Old Men

At one point in my life, I was in love with a man who lived in a Toyota motor home. He was insanely insecure about our relationship. He once told me he wanted me to get really fat, so fat that I wouldn't be able to squeeze out the camper door and run away.

I think about that now, as I avoid the treadmill and beg my husband for yet another piece of chocolate (he keeps it hidden in the cellar). Would I now fit through the camper door? I think I would, despite these giant bazoombas that mushroomed in the course of 3.5 years of breast-feeding my child.

Anyway, I did squeeze through the door and run away, not because I didn't want to be with this man, but because he was, if you'll forgive the repetition, insanely insecure about our relationship. He said if I was drowning and he couldn't swim and he had no means of saving me, he would jump in the water and drown with me. (Apparently he couldn't envision life without me. So how's he been surviving these past 18 years? How come when I finally gave up on him, he didn't kill himself?)

There were so many puzzles in that relationship. He got angry with me for the weirdest reasons. One day, when I was in Savannah and he was in New York, he got mad at me because I wasn't home when he said he'd call. Woooooo, big sin! There's cause for punishment!

One day when he was railing at me because I didn't tell him often enough that I loved him, I said to him in exasperation, "Why don't we just consider it a given that we love each other?"

God, he drove me crazy. Literally. After I got away from him, it took me more than a decade to get past his negative, party-pooping influence. Now, had I only recognized right away that that's exactly what he was -- a party pooper -- maybe I could've saved myself years of sorrow.

As it was, I finally righted myself in one fell swoop. The magic letters: EMDR. I can't even remember what the letters stand for, but the procedure, which involves recalling bad experiences while listening to a rhythmic beeping, supposedly helps you properly "process" the experiences so you can put them on the shelf and be done with the emotions associated with them.

I was almost instantly relieved. I could once more see a Toyota camper approaching and not feel pure fright. I could reread this guy's letters and not feel like I should write back in a futile effort to explain myself. I stopped trying to "understand" his insecurity, and I stopped blaming myself for it. I could finally see him for the self-congratulatory, alternately mean and fawning viper he really is.

For the record, I am married to a man who has no such insecurity. I'm sure Rex would love it if I were model-thin and every man I passed was wading ankle-deep in a puddle of drool. He knows I'm happy with him.

What a relief!

Now if my parakeet would just shape up, life would be perfect.