Tricia LaVoice - Dear Martha, WTF?: What I Found in My Search for Why

CHAPTER 2

Tell It Like It Is

W e dont talk like this around here.

What do you mean? How do you talk? I asked.

I mean, we just dont talk about those things.

Well, I promise you, each and every one of you knows someone who has had plastic surgery and someone who is not circumcised, I said.

I tried to appear interested as we sipped our coffee at the local Starbucks. I had met one of the three women I was sitting with at the same Starbucks a week earlier. They were kind and polite, all dressed in Anne Taylor or maybe it was Banana Republic. I wore a floral sundress with a scoop neck. Since moving to Connecticut, I had learned to reel in my cleavage.

Moving had become part of my life. I could not remember the last time Id lived somewhere for more than five years. It wasnt supposed to be that way. It was just the way things turned out in Richs career. We started our family with two children in New York, then we moved to San Francisco, where I gave birth to two more, before moving to Los Angeles, where Rich put a stop to my reproducing with a simple incision. And then we moved to a small town outside of Hartford, Connecticut.

Our first summer in Connecticut went by pretty quickly. Rich was crazy busy at work and was reuniting with some colleagues he had known for years. I kept in email contact with friends.

Dear Friends,

If you are missing any socks, they are on the floor of my laundry room. Also, there are some myths I would like to debunk after living in the suburban woods:

1. A lot of sex does not bring you closer, it just gives you a yeast infection.

2. Being alone with your family all the time does not bring you closer, it makes you fight more.

3. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder, the heart doesnt grow at all when it is absent.

4. Grocery shopping in your PJs is okay as long as you dont make eye contact with anyone.

Love, Tricia

I called anyone I could get to pick up the phone. I promised my friends that I would try to make some new friends. And I tried. But not very hard.

Summer passed and I went through the motions of September, my annual month of reliving loss, because in that month both my parents and Aaron had died. It was unbearable to think a year had passed since my nephew died. I remained completely numb to my own pain as I tried as best as possible to be support for my sister Liz.

Liz and I have always been close, Martha, but after our parents accident we bonded in a strange, beautiful way through the suffering. We filled in the blanks our parents left, becoming more maternal with each other and with each others children. I loved Aaron very much, but my deep mourning needs to be private. I need to be there for my sister now, and I try, Martha, I really try. I just dont feel like Im helping. I take the train to visit her, I call her all the time, but I feel like I say the wrong things. I just dont know what to do, how to help.

I am frozen with uncertainty, not knowing which way to move, forward or backward, to the left or to the right, in a song with no lyrics. Fear, suspicions, and doubt rob my harmony.

A S MORE TIME MARCHED ON , and people got busy with their own lives, I spoke with my friends less and less. I stopped sending funny emailsI didnt feel funny or sociable. When I did speak to my West Coast friends, I felt like everyone in Los Angeles had moved on with their lives, and the only person who missed me was me. I could sense them tiring of my unhappiness.

Martha, Connecticut is beautiful. The new house is beautiful. The people are thoughtful. Its quiet and slow-paced. Its a lot like the town I grew up in. However, after so many years living in cities, I dont fit in. With the other moves, Id started a new life as soon as I hit the ground. I was busy with babies, new schools, and hosting. But now the kids are older and do not need me in the same way. Also, Im sick of making new friends. I had great friends in New York and then San Francisco and then Los Angeles. Im not so sure this town is right for me or if Im right for it.

Rich tries; he really does. Of course, I get plenty pissed when I complain about being lonely and his buddy still shows up to play chess. But I appreciate that Rich tries to talk to me more about the little things, and that he takes me out when he wants to just rest after a tough workweek. I want to feel better, to be better, but there is no magic wand that lifts you from despair and drops you in the land of All Better.

I dont know about trees, but people are supposed to think and do. There is a quote I learned at Sunday school one of the few times I was listening: The idle mind is the devils workshop. Thats what the loneliness does to me. It makes me feel lost and crazy, miserable, the devils workshop of wicked thoughts. I never had such darkness in my thoughts before. Im so lost, Martha, I dont know where to turn. I dont think anyone has any idea how sad I am and how lost I feel right now. If I tell them, I know they will all say I should go to therapy, get medication. I dont feel like I want to die, but I feel like a piece of me has died.

Martha, the gray skies, the empty house all dayfuck, the loneliness is eating me up inside. I dont even want to talk to my friends anymore, much less go live with them. I do love Rich, I love him so very much. I hate myself for being like this, for feeling this way.

That night, I took a walk under the cloudy sky. I searched for stars but they were hidden away, and I thought about my own self, how the stars were gone from my eyes. They had disappeared after my parents died, but they came back again with all the births and love. Then Aaron died, and I worried they might be gone forever to me. I studied the sky once more and felt a tad foolish. The stars were still there. You cant remove stars from the sky; you can only temporarily cover them up with clouds. I walked some more and I wished in my mind.

When I got back to the house, I sat at Marthas feet and thought about how much I loved Rich and wished I could make him understand:

In the beginning, my skin was smooth, my smile innocent, my time was yours. In the beginning your walk was swift, your campaign eager, your enthusiasm mine. In the beginning our kiss was feverish, our dreams were boundless, our love naive. The moment was tender and forever was ahead of us, so we promised it with a relationship only experienced in pleasures and ease. We took one anothers hand and walked forward into life to be challenged by reality, wrapped in beauty, shaken with despair. Now we stand looking back as much as we look forward. We have been blessed and tested; we have grown together and grown apart. My skin is no longer smooth, but you do not seem to notice. The young now dominate my time, but you seem to understand. Our love is no longer naive, but it is true; our dreams have been altered, but they remain dreams, and again, I reach for your hand, asking you to walk forward with me.

Martha, WTF? Why do you undress when it gets cold out?

I wasnt judging, just curious. I had decided to stop getting undressed in front of anyone now that everything was heading south. I can hide it well with push-up bras and Spanx, but once the undergarments come off, it all goes places it never went before.

You know a man designed this house, Martha. Who else puts a full-length mirror directly across from the shower?

I expected the boobs that were once my favorite accessory to get grouchy, and I expected cellulite to find a home on my backside, but I did not expect the pouch. You know, the pouch, that area between your belly button and your pubic bone that has come out of nowhere with a mission to destroy any sexy feelings you may still have about yourself. Its like the perfect middle child that rebels for not getting enough attention and now burns the house down. I agree, I never threw that area of my body much love; there were so many other body parts that needed lotion, massage, washing, and grooming. I have apologized many times for all the nights I squeezed her into control-top panties and for not appreciating her good behavior when she laid tight and flat. Ive apologized for the abuse she took those last months of pregnancy when I neglected to feed her vitamin E or cocoa butter; but she remains unruly, leaving me to shop for big tops and get my own hotel room.