Two days ago I climbed into my beautiful car, slid onto the soft supple leather seat, started the engine–listened to it purr, and backed out of our garage. Not sure if I have ever mentioned how much I love my car. I am not an avid “car person.” I have always chosen very practical vehicles. Cars that would sufficiently hold our family, the kids’ friends, sports equipment, a big golden retriever, etc… I have never actually dreamed of driving a Porsche, or owning one for that matter. Well, now that the kids are gone, driving a bunch of pre-adolescent boys is a thing of the past, and our current golden retriever feels like she is being punished if stuck in the back of a station wagon or SUV (she must sit in a human seat) but I am still quite partial to a mid-size SUV. At the end of 2013, our accountants suggested we upgrade our old SUV with something newer to take advantage of a strange luxury car tax Iaw that was about to go away. I looked at the qualifying vehicles to see if I thought any of them could replace my old Volvo XC90. There on the list was the Porsche Cayenne. I had seen some Cayennes and I liked their look. I decided I might like to have a Porsche Cayenne. To me, it’s not quite as ostentatious as driving around in a flashy Carrera… some people have even insinuated it is not a “real” Porsche, but I can assure you, it has a Porsche engine! We went for a test drive and I was shocked at how much I liked driving the Cayenne. I picked up my very own Porsche Cayenne one month before dday. When I found out the whore had driven my Volvo SUV, I was happy I had a new vehicle. We did not, however, sell the Volvo. It is paid off, has low miles, and is a great vehicle. We gave it to the Peacemaker. Somehow now that it belongs to him, it holds no triggers anymore.

On that beautiful Wednesday morning, I immediately noticed all the gorgeous spring flowers blooming, all the bright green leaves bursting open, birds chirping, sunshine. What a beautiful day. I was heading downtown to our office for a finance meeting. Not my favorite thing in the world to do, but necessary. As I pulled out onto the main road, I switched on the radio. I flipped through a few stations and settled on alternative. I am really old school. I realize pretty much everyone else listens to their own music by Bluetooth, but I do not fiddle with such new-fangled technology. Snow Patrol’s “Chocolate” started to play. I was immediately catapulted back at least 10 years. The Pragmatist used to love Snow Patrol. I used the song ‘Chocolate’ in a birthday video I made for him when he was in middle school. I have heard the song dozens if not hundreds of times.

This could be the very minute
I’m aware I’m alive
All these places feel like home

As the song played on the radio and the words all came back to me, I literally found my mind drifting off, back in time. I had such an amazing life. Two healthy, happy adolescent boys just starting to come into their own. Their personalities starting to shine through. Our younger so involved in his sports, baseball, football, soccer, tennis. The older playing guitar in his own band, taking art lessons, piano, guitar and violin lessons. They were active with lots of friends and activities to keep them busy. Likewise I volunteered extensively for their school, chairing school auctions, volunteering with the reading program. I painted and was involved in other community charities. Blue Eyes was very busy with his career, traveling a lot. As I look back, I realize he was between acting out cycles. He had fired the secretary nearly three years before, but he was probably less than a year away from putting in the Craig’s List Ad. How could he do that to me, to us? How could he be living a secret life?

With a name I’d never chosen
I can make my first steps
As a child of 25

Who is this person I am married to? By the time we were 25, we had been engaged for four years and were planning our wedding. We had been through so much already, a miscarriage, an engagement, college graduations, a year of law school, living in a foreign country together, surviving being apart–twice, coming back together, drama with his family, surgeries… there was still time to walk away, but I loved him dearly. I loved who I thought he was, or maybe I loved who he actually was? He was keeping secrets I would not know for another 25 years. It boggles the mind.

This is the straw, final straw
In the roof of my mouth as I lie to you
Just because I’m sorry doesn’t mean
I didn’t enjoy it at the time

All the lies and secrets. Now I start to cry. I do not know what the fuck the songwriter meant when he wrote the words, “… as I lie to you. Just because I’m sorry doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it at the time” but as I hear these words I think of my husband with his other woman. I have to pull over. He lied to her, he said he loved her, but just because he lied, doesn’t mean he didn’t enjoy the sex while they were having it. It doesn’t mean he hadn’t become so adept at feeding his addiction that it was the only important thing to him at that moment in his life. I didn’t matter. His children didn’t matter. Living a good, honest, true existence didn’t matter. Why did I not just turn the song off, turn off the radio? Every song means something different now. It gets me, knocks me flat, before I realize what is happening.

You’re the only thing that I love
It scares me more every day
On my knees I think clearer

Goodness knows I saw it coming
Or at least I’ll claim I did
But in truth I’m lost for words

I do believe I am the only woman Blue Eyes has ever loved, in his way of loving. I think at the time Blue Eyes fell in love with me, it did scare him, it scared him every day and continued to scare him. Every day he thought he would lose everything because of his lies and secrets. I think he knew somewhere deep inside from the very beginning that he would not be able to sustain a level of integrity and honesty and fidelity, but he kept going anyway. He dragged me in. I have only ever known Blue Eyes as a sex addict. He is a sex addict. There is no other Blue Eyes. The Blue Eyes I thought existed doesn’t. My chest aches.

What have I done? It’s too late for that
What have I become? Truth is nothing yet
A simple mistake starts the hardest time
I promise I’ll do anything you ask this time

This whole thing cannot be about making promises to me. He must be making those promises to himself. My needs, wants, desires, my safety did not matter to him and it is difficult for me to believe that they will play any part in his recovery. This is about him. This is about Blue Eyes.

All this trauma, prompted by a song written by someone over a decade ago that just happened to mean something to my son when he was an adolescent. A song about some other person, some other life, some other story, and yet it speaks… to me. And it spoke to a 13 year old boy. I look up and realize I am not going anywhere. I have tears in my eyes and I am stopped on the side of the road. I am caught between two realities. I am trying to imagine a future life while still mired in thought about the past. It’s time to move forward.

—-

I met a beautiful lady yesterday. She asked me if I thought I needed to put closure on my marriage pre-dday and start new. Do I need to shut the door on the past so that my marriage can have a fresh start? Last year, I used to think my marriage and basically the last 30+ years of my life was a lie. I would look at pictures of my family and want to rip them to shreds, or just rip Blue Eyes out of them. I would look at Blue Eyes in the pictures and wonder what, or who, he was thinking about. I used to wonder if we meant anything to him at all, if it was all just a game. But as I thought about her question, and all the trauma of the past 14 1/2 months, and all the soul searching and heartache and agony, I realized that I love my marriage. I love my life, and I love my husband. I want to be able to hold all the memories dear again. I want to cherish all the times we were together. I want to be able to mourn for the times Blue Eyes was feeding his addiction, but when he was with us, I want to believe he was really “with” us. I know he loves us, and we love him. I love him.

That love, compassion, forgiveness, understanding, whatever you want to call it, will need to be enough for now to get me through whatever comes along as he recovers from his illness.

And… now I am craving Chocolate. I am not sure why the title of that song is chocolate?