A Lowdown Dirty Shame

It’s funny the way we lie to ourselves.

I remember being 25 and living in my first post-college apartment. It was J-Fed and I’s first home together. It was cozy until “they” moved in. They were this couple that stood for everything I was against. At the time, I believed they were rowdy and low-class. Whether they really were or not was a matter of opinion.

After listening to them yell and break things night after night, I swore that I would never be like them. Before the apartment, they had lived in the car with their two children. When they landed the posh pad, they had made it big. Yet they still weren’t happy. He was drunk. She was miserable, and the children were a product of a volatile environment.

I vowed two things during that time in my life. The first thing being that I would do whatever it took to not live in my car. The second thing was that I would never let my children bear witness to that kind of conflict. While I have managed to keep my first promise up to this point, I’ve failed miserably at the second.

This weekend J-Fed and I got in a huge blow-up… right in front of daughter. There was yelling. I was so angry I even demolished the phone. She saw the entire thing. To say I’m ashamed of my behavior is an understatement. Yet you can’t undo the damage that’s been done. There are things that turn us into monsters – anger, disappointment, jealousy, sadness, loneliness, hatred, hurt. The list goes on and on. Once you’re consumed with such raw emotions, it’s easy to let these feelings control you. I speak from first-hand experience.

When your marriage crumbles and your world falls apart, it takes time to regroup. It doesn’t happen over night. In some cases, it never happens. You can spend your entire life trying to figure out how it went wrong. You can take that bitterness to your grave. As the days go by, I’m in serious danger of becoming that person.