Nothing Changed, Yet Everything was Different

I had been wondering for some time what I wanted to do with this new found freedom that I had.  Chappy had told me to do some thing I had always wanted to do, so I started looking at interior design classes.  I had gone to  his office one day in March 2000 and was ecstatic as I had decided to go back to school. I had done the research and wanted to talk to him about enrolling in the classes necessary to pursue this dream I had always had.

He seemed excited and supportive of the whole idea, little did I know that he had no desire to see that dream come to fruition for me.  I had sensed some thing wasn't right, I just didn't  have a clue as to what was really going on.

My Mother taught me many things, but she drilled into my head to never be dependent upon a man and always have a job with money put aside to escape.

In my first marriage, I didn't have that safety net, so I had to save and plan for the day that I could leave.  I did not make that mistake in my second marriage.  I was very upfront with Chappy from before we were married, I will have a bank account for me, in the event, I ever need to leave you. I won't have to wait like I did with Killer, I can just go.  Every year I had to disclose what was in that account at tax time. It never bothered him, until 2000, when we did our taxes.

I always took care of our finances.  I paid the bills, I made sure we were saving money, I got the paperwork around for the taxes, I did it all. In March, we  met with our accountant and as usual, Chappy sat there as I went over the documents.  As I pulled the document out from the bank with just my name on the account, he pulled it from my hands and asked me what it was.

"It's my get out of jail for free account." I was joking, I knew he knew what it was. But the look on his face went from blah to anger in sixty seconds.  I didn't know what his problem was.  I had had this account for over eight years. I had a substantial amount of  money in it, but he also knew that I had offered that money up the  summer before when he wanted to spend twenty thousand to finish the basement. I told him I had that set aside in my "freedom fund" and we could use it. I was pretty confident at that point that I'd  never use it.  Chappy and I had both commented a few years earlier that even if one of us had had an affair, we both had reached a point where we'd work through it verses leaving the marriage as we had originally stated we would do early in our marriage.  

He was so upset and I was clueless as to why.  How could  this bother him when he's known about it for as long as we'd been married? Hindsight is an amazing thing, he was upset because he was plotting his departure unbeknownst to me.

I had leased the 1997 Bravada and the lease was up in 1999.  Chappy was not around and he didn't need to be around for me to turn my car in and get another.  I drove home one day with my new Bravada and  you would have thought I had spent our life savings without his knowledge. 

"You just think you can go out and buy a new car without consenting with me?"

"No, but you knew the lease was up and I had to turn it in. I just leased another one, I didn't buy it, so technically, I didn't need your approval. What's your problem?"  I was being myself, joking around as I thought he was as well. He didn't have this issue when I leased the 1997 Bravada without him.  So as I said, things were different and it was these little things that kept popping up that never bothered him before, but were now on the front burner.

In early 2000, I had reconnected with my partner in crime from high school.  We had found each other on classmates.com and much to our surprise, lived 20 miles apart.  We had not seen each other in over seventeen  years. We had lost track of one another, but there we were, in Georgia miles apart from one another.  I don't know how I could have survived without Debbie and a few others that touched my life in 2000.  I swear, God has a plan and you just are not aware of how big it is for you until you reflect on where you have been in your life.

I was experiencing immense jaw  pain in mid March.  I didn't know what the problem was but I could hardly chew.  The problem was I was grinding my teeth at night from internal stress and had no idea.  I lost about twenty pounds in a couple weeks as it just hurt so much to eat and my gut was telling me there was something much bigger going on in my life than I was aware of.

I transferred from the hair salon to the interior decorating department at J C Penney's.  I wanted to get a glimpse of what was involved in this profession before I invested a lot of time.

My first day on the job in that department was April 10, 2000.  I had been so excited to start but my world was shattered on my fortieth birthday, Friday, April 7, 2000. We were going to go away to Savannah, Georgia for my birthday weekend. 

Chappy came home to find me sitting at the counter staring into space.  He wanted to know if I was ready to go and I replied, "I'm not going. Some thing is not right, you've changed and I don't care for the way you have been treating me, what is going on?"

Now, one might wonder, "Cindy, why do you ask such stupid questions when you know, you are going to get a response that you don't expect to hear." But I ask them every time.

I think he knew the answer, but the response took some time to formulate as it was very well thought out, I'm sure of it. 

"I'm not happy."

That's it.  He'd been acting strange because he  wasn't happy.  "Why aren't  you happy?"

"I don't know if I want to be married any longer."

Now, I was not expecting that as the response. We did  not fight ever. Hell, we didn't even live under the same roof most of the time.  One day every thing was fine and one day I noticed a considerable change. I just had no idea.

"What's  her name?"

"What?"

"This unhappiness, don't want to be married any longer, what's her name?"

"There isn't some body else. I'm just not happy. I don't know if I want to stay married."

"So you woke up one day and this just hit you in the face, I don't think I want to be married any longer, no explanation, no discussion, just matter of fact?"

"Yes."

"Bullshit! You know the reason, you just don't want to tell me."

"No, I'm just  not happy."

"Well, take a damn happy pill because I believe your unhappiness has a name or you're full of bullshit."

He just sat there staring into space and my world fell apart.  For years, I had joked with Chappy that when I turned forty, he'd turn me in for a younger model and here we were, he wasn't happy and didn't know if he wanted to be married on my fortieth birthday.

We sat there, neither of us saying a word for the longest time and then we got up and went to dinner, for my birthday, like nothing had just happened.  Life just went on.  He opened  doors for me, he held my hand as we walked to the restaurant, we didn't talk much during dinner, probably from shock.  We went to the movies afterwards and he put his arm around me, just like nothing was different.  We came home, went to bed and held each other, like any other day of the year.  Nothing changed, yet everything was different.