Exactly 3 years ago today I was huddled in a closet wondering why this wasn't a thing. Why more people didn't huddle in closets. That's where my sisters found me several hours after the fella ran away from home. He literally ran away from home, like a child, or a caged bird, or a 6' 3" doucheyishbag. (at the time I would have referred to him as a douchebag, but now ... meh ... whatever, doucheyish is fine) He tells people he's 6' 4" for some reason which is a lie, by the way. He's 6' 3". So, basically a munchkin pygmy.
He left, I broke down, and immediately made my closet floor my new best friend. I walked straight in there, shut the door and laid down for what I assumed would be the next 4 years or so. I should mention it isn't really a walk in closet, let alone a lay down closet. More the kind of closet you'd find in a house where you'd say "Oh my GOD, this is all the closet space there is??" and then you'd storm out of the open house and complain to your realtor.
My sisters got wind that after 11 years, the fella had gone on permanent walkabout so they rushed over to see if I was O.K. Me? O.K? Yup. I'm good. I'm in a closet. Why people reserved this sort of indulgence for natural disasters and World Wars was beyond me. Huddling in a closet was GREAT.
Thinking back on it I feel kind of bad for my sisters, opening the closet door to see me on the tile floor with the imprint of a knock-off Chanel bootie on my forehead.
For some reason this really alarmed them.
I'm not sure why because I know for a fact they both own closets and have both been in their own closets. I was just being in mine a little bit longer than normal. Plus I was on the ground. Plus the door was closed. Plus my hair was all crazy messy from rubbing against the sleeves of a velvet jacket I had in there. Also, I may have wrapped a tunic from the late 1990's around part of my head like a turban for some reason. I liked it in there. It was great. There was no sound and no light. My own private sensory deprivation chamber. Perfect. In 4 years time I'd reemerge, with luxuriously long hair, beautifully pale skin and no memory of whats-his-name.
I was really excited about this plan because for the life of me I couldn't see a single flaw with it.
So why they insisted I get out of the closet I still don't know. At first they tried to drag me out which I can tell you right now I was not impressed with. They weren't successful of course, because the piles of shoes surrounding me were acting like speed bumps plus my hair was a little bit velcroed to the velvet jacket. But they didn't give up. They really wanted me out. Suddenly laying in the closet with my tunic/turban amongst a pile of wire hangers with shoe prints on my face seemed almost humiliating. I mean, just moments before I was thinking I could maybe market my closet chamber, for long term financial gain if I could just get one of the Shark Tank people involved. And now my sisters were acting like it was crazy. Like I was crazy. They were getting seriously close to being on my doucheyishbag list.
Then the one sister yelled at the other sister for trying to drag me out of the closet and they started sort of windmill slapping at each other, at which point I burrowed deeper into the shoes.
I eventually came out just to shut them up. Plus my one sister had brought yogurt and honey because she figured I might need sustenance. Having your spouse up and leave without warning immediately makes people around you think you'll no longer be able to feed yourself beyond eating your own hair. So they bring food, the same way they would if there was a death in the family. It was a sudden and surprising "death" at that by the way. Where you have no warning and aren't expecting to be hurt at all. Like a heart attack, or being trampled to death by a herd of kittens.
I was out of the closet, I ate yogurt and honey, and I reluctantly took my super-cool, protective turban off. They still weren't happy. They wouldn't leave. I asked them to please leave. I begged them to leave. I just wanted to be alone with my shoes, my snotty face and my super-plausible Shark Tank fantasy. I guess they thought GO AWAY was "just-been-dumped code" for please don't leave, because instead of packing up their stuff and heading out the door they started cleaning my house. Everything. All of it. Like Molly Maids with a never-ending supply of tee shirt rags, wood polish and cocaine.
My sensory deprivation chamber was now replaced with the sound of ripping paper towels and my one sister screaming at the fella on the phone from downstairs. Which I liked of course. She was giving him shit. His life would be shit, he treated me like shit, he was just a big pile of 6'3" shit. That part was awesome.
But once she was done yelling at him, it was back to the sounds of the Windex bottle and squeaking on glass. I was up in my bedroom, wondering how to spin the phrase "My sisters are cleaning my house against my will." into "I think I'm the victim of a very dangerous home invasion, OMG ARE THOSE GUNSHOTS?!!!" for the fine folks at 911, when I heard nothing. Silence.
They were gone.
WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Nope. No they weren't. They were just looking for the vacuum. I hated my sisters and wished them ill.
Of course now, 3 years later I know they were just worried about me and wanted to make sure I was O.K. I mean they went about it in completely the wrong way. What they should have done was taken one look at my awesome closet sensory/deprivation chamber, called a patent lawyer and secured a really cool domain name. I'd make millions, get a genuinely 6'4" French boyfriend who, in some type of heroic act had tragically lost all appendages that would allow him to ever run away and I would live happilyish ever after. But they didn't. They dragged and cooked and cleaned with all those squeezy bottles under my sink which I now realize I should have re-labelled when I refilled them all with plant fungus killer 2 years earlier.
Like it wasn't enough I'd been dumped, now if I died of a broken heart in my sleep no one would be saying "Oh how tragic, what a love story, look how beautiful she looks even with a flip flop on her head". They'd say, "Geez, no wonder he left. Have you see how smudgy her windows are?" The best I could hope for was that someone would notice there was no fungus on them.
So to everyone who has gone through, is going through, might go through a major breakup. Don't worry. In a few years, probably even less, you too will come out of the closet completely and totally gay (as in happy).
Honestly. You'll be happy. Probably even happier than before.
I for one can tell you with all honestly that I'm 100% happier than a pygmy in shit.
Ronda
My own personal d-bag left for someone else more than 20 years ago, leaving me with two kids that we were to "share" responsibility for. Needless to say, the bulk of the sharing was my responsibility. And when you have two little ones to take care of, the only thing you CAN do is to pick up the pieces and soldier on. Ex moved to the far side of the country ... not quite far enough according to my family! But now, 20 years later, one kid has his HBA, the other is in her last year of college, and life is good. The best revenge is living well.
Pamela Pruitt
Amen and Amen!
Maura
Hi Karen,
I will print your post, tape it to my bathroom mirror and read it every day until I also have made it through.
I am glad you are better and thank you for being there!
Jan
Grab hold. We'll form a human chain and drag each other forward.
Lush
Hi Karen
I am so glad to hear you made it through to the other side. It gives me hope.
I am nearly 12 months on from getting back to the UK after travelling to Australia for my Mother's funeral & my partner of 6 years telling me that he was in love with our business partner but wanted us both, then dumping me 3 days before my birthday.
Here I am in the UK, a long way from family, friends & my former life. I moved here because we were carving a new life for ourselves. The business was part of the plan. Did I mention that we are still in business together & I get to see them almost every. freaking. day!
It really helps to hear that others have hung on & made it through.
They have finally realised that we need to sell the business, so bring on a buyer!!
Cheers
Lush
Karen
Sell the business, pack your bags, and move back home to start new. In fact, if you have the money maybe you can buy the business from him, move it back to Australia and continue on with it on your own or with a new partner. :) Good luck. You'll get through it. ~karen!
Gail Dedrick
Congratulations, Karen. You successfully figured out that the staying angry part is what impedes your happiness. Many folks wrap themselves in that like a blanket. Letting go of that takes time, though. I'm proud of you.
Anna
My ex was 6'3" and told everyone he was 6'4" too. Why? At that height, is the extra inch really all that impressive? Were you bullied by a gang of guys who really were 6'4" in your childhood? I don't get it. But of course, that was the tip of the iceberg-of-things-I-don't-get-about-the-ex...
Sandra Lea
It happened to me too, husband left after 29 years of marriage and at the time you think there is no way you will get through it but you do, it does get better. I'm just sorry I wasted so much time with him in the first place. And what is it about men that they always seem to add an extra inch to their height? Thanks for sharing your story, while it is happening you think you are so alone and that it's never happened to anyone but you. By the way, yogurt and honey is one of my favorite things.
Alex
Karen,
Three years ago, out of the blue, I suddenly thought, "I wonder what happened to that girl who used to be on TVO? I LOVED her monologues. What was her name? " So I Googled (stalked) you until I found you - just as you were "retiring" heartbroken from the blog for a while. You were just like a wounded animal. My heart went out to you and I wrote to you at that time to tell you to hang in.
AND then you were back, firing on all cylinders and better than ever. Yay for the will to live. Ya Boo Sucks to the Silly Fella.
Karen
Well, now you get my monologues in written format with hand drawn pictures, lol. Basically the same thing as television only I don't have to brush my hair. ~ karen!
Miriam Mc Nally
I too thought of your amazing pizza oven, and all the super things you've done since he left.
I love the closet picture, and think your idea of closet sensory deprivation sounds fairly perfect in the circumstances.
But I thank your sisters for saving you, and being there for you.
Rock on Karen, you are amazing!
Cathy
and now you have an awesome pizza oven, a new kitchen with toasty floors, a non leaking toilet and your books and... a life. You have a funny wonderful, ups-n-downs life. You chose to go on and are the better for it.
But your closet is always there should you need it. Oh, and your sisters too.
Linda-Leigh
I stumbled across your blog looking for "can't remember what" and have been loving it ever since.
I too had a 6' 3" F $#@tard dump me 3 years ago so I know your feelings all too well. My sisters didn't clean so much as get me drunk. Very drunk. However I am happy to report that I am happier too now. It really was for the best.
Happy to hear that you're doing fantastically well and am looking forward to your future posts. Thank you for being an inspiration.
Linda-Leigh
Karen
Thanks drunkie! :) ~ karen!
Andrea Claire
It's ok that I love you, right? Rhetorical. I know it is.
xo
AC
Karen
Right back 'atcha Andrea. :) ~ karen!
Annarica
Although, that being said, I see how much I have changed and how little I care for public opinion any more. In fact, I am well on my way to bring the crazy old chick in the corner house who feeds hundreds of wild birds every day, has a weird routine including saluting the sun and collecting white bird feathers every day and guards her privacy like a rabid T-Rex! And, fools are no longer welcome or tolerated. My single space is sacred now.
Annarica
Oh I empathise! My closet was too shoe-full to take me, my three Yorkies and Flappa my pet pigeon on a leash, so I moved to under the bed. It was so great that it was an antique cast iron bed and so it was high, if it had been a more modern bed - who knows? Congratulations on surviving the emerging from the cocoon of double-ness and so glad that you also feel that singleness is a welcome state, not one to be dreaded. Big hugs! Annarica
Trish
Jeff, this is a good time to stay quiet.
Auntiepatch
Amen!
Andrea Claire
2nd that.
Phyllis Kraemer
Ditto!
ellen
DITTO!!!!
Deb Brennan
Yes that was ill advised Mr. Attorney.
Ellen
have to say this.....Mr. Attorney should have known better!!
Lynne
LOL.....yep...foot not mouth disease!
Karen
That made me laugh. A genuine donkey laugh! ~ karen
Jeffrey Mathews
Ma’am:
There is an old Louisiana folk wisdom that you might find of some interest to the effect that until the coon and the coon hound learn to talk or read and write, the only version of the coon hunt that any of us have is the hunters’.
I may be entirely wrong but after reading your comment and the attendant Greek Chorus, I looked for the N/B (Nota Bene-Please Note) asking that all comments reflect an intensely subjective and blogger supportive point of view.
It is still entirely possible that I have missed that request and if I have, I should gladly stand corrected.
But in the event that there was and is no such request by the blogger, I do believe that I am permitted a very polite question regarding the authors’ intent.
Graciously permit me to rephrase for all of you gentle women:
If the situation were reversed, how would the author have wished the inevitable breakup to have occurred? What should he and what could he have done or refrained from doing that would have obviated the closet experience?
Secondly, if one admits that one no longer has those kinds of feelings for the once cherished other; is the duty then to simply remain out of a sense of prior obligation or spiritual debt?
As for myself, I never met anyone that I thought that I could go the distance with. Given the “till death do us part” long mutual suicide that my own parents called a marriage, I could hardly have had a good perspective on the institution. Even after several decades of their passing, I recall both of them with the utmost loathing and did not attend my Mothers’ Funeral.
I should also like to add that my niece, AnneHarper that I raised (long story) is graduating Harvard in two weeks. I must have done something right.
Might I direct your attention to the prefatory first chapter in Evelyn Waugh’s novel “Brideshead Revisited” in which the narrator, Charles Ryder compares his loss of love for the British Army in which he is a company commander waiting for D-Day, with the loss of love of a beloved wife. I think he captures the horror and sense of loss than most men feel when they discover that their deepest love for the thing they love is slowly dying and that they are helpless to arrest or reverse that loss.
That is of course if you will graciously permit the coon or the coon hound to speak in your august assembly…
Jackie
Get over yourself, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey Mathews
As I am a gentleman, it is ever my duty and my pleasure to insist that the ladies always go first.
Kindly lead the way if you please.
Katrina
Why am I picturing, "Jeffery" looking and talking like Dr. Jody Kimball-Kinney on the Mindy Project?
Jackie
I don't know who Dr. Jody is but Jeffery comes across like a big Wuss & probably needs to find a different blog. He needs to keep his nosy ass questions to himself. He seems to be much too delicate to belong here.
Jeffrey Mathews
As it happens Ma’am. I lost my left hand when my platoon was overrun in October 1971 ten months into my second tour with the 101st Airborne.
I’ve been called many things in my life but neither ungentlemanly or a wuss were ever on that list.
It strikes me that you have no personal experience of the men of old Southern families. And it must be admitted that I certainly have no experiences with women of such sensibilities as yours.
Jeffrey Mathews
I must beg your indulgence as I have never seen the TV show. My niece likes it though and I shall bring this to her attention when I venture north of the Mason Dixon line to see her graduate in two weeks.
If this is any help, she refers to me as her "crazy Confederate cat uncle." And all because my favorite Tee Shirt has a picture of charging Confederate Cavalry with the words: “Every time a Yankee dies choking on his own blood, another angel gets his wings.”
As William Faulkner put it so beautifully: “ In the real South, the dead past is not dead. It isn’t even the past.” Or as my niece would put it: “Oh God uncle. I can’t take you anywhere without you embarrassing me!”
LOL!!!!
Karen
I have the feeling Jeffrey, that most of what you've written today stems from your own lost love. The law. :) ~ karen!
Jackie
Oh - Poor Jeffrey, I hurt your feelings - maybe you should stay down south where the women swoon & drink mint juleps & where you all still fight the Civil War over & over again waiting for a different outcome. I'm sorry you were injured fighting in a war but that doesn't mean you can come on here & ask nosy questions. Karen shares enough of her life with us - you don't have to ask for details. I can't believe that you not only loath your parents but that you would post that on here - plus the fact that you did not attend your own mother's funeral. Now that's just sad.
mia pratt
Yer a rock start, honey! Way too much class and style to be hinged for life to that coward.
Grammy
I'm glad you didn't tell us about the closet incident back when you first let us know that he'd taken a hike. There would have been a whole bunch of women from several continents streaming into your little corner of the world to help your sisters take care of you, and your house would never have recovered from the onslaught. It's what females of our species do. I don't think it's possible to live past about the age of 30 without having had the same kind of experience, either as the stricken one or the rescuer (or both in turns), so everyone relates to the tale.
I have two sisters, too, and none of us will tell anyone else about how the others look all snot-nosed and with eyes that have cried so long that they seem permanently swollen and red. So people like you tell on themselves and draw graphic pictures of just exactly how bad it was. It was bad, Kid. And now it's not. Because that's how it works.
Not caring about whether he suffers or not is the best indication that you are healed and whole. And we, your readers, win. Please tell you sisters "Thank you," from the rest of us.
Liz
Thanks for sharing Karin and glad you made it out to the other side. You've got guts.
I mean, you have chickens, you build EVERYTHING yourself and you can cook. Life is good :-)
Karen
Indeed. :) ~ karen!
Bev
I know it probably felt like your world had melted into a pool of nothing. But actually... It could have been worse Karen...
I heard of a woman who discovered her 'closet' in Kmart. She climbed into the middle of the wracks of clothing and sat down and cried and cried and was there nearly two hours before someone heard her sniffling and alerted security. At which point no one dragged her out, she had to climb out on her own, with a red face and snot on her chin and try not to feel completely mortified by the crowd that had gathered to see what was going on and who the guard was talking to so condescendingly. Only your sisters shuddered at your hair style. Not a whole mall...
Life, men, even Roosters can be complete arseholes on occasion. I'm so glad you feel better, happy and still killing it - and you are. You are an inspiration to a lot of people. And thank you, for coming out of that closet, even though you didn't want to. You are loved. xxx
Laura Bee
So happy you are happy. So happy to know we can survive heartbreak. A few douchebags had passed through my life (none for longer than 10 months) before my love came along.
One dumped me just before my birthday, another just before I thought he was going to propose & two cheated with an ex-girlfriend & got them pregnant. The first I dumped & the second left me for her without saying goodbye even.
18 years now with my bf & there are days my old insecurities get the better of me & I wonder when he will leave. I hate those days.
Cynthia Jones
It's how he did it Jeffrey, not that we know details. We don't.
What happened to him? I think he might have disappeared up how own butt, cos that's what I wished he would do.
Then I hope he got involved with a tyre-slashing, unmedicated bunny boiler disguised as highly sexual, perfectly manicured and aloof.
Jennifer
I just happen to be going through these comments and by far the funniest description of that type we all know...