About a Boy

How long have I known Jay? Who knows at this point. Five, six years? Maybe seven. My new life hasn't been longer than nine so he's been around for a lot of it. We're friends, we date, we break up, we're friends again. The only thing I know for sure is we never leave whatever this is.

As y'all know I haven't had the easiest time adapting to life on the outside. Jay is the one person who always saw through whatever I was going through and could see the real me. Not that he ever knew me in my past life, he got the other version of Margaux. But to him, that version was still smart, funny, beautiful and worth loving. He didn't take my crap though. That's why we kept breaking up. He's not like me. He doesn't have some profound need to be liked that makes him put up with bad behaviour from other people. He sticks up for himself. He sticks up for me.

I'm learning slowly that the only way to love someone else is to love yourself first. I've had a lot of boyfriends. And I don't think I ever realized that I deserved to be treated well. That I shouldn't put up with being male dominated, put down or lied to or cheated on. None of us do.

So at times, I've been a very bad girlfriend to him. We were younger then. We partied too much. Didn't sleep enough. Fought too much. But there were good times. He forced me to love Game of Thrones and implemented "no pants Sundays". He could iron chef something awesome from nothing in the cupboard.

Then we started to grow up and things started getting real. My cat died and I had a puppy dumped on me. I got sick for quite some time. I went home indefinitely. Jay would send me care packages with new clothes. He'd visit me every day I was in the hospital. Text me in the morning and ask what I wanted to eat because I'm picky and he knew I wouldn't eat hospital food. When one of my best friends was dying he'd drive me to the hospital and wait outside.

He supports all my stupid ideas like coming home randomly with new animals and doing an MBA while I work. Anytime he's off work and it's a nice day he takes us to the beach because that's my favorite place. He's been there for my siblings and my girlfriends and makes sure my dog is taken care of. (Max loves him to death but he's still mommy's boy.)

I guess all I really want to say is, we don't always understand where big love comes from. I worked on Bay Street for years. All those flashy guys in suits with their expensive cufflinks and even more expensive cars. The guys you'd meet in the cool bars who all had their wedding rings in their pockets so they could pick up girls.

Real love is every. fucking. day. Good times and bad. Pretty or ugly. Money in the pocket or broke as hell. Nice vacations and then the years you can't afford to take a vacation. Shopping at your favorite store one day, dollarama the next. Sacrificing for the family. Before him, I didn't know what it was like to have someone accept you unconditionally. Flaws, imperfections, bad habits. All the things you try to hide. Guess I'm just really lucky I got so many chances to get this right. :)

Sullivan out.

Night Terrors

Sometimes I'm happy I'm getting sort of old. Not that I have it all figured out. I spent the weekend with my most precious girlfriend. She seems to have it all figured out. Handsome, kind, wonderful husband? Check. Lovely home? Check. Pursuing her passion in life? Check.

We were both raised in and then left the JWs. She did more of a swan dive while I was a belly flop. But we had very different experiences. I was older, I had to get divorced. I did the back and forth with them for a lot longer. We've always had each other though since I got out and for our entire lives before that except for a couple of brief hiccups.

I'm still trying to rid myself of the little hell I live in, despite the fact that I think my life is great. I'm happy every day. And grateful. My subconscious and my nightmares won't catch up though.

I'm off work and I was cleaning my flat and I realized I'm a hoarder. I have every letter, every card, every picture I've ever received. I've thrown out 7 bags of garbage today. Some of them, even though I don't talk to those people, even though I don't see them, I still can't get rid of them. Every year more and more go away but it's possible when I die, someone is going to have to throw out a box of letters from someone I used to know.

Maybe that's why I still dream about them. Maybe that's why apparently I have bad karma. Maybe my heart is just too big for this and I was in it too long. Lately, my heart is expanding and letting new people in. I hope they will take over those old vacant spots.

Someone come and save my life :) Sorry it's all City and Colour songs tonight. :) 

"There's a degree of difficulty in dealing with me. From my haunted past comes the daunting task of living with memories." ~ City and Colour

Sullivan out.

Tell me about 4 am

I have a sleep problem. I wake up at 4 am almost every day, no matter what time I go to bed. Usually it's because I'm having a bad dream. By "bad dream" I just mean visits from ghosts of the past. They are SO REAL. I can hear their voices, see the exact color of their eyes. I remember our conversations. I wake up confused, disoriented and sad. 

My therapist likes to talk about this now. He's always asking me: "So, tell me about 4 am." Sometimes I can get back to sleep, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I do yoga, read books, listen to music, meditate.  

On Sex and the City the girls used to say it takes half the amount of time you were with someone to get over them. Considering how long I was there and the amount of people I've had to get over, I think I'm doing pretty good at only 5.5 years in. 

Recently I found something in a box. I had (geek alert!) a Winnie the Pooh guestbook that I used to leave on the coffee table for people to sign when they came over. This morning at 4 am I started flipping through it. Apparently I was a great hostess. I used to throw tons of dinner parties, I used to make cheesecake. I used to bring home boxes of mussels from PEI every summer and have a seafood-fest. 

The guestbook is actually quite funny, every page has a picture or a quote from Winnie the Pooh. People would add their own quotes, draw their own pictures, make fun of what one of our other friends had written. There's people in there that I completely forgot even existed. Then there's all the people who I don't let myself think about because it's too painful. Girls I was friends with since elementary school and was a bridesmaid in their wedding. Boys I was in love with at one time or another. 

Disclaimer: before you keep reading, this is a long one. That's what happens when you write blogs at 4 am. 

There are quotes from movies we used to be obsessed with, lots of thank yous, lots of compliments on the dinners and the one that gets me...lots of "I will love you forever".

That was back when I was a perfect hostess and a nearly perfect little JW housewife. At 4 am today I had to laugh. Because growing up that way wasn't ideal, of course I would have picked a different life if I could have. What I've had to overcome to get out? I couldn't do it again. I wouldn't survive a Round 2. 

I never answer the "tell me about 4 am" question. But if you'd like to know I'll tell you now what it's like. Sometimes it's lonely, sometimes it's sad or frustrating, sometimes it makes me happy. One thing is for sure though, I always know I'll feel terrible getting up for work in a couple of hours. Most of the times I wake up because of a bad dream. That means I'll be having a panic attack. It might take an hour or two for it to subside. 

Sometimes though, 4 am brings amazing clarity. There is only one person from that old life who used to be a close friend that I have completely hated. Even with all my efforts to be Zen, to have compassion, to forgive, to love. When I was suicidal I reached out to him for help. His answer? There is no help for the disfellowshipped. I've been upset about that for 5 years. 

Reading all his comments in my guest book next to all his ridiculous Batman pictures, along with everyone else's today, I realized that it's okay. We all have bad stuff that we wish had never happened to us. But before all that bad stuff, there was a lot of good, a lot of fun. If they hadn't chosen such an extreme way of treating me in the end, I may never have left. It was painful but they did me a favour. Because despite all the anxiety, despite the 4 am wake up calls, I'm really happy to have the life I have now. Those friends, that life was not a mistake. I didn't know any better. My marriage wasn't a mistake. It was the right fit for me at the time. And truth? I still love y'all. (Even you, you asshole.) :)

My therapist asks me why I can't just ask them to leave when they show up. It's because part of me doesn't want to. Part of me is happy to have that visit. But could y'all maybe wait until closer to 6 am? 4 is a bit early. :)

Sullivan out.  

Lest we forget...

I keep vacillating on this one.  Do I write one more blog about how depressed I am that my Cat died. Tell y'all how hard it was not to cry at my desk today at work? Or do I do a fucking inspirational it's Remembrance Day, we should be grateful for what we have, what our grandparents fought for speech. I never met one of my grandfathers, but he fought in the war and I'm sure he was awesome, just like my Dad. 

Hmm. I am grateful for what I have. Except for the dead cat and the new stalker. (Stalker, I don't blame you for being in love with me, I'm pretty awesome. But the fact that you somehow got my cell phone number and called me the other night really makes me very nervous. Please don't do that again.)

The Cat wasn't just another friend that I lost, she was the last real link I had to that past life. She was with me when I found Travis, married him, divorced him. She was with me through those absolutely terrible years. 

Living in the past will never get us anywhere we really want to go in life. And if life hasn't killed me yet, then it really should be worried because there's nothing left to take away from me at this point. I'm like Liam Neeson is any of his movies. Scary. I'm going to leave it to the true artist here to say what I really want to say, but seriously: You're gonna hear me roar.