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| Making art to soothe the soul |
It's interesting, reviewing my 2023 calendar to get some degree of accuracy to this journey. It seems so long ago and yet it was just a year ago that everything truly came to a head. Came to a head, who am I kidding? My world crashed.
Oldtimer continued to find excuses to leave the house daily. One item on the shopping list? Better go to the store. Out of pipe tobacco, better go find some. Lunch, almost daily, let's pick up lunch instead of having a sandwich at home.
And I? I monitored the trips on Life360. Miles logged in the parking lot of a store just one mile away. Primarily, I said nothing, but sometimes I just had to speak up. Through all of this, multiple medical appointments dealing with his COPD, regular cardiologist appointments, a visit to a vascular surgeon, and then let's add cataracts. I was able to sneak in a couple appointments for myself for physical therapy too.
In mid-August, my son became very ill. With him living on the other side of the country, I was distraught. After he was released from the hospital, I had to go see him with my own eyes. Let's not forget that in my wisdom, and with my impeccable timing, I had the kitchen torn up for a new countertop installation. Then the dog got sick. I've always said I'm not rich enough or smart enough to have a nervous breakdown, but I came darn close to being either rich or smart that month.
Several years prior to all of this, it became apparent that I needed to attend medical appointments with Oldtimer. Always, always one to throw away the details, it had become apparent that I would never really know what the doctor said. The third week of September brought a vascular surgeon appointment that I had to attend - a round trip drive of 80 miles; I drove his vehicle. No sooner had we gotten home than Oldtimer announced that he noticed a low tire and had to get air. Odd, as I was the driver, noticed nothing, and none of the service lights in this technology-loaded vehicle were lit. A lie to leave the house by himself. The map on Life360 was ridiculous, looked like the web of a drunken spider.
The next day, I realized one of the tires on my car was actually low. I invited Oldtimer to ride with me to run errands, and then said I needed to stop for air. I pulled into the station he claimed to have used, and asked where the air pump was. He didn't know. I pulled the car over and confronted him, told him I knew he was lying the day before, told him he had to stop what he was doing. I held his hands, I begged him, I asked what he was looking for, was it the woman that had reported him in April? The wall was up, and the most I got was the suggestion that I drive to the service station across the street because that was the one he'd probably used the day before. When I did that... though I knew it was a lie... he became frustrated that one had to pay for air, he'd never paid for air in his life. Confirmation of the lie.
I felt so hopeless, not to mention scared, confused, angry, betrayed. And then a few days after this useless confrontation, as I was cleaning the kitchen counter, a message notification popped up on the screen of Oldtimer's iPad. A sexy message. I knew his password, we've always been open and sharing with our passwords, so I opened the messenger app, and found sexting messages. Stomach churning sexting.
The last week of September, things got worse. More to come.
