thebutterflywake: Under my Skin!

thebutterflywake: Under my Skin!: Under My Skin! Alarm ringing! Please stop. In bed on this cold December morning, willing myself to get up. Six a.m., another day...

Under my Skin!

Under My Skin!

Alarm ringing!

Please stop.

In bed on this cold December morning, willing myself to get up.

Six a.m., another day and once again I am filled with regret and self-loathing, and I have not even made it out of bed yet.

God, it is a nightmare living inside my head sometimes.  Did I say sometimes, well I meant most days.

Inside my stomach I have this empty feeling and my throat is dry. 

I can taste my morning breath.  Last night I must have over-indulged.

I feel sick.

Forcing myself to get up out of bed, I switch on the light, and suddenly, I am struck by the odorous stench of stale food and alcohol, cigarettes and sweat. 

My bedroom lies in chaos from the previous night, my surrounding reflect small traces of the debauchery, the remnants of what occurred last night. 

I cannot recall what exactly happened in my bedroom!

All that remains is a recollection of what had been, and even that is fading into a shameful memory. Yet another memory that I will add to the others that I keep inside my head, all those secret skeletons in the cupboard of my mind.

I see that he had slipped away in the early hours of the morning, back to his life, and back to his wife. 

Why do I allow him to come here, and mess with my body and my head?

Why do I allow him to have sex with me and then disappear, as if nothing had happened!

We separate and then we carry on with our average lives. 

Do not misinterpret my conceived intentions. I am not a woman who wants a man to leave his wife. 

No, I am a realist, and fully understand the odds of that happening. 

I prefer to share him with her as then it keeps me safe.

If the truth be known, I do not know how to have a relationship that is functional and “normal”.

However, I find that I do battle with the guilt of seeing another woman’s husband.  And on my rational days, I know that is should end, and that I should have the strength to stop this affair.  But I do not have many rational days anymore, and I feel that without him, I would not cope.

I need him, as he allows me to stay stuck inside my deepest pit of self-pity, and reaffirms that fact that I am never good enough to have my own man.

God, I am mentally unwell.

I have been so obsessed by him for so long now that I hardly remember what it feels like to be without this dysfunctional relationship. I fear the effect of it, as much as I fear the end.   

I walk into the bathroom and as I stand staring into the bathroom mirror.  I wonder when our affair spiralled so complete out-of-control.   

Where I lost myself, where my values became those of the other woman who has lost all her moral righteousness and pride. 

A woman who is stimulated by late night calls and unexpected visits from a man whose only intention is to release his load and feed his ego at the expense of the scarlet woman, yet it is she who allows him to do so, willingly, desperately, and compulsively.

I am looking older. 

When this affair began I was twenty years younger, and I wonder how much longer I will fulfil his need.  If I am to keep myself stuck inside this misery then I need to do something about my appearance.

I need to lose some weight or change my hair colour, hide those grey hairs before they become apparent and I am exposed.  Perhaps I could have surgery, ‘a cut here and a nip there’, remodelling myself into a young form so that he may continue to frequent my door. 

I fear the thought of losing him, and dread the day he lets me go. 

What can I possibly do to keep him interested in me? 

The mirror stares back at me with its honesty and rationale, it tells me that all hope is lost and there is only so much that time can do to keep a face, and then it is time to face the truth.

What I should do is let him go. 

If I allowed the rational part of my brain to take over and think about this situation, I know I would make sense of it all and see that I am hurting myself.  I would realise I deserve more than just being second best, and that there is a man out there who would love me for myself.

If I had any logic, I would allow myself to feel the pain and regretful sorrow, that truth and shame both hold.   Then I could walk into the darkest night and face the facts and be on my own.  However, here I stand, not ten feet tall, but feeling tiny, and alone.

And then, as if by macabre magic and without reason, I think of him.   And once again, I know that it is he who can and will be the knight in the shining armour, who rides in to save this maiden from this day. 

How many times have I waited, and yet he would not arrived. 

All day long I will think of him, as if he is all that I have to keep my fires burning.

I wonder if he is eating his breakfast with wife and kids, all sat around the breakfast table.  In my mind’s eye I see him leaving for the office, as he waves his wife good-bye, and drives along the motorway, while singing to the radio, perhaps.

I question if he thinks of me, or her. 

I know what time he arrives at the office, and then I suffer the long wait until he will call me again.  He may call again today, though I doubt it.  He saw me last night and that means he will not call again for another month or two, or three. 

Our rendezvous have become less, and the time between each meeting longer than before.  There was a time when he would visit me once a week, and then, as the years matured and we faded, so did the excitement, and the surprises, and the gifts. 

Now all I have are the bi-monthly visits late at night, unannounced and from a drunken lover who slurs his words of passion and lust. 

He mounts me as if he was the shining knight, and yet the only armour I see is the condom he wears to protect himself from me.

Suddenly, I vomit into the bathroom basin, and to the floor I sink. I sit there for at least an hour, as the truth allows itself to settle in. 

This is my life!

This has been my existence for the last twenty years. 

Where have I been in all of this? Was I so lost that I could not see the truth that was surrounding me? 

I could not tell another soul of this, my life, as they could never understand my choice.

In fact, I doubt I even understand it now and I know that I will never entirely comprehend this nightmarish saga that has my name on it.

Three hours pass, or is it four?  I have lost all time, as I sit here on that bathroom floor, surrounded by snotty tissues and an empty tissue box. 

I cry until I cannot cry anymore. 

All cried out, I eventually rise and wash my face. 

The water feels so cold, and I realise that I have forgotten how to feel. 

I have been so numbed by this affair, and I have suppressed the knowledge that it is destroying me.   I have blocked out the truth and along with the pain, I have forgotten how to be and how to feel. 

Something happened today, different than before and I let go of shame and the lies and the games.  I have had enough of this one-sided obsession, and the love for a man to whom I am no more than a call-girl. 

Just as truth has a way of breaking ones heart, when you emerge on the other side of the darkest day, you will find that there is strength within and self-esteem that can once again shine.  My light had been rubbed out by the way he would shine, but he has now lost his sparkle, and I have re-discovered mine.

C2012Medusa