The Sting That Binds

When thinking about a name for this post, I had several titles in mind.  "Love Hurts," or "The Masochist in Me," or "The Sadist in Him," or "I'm in a Bad Relationship...Oh, Well," but "The Sting That Binds" has a nice ring to it, so I'm sticking with the sting theme.

Something happened.  Who knows for certain what is was?  It was oh so long ago.  Maybe it was when I was five and playing doctor with the eight-year-old neighbor boy.  I was lying on the bed, stark naked with my life in the doctor's dirty little hands.  He said I needed a jambalaya vaccination or I would be dead within the hour, and then he left the room and never came back.  I waited and waited and waited.  Without him, my rescuer, I would die. Then Mother came into the room and screamed and screamed and fell on the floor and said, "OH, LORD, SAVE US FROM SIN! CAROL LOUISE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" and I knew then that the doctor had misled me, I wasn't dying of jambalaya fever, I was going to hell, and I desperately loved the boy next door.

Three years later I was in love again.  Charles was his name and he was ten.  My family had moved into a large, turn-of-the-century house that had been converted into multi-family apartments at 16th and Broadway, and my love interest lived right next door in a big two-story home his family shared with no one.  One day, while Charles was riding his bicycle back and forth on the sidewalk, I decided to test his love for me (he didn't even like me; he told me that many times, but I thought he was in denial), so I sat down in the middle of the sidewalk with my back to him and waited for my Prince Charming to rescue me from myself.  He never attempted to slow down.  The impact took my breath away, and as I lay on the sidewalk gasping for air, he calmly rode away.  Through the pain, I still loved him.

When people ask, "How long have you been dependent upon men?" I say, "How long have you been wearing Depends?" and it shuts them right up.  Well, really, that's kind of personal, don't you think?  Besides, who wants to admit that they 1) wear Depends, and 2) are dependent upon anything?  Although, I do like those thin mini pads, even though I don't need them, except when I sneeze or laugh or cough.  Where was I?  It's my memory, you know.  Not so good anymore.

Oh, I remember now.  Something happened long ago.  But what? What caused me to become dependent upon men and the pain that bound me to them?  For the record, I was never dependent upon men.  I just wanted (needed) a man to call my very own while I lived the life of an independent woman.  I needed to know that, at the end of a very busy day, my ticket would be validated, and only my man could do that for me.  Validation was the one thing I could not do for myself, so...

I picked men who did not appreciate my worth, my value, my capacity to love them as they had never been loved before, and asked them to do the impossible: validate me.  I accepted the indifference, distance, secrets, lies, disrespect, infidelities, and sick machinations.  I choose men who could not or would not love me like I deserved to be loved.  Then...

 ...along came Tom.