I was reading August McLaughlin’s post, The Blurt Diaries #2: A Broken Breakup and her challenge at the end was to reply by telling your worst breakup. I realized that my very worst breakup (marriages not included) was worthy more of a post, and so, decided to do this one.
After my first divorce, I got back into the dating scene by attending “Parents Without Partners” (PWP). It is a good social group in which members all have children (living with them or not, little or not) and are now, at least, separated. You pay a small monthly due and, for that, you get to attend meetings to share, go to events with your children, and go to dances and such without your children. I had a lot of memorable times, and some – I wish I could forget.
Carrie (not her real name, but named for the Stephen King character who you didn’t want to be at prom with) was a guest of a PWP member at a dance on the south side of Indianapolis. I had just started getting back into things (some new clothes and better attitude) and was having a good time.
We met at the dance and I asked her out. She said, “Yes,” and I remember telling the mutual friend how happy I was that she had brought Carrie (yes, the mutual friend lived – at least, I didn’t kill her).
Carrie didn’t have a phone and lived out in the boondocks, so, once the date was planned, there was no going back on it. I bought her a rose (I didn’t know at the time what a single red rose means, so leave me alone!) and left it on the front seat of my car while I went to get her (we met at a public place and she left her car). I really don’t remember a lot of that night, except that it led to a second date. That date led on to a third and so on, until we had each visited the others home.
I remember thinking how nice it was that she was so comfortable she fell asleep on my couch early into our dating. What I didn’t know at the time was she was narcoleptic (fell asleep all the time) and it would be something that would become quite common through our dating.
She had three little children and I got along with the oldest very well. She and I became friends and that was the one thing I did regret – when Carrie and I broke up, this little girl lost a friend, a good one.
Carrie had me over to dinner once and I learned a lot from that situation. First, she cooked everything on high because she wanted it done as quickly as possible and considered food as just something that you ate to keep going then pooped out.
Second, she dropped about a quarter of a stick of butter on the floor while cooking. I remember getting up to help clean and she told me not to, that she would get it later. What I do know is that when I came over the next week, that slab of butter was in the exact same place on the floor. “Later” apparently meant before the butter biodegraded into air.
The next thing I learned was Carrie was not much of a housekeeper (yeah, the butter was not enough). Her house was, usually, picked up, but a lot of that was because she didn’t believe in owning things. She had very little and rented some of that. My big wake-up call came when I was too tired to go home one evening, and so, slept on the couch. The next day, I became so sick I went to the doctor. I had a fairly good fever and my face was “runny”. The doctor said it was one of the worst staph infections he had ever seen. Antibiotics took care of it and I asked Carrie if I could clean up around her house the next Saturday she was at work. When she okayed that, I bought a lot of cleaning (disinfectant) materials and worked for about 5-6 hours on those 5 little rooms she called home. When I took the pillows from the couch, I found an entire ecosystem thriving there. I sprayed and cleaned until they were no more, did the same with the rest of the house, and removed the mouse nest from her kitchen cabinet (yeah).
When she got home, she was pleased, but got upset when she thought I had killed the mouse. I told her I just threw away the phone book it had decided to nest in and it had left.
I was a stupid stubborn person and still stayed around. The big trouble started one night when I made a gay remark to her in jest. She slapped me so hard my head rang a bit and I told her we were done if she ever hit me again. Her response? : I didn’t hit you. If I had hit you, you would be on the floor.
That response, coupled with noticing a mark in the ceiling and being told that it was where she had thrown her shoe at her ex and missed, had me, at least, thinking this was not such a good idea (Shut up! This is why I now say adulthood begins at 35).
Fatal Attraction – oh my!
We watched “Fatal Attraction” one night. I say “we” but she fell asleep shortly into it. I bring this up, because, at that point, I remember looking at her and looking at the movie and thinking, “OMG! It’s her!” It was just about over.
On July 4th of whatever year that was (I know it was sometime after Pearl Harbor and before the I-Phone) Carrie was to meet my family for the first time at our usual feast. I picked her up and headed for their house. It was about an hour drive.
On the way, we began arguing. It got worse and worse and, about 1/2 way there, I told her we were done. She told me fine if I would go to see something. I thought, “Fine, it is finally over.” She directed me to a small graveyard to show me her mother’s gravestone. Carrie’s mother had died in the hospital while Carrie was on her way there. She had not gotten to see her mother and the loss had severely affected her.
She also wouldn’t tell me how to get back to her house and we were in the middle of nowhere.
When the visit was finished, I told her I was sorry about her mother’s death, but it had nothing to do with us breaking up. She went wild, kicking and screaming. She told me I could take her home, but she was going to burn all of the poems I had brought for her to read. Those meant a lot to me, but I knew it was no use talking to her – I had to think.
I remembered she had met my ex once and had chastised me for a long time about how much I changed when around her, letting her bully me and insult me and such. I decided right there how to handle this: I became that person again for the rest of the trip home. I was a miserable little person who had no backbone at all.
I wasn’t the one yelling.
By the time we got to her house, she was screaming at me she did not understand what she ever saw in me and we were done (big surprise). She went in the house and came out with my poetry, throwing it all over the front lawn. I quickly picked them up, put them in the trunk of the car, and drove to the family feast. No one there asked too much of what happened, so I am guessing it was on my face.
You would think that it would be done now and I can close this post, but, NO, not quite.
A few days later, at night, I got a call from my sister. She said Carrie had been to her boyfriend’s house asking about me and saying how worried she was and how she was going to see if I was okay.
I thanked sis, hung up, locked the door, pulled the shade, and shut off all the lights. I then sat behind a chair. Later, she knocked on the door. She began yelling she knew I was in there and other things my mind, fortunately, has forgotten. She, eventually, left. I heard from her one more time after. She wrote me a letter, which I wrote something back that was totally without any emotion and could not be taken as a desire to get back together (I know this because I had several people at work read it carefully and advise me).
August, I don’t know how this really compares to your story, however, for me, it was a Dante’s trip to, at least, the 5th circle of Hell. The only story that might top it would be my second divorce – but that is an entirely other post.
How about you? Any memorable breakups?
Namaste,
Scott
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