I Love Jacques Cousteau/An Open Letter/[Your] Mom's a Whore

Monica: Mom, Dad, Ross smoked pot in college. And, Dad, you know that mailman you got fired? He didn't steal your Playboys. Ross did.

Ross: Yeah, well, Hurricane Gloria didn't break the porch swing, Monica did!

Monica: Ross hasn't worked at the museum for a year!

Ross: Monica and Chandler are living together!

Monica: Ross married Rachael in Vegas and got divorced! Again!

Phoebe: I love Jacques Cousteau!

Rachael: I wasn't supposed to put beef in the trifle!

Joey: I wanna go!

Judy: That's a lot of information to get in thirty seconds.
                                  
      --Friends, The One Where Ross Got High

That's probably my favorite episode of Friends ever, especially the part when Phoebe exclaims that she loves Jacques Cousteau (which I've been known to exclaim from time to time) and Rachael says she wasn't supposed to put beef in the trifle. I have absolutely no idea how many times I've laughed at that episode despite the many times I've watched it.

In real life, though, being barraged with information--it's not so fun.

In real life, if while you're getting ready for work at 6:45 in the morning after only sleeping for about three hours because one, your estranged husband insists on sleeping next to you and it creeps you out so much, you can't fall asleep, and two, your son, who's been harassed by his father and told all sorts of information he shouldn't know woke up at 3:45 after having just about the only nightmare of his life and you got up to see why the light was on in the bathroom at 4 a.m. and ended up staying in his bed with him until your alarm went off at 5:33, your estranged husband were to wake up and stare at you in the bathroom mirror while you put your mascara on and then after words and words and words follow you downstairs and tell you, as you're trying to leave for work, that the guy you didn't imagine would ever betray you has been forwarding the texts you've been sending him to your husband (complete with photos and all) and cite specific information so you're hit with the horrible realization that it's actually true and then continue to tell you, as you're walking toward the door, that he fucked one of your best friends about ten times while you were at work, being barraged with information--it wouldn't be so fun.

If, when you text that friend and asked if it were true, she were to tell you that she's sorry, but yes, she did, in fact, have sex with your husband several times right before you got married, after he and you had been dating for four years and living together for three, and if you were to find out that at least one of the times, one of the times of the fucking, happened right there in your bed, in your bed in your mother and father's house, in the bed you'd had since you were thirteen, in the bed you shared with your boyfriend, your soon-to-be-husband, your soon-to-be-husband with the unusually low libido, the unusually low libido so low it prompted you, after ten years, to ask for an open marriage, a request that he agreed to, only to go insane when you actually acted on it, telling you what a whore you are and taking three-and-a-half fucking years to get over it, bringing it up left and right, holding it over your head, over your marriage, over your life like a filth-splattered umbrella, despite the fact that first of all, you had permission, and second of all, he drove you to it, all the while when he'd been the one with the secret with the poison with the filth, being barraged with information--it wouldn't be so fun.

If you then thought about the time you woke up in the middle of the night and caught him having chat room sex with some girl, some girl who you contacted and she told you it wasn't just on the computer, that he'd come to her house, that he'd kissed her, and you then talked to your sister and she told you that when you were all in Chicago together when your older son was one and you were pregnant with the second and she and your husband, your husband who, unbeknownst to you had fucked one of your best friends repeatedly, at least one time in your bed, went to a club while you stayed, fat and pregnant, at your cousin's house with your son, he tried to stick his tongue down her throat and then when you talked to your mom later and told her about your husband fucking one of your best friends, she told you, without knowing your sister had already confessed, that your husband once hit on your sister, while you were fat and pregnant and caring for your already-born son, being barraged with information--it wouldn't be so fun.

It might even make you wonder just how much you'd actually missed.

***

An Open Letter to an Ex-Lover.

Dear C,

I think to myself that I don't know whether to thank you or to hate you, but since the reason I'd be thanking you is because you've made me hate you, I guess there's really no difference at all.

But, still, hate you or hate you or hate you even more, there are some things I want to say. Since I know you read my blog, this seems as good a place to deliver my message as any.

First, I truly do want to thank you, and not for making me hate you. I want to thank you for the way  you, and only you, ever, have made me feel. I want to thank you for making me realize, over and over and over again, that I'm still the me I used to be, the me I thought I buried, the me that I've mourned. I want to thank you for the magic and passion, the burning, the pain. I want to thank you for the wonky spine. I want to thank you for the dirty. Really, I want to thank you for every part of you you've ever shared, every part of me you've ever touched.

What I'm thanking you for, really, is making me see.

Second, I truly do want to thank you, but this time it's for the awful thing you've done to me. This time it wasn't a text saying something along the lines of, I can't do this anymore, it's too stressful like you sent the last time before you completely disappeared, the text I stupidly forgave you for. No, this time it was much worse.

I can't rationalize it this time. I can't say, well, he won't even be twenty-four until a week from Saturday; he's only a baby. Because technically it's not true. Twenty-three and 354 days is, in regards to age at least, a man. In regards to being so afraid of my soon-to-be ex-husband that you forward all correspondence from me straight to him--well, that's an entirely different truth. Allowing a person to control you in the manner in which you've allowed yourself to be controlled--well, all I can say to that is, Good doggie. Roll over. Sit.

Play dead.

And why, why, why you might wonder, everyone might wonder, I myself wonder, would I thank you for the awful that you've done to me? The betrayal that you've bestowed on somebody who, as you well know, would have done absolutely, positively anything in the world for you, who loved you blindly, stupidly, madly, rabidly? Why would I at all appreciate the feeling, the feeling, the goddamn fucking feeling of sickness and blackness and denial and despair I felt when I found out what you were yesterday? Why would I be happy about that at all?

Why

thank you.