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By Misti Date: 2006 Apr 26 Comment on this Work [[2006.04.26.16.02.19210]] |
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She was your average Cherokee-Irish-Scottish-Swiss neurotic mess from Oklahoma. She knew there was a big world out there beyond the hills and rednecks and chicken fried steak with white cream gravy but she had yet to discover it. The Internet was her window into new exotic places, such as Connecticut. That is where he was from, the man who would become her first husband. E-mail correspondence soon turned into ICQ chats which soon turned into telephone conversation marathons and snail mail. When they met in person late that summer she was disheartened by the lack of chemistry. There were no sparks to speak of. Still, she felt genuine affection for the guy and he treated her better than the bubbas in big trucks. All her life she had followed her heart like a panting puppy dog. She made the decision to be pragmatic for once and follow her logic. The logic that led her to accept the guy's marriage proposal had more than a few holes in it. Sure, she was his first serious relationship and he still lived with his parents and wasn't using his college degree and had a drinking problem but he seemed to really care about her and he had read a lot of books. He used multi-syllable words frequently. This impressed her. She thought the chemistry would come later. She had quit Paxil cold turkey before meeting the guy. She was dizzy and nauseous and wanted to stay in bed all day. They fought right away. The fights frightened her. The guy was beginning to remind her of the way the sky looked in Oklahoma City right before an F5 tornado touched down. She sensed violence in this gentle literate teddy bear of a man. She had nothing to base her fear on, it was just a gut feeling that made her think twice. Still, she was from Oklahoma so she wasn't too bright. She married the guy and created a lot of finger paintings and poems to stay sane. Depression had been a problem for the girl all her life. She played the victim role to the hilt. She doubted that her Mommy really loved her and she still carried bruises around inside her fractured heart from leather belt spankings from an angry Daddy and stepfather. She had been taunted in school and used and abused by more than a few Coors guzzling rodeo clowns and bull riders. She wondered sometimes if she was really a robot, programmed for self-destruction. Faulty as could be expected, the girl still spent a lot of time on the internet. She was unhappily married and this resulted in various cyber crushes on men she would never meet. One of the crushes was more serious than the others. It resulted in a week spent in a mental hospital. The girl loved the art therapy and frozen waffles. The Celexa did not solve the girl's problems. She was still a mess. Then three years down the road the girl smelled magic in a guy who had a Woody Woodpecker laugh. The guy was fun. The girl had forgotten how to have fun. Hiking in the desert with a husband who resembled an F5 tornado just didn't do the trick. The girl made a mix tape for the magical fun-loving guy. He dug her mismatched socks and Kali lunchbox. The girl began sleeping on the futon in the den as she formed a plan to escape her death sentence marriage. The girl left her husband in a car loaded down with collages nd clothes and videotapes and not much else. There is a happy ending. The girl has been married to the magical guy with the crazy laugh for a year. They are still having more fun than the law will allow. The girl is not on antidepressants. She is high on living a joyous proactive honest life. She is bullshit free, quite a feat considering where she came from. Her husband took her to San Francisco for a week. The girl raised her vodka gimlet in Vesuvio's. She did not toast Ginsberg or Kerouac or Corso or any other dead guys. She toasted her husband and herself. She kissed her husband. She was finally home. |