Webcam modeling. These girls are basically personal, online porn stars, and to make any sort of money, you are kind of at the whim of these men who pay you for personal shows, and you more or less have to do what they ask. Oh yeah, and masturbate. A lot. No thank you.
Start a medical marijuana farm. I know nothing about marijuana. I am also too nice sometimes. I’d probably believe people’s sob stories and give it away for free, or end up murdering all my plants. (I suck at keeping plants alive.) Plus, it would take too long. So, that was out.
I guess I could have that dude’s baby for 200k and a house. That should give me some time to relax. But no, I could never do it. Fuck having morals and integrity and dignity. People make it out to be so cool. It’s not. It just means it makes life that much harder, which I know will make it easier in the long run. It’s like, do you want Plan A or Plan B? (HA! Not that Plan B. Nice try, though)
Plan A: Make things easier now but much harder in the long run.
Plan B: Make things much harder now but easier in the long run.
Thanks, Mom and Dad, for actually raising me correctly. I guess I was going to my hometown in Wyoming, the one place I always promised myself I would never, ever go back to. But I could take a month off work, relax in peace and quiet, and actually process my life crumbling down. I called my cousin T and she said, “You’ll need someone there with you when you leave, even though it’s temporary. I’ll fly out and we’ll drive back together, so you can bring your stuff!” This was music to my ears. My lease was up on my apartment, so I would just sell what I could and toss the rest, leave with a clean slate, and return and start over. Over, over. Again.
Sir tried to get me to stay and find a place with him, but I didn’t want to move in with someone just because it was convenient. I wanted him to want to move in together because he actually liked me. And I’d just done the whole move-out-the-person’s-stuff thing. Alone. So had he. Was it worth doing again? What if it didn’t work out? We were spending a lot of time together, but I couldn’t ever figure out if he wanted me as a partner passionately with wild abandon, or if it was just “easy, so why not.”
I got off the phone and looked around my apartment. I had years of accumulated shit from my life in California, as well as years before that living in other places. I also had my ex’s leftover things: files, a Range Rover he had given me that I couldn’t sell (because of a lien on the title from him, thanks a bunch), two beds, dressers, couches, four flat screen TVs, a dining room set, a computer desk, closets full of stuff, and Lord knows what else. So, my next thought was, how the hell am I going to get all this shit out of here by the first? Which is literally days away. Not weeks. Not even a week. DAYS.
I started posting my things on Craigslist for dirt cheap. My furniture was practically brand new. I had an $800 coffee table. I posted it for $200. My bed set was worth God knows what. I listed it for pennies on the dollar. Time was of the essence. I realized I could either be paid something for other people to come take my shit, or I could pay movers to come throw it in the trash. After pretty much zero bites on the CL, I texted a friend and she suggested an app called “Offer Up.” She warned me that I probably wouldn’t get what I paid for the items, but at least it was something. I told her that I was already taking a loss, so I was hip with it. I posted my things on there, and, lo and behold, offers started coming through.
The first day, I sold my patio set and my coffee table, which of all things hurt the most to part with. I had lusted after it for a year and my parents bought it for me as a wedding gift. It was a total surprise, and I cherished it every moment I spent with it. Everything else was easy to be unattached to; they were like old fragments of a life that wasn’t mine anymore. I felt nothing as they were hauled off. Almost relief even.
Over the next few days, pieces of my furniture sold here and there. By the time my cousin came, I still had both beds, three dressers, and some other heavy odds and ends furniture items. It was Wednesday evening when I picked her up from the airport, and we decided to head out Saturday. That way, we could spend Saturday and Sunday in Vegas, and be back in Wyoming by Monday, dropping her off in Colorado in time to start her new job on Tuesday. Wednesday night, we went out to eat with Sir, the man with the baby. He barely said two words to my cousin besides, “Hi, nice to meet you.” He was talkative with me, but he seemed super shy around her.
We headed to Javier’s because I wanted to show my cousin a true Orange County haunt, and the entire drive there he was practically silent. I didn’t know if he was being a mute because he was nervous, or if he really just didn’t like to fucking talk. He usually made conversation. Not that he was huge on it, but he put in an effort most the time. T told me later that she hated him almost immediately and that he was miserable and needy, and only wanted to be near me because I was strength and he could sense that I was wounded but rebuilding, and he wanted to lean on me. I shrugged. He told me he thought she needed attention and he didn’t want to give it to her.
We finished dinner and went back to my place and got to sleep. I didn’t tell Sir yet that I was leaving for sure, but I had told him several times over the past few weeks that I was thinking about it. He refused to hear it and kept suggesting we find a place together instead. Thursday morning, I called a moving company. I didn’t know what to say, so I literally said, “Hello. This is odd. I have a bunch of stuff in my apartment but I’m moving across the country and not taking it, so can you just come get it, and throw it in the trash downstairs? How much will that cost?”
The mover man informed me this was called “Labor Only,” and for the amount of stuff I told him, he quoted me a good price. Done and done. The only problem was that T and I didn’t leave until Saturday, and they were coming Friday (didn’t want to wait until last minute!), so, I knew they would have to leave at least a mattress behind from the guest bed or something. Oh well, T and I had bigger fish to fry. We started putting everything from my kitchen cupboards into trash bags. Legitimately six hours and 46 trash bags later, we had successfully gotten rid of the majority of my items. Or so we thought.
In between trash runs, I came across the printer/scanner from our old office. T looked at me and glanced at my ex’s golf set. “Should we?” she said, with my mischievous, deceased grandmother’s look in her eye. “Should we what?” I wondered out loud, throwing everything in sight in a trash bag. She pointed to the printer. “Remember that scene from Office Space where they smash the crap out of the fax machine to gangster music?” Me, “Uh, duh.” It’s only one of my favorite movies ever. I finally got what she was saying. So, we took the printer down to the parking garage, and we beat the ever-living crap out of it. Some guys came down to go to their cars, and here we were, beating the shit out of a printer with expensive golf clubs, jamming to gangster music. To say they wasted no time running the opposite direction would be an understatement. We even made a video for your viewing pleasure. If you don’t know what I am talking about, please search “Office Space Scanner Scene” online immediately.
My neighbor, D, who was always doing something fun, texted me that it was his actual birthday (even though we celebrated it the weekend before), and he was doing a dinner at Fig & Olive and ordering a limo to pick everyone up. We were welcome to join. I wanted to make sure my cousin had a good time while she was here on this interesting journey with me, so I texted back “YUP.” Kwanza (my nickname for T, don’t ask) and I got dolled up and met everyone downstairs in the limo. There was a whole crew of us in there, including most of my ex’s friends and my old couple friends. D asked how our day was. T said, and I quote, “Well, let’s see. We threw out about 46 bags of trash. Except they weren’t trash. They were all of Danielle’s personal belongings.” I realized how sad that was, but I just found the humor in it and laughed. I knew we were in for a fun one.
When T had first arrived, she told me about a man named DJ from another state who she was somewhat into. They kind of hit it off, but he had some baggage that made it
tricky. Anyhow, T never liked anyone, so I found this intriguing. It just so happened that they were friends on Facebook, and DJ had checked into Orange County that night—I guess he was visiting randomly on business. She contacted him while we were heading out and invited him to meet up with us. He happened to be eating literally three restaurants over from Fig & Olive. T wasn’t working at the time, because she just moved and hadn’t started her new job, so I told her I would cover dinner and everything for our trip back. Everything usually works out in the end, right? I was just happy to have her there.
We ordered some sort of fish, and I don’t even usually like cooked fish, but it was delightful. I was just trying all sorts of new stuff these days. I went to the restroom, and Hesh showed up (the friend whose birthday we were celebrating when I met Sir at the nightclub). D ordered a bottle of vodka with dinner, so the drinks were flowing and the music was going. Being that T and I had only had a smoothie and some white fish, we were getting turned up to burn up. We would have made smarter choices, but we were living the gypsy lifestyle that day. At the end, the bill came, and D paid for all of it. On his birthday. I wanted to cry.
DJ showed up after we finished dinner, and T and I were in the bathroom. He made himself at home and chatted with the dudes, which I found super cool. A lot of times bringing a man into a group of several dudes was hard for them. DJ seemed to be reserved yet still held his own. Everyone headed for their cars, but the limo had broken down somehow, so we ordered Ubers. T decided to ride with DJ, Hesh offered me a ride, and the rest of the crew piled in an Uber SUV. I threatened DJ to take care of my girl and gave him the address for Mesa, our next destination where we were supposed to meet a group of D’s friends who I ran into frequently and found hysterical.
Before our ride, Hesh said to me on the way out, “You are such a nice girl. I didn’t remember meeting you the first time, and I remember your ex coming to Paul’s once for like 20 minutes and bringing chips and beer and randomly leaving.” I remembered that day because we were fighting and I think he left because I threatened to pack up my shit and bounce. Moving on. “I heard about what happened to you, and it sucks and you are still such a nice girl. That’s really cool. I just wanted you to know that.” Hesh had an odd way of being super sincere at the most random times. He was harmless, like he wanted to explore as many options as possible but he wasn’t the type to hit on someone randomly.
In the car ride, I remembered that he was recently divorced, and I asked him what happened. It’s only fair, since everyone seemed to know my story already. Word traveled fast around these parts. He was usually a pretty deep dude, but his answer was, and I quote, “She was really jealous. Every time I saw a girl I knew, and I know a lot of people, she’d say, ‘Did you fuck her?’ She always thought I was cheating on her. Then she stopped putting in effort. Like stopped dressing up, stopped doing her makeup. It just wasn’t working.”
I just replied, “Oh, well, alright,” as we pulled into Mesa.
Shit got crazy from here. T and DJ got lost but finally made it. Everyone ended up on the dance floor. I’m not sure what ensued next, but DJ left at some point, because he had a flight the next day. There was a man I had met before named Allen, he lived in my community close to my building and was friends with Hesh and D. He hit on me once, and even though I wasn’t really into it, D warned me to watch out for him. I took this seriously, because dudes know each other and I know he really did care about my safety at the end of the day, if nothing else.
Hesh and Allen told T and me that we were all going to an after party at D’s, which was fine with me, because I lived in the same building. They offered to drive us, since the limo was broken, and I said, “Sure! Let’s roll.” We ended up at Allen’s house for some reason, and he made us tiptoe into the townhouse because he had a pregnant roommate. Allen had his mattress on the floor with an adjoining bathroom upstairs. Hesh and I were sitting on the floor, joking and laughing. Allen kept commandeering my cousin into another room with him, and I kept getting up and pounding on the door to check on her. “Are you okay?” T kept opening the door and assuring me she was fine. I went back and talked to Hesh, when I remembered what D had said about Allen. I kept yelling, “Kwanza! Are you ok?”
Hesh kept laughing. “Dude, she said she is fine.”
Kwanza: “Yes I am fine!”
Hesh: “She says she’s fine!”
Me: “Kwanza, are you fine?”
Allen: “Be quiet! My roommate is pregnant!”
I guess I was over-protective. It then dawned on me in a moment of semi-sobriety—why the hell were we at this man’s house? I literally lived right next door. I commandeered the party and made everyone come to my place where we could play music and be loud without waking preggy. My apartment was scraps of what it used to be, with just two couches and some random paraphernalia. And I didn’t have much booze left except a case of VOCO (vodka coconut water) that had been given to my ex to try out for his restaurant in Beverly Hills. So, I handed those out and put on some jams.
What ensued next was pure brilliance. T and I decided to start a bonfire on my balcony using my engagement album and wedding books, but I realized I had thrown out all my fire-starting items. I tried to just set it ablaze on my stove burner, and when that didn’t work, T lit a paper towel, tossed the flaming piece of paper into a trash can with the wedding book, and hurried the trash can out onto the balcony. With my remaining bottle of 100 proof peppermint schnapps, the fire went from zero to hero—three-feet tall flames with smoke everywhere. The two guys started freaking about the fire like some paranoid pussies, and T shouted, “Shut up! We are from Wyoming! We know fire!” We stood and nostalgically watched the remainder of my memories burn until the sun came up.
Chapter 19:
Two Years Later
I don’t think anyone can truly explain tragedy until having lived through it. It’s difficult to describe my situation, since it happened so suddenly, but when we got divorced, it truly felt like a death (except that my ex is still alive and constantly badgering me). People will tell you that marriage is life-changing. I could not disagree more. Divorce is life-changing. Death is life-changing. Cancer is life-changing. Marriage is a decision that two people make of their own accord, or at least that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s a natural progression in a relationship and a major milestone, but it doesn’t completely alter your life overnight in the way a death, divorce, or diagnosis does. Even though I went through a lot with my marriage, I do still believe in marriage personally, and for those who decide to walk that path, I hear it can be a truly beautiful thing. I guess I don’t know if I necessarily got to have the normal marriage experience. I’m not even sure I got to have the “normal” divorce experience (if there is one). There wasn’t an unwinding period of our relationship. He basically pled guilty to a felony, came home, tried to cheat on me (I couldn’t figure out why at the time) because he knew he was going to jail, flew to his court date, and never came home. However, divorce will change your life. Marriage just makes a life progression more permanent. Plus, divorce has such an icky connotation to it. Tell someone you just got married and you can almost see the bliss radiate out of their pores “OH, wow!”
Say you just got divorced and there’s this awkward pause followed by uncomfortable banter.
Reflecting on the ways that my life has changed as a result of my marriage, divorce, and everything that followed would really be impossible, but I will say that with a different perspective, now that I have put some time and distance between the final situation and myself, I will never be the same person. At first, I was in a form of shock, and that shock later turned into a deep-seated depression. I am not a depressed person, nor have I ever really been. Yet, when something like that happens—I guess you could call it “a moment of tragedy”—it’s almost like a poison boiling over in your center. You try your best to contain it, to channel it, to go through it, even to pour it out, but it just keeps bubbling over until it has affected ev
ery cell inside your being. The only thing that can rid you of it is time, healing, patience, and understanding (and for some, medication and therapy).
I remember in the darkest times after this happened, just sitting with this intensely horrific feeling in my body and wanting it to stop. I wanted it to go away. It was the opposite of what I think is natural for a human being to feel and everything about it was wrong. I kept asking my mom when I would feel normal again. I would Google on the Internet to see how others got through such a tragic state. I read books about other people’s tragedies and Googled asinine things that I prayed would give me some sliver of hope of when this would end.
I know, now, that it never ends. Not really. Time has made it easier, and I was able to become stronger, to refocus and rebuild. But just like the Twin Towers that were so grotesquely torn down, a new and glorious tower now stands in its place. Below that tower, though, are the shards of the old buildings left in the soil upon which the new foundation was built, and that is how I mostly feel. I have come a long way and things have transformed and changed. I have overcome many things and have gained strength in unimaginable areas, but that situation and the wounds it caused are there underneath somewhere. I have just built on top of what remains of my tragedy within me, a new foundation, new walls, a new building. I wish someone would have told me in that moment, though, that it never goes away. Not really. Not completely.
I wish someone would have come to my house and literally moved in with me and watched me like a toddler during this time. It would’ve pissed me off, and I would have hated it, but even the simplest of tasks, initially, and for quite a while, really were unbearable. Checking the mail was like running a marathon. Paying a bill may as well have been constructing the great wall of China single-handedly, because it took every ounce of my being most days not to completely sink into nothingness, and, by God, I wanted to just sink. If I hadn’t been living states away from my family, I would’ve just gone to my parents, gotten in bed, closed the blinds, and not emerged for several years. I’m not kidding.
Divorce, Drinking and Dating Page 12