Suddenly I am wanting to write.
But, this is a false-start blog. I already began an entry that I immediately deleted. One about the creative process, my life and thoughts, how I wanted to write when I knew I should be completing one of the eight million tasks scheduled into my life between now and a little while from now, blah, blah, blah. I was bored with it immediately and deleted the whole thing.
And so, I randomly went to the google box in the right hand corner of my screen and typed in what felt necessary. Confessions from a sex addict.
Suddenly I was reading an account from a man destroyed by his compulsion to masturbate and buy pornography. A man who felt so guilty for his actions that he tried to avoid breathing around women in order to avoid inhaling the smell of their perfume. It sounded crazy. It sounded so sad.
And I couldn't help thinking--I married someone like this. Different of course, in many ways, but similar, too.
*****
Lately a rash has reappeared on my finger. My ring finger. It began two years ago around this time, three months before I knew I wanted to divorce my husband. My husband who bought pornography compulsively and lied to me constantly.
I haven't worn a ring in 22 months and my finger is still breaking out in a rash.
I have tried talking about this to people who might be helpful but no one seems to have any good insight about the matter. "Quit wearing your old ring," said a friend when I told him. "That's really weird," said a friend who is a chiropractor. "Are you allergic to your earrings?" she asked.
Of course I said no.
The thing is- I know why my finger keeps breaking out. I know it's because there is material that needs to surface.
It's not love.
Or at least, it's not love in the sense that tends to make sense. Not love in the sense that I want to reconcile with my ex-husband. Not love in the sense that I miss him from my life. I miss him, sure, but I have no desire to ever kiss him again. No desire to lay in his arms. I feel sad saying that and I miss laying in someone's arms, but I know I will never want to be with him again.
I know because when I found out he was still lying to me, nearly two years ago, I became immune to him. I didn't want his skin touching mine. I thought about trust before bed and woke up with the word severed on my lips. A word, hanging, suspended in the air, letting me know we had reached the end.
I trust myself to know when something is over. Every fiber in my body screeches to a halt.
And yet, the rash.
The frustrating thing is that this is my subject. I think this is the topic I have to sit with some more. And it is so frustrating because I so want to be done. I hate that I think about how sexual obsession affects people, both the people obsessed and the ones who love them. I hate thinking about how I compromised values for the sake of a relationship. I hate analyzing my own relationship to sex and intimacy and the patterns that originated in my own past.
Most people have patterns ingrained in their brain about sexuality by the time they are five.
I don't want to be the one to figure this out.
I want to be the one blithely living my new life. Forgetting my past. Going on dates. Wearing high heels and walking into the future. Smiling. Happy. Pretending the marriage, like my earlier blog, was just a false start. A random mistake. The accident of a very young woman. Maybe I was just too young to know better.
Instead, my itchy finger is reminding me there are still words that need to be said. The word severed came to me and hovered in the air, letting me know we had reached the end. But there are more words bubbling up in blisters between knuckles and fist letting me know I'm not done.
It so pisses me off.
Maybe this summer I will start to move on. Maybe I will write enough to get away from this subject. Maybe this summer my finger will heal. Maybe this summer, maybe...
well, I can't say what comes next.
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