Mushy Monday - The Best and Worst Night of My Life - Part 2

Monday, July 15th, 2002 / Tuesday, July 16th, 2001

The contrast of the events of that night still hits me like a slap in the face. I left the coffee shop feeling calm, relaxed and healed. I walked into the house expecting a reconciliation with Mike. Instead I would into a house that had been ransacked. Mike had taken all of his things and piled them at the front door. He left me a message on the answering machine telling me he was moving out on Friday. He called about five minutes after I got home. I will never forget his voice – it was cold and completely devoid of emotion, like I wasn't even worth human respect and all of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks - “It's over”.

I managed to get off the phone with him before I completely lost it. I broke down crying and cried harder than I ever had in my life. I cried so hard that I threw up, then dry-heaved for twenty minutes on the bathroom floor. I never knew that emotional pain could hurt like this. It hurt so much and I couldn't make it stop. The world spun. I felt like I couldn't breathe, couldn't even think.

I wanted to hurt myself, to cause physical pain so I wouldn't slip away. I wanted to cut myself and watch myself bleed. Physical pain would be so much easier to deal with than this. I was scared. I didn't want to hurt myself, but I felt like I had no control. I pinched myself – hard – under the arm. So hard that I had a bruise the next day. Looking back, it was a horrible way to deal with things, but it was all that I had.

I calmed down enough to know that I needed to talk to someone. But it was 1 am – who was I going to call? I'd all but alienated my friends, Mike never wanted me to go out with them. Desperate, I called the UT Mental Health line. Busy. Busy?! I am having a nervous breakdown and they're busy?! Tried again – still busy. Each time I heard the busy signal I started to panic more. I began to pray, “Please God, just let someone answer this time”. Busy. I felt totally and utterly abandoned. I tried for three hours before I gave up, convinced no one was going to help. Exhausted, I finally fell asleep on the bathroom floor.

Sometime around 4 am, Mike got home. I begged and pleaded with him to stay, work it out with me, but he wouldn't listen. He was too angry. He didn't know where I had been or who I had been with, but he could tell it was a guy and though he wouldn't admit it, I could tell it was driving him nuts. After more fighting and more tears, I think I finally got to sleep about 7 am.

I called into work and skipped out on classes, but by mid-afternoon, being at the house with Mike was making me crazy, so I went into work, mostly because I had nowhere else to go. One of the things that I love and still miss about working with infants and toddlers is that they have no concept of adult things. So I went in and snuggled with some babies and talked with my boss Helen, whom I still consider a second mom figure in my life, and Tara, my godsend for that week. Tara practically ordered me to stay on her couch for the rest of the week. I was hesitant, but left work telling her that I would definitely take her up on her offer if I felt I needed it.

Mike was being a genuine jackass when I got home that evening. The main reason I came home was that I wanted to make sure I paid bills with the little money that was remaining in our joint checking account. He had promised to leave me his last paycheck, but I had little faith that would happen (and it didn't). While I paid bills, he walked around the apartment on his cellphone with his best friend talking about what a bitch I was. That sealed the decision for me that it was best that I stay at Tara's the rest of the week.

While I was packing some things, Armando called to thank me for the night before and see if I would join him for dinner. All I told him was that I couldn't talk, that I was going to Tara's for the week and that I would call him when I got there. I told Mike I was leaving, which resulted in one last screaming match between us (I don't remember all of it, but I remember our upstairs neighbor witnessing part of it as I walked to my car screaming obscenities – definitely not my proudest moment).

I arrived at Tara's upset and confused. Everything that had happened in the past 24 hours was starting to catch up with me and I really thought I was losing it. I desperately wanted to see Armando, but I was scared. I was in no shape mentally to go on a date, but talking with him just felt like therapy, like a cool salve and the wounds of the past 24 hours. But I didn't want to lead him on. I remember sitting on Tara's couch, her daughter in my lap (she was delighted to have me there and brought me the Williams Sonoma catalog to “read” to her), pondering aloud to Tara about what I was supposed to do.

Tara's advice was simple: “It's just dinner. You can go out for dinner with a nice man. Or you can sit here at home with me and my daughter on my couch. Dinner with a nice man? Sit at home with me and my daughter on the couch.”

So I reluctantly decided to go out to dinner with the nice man. On the stipulation that we NOT discuss Mike. (I think he was secretly relieved by this stipulation.) We went to Kerbey Lane and got dinner. And after dinner and time with Armando, things just didn't seem as bleak.