So hey, I found out today after a month of friendly texting with my estranged husband (which I erroneously believed was going to lead to us getting back together again like we had several times over the past 2 years), that our divorce was actually final back in early June. Yeah right? Ain’t that a kick in the head? He filed the final paperwork after I ranted and raved and told him to go ahead, that we were OVER, that he was a fucking douchebag asshole whom I was too good for. What NERVE OF HIM to actually take me up on MY threat! Haha, good one, touche', he sure showed me! :)
It wasn’t like I didn’t know it was coming, like I didn’t realize we had a snowball’s chance in Hell of making it work, it was just that I LITERALLY didn’t know it was coming. He let me go on all that time, texting him sexy selfies, saying I love you, how ya doing today, whatcha working on in the shop, etc., before finally having no choice but to break it to me. I went to the doctor’s office today for a followup visit for what I was sure was going to be a mere confirmation that I just had a simple bladder infection and to go home and keep taking my antibiotics. Instead, I found out I have NO infection and they now have to run more invasive (read: much more expensive) tests to find out what’s up and “rule out” cancer or kidney stones. Great. Wonderful. Just how I planned my Friday on going. So I text my husband to make sure everything is still kosher with me being on his insurance and that’s when he breaks it to me: we’re done. Fine' in Italian. Over and out. No longer joined in holy matrimony for over 45 days without my knowledge.
“What?” I say. “When did this happen and when exactly were you planning on telling me?” He then sheepishly explains that I of all people told him to file so he did. Imagine that. After years of him listening to absolutely nothing I said, this is the one thing he actually hears. “Great”, I say, “So you let me go on for a whole month, saying all those things to you, making a complete ASS of myself, and it never once occurs to you that this is information that I might want to be aware of?????” Wow. Again, in my defense, this is what I’ve been dealing with for a “husband” the past two and a half years, so his extreme lack of communication wasn’t a huge shocker, but still. Duh dude. How about manning up, growing a pair and just letting me have it? If there’s anyone who can handle the truth, it’s me. I’m the one who has been ostracized by my whole family and outcast by all semblance of friends over the past three decades for my truth telling that no one wanted to hear, along with owning up to all of my own shit. I’m nothing if for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing BUT the truth. Say what you need to say John Mayer.
So, after the initial shock wore off and I had my womanly cry over it all and realized we were truly done, I got to thinking like I have a bad habit of doing. Yippee! I’m free! Divorced for the third and last time, never to be again, rid of the bastard for good! Those were my initial thoughts. I then immediately picked up my phone and started texting him. “I’ll tell him”, I thought. NO ONE gets the last word in on me. What came out instead were very heartfelt and inspired musings.
I mean, yes of course, me being me, in between all of the heartfelt and inspired musings I also let fly with several zingers that I had kept to myself for years. I chastised him for being a huge baby who would never attend counseling in an effort to save our marriage and for us to learn how to communicate better, which, as noted above by Captain Obvious, was a huge problem for us. He had had a prior experience with his first wife, who even though he classified her to me as being a bat shit crazy schizoid, he married her twice and stayed with her for 20 years. Apparently though, I was somehow worse to the point where he couldn’t bear me for more than a few months after we had wed before he started berating me for “ruining his life”. I guess all that loving him stuff and cooking and cleaning and sucking golf balls thru garden hoses and catering to his many sexual fetishes and doing his taxes every year and nursing him through all of his illnesses, along with sticking by him through an IRS audit in which he owed the government $28,000 and then moving to another city with him where I knew no one and then had to drive my daughter to school an hour each way for a year were too much for HIM to deal with. But I digress. He wouldn’t go to any sort of counseling because, Number One, according to his own admission, there was “nothing wrong with him”. Number Two, his first wife had dragged him to their church to be “counseled” by a bunch of hypocrite, ignorant, red neck Christians who then, surprisingly, labeled him a porn-loving, wife-beating deadbeat. He wasn’t, but for some reason he let their words stick to him and he could never let that go. Therefore, no amount of my begging was ever going to cause him to re-live “counseling” again. I even told him he could pick the counselor, to no avail. It was the beginning of the end then I realized.
My next zinger came in the form of my current, on-going favorite topic since my mind expanding epiphany last fall - zombies. That’s right, zombies. Let me explain. Ever since I fired my egoic mind last fall on that Colorado mountaintop, I have become increasingly aware that I can no longer deal with, nor be in the presence of, the vast majority of the world because the vast majority of the world has become a soul-sucking, self-involved, selfish, mean, cruel, unaware bunch of asshole zombies. If you’re reading this then I commend you on taking that first step towards NOT being a narcissistic zombie any longer, but you probably haven’t taken the final exam yet either, therefore you’re probably most likely still a zombie. If you’re taking offense right now and getting pissed off, then I rest my case. Narcissistic zombie. If you have remained calm and impassive towards me slinging arrows at you and artfully dodged them, kudos. That means your ego mind does not control you like it does 99% of the rest of the world. Welcome to the most elite of memberships. You will now be lonely and hated for the rest of your days by your family, spouse and peers who have no idea what you’re talking about or why you have suddenly changed and become “weird”. And because of the very fact that they are zombies, this ensures that they will NEVER have any idea what you’re talking about because their ego mind won’t let go of them long enough for them to ever get it. You will have to leave them behind and go start a new world like Brad Pitt and his family did in World War Z. For more enlightening, please refer to the book that changed it all for me and that I recommend to everyone I come into contact with - The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. We could be here for days otherwise.
So anyway, I told my now ex-husband that I was, in actuality, thankful that he had finally finalized our divorce, because what kind of a hypocrite would I be if here I was, spouting all this Buddha zen zombie hating wisdom when in fact I was still married to one? He goes off to his grueling 9 to 5 everyday that he hates with a passion but “it’s a living”, probably like the rest of you, looking forward to the day when he will retire and then finally “be happy”. He, probably like you, thinks that when he gets to a certain point or stage in life, like we have all been brainwashed from birth to think, that everything will fall into place and he will THEN get to enjoy his “golden years” and the fruits of all his labors. THEN he will have time to volunteer and help others. THEN he can spend time with me. THEN we will go on vacations. THEN we will grow old together. THEN he can vote and get involved in his community and social issues. THEN he will care about the environment and how we are destroying the Earth and its beautiful creatures. In the meantime, I waited patiently for tomorrow to arrive and our lives to begin until that fateful day in September last fall when I realized with brutal finality the banality of it all.
How can you all not see what a lie this is? If you read two other fantastic books, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris, you will realize that there IS no THEN, only NOW. There IS no pot of gold waiting for you after you have worked 30 yrs for a thankless, godless corporation. In fact, in this day and age, they will probably lay you off before you even GET to retire. THAT will be their thank you to you for all your years of hard work. Or by the time you DO retire, your body is so old and pot bellied and broken down you won’t feel like traveling and kicking up your heels with your beloved spouse. Your mind, spirit, and dreams will be so crushed by the whole System Of A Down that you will just say fuck it and commit suicide or become a drunk or drug addict if you’re not already. I paint such a bleak picture because I walk around every day out in the world and see it everywhere I go. We have been pummeled into oblivion on every front - from the day we are born we are taught to obey, conform, be nice, be polite, don’t speak up, don’t get involved, don’t help anyone, stay silent, don’t take a stand, don’t rally, riot or rebel. And just look where that has got us, look what we have become.
My whole languorous point is this - LIVE NOW. LOVE NOW. Tomorrow is promised to no man, tis true. Engage your passions, invoke your dreams, carpe diem. Burn the “good” candles, use the “good” china, wear the expensive perfume that you save for “special” occasions. Wear the sexy lingerie every night, help your neighbor (probably not while wearing the sexy lingerie though), get involved in your community, sign petitions, stand up and yell “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore” to our governments and money guzzling corporations. Save the environment, save our children from starvation, molestation, murder and disease. Get off your couch, away from the TV and your stupid fucking video games, put down your phone, LIVE YOUR LIFE. For it is only thru self awareness and engagement that you will realize the true meaning of life, your purpose. It’s not about money or the attainment of “stuff”. In fact “stuff” will only bog you down more and end up owning you, not you it. The more you release and let go out of your life, the more you will possess. The more you help others the more good fortune that will come to you. You will never feel more alive than the moment you let go of all that holds you back, and that includes every excuse you make for not starting NOW, along with all your fear of "what if".
So ex-hubby #3? Thanks. You did me a solid. I tried to save you from yourself but you just don’t get it and you never will so ta-ta. And for every other douchebag asshole from my past that beat me, raped me, put me down, sexually harassed me in the workplace, kicked me, choked me, gave me PTSD, made me sad, ripped my clothes, threatened to kill me or my pets, abandoned me, held me hostage inside my own house, took my child away from me, didn’t love me and on and on and on? You have NO idea what you have done, motherfuckers. You have made me SO strong, SO powerful, so incredibly PISSED OFF that I have become a superhero. Hulk angry. Hulk smash. For the rest of my days I am going to unleash my super powers upon this world and right all of the wrongs that were inflicted upon me in my youth by helping those that cannot help themselves. I highly suggest all of you do the same. In fact, by order of the memory of Hunter S. Thompson, and all of the countless fallen heroes that have gone before us, that’s an order. Dismissed. As you were. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
Until next time, living small and loving it largely,
The Gonzo Hunter
