CHAPTER ELEVEN - UNDER PRESSURE
Dearest Nurse, I have a confession to make. I was not awesome today.
I roll over in bed, waking, as I usually do, because I have to pee. I get up, and have to dance around the dogs in the hallway, who think I’m up to take them for a walk.
“No! Sh! Get off!”
I take care of number one, and get back under the covers.
Fifteen minutes go by. What fucking time is it, anyway?
5:15. God damn it.
I can’t sleep past five. Ever since Little was born, my body just will not let me rest any further. Or perhaps it’s my mind, racing as soon as it’s conscious again. Already planning the day while I’m just trying to get a decent eight hours.
I can’t remember the time I got eight hours of sleep.
So, I get up, walk the dogs in the dark, and try to get some work done before Big and Little wake up - usually around 7 or so.
But, as luck would have it, at 6:15, Big comes padding out of their room, bleary eyed, bed-headed and annoyed.
“[Little’s] awake.”
Damn it. Okay. But at least she’s in a good mood this morning, grinning around the sides of her pacifier as I enter the room.
“Hey, you! What do you want for breakfast? Banana or pineapple?”
“PINE-appwo!”
“Done!”
Okay, so far so good. Big had brushed her teeth, her hair, and gotten dressed on her own. She was wearing a glitzy black number that was far too fancy for school, but we’ve always let her wear what she wants. I didn’t think much of it. Instead, I dove into packing lunches.
“Okay, [BIG], I made you a peanut butter sandwich, threw some carrots in there, and a granola bar. Is that enough?”
“Enough for what?” Big was staring at me like I was a complete idiot. So, mature parent that I am, I threw the look right right back at her.
“For lunch.” Like, duh.
“Lunch for what?” She said, her upper lip curling over her missing two front teeth.
“For school! Jesus. Your lunch for school!”
“There’s no school today.”
Omigod. I was the idiot. And Paris had even told me about the day off earlier in the week.
Okay, no bother, I’ll just give Little the lunch I made for Big, since Little still has preschool. We’d have to wait around the house a little longer because Little’s preschool starts at 8:30, but that’s fine. She could hang out in her high chair, watch TV, and munch on pineapple while I got a little morning work done.
Yeah. No such luck.
“I wanna get out. I wanna get OUUUT!”
“Okay, okay, I’m coming!”
I unstrap Little from her high chair, and in the two minutes it takes me to wash off the tray, she somehow manages to get on top of the kitchen table, waving a pair of scissors around I'd been using for work.
“Get down!” I scream, tripping over Cat to get to her. (Cat hasn’t been allowed on the deck lately. Because Puppy terrorizes her, she stopped coming inside to use the toilet, and instead, started pissing on the outdoor couch. Once again, Puppy has to go.)
No matter what I try, I can not keep Little occupied. She either has to be climbing on the furniture, or chasing after me, trying to stick her head between my legs, while I try to print out the reams of divorce paperwork I have to take down to the county clerk’s office.
And then I see it. The paperwork I had paid LegalZoom five hundred bucks to help me fill out, had my name listed incorrectly. (I have a legal name and a professional name. Because I use my professional name so much, my computer defaults to entering it on any available auto-fill name slot. Normally it’s fine. This time it is not.)
“Oh no, oh no, oh no…” What had I done? I couldn’t file this! That wasn’t my legal name. But I couldn’t afford another five hundred dollars to resubmit the paperwork. And would I have to answer all those questions again? That took me three days! Fuck me!
Okay, breathe. There has to be a work around. There has to.
And I was. I was breathing, until…
“Oh my fucking GOD!”
I walk into my room to find Puppy on my bed with the brand new clitoral stimulatior I had just purchased in her mouth. You think I would have learned my lesson from the vibrator incident just a few days earlier, but no. No. God damn it, no.
Mercutio had recommended this little gem to me, and I was so excited about it. I even ordered it with expedited shipping, and then checked the tracking information every day. When it arrived, YESTERDAY, I was so excited. It was so soft and cute. Just needed to charge it up, and as soon as my period was over, I was gonna get myself off in grand style, or die happily trying.
But now, my hopes were dashed. Little pink pieces of rubber littered my bed, while the stimulator glowed, its interior lights now exposed, vibrating away in Puppy’s mouth.
“NO!” I screamed, snatching it from the dog. I couldn’t even turn the vibrator off, it was so mangled. “Get out of here!”
Puppy had to go, and she had to go RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
I grabbed my phone to text Paris, and found Little dumping dog food on the floor, while Big played with the sequins on her dress.
“No, no, no! What are you doing? [Big], can you help!?” I was getting frantic. Things were spiraling.
I was in the midst of firing off a series of pissed off texts to Paris about refunding me for the sex toy his dog ate, when suddenly, an annoyingly pitiful whine sounded behind me.
“Mommy, where’s the birthday present I ordered for daddy?”
I spun around so fast my head barely kept up with me.
“I DON’T KNOW!” I bellowed so loud the house shook. So loud Little stopped pulling out tufts of Cat’s fur to stare. So loud Big whimpered.
“Do I work for Amazon?” I demanded. “Do I drive around in a Mercedes sprinter van with a stupid smiley face on it!?” She shook her head. “Then how would I magically know where daddy’s present is?”
Wait a second… Daddy’s present… Daddy’s present! Oh my god, I am a massive asshole.
Fuck. I am so sorry. Happy Birthday.
It is, indeed, Paris’s birthday. I had even thought about it yesterday, and in spite of everything, wanted to make sure I wished him a happy one first thing. Instead, I ragged on him about his puppy yet AGAIN, insisted he pick her up TODAY, and demanded he Venmo me 80 bucks for my decimated clit stimulator. I was in rare form, I tell ya.
I had hoped once Little was safely at preschool and Big was off with Paris for the day, that things would calm down, but I was still frantic. Even when I easily fixed the issue with the divorce papers. Even when banged out six pages of my book. Even when I checked off a bunch of to-dos, all revolving around removing Paris from my various accounts, the tension remained, and it was keeping me from thinking straight.
Trying to get out of the house to go to physical therapy was like an infomercial for Murphy’s law. I threw my bag on my shoulder while it was open, spilling everything. Tried to turn off the radio, only to flip over a jewelry tray, sending its contents flying all over the bathroom. And when I finally got down to the car, I realized I had left it running. For hours.
Suddenly, I was brought back to my twenties. Back to when I was so broke I would get trapped in parking garages with no way to pay the exit fee. Back when every little thing that went wrong sent me into hysterics, because I literally could not afford to fix it. I also didn’t have time. I didn’t have patience. I didn’t have focus. And I didn’t have breath. There was only one person back then who knew how to talk me off the ledge, and I only got to have him for seven months. That same person was only three miles away, and I couldn’t have him now, either. But damn if I didn’t miss the fuck out of Romeo today.
Because the truth of the matter is, that in spite of the brave face I put on, this shit is scary. My bills are scary. The sheer amount of work I have in front of me is scary. The uncertainty of being a freelance writer in the entertainment industry with two fucking kids is scary, and solo parenting a rabid two-year-old with zero sense of danger is just plain terrifying. I never really had a safety net before, but at least Paris contributed. Now I am really and truly on my own, and even though I wanted this, I’m still struggling every day with a few grim realities.
Even with all the deals I have lined up and the contract I am currently under, I probably won’t have any money coming in for at least two months. That’s two months of watching my business account drain - the only thing keeping me and my babies afloat right now. There’s enough in there for four months. If I cash in my stocks, that’s six months, maybe seven. That’s the reality. Are there other ways I can drum up work? Sure. And I will. But again, nothing is for certain. But if I’m being honest - and mind you, I’m working though this in real time right now - I think I’ll be okay financially. It’s going to be uncomfortable watching that balance go down, but I just have to keep my head down, do the work, and trust that what the suits tell me is going to happen, is going to happen.
But I’m also in uncharted territory in other areas as well. Handling this divorce, for one. It seems, every time I turn around, there’s a new charge, another stupid step, more dumb crap to do. Like “serving” Paris, for instance. Not only do I have to hand him the paperwork with some bullshit spiel, I also have to let the court know he’s been served, by turning in some stupid form. The filing fee was way more than I anticipated, and the discovery that we might have to go in and talk about our custody arrangements with some fucking stranger has been clawing at my nerves.
Why the fuck does anyone care? I mean, really? And why does it cost fifty bucks to get married, and thousands of dollars, five hundred miles of paperwork, a trip to the court, and a chat with a judge to get fucking divorced? And this is uncontested! I can’t imagine what other people have to deal with when there’s money or bonkers spouses involved. All I can say is, I am so, so, sorry for those people. It’s super lame, and I am never getting married again. Ever, ever, ever. (Don’t contradict me. I can hear you!)
But my fury at the entire day vanished when Paris finally came to pick Puppy up.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Paris hadn’t been making eye contact with me lately. When we traded off the kids, he would search the floor, giving curt replies and reaching for the doorknob at every opportunity. I was used to this, and I understood it. But today was different. There was something strained about his gait, like he was weak in the knees.
“I’m so sorry about your birthday. I meant to tell you first thing—“
“It’s fine.” He said. “I just…”
I breathed. It’s so hard to know where the boundaries are after ten years of marriage. Can you be there for that person, or do you have to wait? If you have to wait, how long? Do you have to toss plain, old, human nature out the window just because you’ve chosen to leave someone, or is there a grey area?
“You can talk to me.” I said, “It’s okay.”
“I just got rejected from three apartments. Every one I applied for.” His lip trembled, the words that had escaped them bringing tears to his eyes.
I had expected this. Paris hasn’t had a job since the pandemic hit. It’s not an uncommon refrain these days, but with how hard property owners got hit, I knew most of them wouldn’t be taking any chances. Paris, however, seemed surprised. And this, my friends, was another big problem in our marriage. No matter how old Paris gets, or what he goes through, he still fundamentally does not understand how the world works.
When I met Paris, he didn’t have a bank account. Yes, that’s right. A. bank. account. When I started filing our taxes together, I also discovered, not only had he never properly filed his own taxes, but he had a four thousand dollar lean against him, and now the government was taking it out of his paychecks. How had he known about this and let it slide? Who does that?
His union still sends residual checks to places he lived before we met. When we got married, it took months to find his birth certificate. When we returned to California six years ago and got new drivers licenses, we discovered Paris had an outstanding bench warrant for unpaid parking tickets.
While we were married, Paris would regale Big with fantastic notions of “when we buy a house”. Bitch, please! You’re a bartender and I’m a writer. Even if I somehow explode and we’re able to buy property, that is so far off. Why are you building up a child’s hopes like this? I shit you not, we’d go for a walk in the Hollywood fucking Hills, and Paris would see a sign and say, “Oh, look. That one’s for sale.” Yeah, for ten million dollars, asshole!
I hated having to be the realist all the time. Having to grab him by his ankles and pull him back to the ground. It made me feel like a buzzkill, and something I’ve never been in my entire life: a pessimist. I’m not, I swear. I’m going to make millions of dollars in this lifetime. I just don’t want to fill my children’s head with pipe dreams, and make them wish we had more than we have. We’re good just the way we are. If we get more, great. If not, great. No matter what, we’ll always be great.
But Paris never quite put the adulting pieces together, and now it was biting him in the ass. Hard.
“It’s my birthday, and I’m sleeping on the floor of my mother’s apartment with my dog, and my kids three days a week.” And that’s when he started to cry.
My eyes welled up. I couldn’t help it. I could go on for hours about what a shitty husband Paris was and how annoying it is that he refuses to grow up, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a good man, and that I care about him. I’ll always care about him. And on top of that, I could feel all of it. His pain, his fears, his vibrating level of stress at suddenly having the weight of the world on his shoulders. I was right there with him, but I had chosen this. He hadn’t.
“I don’t want to cross a boundary, but I’d like to hug you right now.”
He tried to refuse, but I hugged him anyway. I hugged him hard, across his taught back. So much leaner now than when I last embraced him, and rigid from stress.
“Thank you.” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “It’s going to be fine. I’ll be fine. It’s just…”
“It’s hard right now.” I said, trying to share his burden. Trying to let him know he wasn’t alone. But he couldn’t hear that right now, and that’s okay.
“One less thing to worry about, right?” He said, gesturing to Puppy, as he slipped her harness on and got her ready to leave.
I bid Puppy a final farewell, and closed the door behind Paris. Part of me didn’t want him to leave. My friend. The person I always talked to when I was stressed, even if most of the time, he got more stressed, and we’d end up in a fight. But there he was. The person that was my person, and he's sad, and there’s nothing I can do about that. Nothing. And maybe nothing I should do. I really don’t know.
I want to be friends with Paris. I know this probably seems like a far off fantasy, but I would love it if we could talk and laugh some day. Go to family functions, gatherings, and have fun. Find significant others that are great, and enjoy those people too. Be the model of divorced parents. Don’t fear, all those who wish to leave their spouses. There is hope! Just look at Juliet and Paris! And there we’d be, like a picture in some 1960’s housekeeping magazine, with our kids and new spouses, holding hands and singing fucking kumbaya.
I know, it’s silly, but like I said, I am NOT a pessimist. But there is good reason to hope.
Paris Venmo’d me the 80 bucks for the clit stimulator a half an hour later. The note with the payment read, “You have fun!” And he means that. I know he does. And if he can sincerely wish me well on my mission to get myself off one month after leaving him, I think we’re going to be okay.
I think we’re all going to be okay. I’m a jumble of raw nerves, clawing my way through apprehension most days, but I really do think I’m going to be okay. I just have to find a way to get it the fuck together when the kids are around. I fucking have to.
But right now I finally have the joy of cleaning my apartment knowing Puppy isn’t going to eat, thrash, shed, or piss on everything. Like I said, she’s a love, but I don’t miss her. I know that sounds shitty, but I don’t. And I’m glad, because Paris needs her. She came into his life as a cheer-up pup, and that’s exactly where she belongs.
So, in closing, I wish I had a way to sum up this day and what I’ve learned as usual, but tonight I just feel like there’s a lot of work to do. I have to start taking care of myself. Keeping better hours and stressing less. Accepting that my bank account is going to look scary for a while, but trusting that the promised work will deliver. And more than anything, I need to trust myself. That even if I make mistakes, I’ll get it all done. And that I can do this. I can do this. I can do this on my own. This is what I told myself before I left, and I have to keep saying it until I don’t lose my shit anymore.
And Dearest Nurse, know that suggestions are always welcome.
Sincerely yours,
Juliet