Babygirl was prepping to be a stepmom. A period riddled with delusion. Deadbeat Dane didn’t take care of the kids he had, nor did he want more. Dealbreaker. He lacked ambition and deemed all his exes crazy, each of them a wily succubus. What did I get out of it? He treated me better than my deplorable prior. Since I was way, way, way out of his league he worshipped the ground I walked on. Plus he was an artist, painting me as one of the nude women reclining atop a mountain, in his surrealist vision of paradise. A gift for his friend…me hanging naked in his homies living room…that part was a little weird, also a surprise as I didn’t grant him permission, he never asked, I didn’t know it was an option…but it was so damn good. I was a muse. In reality slash retrospect I wasn’t over my ex and couldn’t stand to be alone, because I didn’t love myself. Oh the early twenties. Thank you, but good riddance.
Contracted to create an entire children’s exhibit, he sojourned home to Arizona for a month. I agreed to fly out, he was missed. Plus I didn’t treat him the best. On multiple occasions I’d shown up hours late, forgetting dates all together, I didn’t take him seriously and was not the most considerate. Boundaries didn’t come with his vain adoration, so I did me, confirming for myself that I will eat a beta male alive. As an alpha I need an alpha counterpart, or I won’t respect you for leaving me to dominate. It’s just who I am. Back to the matter at hand…
Going to Arizona meant meeting almost his entire family: parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, children and former spouse. The parents didn’t worry me, I always get along with them. However, the kids and the wife he said entrapped him made me nervous. Things could go south with a woman he described using nothing but negative terms. Never a moment of sunshine. I felt bad for him, until I met Alicia and found out he was full of shit.
This woman was so cool, beautiful and covered in tattoos. Unlike Dane, she has her life together like a true queen. A badass who rose from the insanity that was her upbringing. A spiritual gangster and inspiration. We clicked instantly. If you’re reading this Alicia, I love you and admire you so much. I know I’ve already told you I love you like 15 times this month alone, but still. She left us with the kids, to get better acquainted. I’m also phenomenal with kids, as the eldest sibling and female grandchild I’ve taken care of children all my life. I get them. The trick with kids is to be mindful that they are little people, they have feelings, points of views and are absorbing everything all the time. I treat them how I wanted to be treated, listened to and understood. I stayed up with his daughter Cara(9) all night talking about a million things, how she felt about heading to middle school soon, Niall Horan being her favorite 1D member, one of the wisest souls I’ve ever encountered. His son Brandon(7) was the funniest, asking me if I loved the Pokeman movie that just finished. Yeah it was good, I answered. You didn’t watch it, you were sleeping under your sunglasses. Even though he was right, I declared I’d only taken a nap. Failing when he quizzed me. It broke my heart when we had to part. In all honesty, I spent more time with them that weekend than he did. When they came to visit New York City I rushed to see them, when I went to Japan I mailed them gifts.
Even though our relationship soured, my kinship with Alicia over the years only strengthened. We support each other, root for each other, talk shit about his increasingly terrible life decisions (honestly I won’t tell you his tea, but he deserved to be treated poorly by me, not an upstanding human being)…Never in a million years would I believe that the best thing to come from a former lover, would be his ex-wife and kids. I don’t speak to him anymore, but if I did I would say thank you for gifting me the three of them. Had we let social norms of woman versus woman dictate our lives, we would have missed an awesome friendship. Photo: Flare Magazine
