Cyber-Cleaning and an Open Letter to The Bartender...

I’m cleaning cyber house. Just a little bit. Some things I’ve written were useful for a bit but now it’s time to give them the old heave-ho. Sorta like what I did with the little books and misc. dust-collecting-crap that has been on my mantle since time immemorial… or at least since Scooter lived here. Here’s a glimpse at my week end –

Penny “Hey Marvin? Should I keep these little, tiny books?”

Marvin “Do you have a little, tiny book shelf?”

Penny “No.”

Marvin “Then no.”

Gosh. It’s just that simple!

So, cyber-cleaning. Here for you edification and to remind me should I ever suffer a brain injury and forget is an open letter to the Bartender (written in response to the nice things he has said after I told him I did not want to know him any more:

Dear Dr. Swing,

(Did I mention he signed his anonymous sex solicitations with this inventive moniker?)

I will start with my response to your nice messages. I am sad and lonely, I miss my family and there are many things I miss about you. Mainly I miss the life I really thought we could have together. I am not happy about any of this, I certainly am not dating. That said, I do not miss waking up alone in the middle of the night to wonder why you are not here. Now I just wake and remember. I do not miss being woken by your text message alert. I do not miss the porn. I do not miss adult friendfinder pop ups on my computer. I so not miss wondering who Stephanie, or Candy, or Julie or who-ever is. I do not miss your suspicion, interrogation, the fear that you would take something wrong and mistreat me for it. I do not miss having to choose between meeting my responsibilities at work and upsetting you. Having to choose between preparing for or paying attention to my job and patting and reassuring you. I do not miss the way you treated me the day I got my first in class ranking, the day I graduated, the day I took my bar, the day I got my bar results, the day I got my job. I do not miss the way you treated me at those times at all. Last year this time I made plans just for you, for your birthday. I picked a restaurant to buy you steak, took you to a hotel, paid for a massage cause you were stressed out. I do not miss that either. You were singularly ungrateful and angry even with this.

I do not miss going to pee while we were at the movies and being asked if I had found a signal for my phone.

I do not miss being informed that I am the most selfish person you know.

I do not miss being cornered naked and wet in the shower while you terrorized me for displeasing you, for failing to provide you with the correct answer to yet another interrogation.

I DO NOT MISS NOT SLEEPING.

This entire situation has been very difficult for me. Not only did I involve my children in relationships over which I have no control but I became important and bonded to a child over which I have no control. Your son loves me. I know I am important to him and to his sense of stability and safety. It is very, very frustrating to be subject to the phone call from his father where I am told to just get lost. (The phone call where you start by laughing with some girl and saying “I’ll be right there” is especially cruel) I will get over the hurt that causes me. I can never get over the hurt that causes your child.

The last time I saw him, I hugged him good bye and he clung to me. This is not because you told him to be my friend, to say hello, to be polite or whatever. He loves me because on the days when he was sick I held him. On days when he was sad I cheered him up. And at night I said “I love you little man” when I put him in his bed. I gave him a name he loves to call himself.

What’s more than this, is his love and longing for my girls. And they miss him. So I tossed three children into a blender and now I have to be responsible for the chaos we’ve caused them. All of this makes it harder to take it when you suggest that I just make arbitrary decisions. When you suggest that I am interested in some other person and so I dumped my entire life in the toilet, smashed the crap out of three children and turned your life upside down. Just cause I like someone else. To suspect that is paranoid and crazy. To accuse me of it and then behave as though it is true is insane. Yet here we are.

So what can I do? Seriously. I am a kind hearted person and I have cared very deeply for you, for your son and for our family. And I cry myself to sleep every single night. But I also must care for myself, and I must care for and protect my children. I love and adore your son’s mother. So no matter how much I may want to answer the phone or to express my sympathy for you, I can’t. Because until you DO something to repair the damage you have caused to the most important relationships in your life I can not trust you.

You are vicious when you are mad. And you dismiss this with the simple statement that you were angry so you lash out. You do not fight fair. I have tried to tell you that you bruise and wound me, even when you are only half serious. When you are truly serious you go for the throat. You do not hesitate. You pull out your biggest gun and you fire, point blank. And then we just bleed. It is a horrible use of the intimacy and knowledge you have gained from other’s care for you. And you do it on purpose.

Your boy’s mother tried to tell you how you’ve hurt her. You responded by threatening her relationship with her son and by informing her that you have recruited her own parents to assist you in doing it. This is something you just can not take back. You’ve done the same thing to me. You have threatened me with child protective services, you threaten to call Scooter and help him to hurt me. You call me a wrinkled up old bitch. You tell me to go to cougar bars, fuck greasy internet boys. You are hateful in your anger.

This is not normal and healthy. You should feel ashamed and wish only to some how fix what you’ve broken. But no matter how heartfelt the apology is, it is ALWAYS followed by the next below-the-belt attack. Because my response to your “I’m sorry” was not forthcoming, or because you all of a sudden felt angry again and so lashed out. Again.

The sad part is that I used to think that the apologetic and contrite Bartender was the real Bartender. But now I think that the apologetic and contrite Bartender is a manipulation and the lethal Bartender is the real you. The Bartender that pitched some girl’s life out the window on the freeway and left her abandoned in a bar, with no keys and no money and no credit cards and no ID… cause you were mad. The Bartender that laughed when he told me the story. After all, she deserved it. Just like I deserved it and your x-wife deserves it.

So I cannot accept your apology and I can not reach my hand out to you to comfort you, even though I might want to. Because I can no longer allow myself to be wounded by you.

I am not writing this because you need me to tell you these things. You’ve either figured this out by now or you never will. I am writing this to remind you what the correct course to take would be. If you are truly sorry and you truly desire to repair what you’ve broken, then you will find a counselor and you will start the process. Instead you say you wish you could go back in time. This is a futile wish. You know you can not and you never will. But waiting for next week will make this week impossible to change as well. HOWEVER, from where you stand right this minute tomorrow is all up to you. You could take tomorrow and DO SOMETHING TO REPAIR WHAT YOU’VE BROKEN.

I honestly wish that you would. I don’t know if it is possible for me to ever trust you intimately. But I would like to be able to be your friend because I love your boy. And I would be very happy to see you creating respect and love and comfort with his mother, so that you can both be good for him. He is a wonderful sweet loving and smart little boy. This chaos is damaging him. No matter how hurt you are, no matter how right you are, no matter what your justification, you are the adult and it is your sacred responsibility to protect and nurture your child. And in order to be good for him and to help him grow into a happy and healthy man, you should love and respect his mother. She is a good girl and she has been nothing but a good friend to you, even after you’ve been horrid to her. She does not deserve to have to shield herself from you for the rest of your son’s childhood.

And your precious son does not deserve to have to divide his loyalty between the two people who mean the most to him.

SO. Now I can trash the damned thing. Yay cyber-cleaning.