sad – Sweat & Sparkle

Then and Now

It’s funny how some things turn out. Time–and karma–have their own slow but sure ways of handling things.

Years ago, Psycho loudly and repeatedly accused my husband of not being able to hold down a job. Funny…he has held a job just fine for the 20 years I have known him, and he has owned his own company for more than a decade, with customers who adore him. Psycho, however, has spent more of that time unemployed than working, has been fired, bounces from one menial position to another, and has yet to demonstrate any discernible adult ambition or stability.

Years ago, Psycho also called my husband irresponsible and claimed that he didn’t pay his bills. Interesting…while that “irresponsible” husband of mine owns a house and a vehicle, receives credit offers for his business, and hates to be late for anything, bills included, Psycho can hardly say the same. What she can say is that she has been sued — more than once — and has had her driver’s license suspended — again, more than once –for not paying her bills. Oh, and do I need to mention the fraudulent credit cards she has opened in other people’s names?

Now she is having her wages garnished for unpaid credit card debt. Guess all those Hooters visits (but she just likes the wings, eh?), tacky nails, and Dollar General shopping sprees add up. Her employer was served on her behalf, and if Psycho actually had any pride left, she would be mortified.

The clown in this cartoon seemed appropriate.

Over time, all of the festering negativity and ugliness inside of Psycho has hemorrhaged to the outside as well. She can’t expect to bitch, manipulate, whine, and lie her entire life and not end up wearing it in sags, droops, and lines from stringy head to crusty toe, with nothing to fill her time besides her incessant attention-whoring, griping, and court appearances.

Psycho has expended great efforts over many years to chase me away, desperate to destroy my husband’s happiness in retaliation for moving on so easily without her. In the end, she only destroyed herself. I have to wonder: as she looks at herself now, at the wreckage of her life, her trail of failures, no one and nothing around her except her delusions, lies, hypocrisy, and disappointment…is she proud of herself? If so, she is the only one who is.

I would say “Rot in hell, bitch”, but it appears she already is. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving hag.

Some Things Never Change

When I got home from work one day last week, my younger stepdaughter was there with our older grandson, who is 3. I didn’t get to see them very long, but they had been visiting with my husband, who had obviously been quite busy entertaining our grandson, evidenced by the many toys scattered around the house.

As I was preparing my cat’s dinner in the kitchen, I heard a delighted shriek from the living room and peeked around the corner to see what was up. My husband was “sneaking up” on our grandson, wiggling his fingers in the universal “I’m going to get you” gesture, and our grandson was laughing and screaming at the same time, trying to hide behind a sofa pillow. (It didn’t work, by the way).

My stepdaughter said they had to leave for something they had going on with Psycho (my husband’s ex and my stalker), so we walked them outside. My husband picked up our grandson and put him on his shoulders, then turned him upside down, which he loved. In between laughing and shrieking, he breathlessly said, “Again!” until my husband scooped him up again.

I love watching my husband turn into a very tall little boy when he is playing with the grandkids, and I love watching our grandsons laugh and smile as he entertains them. The problem came when it was time to get into the car, and our grandson realized he was leaving.

He stopped laughing. Stopped smiling. At first it was a simple, “No”, but when he was lifted into his car seat, he burst into tears, pushed at my stepdaughter’s hands as she buckled him in, and then called out for his granddaddy.

I could tell it was getting to my husband. He hid it, leaned into the car, told our grandson they would see each other soon, and tried to comfort him. And as I watched, I was taken back to this exact same, much-too-familiar, very unpleasant scenario, played out countless times, when it was time for the kids to go back to Psycho: tears, sobbing, stalling, not wanting to go, and us having to explain that we would see them again soon, but nothing comforted them.

Our grandson was still crying as the car backed out of the driveway. My husband stood in the driveway, waving as they left, calling out “I love you” and “Be careful” until he couldn’t see them anymore. I remembered him waving to the kids as we drove away so many times after dropping them off, never showing them anything but a smile and cheery promises to be together again soon, trying to get them to laugh instead of cry.

When our older grandson is with Psycho, by all accounts, nothing is much different than it ever was with the kids: shove a TV, phone, other screen into his face so she doesn’t actually have to interact, play with, teach, or discipline him. Once the selfies are done, just go away, kid. What use could she possibly have for him anymore?

When he is with us, we go outside, make up games, chase each other, go to the park, push him on the swing, actually talk to him, and teach him. My husband and I have joked about what a workout it is when the grandkids are with us, because we are on the floor or in the yard with them, in constant motion, the entire time.

It’s no wonder our grandson didn’t want to leave. He was having fun. He was being treated like a valued person, being loved. He’s not just a photo opportunity, attention supply, or pawn to us. He may only be 3, but he certainly feels the difference already.

Damn…some things never change, do they?

I Wonder

I wonder: if someone could time-travel and approach Psycho when she was still young, and describe to her how she would be in her mid-50s, what steps would she take to avoid the atomic fumbles that led to such a monstrous downward spiral?

Let’s take an inventory. As of today, Psycho:

Was sacked from her last menial job.
Has been sued by multiple credit card companies for not paying her bills.
Has a suspended driver’s license.
Now “works” where she is outranked by her son’s teenaged girlfriend and is esteemed just slightly above the rubbish can.
Was out-adulted by all four children the instant they first paid their own bill or handled any basic task on their own.
Owns nothing of any worth in her own name.
Still squats in a run-down shack paid for by her stepmother, who just wanted her lazy, freeloading ass out of her house.
Has an ex-stepson who describes her as a “raggedy ho”, among other affectionate epithets.
Has no hobbies or interests beyond writing bad checks, stealing license plates, robbing her own children, posing for mug shots, and opening credit cards under other people’s names.
Has been twice married and twice divorced. Disastrously.
Has not landed a viable relationship in years, no matter how many saggy tit pics she sends to equally desperate men online.
Accuses every man who comes within 100 feet of her of beating her and raping her.
Is hopelessly infatuated with her first ex-husband and his current wife, who have a relationship she can only dreamily admire from a stalking distance.
Resembles a geriatric shar pai with far more skin corrugations than common sense, usefulness, or stable relationship options.
Looks at least 10 years older than she is, and getting worse each day, like a rotting pumpkin in Florida heat.
Is, in a nutshell, horrifically yet satisfyingly pathetic. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving or more homely bitch.

I suspect that, even faced with such an unpalatable future, Psycho would simply continue marching on the exact same path, making the exact same cataclysmic choices. Her insufferable ego would not allow her to accept truth back then any more than she does now. Improving herself is not even on the table. Why bother, when she can simply lie outlandishly about everything, throw raging tantrums if someone refuses to swallow her fairy tales, and pout if Daddy doesn’t bail her out when she inevitably fucks up again?

The saddest part to me is her obstinate refusal to make any attempt, of any kind, to elevate herself. Lack of growth, evolution, or progress is far worse than stagnation– it is demise. It’s unnatural. Life, at heart, consists of change and learning and adapting. Rooting herself in the same bitter, sour spot, year after year, dry-rotting in place, has entombed her in her own toxic futility and musty worthlessness.

If Psycho can be anything positive, then let it be an example and a warning to us: to move on, to learn, to be self-aware, to commit to self-improvement and truth. Because one thing she has demonstrated, beyond any doubt, is that jealously fixating on the lives of others will siphon the meaning, joy, and growth out of your own, until you are left with no life at all.

But don’t worry, Psycho. Just keep on lying. Keep shamelessly riding the coattails of the kids’ accomplishments because you don’t have any of your own. Keep editing your pictures into comedic, ridiculous oblivion. Keep hijacking the kids’ accounts to pore over my Facebook page and fantasize your way into a life you can never have. Keep slobbering over me online, every single day, because we both know why you are infatuated with me. Keep on failing like it’s your job. Keep pretending your entire hick town isn’t laughing at you. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing for decades.

Delusion is all you have left, so cling like hell to it. I mean, at this point, your life surely can’t get much more pitiful…can it?

Mask

And, as time goes on, each mask gets flimsier, weaker, further and further from truth. But how does someone abandon their crumbling and pathetic heap of lies, when that is all they have ever stood on?

What Does It Feel Like?

I wonder…what does it feel like to watch my husband and me, so happy and in love with each other, while she remains terminally alone, every relationship she feebly attempts disastrously imploding because she is incapable of caring about anyone but herself?

What does it feel like, each day, to pull into the rutted dirt driveway of a barren, collapsing trailer, at risk of being mistaken for abandoned, while we own our cozy house and are proud to come home to it –and to each other — every day?

What does it feel like to sit for hours, alone, hungrily scrolling through my blog, using the kids’ accounts to pore over our Facebook pages, rooting like a starved, snorting pig for any shred of information about us?

While she focused on bitterness, we focused on moving on. While she focused on herself, we focused on the kids and on each other. While she focused on endlessly and jealously attacking us, we focused on protecting and caring for each other.

I don’t have to wonder: how it feels to be completely, unwaveringly loved. How it feels to set eyes on him and feel like I’m at home, no matter where we are. How it feels to be intensely proud of what we have overcome and achieved together. How it feels to act silly just to hear him laugh, because that is one of the happiest and most magnificent sounds I can imagine. How it feels to be both beautifully at peace and endlessly excited by the same irreplaceable person.

She will never feel any of that. She has chosen to live in such a way that severed any possibility of feeling anything beyond shallow, meaningless playacting and desperate attention-seeking from any hapless victim willing to indulge her out of pity or boredom.

In the end, then…it seems that all of us have received exactly what we deserved all along, doesn’t it?