It's Not Okay: Turning Heartbreak into Happily Never After (14 page)

I thought I knew full well what I was getting into when it came to Number Twenty-Six. I found his little quirks endearing, from his excessive sweating regardless of the temperature to his penchant for talking with a mouth full of food. He wasn’t the most intellectual man I had ever been with, but that didn’t bother me because he made up for it in charm.

But as time went on, I realized that maybe I didn’t know him so well after all. Maybe he didn’t know me either. During our many conversations prior to getting engaged, he made it clear how proud he was of my legal career and my ambitious attitude. He told me he loved how opinionated and at times abrasive I could be. He had always wanted a strong, ball-busting type of woman, which was music to my ears because that’s exactly what he got in me. Yet as the months passed, I realized that off camera my feisty attitude wasn’t sexy, my ambition wasn’t admired, and my smart mouth wasn’t attractive to him. Instead, my role as his future wife was very different from what I had thought it was going to be, and as time went on it became downright terrifying.

THE IDEAL WIFE FOR NUMBER TWENTY-SIX

• 
is a domestic goddess

• 
supports anything and everything he does, no questions asked

• 
wants to bear his children

Being a domestic goddess would mean there was one place for me, and it wasn’t in the courtroom. It was at home. When people asked if I missed my days of being an attorney, I would beam as I gushed about how much I longed to return to work. It was very clear, however, that he had no desire for me to go back to being an attorney. I believe “selfish” is the word he used. As in, it would be “selfish” of me to return to such a “dangerous job”; selfish to him, selfish to our relationship, and selfish to our children (who, mind you, were nonexistent at this point). He was adamant about filling the role of the “manly breadwinner” and paid the majority of our bills, although money wasn’t an issue for either of us at the time. We weren’t rich by any means, but we weren’t worried about where our next meal would come from.

In addition to being a domestic goddess, I was expected to support all his ideas and ventures, no matter how ridiculous I thought they were. From suddenly trading penny stocks, to selling vitamins and weight-loss products, there was no telling what my fiancé’s next venture would be. Though I never got into the penny stocks, I did help out with the weight-loss endeavor, despite not being into the whole sales thing. But, nevertheless, as a fiancée I attempted to support him by jumping on conference calls, going to meetings with him, and even helping him throw parties to boost sales. Hell, I even did a twenty-four-day cleanse thingy. You don’t want to know the shit I had to drink in order to “cleanse” on that program. Oh, and let’s not mention the fact that for twenty-four freaking days, I couldn’t drink alcohol. I’m sorry, but if that’s not support, then I don’t know what is.

But it never seemed to be enough for him. And thus, I began to resent him. Truth is I resented him because he was doing something he enjoyed and I wasn’t. I resented him because he expected support for his new career when he wasn’t willing to support my old one. That resentment led to bitterness, which led to apathy, which eventually led to me wanting absolutely nothing to do with hawking the weight-loss products, and it became clear neither of us was supporting the other.

So I wasn’t a domestic goddess, I wasn’t supportive, what could I do? Oh, I know! Bear his children. He made no bones about the fact that he wanted to impregnate me as soon as possible. I decided that I’d prefer to be married before we had a child. I mean, look, shit happens, I get it, but I already had a ring on my finger, so I figured I’d finish out the drill in a way that wouldn’t upset my father any more than I already had in the past year and a half. Plus, my family had an impressive 100 percent record of marrying before procreating, and I didn’t want to break the streak.

At first his reasons for wanting children immediately were joyous ones, but later it seemed as though he saw it as a solution to our faltering relationship. He once said to me, “Let’s just have a baby, it will solve all of our problems.” First off, can we talk about how mother-effing deluded this is? What, did I miss some newfound fad where babies became the magical fix to any and all disasters? You just whip ’em right on up, put them in a pan, stick them in the oven (pun intended), bake some nice little fluffy baby muffins, and when the oven dings . . . all your problems have been baked away?

Day by day, conversation by conversation, it became clear that although I may have been the fiancée Number Twenty-Six desired, I was never going to be the wife he required. And I slowly began to realize there was a huge difference between people’s wants and their needs.

Like anything in life, the need for something has to come before the desire. We all want wine, but to survive, we need water. We all want shoes, but we need to pay the rent. The needs in life are pretty obvious. The wants, well they’re obvious too, but the problem is they don’t always get you what you need. I’ve always known what I wanted in my life, whether it was my career, the people I surrounded myself with or my ideal relationship. I mean, this relationship is a perfect example of that. Twenty-Six was everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, I thought I wanted. From his features to his jokes to his hometown, all the way to the adoring looks he constantly gave me. I’d thought every box on the checklist had been marked when I found Twenty-Six. I thought my dream man had finally come into my life, and yet it still didn’t work out. Satisfying every desire didn’t mean shit, because we were miserable.

I guess what I wanted trumped what I needed, and as a result, here I am . . .

Lesson learned:
Having everything you want doesn’t mean shit if you don’t have what you need.

I
’ve been up for twelve hours now. Yes, that math is correct Somebody got up before 9:00 a.m. today, and that somebody is moi! (Thank you, thank you very much.) Though I can’t take all the credit, or really any, for that matter—I didn’t wake to an alarm but rather to the sound of Kelly’s Southern twang.

“Up, up, up!” Kelly says as she enters my room and turns on the light.

I moan and roll over to the other side of my bed, hiding my face. I want to tell her to get the hell out of my room, but I’m stopped by the fact that I am still living in her house, so my room is technically hers.

“Get your ass up, we’re doing something today!” She announces.

“Whyyyyyy?”

“Because you need to get your ass out of bed and get out of this house.”

“But
whyyyyyy
?”

“Because it’s time.”

“What do you have in mind, do I even want to know?”

“Probably not. I’ve booked us for yoga.”

“Yoga?” I glare at her with my infamous death stare.

“Yes, yoga. It will be great, it will clear your mind, and you should probably start getting back into a workout regime,” she says tactfully.

“On one condition,” I state.

“What’s that?”

“Can we go to lululemon first?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

Despite her subtle jab, I know she is right. Hadn’t I just been saying the other day that I was going to get back into sexy single shape? Wait a second, has Kelly been reading my diary? The timing of this feels a little suspect . . .

KELLY, STOP READING MY DIARY.

YES, I’M TALKING TO YOU.

Since my clothes are still at Number Twenty-Six’s house, and I haven’t mustered up the strength to go over and get them, I decide I’ll stock up today. We drive to lululemon and I head straight to the wall of leggings where I pull my usual size 4 along with a bunch of tops, which I find, once in the dressing room, no longer fit me. I’m up a size and down some pride. But with a fresh outfit I can make myself believe that this is going to be my stepping-stone to my new life and I think,
maybe this whole yoga-Zen-namaste junk is actually my turning point.
I’ve always secretly envied yogis for their auras of sophistication and inner peace. Maybe the new me will be a super-fit, granola-eating, flexible yoga knockout. This could be great!

We arrived at the studio where Kelly had thankfully booked us a private session. We enter the mirrored room, lay out our mats, and as the lights dim, the toned instructor begins our session. “Think about the powers that be. Wash away those fears by taking a deep breath in and exhale. And as you exhale, release all of those worries that have been on your mind. Find your inner space,” she says in soothing tones. I breathe in and out so deeply that I feel moments away from fainting. I’m too concentrated on not passing out to be bothered by exhaling my worries.

“Breathe in the peace, exhale the fear. Letting go of all the worries. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.”

Yeah, right.
Does this chick really think that three deep breaths are going to wash away all the pent-up shit I’ve been dealing with?
Focus, Andi, focus!
Desperately trying to balance on one leg with my eyes closed and hands clasped together in what I learned was “prayer position,” I sneak a peek to check on Kelly. Damn, she looks so peaceful. As I’m desperately praying I don’t fall over and wipe out while I’ve got one leg in the air and one arm oddly pointing to the ceiling, all I can think about is the sadness of my broken relationship. Instead of an hour of Namaste-y clarity, I find this session filled with idle time, making my mind a devil’s playground. It’s been over two weeks and I can’t concentrate on anything but my breakup. It doesn’t help that with each new move, I realize more and more how unflexible I am.

What in the hell am I thinking, trying something new in this fragile state of mind? Not to mention the fact that I have absolutely zero chance of being good at it. I’m neither flexible nor well balanced, and it doesn’t take me an hour of yoga to figure that out. I’ve known it since I was six years old, when my mother thought it would be an excellent idea to enroll me in an after-school gymnastics program. Two days a week she would drive me to class for an hour and a half of sheer humiliation as the other girls soared through the air, flipped on the mat, and did handsprings along the balance beam. They twisted and turned in ways my body could only dream of. All the while, I was the girl in the corner, alone, attempting to master the basic somersault. It took me three weeks to finally land one. And just like that, my gymnastic career was over before I knew it. This twenty-year-old memory must have slipped my mind when I agreed to a yoga session.

Plus, I have never been nor will I ever be a “calm” person. I’m high-strung and I know it, which makes the whole Zen idea completely unattainable for someone like me. So unlike Katniss Everdeen (my idol), the odds were never in my favor when it came to yoga. Sixty minutes later, and I actually feel worse than before. I quickly cross “Zen yogi” off my Possible New Identities list. Now I am not only sore, but feeling even more pathetic about myself. Note to self: when in a vulnerable state, you should stick to things you’re good at.

After yoga, Kelly and I go out to lunch and I tell her how lost I’m feeling. She’s been such a confidante for me during these difficult times, and I have come to not only crave but also value her advice. She’s one of those friends who doesn’t get competitive or need to one-up me or rub in the fact that she’s happy and in love; instead she simply and genuinely just wants the best for me. As I tell her about my plan to overcome this breakup, she brings up a great metaphor.

“You should think of your life as a bunch of buckets,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you have all these buckets. Some of them are short term, some of them are long term, and some of them are forever. Every time something comes your way, whether it’s a new project, an appearance, or any opportunity, you just place it into one of the buckets.”

“But then what do I do with the buckets?”

“They just keep your life in perspective. You can’t expect everything to go into the long-term buckets. Some things you just have to do to be happy now.”

“So an appearance would be short term, and finding a steady job would be long term?”

“Exactly!” she exclaims.

“What would go in the forever bucket?”

“Something like finding love.”

“Shit.”

“But that’s the thing, you don’t have to worry about that right now, just focus on the things that are in front of you in the now.”

“Where did you learn all of this?”

“Oh, please, you don’t think you’re the first woman to have her heart broken, do you?”

We both laugh.

Kelly’s right—I have to start compartmentalizing my life. A lot has gone on in the past year to make me feel stuck in the chaos. But now that the cameras have gone away, now that my journey has officially ended, I’m finally able to pause and consider my next move.

I think about what it would be like to go back to being an attorney. I’m not one to toot my own horn, but when it came to my job, I was good at it. I had passion and I had a bright future ahead of me. But, my occupation was a double-edged sword when it came to participating in the show. On one side, it was a major reason that I was selected as a contestant in the first place, as it provided what producers called great “packaging material.” While some women set themselves apart with tragic stories, dramatic pasts, or single-mother status, I had my job. Other than that, I was pretty much just your run-of-the-mill single woman. On the other side of the sword, my job invited a magnitude of opinions from fans who only knew me from the show. From the moment I finished the first season until this very day, the most criticism hasn’t been over my love life, or the drama of the season, but rather my career.