Episode 40: “The Other Woman”
WAIT WHAT?!?!
A burlesque strip tease! EMERGENCY OLIVIA CANDLES! Family dinner. SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER! Omissions.... DEADLIFTING! The ACTUAL love of my life, & being smacked in the face with about 3,000lbs of feelings. BECOMING LOVE! Was that good for you? PROFILING BOARDS! STATISTICS! & 90% of my heart is just an overused kitchen rag. LAST STRAWS! SO THIS IS THE END?
&
I DON'T WANT TO BE PSYCHIC ANYMORE. WHY DO I KNOW THESE THINGS?!?!
Excerpt:
“So it wasn’t that long ago now, that I was just a fledgling radio show host, going through a heartbreak… pouring my feelings out onto the airwaves screaming injustices into the deep and fathomless void. And you know what? I think even looking back, that woman had a lot more faith in the world than the woman sitting here before you now. And here we are here, at the 40th episode of Sunday Nights Are For Hopeless Romantics. And shy of an entire year of my dumpster fire of a love life being on public display, week after week. And it had its highs and it had its lows. And we learned a whole heck of a lot. Yes we did. And we loved and we cried and we held on for dear life, as the roller coaster that is my emotional landscape took us on the ride of our lives. And you know what, if you have been listening to this show from the beginning, congratulations, you’ve put in a solid 40 hour work week. Bravo. So I’ll start by asking you this… Are we, in your humble opinion, any closer to understanding love?
I mean I don’t know about you, but I’m even more baffled than I was when I started. And if nothing else, you’ve now taken a veritable masterclass in honesty, self-compassion & Olivia’s weird ramblings. In mixed metaphors for idealism. In dad jokes. You now have a PHD in Sarcasm. A Masters in Communication. And hopefully a handful of witty anecdotes about failed romance.
Speaking of witty anecdotes…
Sorry no I actually have legitimately not a single witty anecdote to follow that up with.
Because. Drumroll please…… (this would be the point in the show where I actually have like a real drum roll but that’s not happening)
It turns out that for the last two years, TWO YEARS!?!? I have been THE OTHER WOMAN.
Yes, you heard that right.
Me, the great purveyor of communication and truth.
And about 20 thousand things run through my head at that moment. The first of which was: Ohh my god that poor woman, she has no idea, she thinks they are in a monogamous relationship this whole time, like la di freaking da… Follows shortly thereafter by: WAIT WHAT?!? How did I miss this?! How did this happen?! Why didn’t I catch it sooner?! How many times did I give them a window to tell me, when I was honest about taking another lover?! How many time did they play it off?! How well they must know me to know how to play me like this! Did I just hear what I wanted to hear for TWO FREAKING YEARS?! What do I do?! Do I still love this person?! How does this work?!
Followed immediately by the proverbial downwards spiral…
What’s wrong with me?! Why am I not the main woman why am I the other woman?! What do I not have that she has?! Why not me?! I mean for ONCE, why doesn’t someone fall in love with me and then just have other women on the side?! I mean come on, the threesome possibilities alone are endless here people!
Then the even worse leg of the spiral…
This person is FAMILY! We just had dinner with my mother! Their life, their work — I’m splashed across the canvas of it. Is this really it?! The end?! I’ve lost a part of my family! Someone who eats at my table, who dances in the kitchen with me who partakes in my food, my love, my gifts, my body, my soul. And has for 16 years… Are they going to marry her?! Will she never know?! Just never know about the woman you came to over and over again, for solace for understanding, for nourishment, for comfort, for wild and beautiful love?! She’s missing a whole chunk of your life, that from where I’m sitting seems pretty darn important…
But it’s not. Is it?
So that’s it. We’re back. To the completely jaded totally pissed off heartbroken woman you met at the beginning of this show. And she’s about one straw away from packing her saddle bags for the center of the desert and never coming back again.
She has been confronted. All of that boundless love was a lie. Wrapped up in a pretty little bow. The worst part is. For the second time in two weeks. I guessed. I guessed based on a gut feeling and I was right. I said, “So what? You’ve been together for like 2 years now?”
(The last thing I guessed was that my other lover, the one I’d been seeing all summer, had fallen in love with another woman who was a lot more cable of being present in their life, which is about an hour away from me. And I was right about that one too).
Folks. I DON’T WANT TO BE PSYCHIC ANYMORE. WHY DO I KNOW THESE THINGS?!?!
I WOULD LIKE TO UNSUBSCRIBE TO MY FREE TRIAL OF UNCOMFORTABLE KNOWING. Please and thank you very much.
So with that, because I honestly have nothing good to say, at all. I can’t even seem to come up with a crummy joke or implement any kind of contingency plan. I’m just going to play you, IRONICALLY, two of my favorite song.
Both by an amazing artist named Caro Emerald. And I will say this, if I was ever to do a burlesque strip tease, it would be to these two songs. And now I’ve got all the venom and fuel for the perfect smoldering debacle.
Here’s “The Other Woman,” followed shortly thereafter by “The Lipstick On His Collar…” Of course, because reality is kicking in and so is my beer (I mean no thank god it’s not, the last thing in the world I need is a drink right now, but reality is undeniably kicking in) & does he kiss you in a way to say… you’re the other woman. & the lipstick on his collar doesn’t seem to match mine…
So just imagine, for a second… that the lights are down low, and the stage is lit with red candle light, and I’m sitting there in the half-dark, and the spotlight slips across the stage and on to me, in some brilliant black number covered in rhinestones, and I’ve got on a pair of killer black leather elbow length gloves, and I’m about to blow your mind, while also looking at you like it might be a good idea for you to run for your car….
And, action…”
Excerpt 2:
“…And one thing, one thing, became epically clear. Of all of the people that I had lying on the board in front of me — the only person I still never could get over — the only person I still truly loved, was “M.”
The heart of the board.
The center of it all.
No one before them — and no one after — ever felt the way they felt in my arms.
No one ever made me feel the way they did.
No one on that board besides “L” and “N,” even held an Emergency Olivia Candle to them.
They were undoubtedly. The love of my life.
The kind of love that makes you realize why people write love songs.
The kind of love that poets write poems about.
The kind of love not even described in fairy tales.
I could feel them feeling me. And boy was it wild. We could read each other’s hearts and souls. We felt like a galaxy on fire. Like a warm summer rain. Like the center of the earth. And boy did it scare the living daylights out of both of us. But we worked through it — for a whole year — until they fell in love with a farmer, and left me for the idea of another woman. The extreme irony here is that now I would just be like, “Cool, you go do that, see what she’s all about!” Because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you will come home to me eventually. But then, then I said, “No. It’s me or her.” And they chose her; over the wild and impractical beauty that was the exploding comet of us.
And I have to admit. That it broke me. It broke me in some irreparable way. It shattered me. And pretty much if I’m being totally honest kinda ruined me for all other people.
And that’s the thing. Most people go their entire lives without experiencing anything even close to this.
And I had it.
I’ve felt it.
I’ve lived it.
And maybe on some level I’m done.
I’ve had this beautiful and wild experience of love.
Maybe we do really only get that once in a lifetime.
And maybe there’s no happy ending to this story.
I mean it’s been a 40 freaking week long story. And it’s all come down to this. Weird profiling boards and acceptance.
Maybe this is where the story ends.
When I realize that I’ve done it all.
I’ve tried my best.
I’ve learned, I’ve loved, I’ve healed, I’ve broken.
And I am tired, of searching any longer.
So maybe it’s time I take a step back. Wrap up this chapter of my life and move on to study, to dedicating my life to the search for the tools to heal other people.
Maybe I’m ready to put my heart down, to lay it to rest.
Maybe it’s time I called this one.
But you know what? If that person, showed up outside of my door tomorrow, and got down on their knees, and asked me to marry them — to work through this for the rest of our lives, through affinity and adversity, through loss and love and pain and joy…
I would say yes. Because some part of me still has hope.
Some part of me still believes that if you are love, love will find you.
So I guess now, my only job, is to become love. So that someday, love can find me.
So now the question is…. How do I become love if 90% of my heart is just an overused kitchen rag?
Well….
I guess you will just have to wait and see.
I think the first thing we do to become love, is find the things in our lives, that are already there, that we cherish and adore, and pay a lot more attention to those. We dedicate ourselves to appreciating everything we already have. And boy do I have a whole lot to be grateful for. I have the most amazing friends, the coolest job, the most beautiful practice, the best business partner a girl could ask for, the greatest clients, the best dog in the whole world, sobriety, a clear vision of the present, an incredible arsenal of highly useful skills, a mostly quiet mind, no more debilitating anxiety, physical health, a beautiful fireplace, a hot tub, and I literally want for nothing. It is my attachment, to wanting things to be a certain way that keeps me in my suffering.
So for the second time. This is letting go.
The first step. Is to let it all go. And then do the next right thing with the cards presented to me.
Alright then, let’s listen to some more music.
Because why not. Seems like the next right thing.
So in honor of becoming the love we want, here’s “Only Love,” by Ben Howard. This song was also mine and “M’s” song. And I’ll follow that with, “Depth Over Distance,” also by Ben Howard.
Because it’s high time I remember that love doesn’t always have to feel like this. Love used to be quiet and sweet, and swaying in the kitchen making eggs while listening to Ben Howard, and staring out of the kitchen windows at the snow while the room filled up with love and everything, for a moment, was truly perfect.
That is who I am. That is the core of me. I am love.
Even with all of this brokenness…”
