Alas, Babylon: Interludes with Carrie

I exchanged a few e-mails with my dear friend Carrie, just weeks after Kaydee’s visit. They seem an appropriate prelude to the darker upcoming chapters of my story, so with Carrie’s permission I’m reprinting them here. Please note, in the interest of privacy I have changed the name of her brother.

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August 19, 2010

To Bethany:

How are you? How was Kaydence's visit? I haven't talked to her yet, I never call her enough.

Miss your face.

C.S.

August 19, 2010

Hello my Carrie,

Kaydee's visit was alright. I feel bad because I was pretty lousy company, but it was really nice to get out of the house. She has cute stories about her boys, which are fun to hear. I wish I was more lively. Sometimes I worry that I'm far too quiet, lost in my own world of introspection while boring everyone else to pieces. It was incredibly sweet of her to come. I saw the ocean for the first time since coming back. It was beautiful, just how I remember.

I'm doing okay. I'm sure by now you've heard about everything, and why I'm even here in Cali in the first place. You know, it's funny.... I didn't cry when we left my father, and I didn't cry the day he decided that he never wanted to talk to me again. I didn't cry when I lost half my family, etc etc. But this whole divorce business....losing the love of my life..... this is the thing that finally broke my heart. I cry a lot, I drink a lot (okay okay, so it's just herbal tea and not Jack Daniel's, but you get the point) and every day it's a battle just to get out of bed. Like I said, lousy company.

I will never love anyone else.

The end.

How are you? How are things in New York? It's been quite awhile since we talked. Hit me up and tell me everything.

Love,

Bethy

August 19, 2010

Oh Bethy Wethy Waffle Face,

How my heart aches for you. I can't imagine, the feelings, I can't imagine the pain. My dearest brother Matthew was supposed to get married to the love of his life this summer and she came back from a trip to Europe a month before the wedding to say she no longer wanted to even speak to him. I have never heard him cry ever really, but if he doesn't get choked up every other phone call. Oh the pain, the pain of his broken heart. Makes me sick to think of it, to remember his words, his tears. Kaydence and I used to say that he just needed to get his heart broken and it would do him a lot of good. Well it is shattered and so now we are waiting for the good. He says it makes him ill to think of loving anyone as much as he loved her, that he can't share again what he has shared with her. I have nothing to say to him. "Cheer up Charlie" will hardly suffice. But this is not what you are going through. So why do I share this? I don't know. All I can do is cry because he cries. So now I cry with you too. I cry because you cry not because I fully understand the pain. 

Oh Beth what to say.... All I can think of is a line from my favorite geeked out series Babylon 5 (have you seen it?), the set up: An alien doctor catches a disease that is killing every single member of his species (in the end it does, wipes out everyone) and his human colleague is racing against the clock to save him. Finally the alien doctor says "It's not about finding the right answer. It's about what you do when you realize there is no answer." I have thought about this a lot in the years since. What do you do when there is no answer? Keep on I guess.

So when will you stop crying? There is no answer.

When will you want to get out of bed? No answer.

Will you ever love someone else? No answer. 

All I can say is people still love you. Kaydence does, I do, your pants too and the fruit police and the injuns and many others I am sure. 

Keep on. I don't know how long it will hurt. I wish with all my heart that I could take this on for you. I really do. 

I will pray for you, I will cry for you and one day maybe we will know what we did when there was no answer.

Me? I'm good. Heart in one piece. Bruised, damaged and have had the mexican hat dance done on it a few times in the past years not wanted by anyone at the moment but still there. So I am fine.

I am procrastinating writing a book review for a friend so I will give you a good newsy email later.

All my love,

C.S.

August 20, 2010

My Carrie,

Thank you, thank you.

I am glad you told me about Matthew. In a way it IS what I'm going through, just on a slightly different level because I lived and dreamed and made love with my husband, day in and day out, for nearly two years before everything fell apart. When Matthew says it makes him ill to think of loving anyone as much as he loved her, I know how that feels. When he says that he can't share again what he has shared with her, I know what that means. I am so sorry about what happened to Matthew. It meant a lot that you shared it with me. I'm so very glad you did.

Thank you for allowing me my pain. I know that sounds like an strange thing to say, but everyone I talk to these days tries to tell me what to feel, what to think, how to be......how to grieve. I think your Babylon 5 perspective is the most enlightened thing I've heard for a long time. There is no answer.

I find that oddly comforting.

Thank you for understanding, for loving me anyway.  :)

I hope your book review turned out the way you wanted it to. And yes, I fully expect a long newsy e-mail from you soon. Love you.  :)

Bethy

Ms. Kaydence Goes to California

I called a lot of people on the telephone when I initially left Lee. Our separation was the biggest drama of my entire life up to that point, and it didn’t seem right to let my friends hear some distorted third-party version of the story through the Mormon grapevine. 

More than anything, I didn’t want to be alone. 

Telling people what happened was my awkward way of reaching out and asking for love. I needed support and sympathy. I needed to be heard and acknowledged. 

During all the confusion and withering anguish of divorce proceedings, Kaydence is the one who called me. 

It’s difficult to sound cool and collected when your eyes just won’t stop leaking, so I’ll be honest here: I was a blundering mess. I’m not sure that Kaydence ever heard me sound more distraught. 

She said, “I want to come see you.”

So we made arrangements, and on August 5^th I picked her up at the San Diego airport. It was a warm afternoon, and I remember seeing her standing at the curb with her bags in a row. She wore a summer skirt with dark-rimmed glasses, her hair short and brown instead of long and blond like it was the day we first met. Short and brown, short and brown…

To me she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. 

The next few days felt like a train wreck in slow motion, not because spending time with Kaydence wasn’t wonderful, but because it was so difficult to open my mouth and speak. I was a lame duck. A limp fish. 

Bad company.  

I had this fantasy all worked out in my head. When Kaydence arrived I would spill my heart, and I would tell her every little terrible, torturous, nasty detail. I would share every thought, every worry, every fear. I would find a way to verbalize my pain. 

As a Mormon I was always taught that it was important to show faith in Christ by staying positive in times of trial and adversity. In John 16:33 Jesus says “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” I must have shared that scripture a hundred times on my mission, but now it was real to me in a way I had never expected or experienced. On the drive home, with Kaydence sitting a mere three feet away from me, I knew that telling her the truth would make me look pathetically faithless and weak. As if the cosmos was counting on me to bear my burdens courageously. 

So I lied. 

I told her about Marianne Williams and finding hope in the brilliant bounty of unconditional love. I spouted off a decent treatise on the liberating joys of positive energy and high vibration fields. Not that I didn’t believe what I was saying, because I did. But the words were empty. My heart was so heavy. 

On Friday we went to the Temple in Redlands and did initiatories. I went to the Temple a lot in those days, searching for answers. Searching for peace. I remember wishing that Jesus would step out from behind the Temple curtain and tell me something. Anything. It WAS his house, wasn’t it?

But he never did. 

I had a therapy session afterwards with a church-appointed counselor. He invited me into his office, sat me down, and told me that I was most likely to blame for the problems in my marriage. I had probably overreacted to Lee’s behavior, and my overreaction was the reason Lee refused to work out problems with me. The counselor encouraged me to call Lee and admit my faults. He was sure that once I admitted my culpability, Lee would agree to work things out. 

A vulnerable mind will believe almost anything. I went home and told Kaydence what the counselor said. Then I reached for the phone, dialed Lee’s number, and followed the counselor’s script exactly.

I have many faults. 

I realize now that my overreaction to your behavior caused you pain and confusion. 

I am so, so sorry. 

I’ll go to counseling and work on my shortcomings. 

I’ll try hard to be good this time.

Please can we try again?

“Sure,” Lee said. “You can come home, but don’t expect me to change. I can’t be what you need.”

I suppose I felt stupid for asking. We hung up, no better off than we were before, and I cried on Kaydee’s shoulder for two hours. 

We went to San Diego the next day and walked through Balboa Park. We went to La Jolla beach and watched the clouds change color over the ocean. I remembered taking Lee to these places when we were dating, playing in the waves together, riding bicycles along the coast. I remembered wearing a beautiful white dress and getting married in a Temple near La Jolla. The longer the day got, the quieter I became. 

I missed Lee. 

On the evening of Kaydee’s third day there, I had another pain attack in my chest. It hit quickly and suddenly as I was trying to fall asleep for the night. It was nearly midnight, and my parents were away on vacation. I had to drag poor Kaydence out of bed so she could take me to the Urgent Care center in Temecula. It was strange so be there so late, and it seemed like the bright florescent lighting made everyone look more sickly than they really were. We waited quite a while for the doctor to come, and when he did there were still no answers. They didn’t know what was wrong with me. He thought I might be suffering from some strange stomach virus, so I convinced him to write me up a prescription for medication. Just in case. 

The doctor shot me up with pain meds and sent me home. It was nearly 2 a.m. 

I had pain fatigue all the next day and could barely get out of bed. I threw up 3 times that day and floated in and out of consciousness, which left Kaydee watching T.V. in the living room until I managed to get up. I don’t even remember what we did for the rest of the night. The next morning it was time to go back to the airport. 

I felt so embarrassed about the way the trip ended, with me sick and sleeping most of that last day. I imagined she must have been glad to go back to her family, back to normal life. 

At the time I didn’t have the words or the emotional ability to express how grateful I was that she came to see me, how it helped me through a difficult time, how it’s still helping me today. So, when Kaydence talks about the visit I still hear disappointment in her voice. 

She always says, “I didn’t do much.”

The truth is, nothing short of miraculous intervention could have lifted that pain. I needed to feel it, breath it, live it, and then pass through to the other side. 

All you needed to do was be there. 

And you were. 

Thank you for sacrificing time and resources to come see me. I didn’t have to cry alone that week because of you, and for the rest of my life I will remember that someone cared enough to be with me at my worst.

Somebody thought I was worth it. 

You will never know how much that meant (and still means) to me, Kaydee. 

Thank you. 

Blue Heron: The First Stage of Grief

The next few weeks felt like being buried alive under the rubble of old bricks. If Lee had physically stabbed and twisted a sword into my belly, it would not have hurt any worse than it did to be metaphorically tossed out the nearest window with the words “I want a divorce.” 

I saw Lee’s decision as an act of final betrayal, the last in a long string of thoughtless actions that had brought us to this very point. It was time for me to accept the torrid facts: there would be no reconciliation, no resuscitation or recovery, and no transcendent future with the man I was still deeply, tenderly in love with.

Intellectually I knew it was over, and I let my auto-pilot brain guide my hands to do the things that had to be done. I called Salt Lake and spoke to a divorce paralegal. Our situation was pretty simple –we had no children, no businesses, and very little property. The paralegal assured me our divorce could be handled within a couple of months, assuming Lee didn’t try to fight it. I pulled out my credit card and paid the retainer, horrified at how easy it was to start legal proceedings. It felt like paying blood money to a mercenary in exchange for an execution order. Like putting a mob hit on my marriage, the one that was supposed to be a precious blessing for time and all eternity. 

The entire conversation made me want to sick up. How could I do this? 

What am I doing?    

                                                               

I remember sobbing alone in the guest room, hands pressed against my face in a vain attempt to stop my body from expelling swells of overwhelming grief. My body shook as I helplessly rode the waves of this emotional tsunami, so unprepared for it that all I could do was gasp in awe when the supernatural strength of the tides swept my heart out to sea. 

Lee had been my refuge for so long. Life can be cruel and bitter, but the IDEA of happiness with Lee was my comfort, my resting place. Dreaming of a beautiful future with Lee was safe because it was familiar, and now the fragile illusion of love had turned into a waking nightmare. 

I missed him in ways I couldn’t have possibly imagined. Now I had no one to dance and sing songs with, no one to tease or admire from across the room. I often thought back to Lee at his very best: holding me gently, murmuring softly, staring at me with eyes intensely passionate and kind. 

Sometimes I would awaken in the middle of the night and find myself reaching out for him in the bed, the way I used to whenever I felt afraid and alone. Finding the other half of the bed empty and cold was so desperately shattering, and yet my stubborn fingers kept searching night after night. 

He used to call me babydoll. I was once someone’s eternal beloved, someone’s flesh-and-blood WIFE. 

Now I was none of those things. I was nothing at all. 

Existence suddenly seemed so terribly meaningless, so cold and empty without my Lee. 

It couldn’t be over. It just couldn’t. 

And just like that I hit denial, the first stage of grief. 

During these weeks of legal pleadings and court filings I developed a routine. When the ocean fog and overcast clouds burned off, I would change into a swimsuit and float on a little plastic raft in my parent’s pool. It was warm and quiet, and I quickly found that I could float and read at the same time. 

I devoured Marianne William’s Return to Love, and I began to think that maybe her mystic message was actually a secret call-to-action from God Himself. Maybe He would give my husband back if I could just conjure up enough unconditionally loving feelings. 

Somewhere along the line I became convinced that God was merely testing me to see how gracious and forgiving I could be. My marriage WASN’T over until a judge signed the papers, right? There was still plenty of time for Lee to have a mighty change of heart. I just KNEW that God still had the power to pull us out the fire. 

I showed God the pages of the book I was reading. 

See, God? I know I’m not a perfect person, but I can change. I’ll be whatever you want me to be – loving, patient, forgiving, obedient.  There’s still time to take it back, Lord.

Please, please, please don’t do this. 

It was during this time that I found Hope and Love, a poem by Jane Hirshfield: 

All winter
the blue heron
slept among the horses.
I do not know
the custom of herons,
do not know
if the solitary habit
is their way,
or if he listened for
some missing one –
not knowing even
that was what he did –
in the blowing
sounds in the dark.
I know that
hope is the hardest
love we carry.
He slept
with his long neck
folded, like a letter
put away.

Hope was the torch I bore, and the mantra I faithfully repeated every hour of every day. Hope was the cross I brought on my personal hajj to Golgotha and, like the heron, it was the hardest love I had ever carried.

Lee Makes Up His Mind

Speaking in present tense for a moment, this week’s post has been incredibly difficult to write. I spent hours this evening staring at an empty screen as I tried to decide exactly what to say, how to put it. 

Sometimes emotions hijack your life. You feel like the captain of a sinking vessel, wailing a tragic struggle against the crisis of your own ruin. 

Other times feelings stay hidden, elusively lurking in a clouded fog.  

The heart is a funny thing. 

This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you about Lee calling me up on a Monday night to formally end our marriage. 

My parents were hosting a ward pool party in the backyard. It was Mormon Family Night. Isn’t that ironic? Dozens of ward members milled around outside my bedroom window, chatting and laughing as I sat huddled alone on the bed with a phone pressed to my ear. 

It was not an angry or confrontational conversation between me and Lee. There was no name calling, no bickering or pointing fingers. Just the quiet recitation of stories we’d told before. I couldn’t live with things as they were, and Lee couldn’t fathom changing. 

The archetypal dead-end on a lonely road leading nowhere. 

Our decision to divorce was a pivotal, defining moment in my life . . . and yet, right now I am unable to summon the emotions I felt that night. For the first time since starting this blog, I feel disconnected from the story in a way I can’t quite explain. I have replayed the scene over and over in my mind, but nothing profound or intelligent wants to come out of me right now. 

Why can’t I tell this part of the story? 

(Yes, I’m honestly asking)

Possible explanations: it’s been a long week for me. Other concerns of a different nature have been pressing in. My emotional self is somewhere else at the moment, working out other questions. 

What’s that thing Kurt Vonnegut said?

So it goes.  

I remember a voice moaning in pain, hoarse from weeping. Mine. 

Me. I was crying.  

My brother heard the noise and came inside. He hugged me. This is the part of the story I wanted to tell, the time when I was heartbroken and my brother came to comfort me. 

It was the first time my brother had ever hugged me. 

So it goes.