What I Wanted

Inspirational song: Cruel Summer (Bananarama)

He asked me what I wanted, while we argued as I drove home from the hearing with the family court facilitator.

I wanted not to go to that meeting. I wanted him to have the courage to be there in person rather than calling in from not so far away that he couldn't have been there, if he had been willing to be in a room with me. I wanted to throw my unfinished financial disclosures paperwork at the facilitator and scream that I wasn't going to complete it or cooperate anymore. I wanted not to be the agent of my own destruction.

I wanted it not to happen at all. I wanted to go back to when my world wasn't falling apart.

I wanted to be loved like I should have been. I wanted him to mean forever when he told me that he loved me, like I meant it every time I said it to him, all the way to the moment he climbed in the RV to leave. I wanted him to accept me as the human that I am. I wanted him to understand that my limitations weren't an open insult to him. I wanted him to see me as I am, not as he decided I was thirteen years ago when he was angry and decided that he didn't want to love me anymore, or tell me those words that I needed to hear ever again. I wanted him to say it out loud if he thought I was beautiful, at least one time in the last sixteen years.

I wanted not to be ignored, in public, in private, or online. I wanted him to see me as I actually am, an evolving, flawed but sincere person. I wanted to see the tiniest spark of empathy anytime I lay in a hospital bed. I wanted him to be able to see that the happy times were far more numerous and extended than the arguments. I wanted him to be able to calculate that math. I wanted to be wanted.

I wanted him to know that those times I forgave him it wasn't because I was weak or had low self-esteem, but the opposite, that I knew I had value and was allowed to go for what I wanted in a partner. I wanted him to understand that I considered him an equal partner, not a servant and not a master.

I wanted to go on this cross-continental RV trip with him like I had planned to two years ago. I wanted to be invited, or at least not actively uninvited. I wanted to be able to make it all the way up to his claim in the mountains, on my own power or on an ATV. I wanted to be the old retired couple he saw on a hop flight years ago, coming from some European destination on a military transport for cheap, looking at each other with love and excitement.

I wanted to be healthy. I wanted to be strong and active. I wanted not to hurt during the day and lie awake in agony during the night. I wanted a gentle hand on my shoulder during those times when the pain was too much. I wanted him to know that on those days when I had nothing left in the tank but I still got up and made an elaborate dinner, that it was because I wanted to share my very last spoon with the man who meant the world to me.

I wanted forever.

I wanted to know why.

Apparently all the things I wanted were impossible for me to have, even though people get most of those things every day like they are easily obtainable. I never got a complete answer to the last one. It's the one I needed the most today.