Dear 21-year old Me,

I am writing to you from the future.  Hey!  Stop thinking about Michael J. Fox, the Fish Under the Sea Dance, and a flux capacitor! – Focus!!  I am writing to you to tell you a few things that might save you some pain, and also identify a few red flags that you missed.

First, I would like the opportunity to congratulate you on being focused and working on your degree.  You will go on to obtain your Master’s degree with little or no effort on your part.  A word of warning – put some effort in and fix your grades undergrad.  I will thank you later.  Don’t worry – your graduate GPA is MUCH more impressive.  Hehe

Second – and this could be the most important lesson – You will become a REALLY cool chick.  Someone who is WAY too cool for lessons learned in this blog.  Seriously.  I know it doesn’t feel that way now.  You are insecure about your weight, looks, intelligence – everything.  That is normal at your age.  PLEASE don’t settle for the first guy that sticks around for more than three months… especially when the first three months suck.  You don’t know who you are yet.  You will grow into a really amazing, successful person and can be ALL the things you want to be without settling for something crappy.

Here’s the deal – Steve is not a bad guy.  He is just not that into you.  You can keep pushing the relationship where it doesn’t want to go, but it WILL end badly.  He will love you, but he will also take you for granted.  He will marry you – but you have to decide if the pain that will come is worth it.

Red Flag Identification:

• 2 weeks into the relationship – He will stop calling you.  He will blame you for some fake illness that he doesn’t actually have.  He is a hypochondriac… this pattern of behavior will continue for YEARS.
• 3 months into the relationship – He will cheat on you.  RUN, MORON… RUN!!!  Do not stick around for that!  I don’t care HOW much he cries… or how badly it hurts.  Accepting this behavior will really mess you up for a long time.
• 6 months in – “I love you, but I am not IN love with you” – Again… You are too smart for this kind of crap!  Please stop self-deprecating and thinking that you won’t find someone new!  The man of your dreams was waiting to bump into you at the grocery store, and you were doing some asshole’s laundry.  Fantastic.

I think you can see where I am going with this, Liz.  You won’t really come into yourself until you are 30, or so.  You will be much happier and more confident.  Maybe you need some of these experiences to shape who you will become, but I hate to see you suffer needlessly.  Other words of advice:

• Never marry a man who has you buy your own wedding ring
• If your groom has to be on anxiety medication to walk down the aisle… think about that.
• If he wants to Honeymoon in COLONIEL FREAKIN WILLIAMSBURG – RUN!!!!!!!!!!
• When he just stops going to work for no particular reason… move out.
• If you catch him on the phone, internet, etc. with other women…. hit him in the head with a frying pan on your way out the door (Not really… ).
• When he says HORRIBLE things to you to make you feel bad so he can feel better about himself… Tell him to SUCK IT…. as you throw all of his things into the gutter.
• When you tell this man, who has hurt you more than anyone else on the face of the planet EVER could, that you want a divorce… and you will… and he cries… and begs… and pleads… and snots on everything you own…. Walk away.  Do not allow one minute of his crying manipulative rhetoric to convince you to give him another chance.  He has perfected his line of bullshit over the years, and you are too forgiving.

Here’s the bottom line, Liz… You have an AMAZING heart.  You would do anything in the world for the people you love.  To a fault.  You are easily seen as someone to try to befriend and use.  It has happened time and time again.  You don’t deserve that.  Sometimes, it might feel like your penance, but believe me… it is a series of bad choices made out of love for someone else.

It is time to take back your life and become the person you were born to be.  It is time to stop holding back due to fear of success… and failure.  You can do SO much more than you already do… you just have to allow yourself the space and time to do it.  It is time to do what we would tell our friends to do, if they were in the same situation.  Be the grown up and take care of yourself.

Love Always,

Older, Wiser, Separated Liz

I wanted to post a quick update to let you know what has happened, and why I haven’t been posting.

Christmas was OK.  Steve acted like a big baby and refused to come to a family Christmas party unless I wanted him there.  Whatever.  But, he got me massive Christmas presents, in the form of a Blu-Ray DVD player, a HD camcorder, and a massive pink coach purse with a smaller clutch because he wanted me to have a good Christmas.  And probably to guilt me into buying him a TV we can’t afford/don’t need.

New Year’s Eve… he once again chose not to attend because he wanted me to basically beg him to go.  Here’s the deal… I have been to almost every event ALONE for the past 10 years.  I don’t really care if you come or not.  It will NOT affect my good time.  Unless you are a douche.  Then it will affect me a lot.  I took my friend Lori as my husband instead.  hehe  We had an awesome time.  Lori had a little too much to drink and ended up crashing out on my couch.

The next morning (ok.. afternoon… we were out REALLY late) we were sitting around talking and deciding what to do for the day.  I already decided that I would let Steve watch football and we were going to go watch Steel Magnolias.  I invited Steve for good measure… and he started in with his whining about how mean I am… how cold I am.  A robot.  The Ice Queen.

Suck it… I’m out!  We left to go pick up Lori’s daughter, Em.  She said, “I finally get it.  I heard the way he talked to you.  That is totally unacceptable and I am going to stage an intervention!”  Along with another friend, they helped me see that I really needed to do something drastic.

As I was walking out to the car, Steve called me and told me that there was a note left on the door by a process server… I am being sued.  By a debt collector.  A debt that was incurred and went unpaid during the time when Steve just decided to stop working.  I snapped.  I was driving down the road sobbing.  Why did I let this happen???

I decided to stay the night with Lori.  I couldn’t go home.  I was angry.  Hurt.  Miserable.  We went and grabbed clothes on the pretense that Lori was having a bad day and needed company.  Poor little Em was trying so hard to keep the secret that I was coming to live with them.  He asked her how she was doing and she flipped out and ran into my room and said, “Mommy!!  Steve is talking to me!  I can’t talk to him!  I HAVE A SECRET!!!” 

Incidentally, Em told me, “Lidabeth, you can stay in my room forever!  And I am moving into Mommy’s closet!!”  A correction for CPS records – her TOYS are moving into Mommy’s closet.  She is moving into Mommy’s ROOM.  She also got so excited that I was moving into her room… that she packed up her toys into Ziploc bags and began moving them.  Adorable!!

So, that is where I am right now.  I am living in a room, donated by my sweet friends, that, until yesterday, contained a pink & purple castle tent and a ginormous stuffed dog the size of a Buick named Razaroo.  Today it is empty… waiting for me to make decisions and possibly start a new life. 

It’s amazing how you can know so fiercely that you want something… and then it begins to happen… and it scares the living shit out of you.  My husband has nowhere to go when our lease expires.  He is not close with friends or family, and does not earn a steady income (real estate agent + tanking market = holy shit!).  I am riddled with guilt and anxiety about his future.  People tell me that isn’t my problem… which is true… but how do you just STOP caring about someone you have been with for 10 years?

I think this will be a very interesting time for me.  To see what I can do to love myself again.  To give myself the same advice I would give a friend in the same position.

Stay tuned for my next post:  Dear Younger, Dumber Me: An Open Letter to Myself