Cassie’s Place
Tonight I Wanna Cry – March 18, 2020
Sometimes I just feel sad. I can’t honestly give you a good reason why. There is nothing going drastically wrong in my life. In fact, my life is wonderful. I have a fantastic relationship, beautiful daughters, and a lovely home. I make enough money to put food on my table, with just enough extra to allow me to have a little bit of fun now and then, if not live the extravagant lifestyle I aspired to as a child (maybe sometimes still dream of). My life is pretty great. I have no reason to be sad. So why do I still feel so blue? Or better yet, why do I allow myself to feel blue? The truth? Sometimes it feels like exactly what I need.
Some of you will not understand this at all, and that is fine. Some of you will know exactly what this feels like and why I allow it to linger. Today a problem may arise that yesterday I would have brushed aside for the nothing that it is, yet today it somehow brings me to my knees. It doesn’t even need to be a problem. Sometimes it is a situation, an event, or even just a feeling. Real or completely imaginary. Yet, it feels like the last inch of water that covers my head and causes me to feel that I am suddenly drowning, when I had never even realized the water was rising. I am overwhelmed. It feels like the end. I am forced to surrender, to stop fighting. It feels…peaceful.
There is something so cathartic about that moment when you let go. That release of knowing that you have done all that you can do. That moment when you finally allow yourself to accept that it is okay to not win every battle. It is okay to be vulnerable and to give yourself permission to lick your wounds and grieve the loss. It is okay to take time to process whatever you need to process. I have cried over the last episodes of my favourite television shows, or the deaths of characters in novels that I felt I had come to know. Real problems? That day, yes. And it made me feel better.
Sometimes all I need in the world is a bubble bath, a sad movie or song (Keith Urban’s Tonight I Wanna Cry is a great one), a box of tissues, and a few hours alone to ugly cry. I don’t want to know that everything will be better tomorrow, because I already do know that. Somehow that knowledge does not hold the same cleansing and healing powers of rivulets of mascara down my cheeks. I do not want to think ahead about how to solve the problem because, as we have established, there isn’t one. At least, not usually.
Of course, if there is legitimately an issue and something productive can be done to make things better, I do want to be proactive (but usually not until tomorrow, why ruin a bad mood?). And recognizing the difference between having a bit of the blues and having challenges with mental health is very important. A therapeutic cry should not last into the next day. Any longer should be addressed.
As I am writing this, I am again thinking about how fortunate I am to have everything that I have in my life. Even though it may seem like it sometimes I never lose sight of that. Tonight, I may be having one of my days where the wrong word made me feel the ground collapse under me, I know that it will still be there when the sun rises. I have enough support around me to have built a strong foundation. Even though tonight I wanna cry, I know that I will smile tomorrow.
March 28, 2019
I will admit it. I have a shameful addiction to tabloid magazines. It’s not something I am proud of, but there are certainly worse vices. Although my love of literature spans the spectrum of classics to drama to romance to biographies to just about anything that is well written, sometimes there is simply nothing better than indulging in something absolutely mindless. I don’t feel many would argue with me that an evening spent with a celebrity rag should not provoke deep insight. Right? Maybe just this once I would beg to differ.
It all started while keeping up with the latest happenings of a very well-known family. Yet another infidelity scandal for the one who always seems to be the guest of honour at the pity party. I will spare the details, for if you are interested, you already know and if you are not me filling you in will not change that. The relevant point is that after forgiving her man for a former indiscretion, the woman in question has learned that once again she has been made a fool by her partner. There was a line in the story from a supposed friend who made a comment to the effect that she was not surprised, as the way you gain a man is often the way you will lose him, reminding readers that for a time the subject of the story was the other woman. Huh. This is where my mind started to derail.
We are conditioned fairly early on in our dating lives to believe that people who cheat on their partners are just bad people. We whisper about them behind their backs. We write songs about them. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter remains one of the top selling books of all time. We like to demonize adulterers, and we want to see them pay for their crimes. There is no greater betrayal. I firmly believed that was the unequivocal truth. That is, until I became a cheater myself.
I first met Nick while I was still married, although the marriage had been dead for quite some time. That’s probably as cliché as excuses come, but I really have nothing better. It was a sad and abusive situation that I had just come to accept as my life. Then one day a light entered and told me that I did not have to live that way anymore. I learned how to feel beautiful and whole. I learned that I could once again flourish. Unfortunately, that light also came with some attachments. I can honestly say that Nick and I did everything that we could do to stop falling for each other and not be “those people”. We just were not strong enough. The light was stronger.
Being the other woman was the hardest thing that I have ever done. It took some time to untangle all of the knots that had been tied in our other lives, so during that time I wore that scarlet A tucked underneath my clothes, and close to my heart. It was such an odd sensation to be so proud of something in that the rest of the world would tell me that I should find shame. I never once questioned his love for me, or mine for him, yet I worried we might crumble before finally lining up the pieces of our life together. Did it bother me to know that my happiness depended on the destruction of others? Of course it did. I would be a monster if it did not. But I was so in love; am so in love. Staying in unhappy relationships was not a gift of mercy to anyone.
Before the judgment, let me stress that I have been on the other side of this equation. Many times. It is probably one of the worst feelings anyone can suffer. I remember the lonely nights wondering why the phone was quiet and the bed was empty. I remember the scraps of paper with phone numbers I didn’t recognize, the hushed phone calls taken in other rooms, and the assurances that I was seeing things that were not actually reality. I remember this well. It has haunted every relationship since, even when I had absolutely no reason to suspect infidelity. I never quite lost that sick-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach feeling.
Until now.
As I read the words in front of me again, they give me pause. Could the way I got this man really be the same way I lose him? Is not the old adage “once a cheater, always a cheater”? What about leopards? Have they suddenly gained stripes? Do I not fall into this category now too? Could Nick be having the same concerns of me? Me? The girl who has never cheated on a pop quiz, let alone a man. This is such new territory that my lack of concern almost concerns me. But the truth is. I am not concerned. At all.
Do I know where Nick is tonight? Sort of. I know what his plans were. Do I know where he is right this second? No. I do not need to. What I do know is that I have absolute trust in this man that I have found. I know that what we have is not worth risking for anything in the world; and I know that he feels the same way. Period.
People who have concerns about the whereabouts of their partner should be concerned. Simple as that. The concern might have nothing to do with where they are or what they have been up to, but clearly there is something not up to par with the status of the relationship. Enough said.
When I was worried I was being cheated on, I was. When I was worried I was being cheated on, I wasn’t. When I didn’t care if I was being cheated on, who the heck knows? It really didn’t matter. The outcome was the same and the core problem was the same. I had a horrible relationship.
Labelling people who have been unfaithful in past relationships as “cheaters” or “bad” is a disservice. Naturally, some are. There are bad people in every segment of the population (these are the original leopards, their spots don’t change). The way I see it, the average person who strays is likely in the wrong relationship. Undoubtedly, there are probably better ways to handle this, but I digress.
Do not paint all bearers of the A with the same scarlet brush. I have found in Nick a love that I never dreamed could exist outside the pages of a romance novel. We have a bond that is something I simply do not have room on these pages to explain. There is no part of my life that I would not hand over with complete and unwavering trust. He is my rock and my saviour. I know he was looking for me as I was looking for him. We complete each other, therefore the wandering is done.
Is that not what those who stray are doing? Wandering? Looking for their other half? Maybe some might call it a foolish, naïve, and romantic notion, but that is now my changed view of the world. Happiness is a much better place to be.
XOXO
Cassie