But since then, even under difficult circumstances at work, I found the stress was gone, the reflux all but vanished. Smooth sailing. It was amazing. Take that static out of my daily mix, and I was fundamentally better, and happier.
The boys are joys, of course, and I'm so grateful for them -- but when I faced the relief of not having Exene around, I thought "God, I should've done this 15 years ago."
All concern about whether it was the right thing to do or not was gone; I realized it was the right thing.
And I also realized that a big reason I'd carved that path long, long ago (and good lord, how long ago it was), but it was because of a fear of being alone. Even though I ended up with somebody who was nearly as good as being alone for me, emotionally, the specter of being alone frightened my 22-year-old self, and I "solved" that "problem" by marrying Exene. Ridiculous.
Now that I am alone, I find peace and comfort in it, and freedom. I always knew that I was giving way, way more than I ever got with Exene, but to see it played out so vividly in my day-to-day was a true revelation: I really did have nothing to lose. She lost way more than I did, and it was predicated on our situation -- I was happy to make her happy, worked very hard to make her world fun and entertaining and joyful. I did the worrying, I covered the bases, and I soaked up the stress, too. And for what? For love, obviously. Duh.
But that love eroded away in the face of that erosive situation.
Somebody said that when you love somebody, all the qualities you love about them become the qualities you hate about them when you fall out of love with them. I mull that now and then, because I definitely fell out of love with Exene, but it was hard for me to say that those qualities were perceived differently by me after the fall, because, for me, they were always there, like speed bumps in the road, stuff I had to navigate around and generally just ignore. Exene would always be Exene -- for anybody she's with, you get exactly what she is; it's just up to you whether you put up with that or not. I did, for two decades, I did, until I couldn't, anymore.
While I can't say that her qualities boomeranged in my estimation, I will say that when divorcing someone, there is an intensification in the nature of the person that occurs -- if a spouse is selfish and narcissistic, when you're divorcing them, they become more selfish and narcissistic. If they're an asshole, then they become an even bigger asshole as you're parting ways. This isn't just your perception of it, but rather, without Love's blinders to have you look the other way, you just see it (and them) far more clearly. What annoys you about them, what you blew off when you loved them, becomes like a klaxon going off. That's how couples on the outs can get into arguments over, I dunno, what cheese somebody bought at the store, or about what shirt the kid's wearing.
And this was even in a by-and-large amicable parting, so I can only wonder how stressful and difficult it is in a situation where the parting is rancorous. Exene was coldly resigned to the reality that I wasn't coming back -- if I didn't come crawling back to the nothing that she gave me, well, that was my problem, in her eyes. And in my view, anybody who wanted the nothing that she gave in a relationship was more than welcome to it. So, weirdly, we found a mostly peaceful detente in that mutual apathy.
A columnist pithily put relationships like this: "Love is when you put up with another person's bullshit." I loved that, because it's really true. When you love someone, you do put up with their bullshit -- you forgive it, you forget it, you look the other way, you explain it away, you rationalize it -- a thousand mental and emotional dodges. When you fall out of love with them, you see the bullshit for what it is, and there's no way around it. Ideally, the bullshit-to-goodness ratio is skewed far in favor of the goodness; somebody who has too much bullshit is unlikely to be able to fool somebody into loving them. Somebody who is mostly goodness is surely "a catch," somebody who is mostly bullshit is trouble, more so because they likely try to camouflage their bullshit to sucker people into loving them, and/or don't even see their bullshit as bullshit, so they need a real song and dance to get people to take the bait. Some folks walk into it with a desire to "help" or "heal" or "save" that other person from their own bullshit. But that's nothing but trouble, and the person who does that is a glutton for punishment.
Everybody has bullshit (hell, some of the worst folks think they are bullshit-free, but that's the biggest load of bullshit around, and woe to the soul who steps in THAT pile of bullshit, right?) Anyway, being human is a bullshit situation, right? So, of course, we have it -- what folks might label "baggage" in a less invective-prone setting. The question you run into is whether that person's baggage is worth lugging, or even if you consider it baggage -- one person's baggage might be another person's treasure, I suppose. Although I believe that bullshit is bullshit, and can't be spun into gold -- you either love somebody enough that you put up with it, or you don't, and, therefore, can't. But if, through it all, you find you still can put up with their bullshit, congratulations and condolences: you're in love.
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| "Shit Fountain," Ukrainian Village, Chicago. |
