Memoir Books

The Naked Mistress

A memoir of a woman resurrected — Chapter One

The Naked Mistress is an ordinary life turned extraordinarily out of control. It’s about the lies we believe and the truths we ignore. And the danger of abandoning ourselves.

Chapter One:

As usual, I was multitasking. I retrieved some quick messages and began my callbacks. My first was to my doctor’s office to retrieve some routine sonogram results. I recognized the bright and cheery voice of the nurse on the other end of the phone.

“Hi, Sherri,” I say.

“Hi Colleen, it looks like we are going to need you to come into the office. We found a mass on your left ovary and we are not sure what it is,” says Sherri.

And just like that my world came to a grinding, screeching halt.

I stopped the busy multitasking I was attending to while making the call and sank to a frozen pause. No more midlife mania. It was an “exit the grocery store now, you can shop another time” moment. It was one of those extreme wake-up calls.

I wasn’t really certain I had wanted to wake up, but the voice on the other end of the phone was shouting, “Hello, it’s Life calling.”

Yes, I could hear who was calling me, but what did life want?

I grabbed my milk and groceries shoved them in the back of the car and slid between the closely parked cars. I opened the door just enough to squeeze into the driver’s seat and plopped my purse on the passenger side. I gazed into the rearview. And with that glance noticed questions long avoided.

Am I who I hoped I would be? Am I who I need to be for my family? Have I done what I set out to do? Am I happy? Am I racing through life so quickly that I am losing sight of my purpose? Have all of the wonderful external trappings of affluence hidden some of my inner deprivation?

I was asking myself those kinda questions while life had me on hold.

The big life inquiries.

The comprehensive ones that we dodge daily as we get redirected towards other things, but that always lurk soulfully below our surface. That is until life calls and demands you answer.

After ingesting that bit of tough news, I robotically ran a few errands and returned home. My crazy two-year-old chocolate lab Hazel greeted me at the door as if I were her own personal life-sized toy and I the permissive mom allowed it.

She darted back and forth as I brought the groceries in from the car and finally settled down once she realized which bag held her treasured treat. I went back outside one last time, closed the car, grabbed the small stack of mail from the box, and headed back inside.

Everything was the same — but looked different.

More vivid. Also distant. Clearly, my head and heart were in a murky place.

Sometimes life throws you an event that causes you to step back and take a long, deep look at yourself. You get perspective. You look at yourself, and your situation. You start to see details about yourself and your life that you haven’t been paying attention to, not because you’re stupid or negligent, but maybe because you were too involved in everyday living and too accommodating of the little “rubs.”

That’s the state I was in.

On one hand, feeling a little dazed and trying to gain perspective… on the other hand, suddenly super-focused on the little details of life.

I tossed the mail on the kitchen counter and found myself staring at the envelope that lay on top.

The envelope was addressed to, “Coleen Orme” — “Coleen” with one “L.”

I knew without even looking at the return address it was from my mother-in-law.

Of course, it was. For over twenty years, misspelled correspondence from Ralph’s (of course name changed to protect the innocent or perhaps not so innocent) mother would grace my mailbox.

I would always cringe just a little.

Today, in my highly sensitized state, the cringe was suddenly massive.

Bigger than the “I’ve gained a few pounds… the puppy still isn’t house trained… or there is no milk for my coffee” cringes.

My mother-in-law’s indifference to the spelling of my name was a HUGE, GIGANTIC, and ENORMOUS submerged object bearing down upon me. And suddenly, the woman inside me — the one who wants to know she is important enough to the people closest to her that they would care how her name is spelled — zeroed in on a problem that had long bobbed around in the ocean of her life.

And that woman began to shout a warning.

No longer just in the quiet of her own soul.

But in a voice that finally, found its way out of my body.

Loudly.

I walk towards my husband who’s staring intently at his computer. “Do you think you could tell your mother my name is spelled with two “L’s?”

As though he was appearing for the longest-playing show on Broadway, Ralph did not flub his usual line.

“Why do you care? You make such a big deal of a little thing,” he said. Ignoring me and never taking his eyes off of the screen.

I stood there frozen. In the past, I wouldn’t bother to say anything to Ralph. I would just let it hurt my feelings that someone whose family I had been a part of for twenty-something years — did not care to notice the spelling of my name.

Of course, there had been the wedding invitation.

I’m pretty sure it was on there.

Not to mention years of forwarded photographs and personal masterpieces drawn by my children with notes scribbling my moniker.

I thought it rude to correct my mother-in-law so I left it to my husband. He simply didn’t see the importance. When I did get frustrated, Ralph would just walk away from me as I was speaking.

It was his emotional signature.

The nonverbal way of winning an argument.

Today, with my whole world looking slightly askew, Ralph’s usual off-the-cuff dismissal was magnified times a million.

His aloof body language screamed at me.

His shoulders slung over the computer as though the sound of my voice was a burden far too heavy for him to carry. Especially if it hinted even a whisper of discontent.

Why did I care?

I shouted within because my external shouts were silenced.

I CARED because my feelings mattered. Well, at least they should matter. But did they? Ralph’s emotional apathy, his lack of empathy was smacking me in the face again.

Only today I was ready to spar.

Just who was I important to?????

Well, guess what?

In my youth, “Coleen” with one “L” had simply found this painful. It was a reminder of my place in his mother’s world. You know the place, don’t you? The place you relinquish those who aren’t important enough to remember their names. Generally, family is usually exempt from this category.

My husband had gotten used to the youthful “Coleen” with one “L.”

The happy girl, a pleaser and a fixer; however, “Coleen” with one “L” was suddenly fed up.

Life had me on hold.

I had feelings, wants, wishes, desires — and if they mattered to no one else…

They should matter to me.

Of course, my shouts continued to echo internally.

The only place they were permitted.

I was smart enough to realize that’s where they would remain. I had played this part for so many years I knew the ending. Only I really played the role of understudy never getting to truly act out the scene. Why speak the lines out loud if no one could hear them?

So instead I muttered under my breath.

“This would be why his mother still spells my name wrong because they tell themselves the rest of the world is overreacting while they ignore people.”

I left the envelope on the counter.

If he could be passive-aggressive, so could I. I wouldn’t read this letter addressed to “Coleen” with one “L.” She didn’t live here. I walked away feeling quite pleased with myself. After all, I had suffered this indignity and hurt for years.

My momentary celebration of phonetic independence was abruptly interrupted.

By the absurdity of my own involvement in it.

How had I tolerated someone spelling my name wrong for that long? Who does that???? I had to own my own behavior that at times could be so tolerant that it prolonged frustrations in my life. I sulked upstairs shoulders slung low as I owned my own part in my marital malaise.

When I returned downstairs I found Ralph in front of the television.

“It’s time to go to the game,” I say.

We pile into the car. My husband and our three sweet boys settle into our seats. Two of my guys are now in their teenage years and stand taller than my five-foot-five frame. “My little guy” as I like to call him is now really my not-so-little eleven-year-old.

My husband drives the car with one hundred times the purpose as the unidentified man who sat before the computer. Having been in a very serious automobile accident years ago, I have tried everything to make him understand he scares me. So this time I try for humor.

“Can you get a little closer,” I say. “It’s much more exciting that way.”

Nothing….. No response.

He’s convinced himself that it’s all me.

Just as “Coleen” with one “L” cares about little things like people loving her enough to know how to spell her name. She overreacts in much the same way about driving.

It simply just couldn’t, no not ever, how ridiculous, how absurd, would it ever be the way he is actually driving that makes me jumpy.

No, Ralph, with one R, one A, One L, one P, and one H is never wrong!

Perhaps it’s because he has never been on the receiving end of being dismissed.

I sit in silence. No, I sit in scared silence.

I wonder how being right is more important than making someone nervous. I think about tomorrow. It’s my birthday and we are going to the movies. I realize we are not off to a good start.

My birthday is already a day that Ralph notoriously ruins.

I woke up excited the next day.

I know going to the movies will make my birthday more fun for my guys. The theatre is quiet and absent of lines. The mid-October weather was a pleasantly mild Indian Summer.

My husband, on the other hand, was most unpleasant.

He’s unwilling to mask his discomfort even if it is my birthday. I am childlike in anticipation of a second movie, after all, it had been my one birthday wish.

“What movie do you want to see next?” I ask.

Our boys started shouting out their requests.

But they could hardly be heard over Ralph’s deafening silence.

The boy’s birthday mood was drooping. We could all see where this was leading. There would be no second movie because my otherwise, easygoing husband used these days to show me he disagreed with me.

He walked toward the exit. I followed onto the busy sidewalk stopping to talk and causing the crowds to dodge us as we consumed their path. Ralph was making it clear that he was done.

“I don’t feel well,” he announces.

“But Ralph, you promised,” I plead. “You asked me what I wanted to do today and I said all I wanted to do was to see two movies back to back. The boys get a kick out of doing that and so do I.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Colleen. I’m not staying for another movie.”

I looked at the boys and they looked at me. The four of us shook our heads. It never seemed to matter that it was always a special day.

Ralph would ruin them with his defiance.

Somehow managing to take the day away from the person it belonged to and assign it to himself.

It would be Ralph’s way versus my way.

Best friends no more, instead, Ralph had slipped comfortably into a role.

The husband versus the wife; I was not comfortable with these roles. In the game of husband versus wife, there needs to be a winner. One person is in a position of power. I had no need for that. I just wanted a best friend.

Ralph disagreed with the birthday hoopla. Often he would bemoan, “We didn’t make a big deal of birthdays in my house growing up.”

“Yes, I know,” I would counter, “And that’s fine with me.”

“On your birthday we don’t have to do a thing but in my house birthdays were a big deal! They were one huge celebration of the person you were. You were loved.No one missed the birthday dinner, you chose the menu and on that day you were reminded just how important and special you were to the entire world! On my birthday you shouldn’t try and teach me that I shouldn’t have the day I want. You should respect what is important to me.”

Nothing…….This was Ralph’s Shtick he would not give me the courtesy or satisfaction of a dialogue.

He would just shut me down instead.

“Fine,” I say.

After twenty-two years of marriage, I could tell by the look of Ralph’s stance, his body rigid and turned away from me with arms folded that the day was over.

My smile evaporated, wiped away by the man that used to protect it.

I turned and began walking in the direction of the car.

I notice that Ralph and I are walking in the same direction, but no longer side by side. Quite symbolic of where we had gotten emotionally as well as physically.

We were still in this marriage together, but rather than teenage sweethearts, we were now like toddlers who found themselves in the same room. We moved around one another, more than we interacted.

A marriage one could coin, “parallel play.”

Later that evening I try to get comfortable in bed.

The normally soft pillow is no comfort for the emptiness inside of me. And the otherwise cozy comforter is no refuge for the physical aches that now accompany the emotional ones.

We lay there in stony silence.

No “Good Nights.” No kisses.

My heart is uneasy with the physical proximity contrasting the vast emotional distance. I wonder where this cold person has come from. There has been no argument today just his intolerance.

I feel awful because Ralph has made me feel like an inconvenience.

And the fact he has done this on my birthday MAKES THE STING FEEL stronger.

This has happened before but it feels worse.

A wave of loneliness wraps itself tightly around my heart.

I want to express my pain, but I know better.

There will be no exchange from the indifferent body that lay next to me.

Instead, it will be me, a one-woman monologue, a wife’s dissertation while he stubbornly says nothing. I am growing weary of these Oscar-winning performances. THIS TIME, THE CUMULATIVE EFFECT OF ALL THE YEARS OF UNBENDING STUBBORNNESS LANDS ON ME.

The impact crushed me and pushed the hurt deeper.

So I cry.

I cry until my eyes are swollen and the tears can barely find an escape.

Heartbroken, spirit whimpering, love exhausted, my body feels trapped.

I know Ralph. He will be back to his good-natured self in the morning. He will view this as disagreeing with his ‘demanding’ wife.

He will not see the truth.

That he is attempting to teach me the lesson he so heartily wants me to accept. That he, and only he, knows what is and isn’t important. How could I not see that as well?????

Of this one thing, I am certain.

Tomorrow will be back to normal for Ralph.

But it will not be back to normal for me…NOT this time.

Life was calling me.

And all that time on hold was giving me a lot to think about.

• *Below The Naked Mistress, A memoir of a woman resurrected Chapters Two and Three.

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