Too Close to Me by Dave Pelzer

Author:Dave Pelzer [Pelzer, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7953-4331-5
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2014-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

The Art of Ingurgitation

It wasn’t a sudden thing. There was no magical, climatic moment. Nor was it some invisible weight that abruptly escaped me. One midmorning, as I sat staring aimlessly at the backyard, I consciously noticed for the first time that I no longer felt that deep, massive pain over the loss of my failed marriage.

As I studied the brightly colored flowers that I had recently meticulously planted, then replanted until I felt they were perfect, I realized that I may have found that bridge that led to a path of acceptance.

With Marsha long gone, and by beginning to come to terms, I felt better—less tense and far less stressed by all the needless elements that can consume someone in a relationship.

Another important subconscious step for me was after the hundreds of times staring at the damn collage, reeling from a swirl of emotions provoked by every single photo, recalling aspects that included the time of day, the particular season, to even the scent of the surroundings, I began to feel a little less pain with every viewing. One time, without any thought, I began to place Stephen’s photos over the ones with Marsha.

Except for one.

Of all the pictures, the one that still tugged on my heart was the snapshot we took from one of those cheesy throw-away cameras when we had first met. Crouched together, Golden Gate Park’s towering Rainbow Falls water cascading behind us, the infamous Bay Area fog suddenly seemed to lift, as if just for that moment in time. Marsha beamed. With her wide smile, long, bright orange hair, and her distinctive high-curved eyebrows, she seemed like the happiest person on the planet.

Thinking back, with time and maturity, I felt that I had exposed Marsha to way too many of the oddities of my life, which to me had seemed and had become all so normal.

Back then I had lived like a complete hermit in Guerneville for almost a year before knowing Marsha. Immediately after moving to the Russian River, I easily flipped my inner protective switch when it came to my divorce with Patsy. With all the elements involving Stephen’s mom, I simply did not want to “go there.” In truth, part of me was jealous. While I worked my tail off, scrimping to save and watching every morsel I ate, Pasty seemed to be having a blast going out like she did when we had first met. So I had developed a routine to keep my mind from spinning, which included cleaning the tiny house each and every day, going to the gym, checking for any scant items of mail at the post office, followed by camping out at local coffee shop for as long as my backside would allow as I tapped away on my laptop. I knew I was in desperate straits when I realized that when not on the road or spending time with Stephen, going to the post office for just under a minute was the high point of my day.

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