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Divorce isn’t the end of the world. It’s all about getting back in the saddle and riding that horse like you have nothing left to lose. Because you don’t. The minute I unloaded my P.O.S. lying, cheating, scumbag husband and left it up to his gutter-trash mistress to take care of his sorry ass, I decided to never, ever allow a man to control the weather in my life again.
I used to be that woman who gave her all, sacrificed for her man. The dutiful wife who was a lady in the streets and a freak in the bed. But that didn’t keep him, and after a long and tiring battle with myself, I realized that I’m solid on my own. I don’t need a man to be the confident, sexy, unstoppable woman I am today. So, I guess thanks are in order. I would never have realized the diamond I am if my husband hadn’t flipped the script.
So why am I on a dating website you might ask? Well, after wasting half my life on a lost cause, pretending everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t, I’m out of practice and short on prospects. Back when the dating pool was fresh and new, all I had to do was pick up a phone and dial a friend. In a matter of hours, I’d have a date and eventually a boyfriend. Now all of those friends are either long gone or married with kids, and so is just about everyone they know who’s worthwhile.
So dating website it is.
It’s kind of strange. I’ve gotten so used to being a private person. Putting all my personal info out here is like rubbing salt on an open wound. It goes against my every instinct and hurts like hell, but I’m determined to get back on that saddle.
So far, everyone I scroll through is so not my type. Not that I know what my type is, per se, but I’ll know it when I see it. And it’s none of these guys. Balding. Never married. Doesn’t want their partner to have kids. Wants kids someday themselves. Too young. Too old. And while I know looks aren’t everything, I admit most are crossed off my list on first sight.
I’ve already spent the last couple hours—after dropping the kids at school—scrolling through profiles of potential new partners with no luck. I’m still shaking my head, wondering how some of these men expect to snag a woman with the shit they write.
I’m tired of gold diggers. All women want is a man who will spend money on them. How about instead of me taking you out, you take me out for a change. Hit me up if you’re down.
Puh-lease. This pompous prick is going to die alone.
I shake my head at the nonsense and reach for my cup of tea only to realize I already drank it all. The tingling in my arm and the ache in my right elbow lets me know that I have spent entirely too much time on the computer for one morning as it is. It’s for the best. I should be working right now anyway.
Before I sign out, though, I decide maybe it would be better if I just let the men come to me. One look at the generic shadow figure where my profile picture should be reminds me that I need to put in a little more effort if I expect not to die alone like the prick.
So, I take out my cell phone, noting that for the cool eight hundred I paid for it, it has surprisingly shitty resolution. I position myself in the chair, hold the phone aloft, and tilt my head, doing my best to position my thumb over the camera button while trying not to drop the damn thing on my face. In my early thirties, I’m far from being old…but how the hell do the twenty-year-olds do this?
It takes a bit of finagling, but I manage to snap off a couple shots. When I check out my handiwork, I throw out a few choice words that I’m always reminding the kids never to say. Damn double chin. I need to do a few tongue-to-roof-of-the-mouth presses. I never noticed one eye is more almond shaped than the other. And what am I doing with my smile? I look like a psychopath.
Hold the phone up again. Tongue-to-roof-of-mouth press. Smile, but not too big. Relax the eye muscles. Blink. Sigh.Snap. Snapsnapsnapsnap. Reject them all and start over.
This goes on for way longer than it should, until—finally—there’s one that is salvageable enough for public consumption. I don’t look too stalker-ish, too mom-ish, and the red lips say, ‘Hey, I’m sexy and I know it.’
I hate using the internet on my phone, so the process of signing into the site takes longer than I’d like, and once I go through the lengthy process of downloading and uploading because I enjoy doing everything the hardest way possible, I’m staring at my brand new picture. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. Definitely better than those bathroom pics and duck faces everyone seems to be so set on taking.
Right. It’s time to get to work.
The rest of the day blows by on a breeze. I perform my usual duties around the house then get in some work online—thank God for telecommuting! Before I know it, it’s time to pick up the rug rats and get dinner in the oven. Tonight is fried chicken and fries from the frozen section because my kids are junk food junkies and it’s easier than fighting with them over something they’re never going to eat. Sometimes, as a mom, you need to know when to pick your battles. This is one I lost a long time ago. When in Rome…
After dinner, I paint the youngest’s nails because she wants to look extra pretty for school in the morning, and I braid the oldest’s hair because she wants waves. We put together a unicorn puzzle to pass the time, followed by an hour ofMy Little Ponyepisodes that I’ve seen at least five times already. The theme song is permanently tattooed on my brain, and I have no doubt I will be singing it on repeat when I settle in for bed tonight.
When bedtime rolls around, I tuck in the munchkins, then let myself into my son’s room. Being a teenager, it’s pretty much the only time I ever get to see him anymore. I call him The Breeze, because most of the time, that’s all the indication I get that he’s been in a room with me. I sense him seconds before he’s gone again. Almost like an apparition. It’s a running joke between us.
I find him folded into a human pretzel in his lounge chair, his face illuminated by the light of the tablet that might as well be sewn to his hand for all the time it spends there. In the seconds it takes me to enter the room, I soak in how much he’s grown from the tiny five-and-a-half-pound baby to the now nearly six-foot young man he is today. He’s growing out his hair, which has almost reached his collar now and even sports a bit of beard and mustache. Soon he’ll be shaving. Then he’ll be leaving. It’s enough to make a mother cry.
“Hey, kiddo. Just telling you goodnight and I love you.” It’s a routine now. The same time and same words every night.
He grunts something that vaguely sounds like, “Okay, goodnight. Love you too.” We give a brief and somewhat awkward side-hug, and then I am closing the door behind me.Good talk, I mutter to myself as I gather my pajamas and head for the bathroom, mourning the loss of the little boy who used to sleep on my chest at night because he needed to hear my heart beat against his ear to sleep. Now he’s six feet of moody male, sweet but aloof, caught up in his own little world with little patience for his mother’s interference. I often joke with him that if he doesn’t leave the cave from time to time, he’s going to become a vampire—pale and wasted looking, and with the way he sits in that chair, a hunchback to boot.
We laugh about it, but I do wonder sometimes…
The hot shower burns my skin, but it’s just what I need to help shrug off the melancholy that sets in at the same time every evening. I’ve gotten used to sleeping alone, but the quiet beforehand isn’t my friend, and if I’m lucky enough to fall asleep fast, the dogged dreams are always there to greet me.
I’ve long since decided that I don’t want to reconcile. When the man you were prepared to spend the rest of your life with betrays you, tells you you’re expendable, it’s time to start fresh. I’m ready for a change in my life, ready to reinvent myself, find someone who cherishes me the way my husband promised but failed to do, so the dreams are just that—dreams. I can no more control them than I can the weather, but it’d be nice to escape them every once in a while. Maybe be transported to a sunny beach somewhere, with a nice Latino man who rubs suntan lotion on my warm skin and speaks filthy Spanish in my ear.
Shiver.
I’ve always had a thing for Latinos. I can’t place my finger on why, but it’s the main reason I took Spanish in high school. I can’t speak it for shit now, and I only know the basics because I’ve forgotten most of it, but none of that has watered down my love for the language or culture.
It’s a shame I never got to take that trip to Mexico I always dreamed of. An even bigger shame was marrying a Mexican man only to find he knew nothing of his heritage, his own father having forgotten the language in favor of Americanizing himself when he came over in his early twenties. So in many respects, he’s as white as I am.
