Over the last couple days, I’ve been in my yard, clearing out the weeds in the garden, hacking down the forest that has become our lawn, burning a lot of debris and dried out tree trimmings from last year, and reclaiming our garden.
I’ve come to realize that I’m not just reclaiming this space from the overgrowth, weeds and neglect, but from the ghosts of Erica that permeate every part of our home and yard. There’s not one part of my yard that doesn’t have echoes of her. Her presence is felt everywhere. In every corner of the yard, her ghosts linger. On the surface, they feel like they should be pleasant memories, but they’re not. When I look back on those memories, I can see clearly now that it was never ME that Erica wanted, it was access. She wanted to have the things that she didn’t have access to, so she used me to access them.
The garden, where she wore my raincoat in the rain to harvest “her” kale, lettuce, swiss chard and radishes.
The “hammock nest” under the deck, where Erica liked to lounge, nap, read a book and drink the hot chocolates I made for her.
The firepit in the back yard that she loved to come sit around every opportunity she could.
There’s memories of her jumping on the trampoline with my boys, and her and her Fiancé (the one she kicked out of his own home) and eating BBQ on the deck, and eating salads made fresh from the garden. The photo I took in front of my house of her jeep against a wild sky, illuminated by an insane sunset, just before an incredibly rare lightning storm slammed Nanaimo… A photo that she got SO angry at me for sharing on my Instagram and made me take it down because her license plate was visible….
Her ghost permeates this place. Inside and outside. Outside my shop door that one summer night, where we shared a passionate, hungry kiss, while her fiancé was just around the corner playing with my kids and having a conversation with my wife. And then later, inside my shop, where she liked me to teach her how to use shop equipment, and where she liked to engage in some drilling of another sort on my workbench, because it drove her WILD that my wife and kids were sleeping right above our heads. She loved how excited it made her because it was just so wrong. Because she loved the idea of being the other woman, of it being an illicit affair. She got WILDLY turned on the idea of being adulterous. It turned her on ALMOST as much as hearing me tell her how perfect she was, and calling me “Daddy” when she was turned on, was feeling sexy and wanted a romp in the sheets.
It wasn’t just my home or my life that she wanted to vacation in or have access to. It was very much about what I could do for her. What I could provide, take care of or fix for her. Or what I could build for her.
It was me, bringing my tools, saws, and equipment to her house to help build her a coffee bar, or floor to ceiling shelving for her office.
Of changing the brakes on her Jeep.
Or to help her and her ex-fiancé build a giant desk in their garage.
Or installing and setting up a security system in her house.
Or spending several hours assembling her new E-bike.
Or taking portrait photos for her to put on her website. Or install a hanging barn door in her guest bathroom. Or install a showerhead in her master bathroom. Or installing the wall-mounting kit to hang her new big screen TV in her living room. Or transporting her dream couch home from Costco, then hauling up the stairs, and then helping set it up. Or, or, or, or.
I was always doing something, prioritizing her, her needs, her wants, putting her first. I was being manipulated and used, while being suckered into thinking that to come running when she needed or wanted something was how I showed care. It was how I was made to believe that I was a good and caring partner. It was how I was conned into being her errand boy.
Sure, every now and then, Erica did a nice thing for me. A coffee here or there, bringing me my keys when I locked myself out of my truck. or some movie passes on Christmas, or giving me all of her fiancé’s clothes when she finally got around to getting rid of all his stuff. However, I didn’t ask for any of those things.. I didn’t ask for, need or want any of them.
What I wanted was to be treated with respect. I wanted her to just be honest. I wanted her to stop lying to me, to stop gaslighting me, to stop taking her bad moods out on me. To stop giving me token, performative apologies every time she treated me like shit because she had a bad day or her period was coming. It was easier to give a hollow, empty apology than it was to just change her shitty behavior. I wanted her to include me in her life the way I included her in mine. I wanted reciprocity. I wanted balance. I wanted her to show me the care that she demanded of me, but I never got.
She was very, very good at convincing me that she showed me more care, consideration and effort than she showed anyone else in her life. But now that I look back, it was just that I was the only one in her life willing to live in standby mode, waiting for any opportunity come running so that I might be able to prove that I was worthy of being invited into her world the same way a partner would.
Metaphorically speaking, I wanted to be worth enough to not just borrow a tent from, but to be invited on the camping trip as well. I think I earned that.
~ R
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