The Best Revenge

I came across a meme the other day, very much like the one above. I also came across this:

and this:

 

Logically, I know that this is all good advice. I knew this way back when I was a mere 21 years of age. There was a guy that I dated for about a month. He dumped me for one of my best friends. I briefly fantasized about being an alcoholic and watching my life fall apart, and then quickly realized neither of them would really care about the mess I had made of my life.

The stakes are higher but it’s the same philosophy now, 25 years later. Me being miserable for the rest of my life won’t make CF or Harley feel bad. Hell, if anything it would probably make them ecstatic. The thought that I can’t make it without him has to be glorious news to Cousinfucker’s ears. I’m sure he takes great satisfaction in knowing that my life has fallen to shit and that I will never have anything to call my own again. There will be no more shopping trips, no more vacations, no more day excursions, no splurges. My kids will never have anything they want anymore. I can’t afford it and I doubt I ever will. That must make him and the whore so happy.

If I killed myself tomorrow, or was diagnosed with cancer, or just had a heart attack like I’m hoping for, he wouldn’t feel shame or regret or guilt. No, he’d be dancing on my grave, thanking me for letting him off the hook for child and spousal support. Oh, did I say thanking me? No, he’d never actually thank me. He would dance gleefully and probably shout out loud about how happy he was that I was so stupid and pathetic, though. Ding dong the witch is dead!

In my head I KNOW all of this. I know that the best revenge is living well. I know the best revenge is to be awesome and amazing and to show him that I don’t need him and that the kids and I are doing great without him. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me suffer. I want him to hear that I’m doing awesome without him, that I have a full social life and I have a great career and I’m making money and I don’t need him to support me (although I will take his money- I earned every dime). I don’t want him thinking he’s broken me because, honest to God, I sometimes think that’s exactly what he tried to do with his cross country move.

I sometimes think he wondered to himself, “Hmmm… how can I destroy Sam? She’s way too happy for my tastes. I need to knock that bitch down a peg or two. How can I make her suffer? I know! I’ll move her across the country and take her entire life as she’s known it for the last eight years completely away from her. I’ll move her to a desolate place where she can’t get involved and will have few friends so that she must rely on me. I’ll give her everything she’s ever wanted. And then, when I’m the only one she has and when she has everything she’s ever wanted, I’m going to walk away and leave her empty handed and completely alone. She will never recover. Finally, she will know what it’s like to live life like me- never happy, always miserable.”

Yep, that about sums it up, I believe.

So knowing this, knowing I don’t want to be pitiful and knowing I don’t want him to beat me the question then becomes HOW do you do this? How do you rise? How do you live your awesome life? How do you find happiness in a world of gray repetition? It’s a nice little quote but it doesn’t offer much guidance.

How happy am I supposed to be when I’ve lost everything? I’ve lost my house. I own very few possessions. I live with my mother. My husband cheated on me with HIS COUSIN, for crying out loud. I work two jobs, both of which pay a whopping $11/hour. I’m NOT living a fabulous life. I’m just not.

It is demoralizing to get up every fucking morning at 3:20, work stocking shelves at Job #1 and then get ready to work as a damn bank teller for another 9 hours. And the end result isn’t a fantastic lifestyle. No, it’s being able to barely pay my bills, put food on the table and buy household necessities. Or as I prefer to put it: I don’t have to choose between wiping my ass and eating.

Rock Star wanted to know if I could take her clothes shopping. I had to tell her no. After years and years of being able to indulge her whenever she wanted to go shopping, I can’t drop even $100 on clothes for her once in a blue moon. I don’t find anything happy or fabulous about that.

She wants a car so badly. She was promised a car when she got her license. Then her dad lost his damn mind. There is no car, and again, I so badly want to make her happy. I would love to present her with an inexpensive car. Obviously, if I can’t afford to take her clothes shopping I can’t buy her a damn car.

I hate not being able to go places. I hate the fact that I won’t ever get to take my kids on vacation again. I hate not being able to spend money like I used to. It sucks! Anyone who says that money doesn’t buy happiness doesn’t know where to shop! The fact of the matter is money problems are the leading cause of arguments and disagreements within most marriages. It’s a huge stressor in people’s lives, and more than a few people have actually divorced over it. Money may not guarantee happiness but it certainly helps. I prefer not having to worry about how I’m going to pay my bills over worrying constantly.

Because I get up at 3:20 in the morning and don’t get home until around 6 every day I have no energy to go and do things after work. I think about volunteering somewhere but the truth of the matter is when I finally get a chance to go home I want to take it. I want to go home and chill for an hour or two before I need to go to bed so that I can get up and do it all over again.

I work 6 days a week most weeks.  That means I have one day to catch up on everything I need to do. While I do get off work by 9:30 at the latest on Saturdays keep in mind I’ve been up since 3:20 am. If I don’t take a nap on Saturday and I run around getting stuff done then I’m conked out early-  like 7:30 or 8:00.  I usually don’t want to go anywhere. It’s exhausting. If I go and do something and run all day on Sunday then that means I have to go another 6 days at full speed before I get another chance for any downtime.

Then we add in the fact that he moved me 2000 miles away from my life and then, just as I was adjusting, I was forced to move again. I have to start all over and I’m tired of starting all over. I’m tired of reinventing my life again and again. I’m in a town I don’t want to be in. My friends all have lives of their own. I do not have a jam packed social schedule. I don’t even have a moderately packed social schedule; the last time I went out with any friends was approximately 6 weeks ago. My friends who would have had me over for a night of drinking or who would have gone out with me or kept my mind off of the hell I’m living or who were actually going through the same crap all live 2000 miles away. I rarely go out and do anything with anybody I know. I’m tired of MeetUp groups. I have no desire to start attending church again. I can’t get involved at my kids’ schools because I work constantly. I can’t even help out at the track meets because you need to be there by 5 and I wouldn’t get there until at least 5:30.

So I don’t have this great new social life. I don’t have a life that is full of activities that I enjoy. They don’t exist anymore. I don’t know anyone. Or rather, I have about 3 people in my social circle and they are unavailable most of the time. Quite honestly I think I’m being very generous when I say I have 3 people in my social circle. I used to have PTA, and Bunko, my neighbors, my fellow gym moms. I was a hockey mom. I volunteered for my son’s T-ball team. I have none of that anymore. I will never have it again. That part of my life is gone. He made sure to take it all away. I don’t know what to fill it with. I don’t know where to go to get involved. I don’t have the time or inclination to do it anyway. Like I’ve said before I’m tired of wasting my time with dead end events that never go anywhere. I have no desire to go walk dogs or take hikes or to go out and sit in bars with people I don’t know and end up having nothing in common with.

Yet there is a part of me (a very small part) that says I need to somehow keep trying because I will never find a new, fabulous life sitting in my mom’s living room. I didn’t get my old life by sitting at home. I got it by putting myself out there and reaching out. I didn’t meet some of my very best friends by watching TV and eating cookie dough. I did it because my daughter was involved in gymnastics and I would sit with some of the same parents. Some of them I really clicked with and we are still friends today. But I wasn’t working 55 hours a week then either. If I wasted some time it was no big deal because I had plenty of it to spare.

There is a big race coming up this summer. I have thought about training so that I can run. I only have time to do a 5K, as opposed to a 10K. But let’s be realistic. I’m up at 3:20. I work from 4-7. I come home, get ready for my second job, and then work until 5:15 or thereabouts. I head to pick up my daughter and finally get home around 6. I honestly don’t see myself strapping on my tennis shoes and going out for a run. I’m a very slow runner so eventually running 3 miles would take me almost 40 minutes. Take a shower. Eat dinner around 7. After I’ve reheated it because my mom is not going to eat at 7. She’s got dinner ready no later than 6! And then I have maybe an hour or two before I need to go to bed.

I’ve even thought about joining a gym but the same questions plague me. When would I go? My mom usually goes in the morning. She doesn’t want to wait until 6 or later. Now I have to actually drive somewhere so that’s taking even more time.

I see people traveling and taking vacations. I don’t have the money for traveling or vacations. I see people getting involved in things they love. I don’t have the time and I don’t know what I love anymore. That’s the truth. Everything I enjoyed was taken away from me and now I have to start over yet again and I have no clue what I want to do if I even had time to do anything.

I sometimes think the reason forgiveness and this whole “living well is the best revenge” tripe is so popular is because they have all these nifty phrases. Vengeance gets a bunch of warnings and people pleading with you to take the high road. No wise words. No inspirational memes.

I don’t think I’m going to be getting any sort of “revenge” on Cousinfucker and Harley anytime soon. That’s okay, though, because I prefer Confucius’s warning about revenge:

 

I’m fine with that. I’m willing to go down with the ship in order to take him down. It’s not like I have anything else. My happiness is nonexistent so I’ll stick with making sure I can make him miserable as well. Living that insanely happy life is probably a better form of revenge but I don’t think I’m ever going to get that so this is all I’ve got.