30 years.
30 years since that full-moon Yellowstone night when you picked me up at the ranch and we headed in to Ennis. We, the crew, were all frustrated at the boss' demands, the late night, the ever-more-important clients who saw all of us as little more than services rendered for the cost of their once-in-a-lifetime dude ranch vacation.
God, you were charming. And funny. You showed up in your big black cowboy hat, smiling shyly and saying "a little bird" had told you I wanted to go dancing. My white knight, riding in on your Jeep Cherokee to rescue me from the drudgery of another lonely night in the lodge. My hero.
It was our first official date. We'd met just a few weeks earlier, when Barbara introduced me to you and the guys in the lodge basement -- you'd been spinning your lariat, doing the same rope trick our son would master many years later. You stopped spinning and touched the brim of your hat; your old-fashioned manners made me think you were older. We laughed about that later, on the night we went to the bar with the rest of the crew and both revealed we were too young to get in.
After I left the basement that first night, you turned and told the other guys to "back off - she's mine." Or at least, that's what you told me later. At the time, it seemed sweet; now it's just creepy and possessive.
And so we went to Ennis, that magical town we shared a common love for, and in our Camelot, we danced. And somewhere amid the twirls and the beers, the slow dances and the long kisses, I knew. I was yours. And I decided to love you that night, to give you all of me - not just my body, but to offer you what I loved best about myself: my wild, open heart, my fire and ice intensity, my ever-thinking mind and ever-working body. I entered a dance with you that night, and I haven't danced with another in 30 years.
At our wedding a short year and two months later, we asked the band to play an Alabama song, "Forever's As Far As I'll Go." It was the song you'd sung to me during the ceremony - the promise in the lyrics calmed me, moved me, reassured me. And I believe that back then, you believed your promise, too.
But Mike and the Montana Muskrats didn't know that song. Instead, they offered another: "The Dance" by Garth Brooks, a wildly popular country singer. I didn't like the choice. It's a haunting song about pain, about love ending, about all the things I thought could never happen to us. But you said it was fine, and not wanting to make a fuss, I went along. Stuffed my intuition down into my churning stomach, probably drank another beer, and stepped out onto the floor.
"O-our lives, are better left to chance;
I could have missed the pain,
But then I'd have had to miss
The ... dance."
And so here I sit on the back deck of the house I bought without you, trying to write out the pain, bleeding blue ink onto the page and weeping tears and snot down my face. I've cried more in the last year than I ever knew I could, and still a river pours out. I didn't know grief could be this deep and wide and constant. Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if you had died instead of asking for divorce, instead of replacing me with so many other women. At least then I could have continued to live in the illusion of you being my white knight, my hero, my partner. At least then I wouldn't have had to see what you've become, or what you've finally revealed.
When I listen to that song now, sometimes I wonder if I should have refused your offer that July 3rd night, if I should have just gone to bed like a dutiful employee. Sometimes I wonder why that girl, for all her intellect and all her sass, was so swept away by your cowboy charm that she ignored the signs of your darker side - the temper, the jealousy, and oh God, the possessiveness.
But instead I learned to dance with you. It wasn't easy. You danced differently than most of the partners I had had before - a quirky combination of country swing, clogging and a little square dancing. Friends who sometimes danced with you commented on how hard you were to follow. But I learned your steps, caught on to the patterns, figured out how to anticipate your moves - anything to avoid the thunderstorm that crossed your face when I missed your hand coming out of a spin. I became expert at dancing your way - stepping backwards to your moves.
Not always, though. Sometimes I'd try to take the lead, to smooth out the rhythm and even out the steps into something a little less exhausting. Or I'd pull you onto the floor in a burst of joy as a song from my past set fire to me, twirling and spinning away from your arms, free in my own orbit. The first scenario usually led to a whispered growl to "let me lead, goddammit." The second led you to pull me back in, stilling my fire and laughing at my abandon -- until later years, when you really would abandon me, walk off the floor and leave me dancing with myself.
Or sometimes, I'd be distant, detached while we danced, spinning through the same moves, cycling through the same turns. That pissed you off the most. "What are you looking at?" you would hiss, your grip on me tightening, fingers digging into my waist. "Nothing," was always my response.
But it wasn't nothing. I was looking at the other couples - wouldn't it be fun to dance like them? To try some new steps? Whenever I suggested something new - whether through dancing lessons or therapy sessions - the response was always some variation on the theme of "What's wrong with the way I do it? Why can't you ever be happy?" And so I learned not to ask and to content myself with your steps; we were often so "in sync" that others commented on how well we danced. It's the princess' job to make the knight look good, after all. To make the dance look smooth and effortless, even if she's doing it backwards with a pasted-on smile.
I wasn't always looking at the steps, wasn't always wanting my turn to lead. Sometimes I just watched the way other men looked at their partners with such joy and delight that I couldn't help but stare. You were usually watching the band, other dancers, your feet - focusing on the steps, the moves, anything to keep the dance moving along within your control. You didn't look at me much when we danced, and certainly not with that look of pure delight. I was a dancing partner to you, but not a woman dancing.
Our dance? it was complicated - magical and menacing, artful and awful, life-giving and soul-sucking. An image, a mirror, a promise, a hope.
Our dance gave us seven children: six on earth and one in heaven. They are the treasures in the dark cave, the exquisite beauties among the shredding thorns. They are spiritual beings gifted to us in this lifetime, and being their mom is the most profound privilege I've ever been given. I pray for healed, wholesome relationships with them some day - to appreciate and delight in all that is wild, weird, and wonderful in them, as they do for me. No steps, no patterns - just pure, joyful abandon.
But our dance also led to devastation and despair. My feet are bleeding from eggshell-walking; my arms are tired from burden-carrying; and my heart is exhausted from approval-earning. And I guess maybe I'm not a good princess after all, because I'm damn sick of protecting your image.
"O-our lives, are better left to chance;
I could have missed the pain,
But then I'd have had to miss
The ... dance."
It's been a wild ride, a beautiful and awful turn, oh my knight.... but it's time this queen waltzed off the dance floor.
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