prepared me for the next whammy. If anything, it just thickened my rose colored glasses which, when finally shattered, led to corneal lacerations that would render me blind to hope and love for the next couple of years. It all started with me chit-chattin’ on the phone with a mutual friend of mine and my EX.
So that was that. It was over. A done deal. My EX left the next morning, marking the end of an eight year chapter of my life entitled “Love & Marriage”. There was no getting around the fact that I had officially been abandoned by my husband, best friend and lover; only to fend for myself as a 38 year old single mom with the emotional fortitude of a 2 year old.
So, there we were; the 3 of us reunited (me, Brooklyn & my EX). But everything was different. It felt as if the four walls of resentment, anger, hurt and sadness were closing in on me. I felt isolated, claustrophobic and completely detached from the man that used to “complete” me. I wished for the power of teleportation but was forced to squeeze through the maze of emotions built by accusations, blame and fault-finding.
Brooklyn and red wine now served as our buffers. Brooklyn had no idea that daddy had cheated on mommy and that our family was irrevocably broken. Or that daddy was going away and she was gonna stay with mommy in this concrete jungle. She had no idea she was destined to a life doing her business on sidewalks, making new friends at a new dog park and learning to embrace long, cold, snowy winters bundled in a coat and rubber boots.
