I am just stubborn. Just like you. Just like our dad. Just like our grandpa. etc. We come from a long line of stubborn people.

I just don’t want to accept a life without you. You are a part of my soul. How can I accept it?

And you. Isn’t it enough? Isn’t you not speaking to me for over a year enough? Isn’t enough that you have forever changed our family and our relationships with our family members? Isn’t enough that you ruined me? Isn’t enough?

Why do you have to rub it in? Why do you have to come back to the battlefield just to spit on the people you killed? Do you really hate me that much? How can you hate me so much?How can you hate me so much you have to kick my already lifeless body?

I wish I could hate you. I wish I could let you go. I wish a million wishes that will never come true.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All attempts have failed
All my heads are tails
She’s got teary eyes
I’ve got reasons why

I’m losing ground and gaining speed
I’ve lost myself or most of me
I’m headed for the final precipice

But you haven’t lost me yet
No, you haven’t lost me yet
I’ll sing until my heart caves in
No, you haven’t lost me yet

These days pass me by
I dream with open eyes
Nightmares haunt my days
Visions blur my nights

I’m so confused
What’s true of false
What’s fact or fiction after all
I feel like I’m an apparition’s pet

But you haven’t lost me yet
No you haven’t lost me yet
I’ll run until my heart caves in
No, you haven’t lost me yet

If it doesn’t break
If it doesn’t break
If it doesn’t break
If it doesn’t break your heart
It isn’t love
If it doesn’t break your heart
It’s not enough
It’s when you’re breaking down
With your insides coming out
That’s when you find out what your heart is made of

And you haven’t lost me yet
No you haven’t lost me yet
I’ll sing until my heart caves in
No, you haven’t lost me yet
Cause you haven’t lost me yet

-Yet, by Switchfoot

Today, my sister said to me “I’m afraid that there may come a time when I’m asked what my passion is and I won’t have an answer anymore”.

I don’t have an answer anymore. If we don’t consistently work on our passions, do they go away? If I would have stayed in Connecticut, teaching children’s theatre, would I still be passionate about that? I’m not passionate about it now. I don’t feel some pull bringing me back or any sort of regret. But I don’t know what my passion is. I’m not passionate about my job. If anything, I am angry about my job. I don’t feel like I know how to explore what my passion might be.

This is such a common life topic. Besides me and my sister, I know a few of my blogger buddies are contemplating the same thing in various forms. For so many people, our jobs are a means to an end-houses, kids, vacations, etc. We work, often at jobs we hate, so we can do what we love in our spare time and/or have those dreams (that yard with a white picket fence). The problem is, we’re too tired in our spare time to focus on things we love to do or enjoying that house. We don’t have time to take our vacations. I don’t have time to figure out my passion.

I would gladly trade the money I make to be happy and in-love with what I do. There are 2 catches-1) I have no idea what that may be and 2)I’ve made my choices. We have a place we love, that we can’t afford without my salary. [Before Michael lost his job] we go out to dinner whenever we want, we see every movie that looks good, I buy as much new music as I want, new clothes, new shoes, gifts for my friends-it’s a good life. We save a lot and we pay down our debt (granted, much of it’s from Michael’s choices, not mine, but I have certainly helped accumulate that debt). But, in order to have that life, I have to spend 40+ hours a week choking on my misery.

Harry Potter: “They’re going to kill him?”
Hermione: “No. It’s worse. Much worse. They’re going to suck out his soul.”

I would gladly give up much of those things I mentioned, if I could. But I can’t get out of a mortgage. We would be screwed. I can’t make the debt go away. I feel stuck. I feel like I have no options and everyday I feel like my soul is being sucked out. And much like my sister’s fear, I don’t know what my passions are anymore. I feel like if I at least had any inkling, I would have something tangible to work with.

I don’t know how to find my passion. I am just hoping I do before there is no soul left.

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My thoughts drift to my family. Ed. The only one who will wake up in my mom’s house this morning. He will have to be there for all of us, opening stocking presents, delight in our traditional candies, smile happily at all the presents and watch as our mom pretends to like our gift. She never likes our gift, that is a tradition too.

My sister is at home with her family. My nephews up early, like me, excited because Santa came again with more presents than they ever thought possible. They will laugh and scream with delight, tearing off paper, discovering the exact thing they’ve always wanted. My sister will sip her coffee, take pictures and soak up the happiness on her boy’s face. Some of that happiness will transfer to her, but there is still a small hole of loneliness.  A hole that misses Jim, her siblings and her father. She will smile and laugh with the kids, but she will also cry a little inside, for those who can’t be there to watch her amazing children with her.

Joe went to Utah. I can’t pretend to know him anymore. To know why he does what he does. But the part of me that thinks I still know him-the parts of him that no one else ever could-that part, thinks he went to Utah to escape. To escape the Christmas that never should have been. Our family, broken, unable to celebrate the holiday the way we all wished we were. Part of me thinks he went because he knows he did this, he knows I didn’t come home for Christmas as planned because of him. He knows that Ed, my sister and I are alone today because he has torn our family to pieces.

I am here in Seattle. Michael sleeps in the next room. It’s too dark to see what cats are around me, but they are here. Soon my dad will come over and we’ll open gifts, play games, eat food and laugh. It will be nice, but it won’t be the Christmas I have been imagining all year. I guess I should prepare myself that Christmas will never be the same again. If the last six months are any indication, I will never have a traditional Christmas again. I guess it’s time to find new traditions.

Dawn, Joe, Ed and I make each other better people. We are all strong individuals, but we are unstoppable when we are all together.

This Christmas isn’t the end of the world. It’s one Christmas in the dozens we’ll have in a lifetime. Today, it’s hard. Soon, it will be forgotten.

There is always next year.

However, on this particular in service day, I had to go to school. I was in drama and dance and we had a dance competition coming up. We had to practice. My mom dropped me off in front of the school and told me she was going to stop by the office, since she had recently volunteered to help the PTA.

We practiced for hours. It was fun. Afterwards, we were all standing outside, chatting, waiting for our parents. Soon, though, I was the only one there. Me and our dance coach, who was anxious to leave. I saw our Principal’s Bronco in his spot, so I told her I’d go into the office and call my mom. When I got closer, I saw my mom’s van parked on the other side of the Bronco. Apparently, she’d been here the whole time. I told my coach she was here and went inside to find her.

The moment I walked into the office, I felt the air change. I couldn’t quite place what I noticed, what I was feeling, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good. I heard a noise come from the principal’s office, so I went over and knocked on the door. There seemed to be a lot of sudden movement inside, but I couldn’t place why that would be unusual or weird.

When he opened the door, I saw my mom inside. Me, being me, I walked right in, sat down at his conference table and started talking. My mom cut me off however and said we had to get going.

When we got home, my mom went straight back to her room and got on the phone (it was the only place we had a phone in our small house). Something was amiss, but I didn’t know what. I hovered outside her door. I caught snippets of the conversation:

“I don’t know what that was, but I liked it”

“We need to figure this out”

“Yes, I will be there in 10 minutes”

Sure enough, my mom  came out of her room and told me I needed to keep an eye on my brothers while she met a coworker to drop off some stuff. She was gone for 3 hours. Her coworker, called 10 times while she was gone. Wondering where she was. She, obviously, didn’t go meet him. Something wasn’t sitting right with me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

When she came back, my mom declared that we were going to spend the night in a hotel!! We LOVED spending the night in a hotel. We loved swimming in the indoor pool, jumping on the beds, being messy and not having to clean it up-hotel life was AWESOME. We were so excited as we ran around gathering our stuff. Still, I knew something was wrong. We weren’t exactly rolling in money. The only time my mom did stuff like this was . . . when she felt guilty. Like the time we were at Ed’s dad’s house and his wife (not ex, as my mother claimed at the time) came and got into a fight with him and he got arrested. We got to stay in a hotel then too.

Once we checked in, my mom took my brother to go get dinner. I looked out the window and watched the car pull away. The lights shined in my eyes and I suddenly felt it hit me like a punch in the stomach: my mom was having an affair with the principal.

To be honest, I can’t claim I knew exactly what “affair” meant at the age of 12. What I did know was that my principal was married and in my gut, I knew that whatever was happening started that very day.

I wasn’t wrong. As the school year progressed, my mom and the principal didn’t do much to hide from me and my brother. I think they assumed we were too young to pick up on what was happening. So many parents make the mistake of thinking their kids are too young to understand. I, of course, told Joe what I thought was happening. We both stood by, helpless, as the principal began coming over to our house 1 or 2 times a week. He’d hang out with us and my mom would send us to bed early. Joe, the braver of two of us, once deliberately walked in on them having sex on the couch. The principal tried to hide under the blanket, while my mom yelled at him to go back to bed.

Lucky for Joe, he wasn’t in middle school yet, so he wasn’t subjected to daily interactions with the principal, like I was. He made it a point to stand outside the building where I had my first class to say “hi” to me every morning. As time when on, I hated him and took advantage of the situation. I was openly mean to him and ignored him whenever he came around me-especially if my friends were there to hear. I wanted to hurt and embarrass him-they way he and my mom were hurting and embarrassing me.

All of my friends were buying these Adidas shoes with a white, hard toe and stripes down the side. I hadto have these shoes. When my mom finally bought them for me, I was overjoyed. This was short-lived, however, because she had to tell the principal all about it. He decided it would be funny to tell kids I didn’t know, to come up to me and tell me they liked my shoes. From morning and through lunch, kids wouldn’t leave me alone, telling me they loved my shoes, the principal, smirking and laughing in the background. I am not sure if he wanted me to feel good because so many people liked my shoes, but once again, I felt humiliated. I asked my friend Ebony to trade shoes since we wore the same size. She was wearing the knock-off Birkenstocks that were so popular in the 90′s. In fact, after that day, I maybe wore those Adidas shoes once or twice, finally getting my own pair of sandals, which incidentally, I wore exclusively for 10 years after that.

I was never close to my mom and I never trusted her. We never had the kind of relationship where I could talk to her openly. She tried to pretend we did, but I knew all too well she used anything you said against you and lied to suit her needs. Therefore, I never said anything about her and the principal, even though it tormented me. Joe and I would spend hours talking about it, but we both knew we were helpless. There was nothing we could do about it.

We lived in a small neighborhood on the base. Our house was on the corner of the major intersection and everyone passed it to get home. There were many kids around my age in the neighborhood, so, naturally, we all went to school together. I wasn’t the only one who knew the principal drove a Bronco and soon enough, kids began asking why the principal was always at my house. I always told them my mom was on the PTA and my mom was helping with school stuff, but eventually, that excuse didn’t work anymore. I am sure their parents gossiped with other parents about it. I am sure the kids overheard. Before I knew it, everyone in my grade knew. Kids whispered about me all the time and I stopped hanging out with almost everyone. I would sit alone at lunch, it was better than watching the kids give looks, tease and whisper.

And then one day, I had had enough. I don’t remember exactly what had happened. Someone said something in a class and I ran out of the room. It was sixth grade lunch and the principal was in the cafeteria. I walked up to him and told him I had to talk to him. I began crying. Through my tears, I told him that Joe and I knew everything. We saw them having sex, we read the cards he sent her and we know they lied about whatever they had done 2 weekends ago (that’s a whole other story). I cried and cried. The principal listened and told me he was so sorry. He said that he knows what was going on between he and my mom wasn’t right and that they have been trying to figure it out. I don’t remember how we left it, but it felt good to get it out.

On my way to the bus that afternoon, I asked the principal if he told my mom what I said. He said that he would leave it to me. Ha! Little did he know, that I had placed all my hope in him, to end it, or something. There was no way I was telling my mom. She would flip out.

When she got home from work, she was normal and I felt safe. That is, until, I heard the phone ring and I knew it was all over with. My mom screamed for me to come in there and when I walked through the door, she slapped my face so hard I fell down. She began yelling at me, calling me a liar. She told me that I couldn’t do any of my school activities anymore. I told her that I had practice for the play all day tomorrow and the play was next week. She said as long as I was a liar, I couldn’t do anything. I went to my room and cried and cried.

She eventually came in and told me that if I apologized to the principal for being a liar and telling lies about him, I could be in the play. The next day, I stood in front of a man, who just the day before admitted the truth to me, and told him I’m sorry I told lies about him. He accepted my apology. To this day, I can’t believe two adults-one of them my own mother-could do that to me.

After that, they eventually broke things off. I am unsure of exactly what happened, but he stopped coming around. The school year was almost over and he announced that he wouldn’t be back next year, he was going to be a principal of an elementary school. I was so happy he was gone.

I heard, a few years later, that he lost his job at that elementary school because he got caught sleeping with a teacher. His wife divorced him and he never got to see his kids. My mom, never dated again after him. In fact, this past July was the first time she started seeing anyone since I was 12 years old. It was never my intent to put her off dating, I just didn’t want her to sleep with my married principal.

I didn’t think it was too much to ask.

To this day, she denies she ever slept with him. Joe has even said to her, point blank, I saw you having sex with him. She always gets angry and says Joe was too young to know what he saw. I don’t believe she’ll ever admit the truth. She has too hard a time with it. The Truth. It’s one of the reasons we’ll never be close.

It’s no surprise, that later in life, I generally only slept with married men or guys who had girlfriends. Although, that has as much to do with my dad, as my mom. I never felt right in a “real” relationship. It’s been a tough road for me and Michael, in that respect.

This is also one of the reasons Joe and I are so close. We survived this together. This is the point in our life when we stopped fighting and antagonizing each other and started depending on each other. This is the point when we became best friends and told each other everything. He is the only one who can understand my soul because he was right there with me, in the trenches. He’s the one who came into my room when he heard me crying and made me feel better. No one else can be that person.

And I need that person.

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I don’t know if I can forgive him. I don’t think I am a better, stronger person. I feel weak and lost. It’s not just the lie. What he did-what he’s doing-is tearing our family apart. I used to think no one had a family as close as ours, now I know that was just what we wanted to think and that the slightest wind can blow us apart. Pieces scattered, unable to be put back together. 

I’d pick-up the pieces
but some scattered too far
You see they flew when I kicked them, cross the floor -Rob Thomas, Dear Joan

I don’t know what I would say to him if he actually called. I don’t know if I want to talk to him anymore. I begged and I bribed and now I have begun to forget. There are days when I don’t think of him until very late-on my way home from work or while laying in bed, before sleep. He is being erased from my daily existence and soon I will be over him.

I can’t erase him completely. He is my brother. However, I have started planning on how to avoid him. I was so looking forward to Christmas this year-we haven’t been home for Christmas since his graduation-but now it seems healthier to just stay home. Avoid having to avoid him.

I can’t let him keep hurting me. I don’t want to fracture that delicate scab.

I have enough problems with me to deal with. I need to find out who I am and who I want to be. I used to think he would always be an essential part of me. Now I know that no one is a part of me. I stand alone. I have so much to learn.

 So don’t forget to breathe
Don’t forget to breathe
Your whole life is here
No eleventh hour reprieve
So don’t forget to breathe
Keep your head above water
But don’t forget to breathe -Alexi Murdoch, Breathe

You can’t quit your job.

The thought of being able to quit my job in November has been the light at the end of the tunnel. I am miserable. I have been for years, but moreso these last 10 months. I am fairly certain that spending 9 hours a day feeling angry, trapped and resentful has affected all areas of my life.

Michael and I spend a lot of time fighting. It takes me a good 2 hours at home before I let go of my anger and tension. I stopped wearing make-up, one of my most favorite things. I used to look forward to doing my hair, picking out my outfit and deciding what color eye shadow to wear. Now, it’s a good day if I wash my hair. I don’t have friendships I want to have. Partly because of my friends, but partly because I am probably not a person people want to be around.

I am certain my misery seeps from my pores.

You can’t quit your job.

He didn’t actually say it, but I knew it’s what he meant. Somewhere along the way, my income has become too important. I make too much money. Who knew that could become a bad thing?

And I think how much easier it would be if I was alone. I could chose. I could move to a cheaper apartment outside the city. I wouldn’t have a mortgage hanging over my head.  I wouldn’t have the debt from Michael’s past mistakes. I wouldn’t have to pay for TWO cable boxes, both with HD and DVR capabilites. I could take a job I might actually like. One where I make way less money, but I didn’t feel like my sanity was slowly slipping away.

Maybe I could find myself again. Figure out what I should be doing for the rest of my life. Maybe I would move back to New Mexico and get a taste for what my life could be.

A life without Michael.

Is that what I really want?

I chose him. I was willing to be with him no matter the cost to myself and the cost was steep. It’s funny how when you look back, things never look as bad as they felt then. It was bad then. It might have been worse than it is now.

But now is now and now feels pretty damn bad.

Man, I feel like a reject lately. I actually can’t think of a time where I have felt more un-loved. It’s not just Joe, either, it’s almost everyone I know.

My dad. We always joke about the “favorite”. It’s a joke that lives in truth, because whether my dad will admit it or not, there is always a point where he treats one of us with more . . . esteem than the others. I was the favorite for quite awhile. Now, I have been feeling like my dad chose sides in the whole Jeni vs. Joe (aka WWIII) debacle and it feels shitty. I’ll admit, I’ve pulled away a bit. Some of the things he’s done made me question the kind of person he is. I don’t feel like I can go to him, trust him, with problems. The final straw came last Friday when Dawn told me he was going to NM in September. See, earlier this year, he flew Joe out to MN to spend some time with him. Then he flew Dawn and her family out in July. He knew I couldn’t take time off (because of my shitty job), so he promised he’d come visit in September. He hadn’t mentioned it in awhile and so I asked him. He said he didn’t have the time anymore, which I was fine with. Until I found out he had time to go to NM. Now, I know that he’s not going expressly to visit Dawn or Joe, but it’s not like he won’t. I am so tired of being chosen last, if at all, by everyone.

Cara was in Seattle this weekend. One of her friends is having a baby, so Cara came out for the baby shower. I was supposed to go over Friday to help Cara cook and then have dinner with her on Saturday. Neither of those things happened. So much was going on with the other group of people, Cara just couldn’t find the time. I DO understand and I told Cara as much, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.

And my other friends. I haven’t seen Louisa in almost 2 months. We were supposed to get together the weekend Michael was gone. She texted me she was sick. I told her to get better. Apparently she did, because I saw on Facebook she had a bunch of friends over to her house the next day. I know it’s me and maybe I am too sensitive these days, but it felt really personal. It felt the same way when Heidi and I made plans, but they had to be later, because she had spin class. I told her if she decided not to go to let me know (she was hemming and hawing, not really wanting to go to class) because I would just be doing nothing until then. She didn’t go to spin class, she went bowling with some other friends instead. When I said something to her about it, she got defensive and then didn’t call me at all the next day, even though we had made plans.

Look, I don’t expect my friends to be at my beck and call and I know things happen, but it seems they happen more and more lately. I would rather people NOT make plans or, at the very least, tell me you have a problem with me or with yourself and that you don’t want to see me. I GET that. I feel like that too sometimes. But I tell people that.

I am just emotionally exhausted.

I want to preface this letter by saying I love you. I love you more than I will ever love anyone. I love you more than anyone will ever love you. You are connected to me deep in my soul. This is why all this hurts so badly.

I know you are angry with me. I understand it, but I don’t accept it. You need to look deep here, Joe. I know how hard it can be to look at yourself, it’s something I struggle with everyday. I refuse to sit by and say nothing to you-even if what I have to say will make you angrier.

You lied Joe-not just to Heidi, you lied to me and in doing so, you dug your own grave. I said we are connected and that connection was in full effect when I asked, before you and Heidi broke up, if you cheated on her. I felt it in my gut. You assured me that you hadn’t and I believed you. Joe, you are (I guess you were) the only person on this earth that I believe whole-heartedly. I truly felt that you never had and never would lie to me. I would sell my house, give up my job and break up with Michael based on your word. I trusted you more than any person-more than dad or Michael or Dawn or anyone. I trusted you. And you lied to me.

I think (I don’t know, as you are “done” with me, as you’ve told me and everyone else) that you think I just walked up to Heidi and said “Hey, guess what! Joe cheated on you and lied to you!” You forget that I didn’t even know you did that. I didn’t even know about Joleen until she read my whole blog and you told me about her-AFTER Ed’s graduation. Even then, you didn’t say she was some big secret. You know, know, that I would have never, ever told Heidi you cheated on her if you would have told me that was the case. I’ve told Heidi the same. I can’t keep a secret if I don’t know what it is. You can claim I used you to become friends with Heidi, but you’re defense doesn’t stand up. SHE figured out you cheated on her. Yes, it was with the help of me saying “I guess he’s dating some girl named Joleen”, but again, I #1) didn’t know you had been seeing Joleen since December and #2) didn’t know you still texted Heidi telling her you loved her and wanted to be with her. Again, I can’t keep secrets I don’t know.

Joe, you are drowning. You are lying-to me and to everyone else. You have become someone you swore you’d never be: dad. You are drinking in excess. I am afraid every single day that I’m going to get a call that you’ve killed someone or worse, yourself. You drink at work, you drink until you pass out almost every night and you drink and drive. THAT is wrong.

I think you are self-medicating. I think that you are miserable with your life. Miserable living in SLC. Miserable working for Sherwin Williams. I think you are lonely. I think you need help.

I was in the same position. I was miserable and mad at myself and I slept with a married man who hurt me and my self-esteem in ways I can’t explain. And you know what? I got lucky. I didn’t help myself. I got lucky. And you know what? That still bites me in the ass, because I still need to fix myself. You need to fix you.

You can hate me, blame me and be “done” with me. I would rather be wrong and have you never speak to me again then be right and wish that I said something before it was too late. It’s not too late now, but it may be tomorrow. Even if you don’t want me to help you, ask Dad, ask Dawn, ask Doug, ask Mom, ask Grandpa, ask Uncle Larry, ask Waller, ask GMO, ask SOMEONE. I just want you to be happy.

I love you.

Love,

Jeni (emb)

**Editor’s note: I have agonized as to whether it’s the right thing to write about what happened with Joe here. On the one hand, I am now exposing what he did to more people. On the other, most of these people already know and the one person who it mattered to the most, Heidi, already knows, so what’s the difference. At this point, Joe has written me off. It’s my blog and my life and I don’t believe that anything I write or don’t write here is going to make him come back. So, I am choosing to write.**