My Inner Angry Child

Daddy James wasn't my only pen pal. (in the age of email, should I say keyboard pal?)  I acted out frequently by sending a variety of texts and emails to Jaymie and Geek Boy Kevin suggesting how Jaymie's life might be easier if she acquiesced to my requests for the emails.  I even left a few personal voice mails for Geek Boy that pondered what he could possibly see in Jaymie now that I had been so kind to reveal what a lying, trampy whore she was.  How could he be so desperate?

I was the desperate one.  Desperate to purge the pain from my life and dump it on them.

Before and after my trip to the church, I did what I could to keep Jaymie and Geek Boy Kevin involved in my plans and activities.  If I wrote to Daddy James, I also sent a copy of my friendly correspondence to them both, usually with a little something extra added just for their enjoyment.

 I forwarded the email I received from Daddy James about my church visit (posted here:  A Year After the Affair: A Ticket to Hell) to both of them prefaced by this:

Jaymie really has a great dad.  How in the world did she end up so screwed up?? Hate taking him down because of her.  

If just once, she could think of someone other than herself, her dad could be spared the public humiliation.

All it would take is a phone call.

In retrospect, I should have figured they might compare notes with Daddy James at some point.  I was banking that Jaymie would want Daddy James as far away from the fallout of the affair as possible.  I actually gave her credit for caring about someone other than herself.  Without the guidance and protection of new bed mate, Geek Boy Kevin, I may have been right, but he fashioned himself her white knight.  I'm sure in his creative mind, he saw himself as a character in one of his comic books. (did I mention Geek Boy Kevin is a comic book fan and wanna be writer?)  Jaymie's would be protector was tall, skinny and scruffy holding tight to a verbal sword raised and ready for battle!

He sent this to me and copied Richard.  He apparently thought Richard had some small amount of control over my behavior.  Poor confused Geek Boy.

Shawn,

Enough is enough. I thought you were an adult who truly wished to help me at first. Now I see that you were and still are just an angry, pathetic child; so malicious that you aren't even deserving of pity. If you continue to contact me, my family, Jaymie, or her family,  I will contact my attorney and legal action will be taken. Do you understand?

In case you don't, I'll explain it further. Do not email me, my family, Jaymie, or her family. Do not call me, my family, Jaymie, or her family. Do not text me, my family, Jaymie, or her family. Continuing to do so will result my filing a restraining order against you, followed shortly by a harassment suit that will take place in a small claims court. I have every email you've sent me, every text message you've hatefully typed out, every voicemail you've tried to threaten me with. I will win. And you will not.

This is not a game, Shawn. This is real life. What you're doing is illegal beyond any semblance of doubt. Don't forget it.

Do not contact me again. This is my final warning.

-Kevin 

Oooooohhhhh!  So scary!  NOT!  Repercussions or consequences from my behavior didn't matter one bit to me.  There were no consequences in Crazy Town!!
As much as I hated to admit it, Geek Boy had me pegged...I was an angry child.  To him and probably many others, I would also seem pathetic.  He hit the nail on the head when he called me malicious, too, but how could he say I was undeserving of pity??
I guess he isn't much of a writer.  His vocabulary skills suck as bad as his taste in women because if one is "pathetic", by definition they "arouse pity."   Dip-shit.
Again, I confess I was most certainly behaving like a ill tempered, unpredictable child.  My temper tantrums rarely abated.  Never thinking about what would happen if.....
Impulsiveness and instant gratification were my only motivation.

At this point, I wanted to face Jaymie in court.  I longed for it!  I dreamed of the opportunity of sharing with the world how Jaymie straddled my husband, a man 36 years her senior, on his office chair and on his office floor, and his office couch and in a cheap room at Barona Casino and at the Sheraton and at the Marriott...but, I digress!
How rewarding would it be to share how she chose to go down on a married man for the occasional hundred dollar bill and a few whispered, pretty words?  All that titillating verbiage on a permanent court record??  The thought of that kind of public humiliation made my heart pound with anticipation!   Did it matter that I would also be shaming my husband, risking his reputation?  Hell to the NO!  That was a bonus!

The level of my anger soared above my ability to maintain rational thought.  Even though I could go through a whole day with a smile on my face and words of cheer on my lips, the pit of my gut was filled to the brim with boiling animosity.  To this day, I continue to be astounded by the fact that I maintained such an enormous amount of hate and vindictive rage for so long.  It exhausts me to think about it!
I know many of you get it.  You've felt it...the level of vehemence and bitterness that settles into what may have well been an otherwise acceptable soul before DDay.  You probably felt it, but you were better than me, stronger than me and you didn't act on it.  If you are fresh into the mess of betrayal, please recognize the anger, acknowledge it, but THINK before you act upon it.
I was the epitome of a spoiled, resentful, infuriated child. Yep...Good call, Geek Boy, but it was gonna take someone other than him to send this rotten brat to a time-out.

Unkind?? MOI?? and Find FLACA!

****As in the previous post, this post and the comments that follow, have been edited for privacy****

This post is gonna cover two things on my mind today.  First...On May 28th of this year, one of my Readers and fellow blogger, Flaca, published her last post.  Kissing A Fool | Covered in Kisses and Lies
It said this: 

“Unkind people need your kindness the most, they advertise their pain,” Rick Warren

Don't know who in the hell this Rick Warren guy is, but he makes one hell of a solid point with this little jewel of wisdom.  I so totally get this now.  Not so much until now.  
For a year after the affair, I was that unkind person.  To be frank, I wasn't just unkind.   There are so many other adjectives that would describe me much more accurately.  I don't need a handy, dandy thesaurus to call it what I was.

On bad days I was nasty, hateful, awful, fierce, vile, obnoxious, hellish, horrid and loathsome just to name a few.  Not to worry...even though sometimes it pains me to remember what a beast I was, I also know I was a beast of burden and even though many think I don't deserve it, I have given myself a pass for most, if not all, of my repugnant behavior.

On good days I was merely disagreeable, objectionable, tough, unpleasant and as Grandpa might say...just plain ornery.  On the rare occasion, on the surface I may even have appeared to be happy to most people in my life.  I think only Richard knew that regardless of the smile of my face, I was miserable to the core.  But, the affair ended nearly three years ago.  I have moved on.  I am happy.....until I'm not.  When will the sneak attacks from Royal Bitch end?

My behavior during Grandpa's Birthday Bash and the consequences that will surely follow may be God's way, Karma's way, Fate's way...whatever...of teaching me a lesson I truly needed to learn in my life.  I am prone to act out because of my residual pain.  I gotta remember to demonstrate a little compassion when others seem cruel, uncaring or just annoying.  They may also be suffering personal agony that I can not see.

Last week, I let all the triggers and my pain over ride the possibility that the family member that pushed me back into Crazy Town (it wasn't much of a shove.  I was already way off balance!) may also have some damn heavy rocks in her Life Basket.  Even if she was "unkind", my response was unacceptable.

In this particular instance, I needed to listen to Rick Warren.  (BTW....gotta Google that guy.  No clue who he is!)  I believe with my entire heart, a heart that is still mending, that I need to learn to be kinder to all right now.  Not accusatory.  Not judgmental.  Just kind, patient (Crap!  Also not my strong suit!) compassionate and understanding.  Think I can do it??  My heart wants to, but more than that...my heart NEEDS to.

The second part of this post is this...Where in the hell is FLACA????  She just dropped out of cyberspace!  I have tried to comment on her blog, asking her to just check in for a role call.  Nothing.  My comment is still awaiting moderation.  I have emailed her privately hoping she'll send a quick reply saying life is good and busy.  She is ready to move on without us.  Nada!
I'm concerned about her and I'm hoping one of you have had some sort of contact with her since her last post on May 28th.  Or, maybe she is still reading, just not posting.
FLACA!  If you're out there, Girlfriend, please just send up a flare so we know you're OK.

One of my Readers, Jessa, thinks I want to be all sweet and nice but I'm just not made that way.  Maybe she has a very sharp and narrow point, but you don't have to be sweet to be kind.  Right?
Wish me luck.  I'm gonna go try out there and be the antithesis of unkind!  I will learn not to unleash my pain on innocent bystanders!  Transference be damned!
There is most certainly a lesson to be learned here and I don't intend to ignore it.

Still Crazy After All These Years

****This post has been edited for privacy issues.  I also had to remove many of the comments for the same reasons.  I'm sorry.  I hate to squash our conversation, but it was the right thing to do.****

Still have lots of family visiting.  One more day of Grandpa's 100 year birthday celebration, but I have been blessed with a quiet morning to regroup.
I need it.  Here's why....

Yesterday was the big birthday bash, here in my home.  I've been planning the party for months.  Planning the entire weekend really, each and every day to give my out of town family a memorable time and to be certain Grandpa is shown as much LOVE as possible.
Somehow my plan took a detour through Crazy Town.

****Here's where most of the edits came in.  I wrote this post about a family conflict and how it affected me.  I now feel I must limit details to respect the privacy of other members of my family.  If the post seems discombobulated...Again, I'm sorry.  After I shared this post and the one that follows, one of my wonderful readers pointed out the error of my ways.  I didn't think it through before.  I don't have any right to pontificate about the personal trauma of anyone else.  I share ALL my visits to Crazy Town, but in this post I wrote about the pain of another.  That was selfish and thoughtless.  I had to correct my error in judgement with heavy handed use of my delete button.****

This visit with my family has been uncomfortable, awkward and super weird.  Yesterday, the shit hit the fan and Crazy Town relocated to my guest bedroom.

When it comes to busting chops, I can usually take as well as I dish out (you all know I can dish it out!) but I guess the stress of the weekend had me on edge...a very precarious edge.  What may have been light hearted joking, felt cruel and uncalled for.  Jabs that might just sting on a regular day, cut like a knife under the duress of party planning.

Yesterday morning, I was trying to get myself geared up for all that needed to be done for the BIG day.   I have had many parties like this, so I pretty much have the drill down.  I just needed to do things in my time, my way.  I just wanted to relax for an hour before the day took off at a furious pace.  Of course, many offers of assistance continued and some remarks were made about how I am just like my mom, controlling.  Have to have it my way.  Do it all myself.
I let those remarks go, but inside I was seething.

I know that emotion.  It scares me.  I have kept it at bay for many months now.  I felt my streak of living on the safe side of Crazy Town was about to end right before all the guests arrived.  I reeled myself in...for a second anyway.  My self control was fleeting.  I heard what I thought was another snide remark and the flood gates of anger overwhelmed me.
Hello, Dark Side!  Rage bubbles up and over the top!!  Looks like we're heading into Crazy Town for the day!  I know all about the Transference bullshit yet, I couldn't stop it.  I screamed at the convenient transference target.....
"Fuck you!  Outside...NOW!"

You should have seen the look of fear on the other occupants of my kitchen!!  Lord, help me.  I had just set the tone for a truly lousy party.
Tried to explain why I was so pissed.  I was so damn angry.  I was not very articulate.  Didn't matter anyway.  The damage was done.  Most of my family that got wind of my little meltdown steered clear of me for the duration of the day.  This did not improve my attitude.

Here's my question:  Once a resident of Crazy Town, always a resident?  Did I lose it yesterday because of party stress or was it more than that?  Richard began the affair with Jaymie, that act of infidelity that nearly destroyed me, during the month of September, three years ago.  Am I trying so hard to ignore that fact that it's eating me up inside?  Am I still Crazy after all these years?

I can tell you this...I have been planning that party for months.  Now, it's just more collateral damage on my Road back to Happy.  I'm crying as I type.  I spent no time with my family.  I hid in the kitchen under the guise of prepping food all damn day.  Today, everyone is out playing golf or lounging at the hotel.  (Barona, the casino where Richard fucked Jaymie during the months of September and October 2010.  Triggers much??)  I'm home with my kids.  While they rest in their rooms, I decided to pour out my guts in cyber space.  It usually helps.

Crap, People.  After three damn years I should know when the affair is gonna jump up and bite me on the ass!  I also should know I can't blame every meltdown I have on the affair.  I gotta own any new time I spend in Crazy Town.  So, I'll own this. I wasted my Grandpa's 100th birthday and after all these years...I should have known better.  Dammit.