The Monster In Me: The Slow Burn Of My Evolution

My husband created somewhat of a monster and I refuse to take the blame for any of it. I’ve just been an innocent bystander, minding my own business, in the evolution of myself.  I never asked him  to cook me breakfast, dinner, schedule the trips, theatre adventures, buy all the things, drive everywhere, provide me with Marriott status, and sometimes even first class eligibility.  I can’t help that I am now able to afford and even encouraged (by him mind you) to get the facials, chemical peels, botox, nails, microneedling, and loads and loads of skin care products that happen to find themselves being mailed to my address (I really don’t know how that happens, but it does nonetheless.  See I told you innocent bystander over here). But I assure you there was a time when I was single and I survived on my own.  I can do all the things, I have told him more than once as I hum the Miley Cyrus song to myself. Because yes, I can buy my own flowers, amongst other things, and have in fact done so on more than one occasion.  I am a strong female, I remind myself, capable of doing all the things and my past singledom self has in fact done them.

Then he reminds me of the state I was in when we first met.  “I would have given you a good three months before something bad happened,” he says.

And this did cause me to pause.  Was I in that bad of shape?  I do have a tendency to live in a diluted version of myself sometimes.  I was living in a townhouse, one that I was incredibly proud to call home.  I had just gotten out of a toxic relationship, one where I  was renting one of the houses my then boyfriend owned. (Note: Never rent a house from a boyfriend; you are stuck in that relationship as long as you live in that house.)    

So I had to move once I ended the relationship. I found a cute two bedroom, three story town home with two porches, one outside the master bedroom, and the other outside of the small dining space.  It even had a basement and since I lived in Missouri at the time, I thought such a space could potentially come in handy if there was a tornado, which there have been quite a few of.   There even was a security guard.  How safe, I thought, how very bougie of me.  It was perfect, a bit older of a building, but I had navigated the whole thing by myself, even hired the movers, so I was incredibly proud.  I soon bought some new furniture, a new TV.  I was finally living on my own terms.

It probably all started when I befriended the older single lady that lived next door to me.  Our porches were about two feet from one another.  She would spend most evenings on her back porch, drinking loads of ice filled chardonnay, chain smoking, and painting.  I had somehow romanticized her lifestyle and we began to chat, which later turned to hours of gossiping sessions.  She told me about the neighbors, especially a newly single father that lived a few doors down, and the security guard that patrolled at night.

“He thinks you're seducing him, ya know,” she told me once as she brought her cigarette up to her mouth. 

What? I said, quite shocked.  He wasn’t even a young guy.  I think my mouth stayed agape for a good seven point three minutes as she proceeded to tell me that the guard told her that he felt I was flirting with him when I kept my light on upstairs, late at night.  “I assure you I was doing no such thing,” I said, more than a little bit offended that she would entertain the idea that I even would do such a thing. 

A few days later a note was taped to my front door.

“Don’t let that old lady ruin you with her gossip,” it read, “you are better than that.”

And it was signed the name of that newly single father that the very lady he was warning me about, had been warning me about.  Cue the drama, cue the creepiness, cue the what the actual fuck is going on here?

So, you can only imagine how I felt when my now husband asked me to move in with him.  I wasn’t really thinking of escaping (maybe it crossed my mind once, but that’s it), I was more thrilled to embark on a new adventure with this great guy, the timing just really worked to my advantage.

I moved homes, states, jobs, to be with him, and it all worked out.  We had our share of growing pains of course.  My black cat Edgar gave his dog fleas, which apparently I also had, unbeknownst to me, in the basement of that townhome.  He was probably right, I think now.  I was living on a three month timeline before my world could have very well imploded, but don’t tell him that.  For all he knows, I was perfectly safe, perfectly content working three jobs, with a stalker, a less than stellar security guard and fleas in my basement.