Heartbreak and Betrayal.

...if you'll stick with me - being the creative soul I know you are- enjoy the process, we'll get there. One step at a time...

Before I stop rambling and ladle out a bowl full of this concoction I've been brewing (hum, mixing my metaphors there) I want l share an experience with you...one of deceit and betrayal.

One of those trusted few who read my first attempt at this story taught me a lot. She helped me with plot, tips on the process of writing day in and day out, sold me an old laptop for $100 and encouraged me to keep moving forward, to share the plot lines, twist and turn ideas with her. She gave me the courage to sit down day after day while I was unemployed and keep plugging along on a story I knew I'd never finish. I'll be forever grateful to her and other friends in the process who, for years, kept encouraging me to think of myself as a writer.

All this work on my first true attempt to write down the story in my head, then actually start cooking up that 'batch of stew', took place after a devastating career crash. Little did I know at that time it was not a career, just an interim position to move me into my actual career in higher education administration. The last place a dyslexic solid low B student who took (literally) a decade to earn an undergraduate degree, could ever imagine herself. But life has made me wax philosophical and spirit works in mysterious ways. One would have never happened with out the other. Life's road is often rocky and difficult to see past the next bend.

Just weeks after that unexpected job change, my dear, sweet new husband I affectionately call 'Bikerboy' (as in mountain and road bicycles, not Harley's) felt the hit of 9/11 on his family business. Here he was emotionally and financially supporting his new wife and step-child along with his own two daughters, an expanded living space and expense when my sudden derailment shook us to our foundation. He encouraged me to take a few month off, to write and enjoy myself, get my energy level back up, then start my job search.

After four months of no options in the job market, patient Bikerboy sat with me at dinner and spelled out the reality of the economy's downward spiral on his business and asked me to start job searching again...looked at entry level positions if I had to. Of course I immediately agreed, got out my credit cards, bought some black pumps and a new suite, and polished up my resume.

My friends who were helping with 'my story' met on a monthly basis to talk about our projects. They were both living off residual income from former projects. Neither had full time employment, children to tend to, spouses to consider or health insurance for that matter. I valued their opinions and the ways they found to live lives full of creative energy. But our lives were worlds apart. They didn't take the end of my 'writing sabbatical' (aka unemployment) at all well. They were already annoyed that a year earlier I had succumbed to the trap of traditional feminine wiles and remarried, a personal affront to their self deluded sense of independence and 'we don't need men' stance. My Mom summed it up beautifully - independence does not mean living off parents. Independence is not pretending to be retired to avoid getting a real JOB.' Mom never really suffered fools, must be why my Dad drove her nuts.

So on the heels of my accepting that the writing stint was over, and the beginning of the nasty process of changing the every-other-week custody situation of my 12-year-old son, my writer friends read me the riot act. Safely ensconced on the leather sofa, a big fluffy dog's head in my lap, I endured a lecture on 'well, if he really loves and supports you, he'll stop pressuring you into going back to work.' Out of sheer exhaustion I took a dangerous tact and veered into the reason for my needs to be employed: insurance and stability and the pending custody date.

Thinking I could discuss anything with these two friends, I revealed there were strategies my attorney wanted to use in which I was uncomfortable. I was so tired of the whole "she's a whore, witch and adulterer" mantra he tirelessly sang to anyone who would listen (the reality that there was nothing but an online flirtation with the idea and being sick of him had no bearing on his stance). I was considering fighting fire with fire, of stepping off the high road where I had so carefully balanced during his 'fits', stalking, threats and manipulation. I hated the attorney's suggestion of lowering myself to his level, giving him a slap of understanding to which he could relate. But God I was tired of it all. My alternate lifestyle friends did not at all approve. Our vibrational frequencies had took a huge shift in direction.

Later that night with their indignation ringing in my ears, I was unusually quiet. When my husband asked what was wrong, I shared my inner turmoil. Holding my hands in his, my sweet and gentle 'Bikerboy' said he knew it would take at least a few more months to find a job, but he could see the writing on the wall. 9/11 had wrecked the economy and the bad times were coming. He went on to say that he in no way wanted to pressure me but it was November, and it would be early Spring before any job leads panned out if I started right away. We had no idea how optimistic a view that was.

He went on to reveal that he had been blessed with a nice contract that had appeared just as my job abruptly ended. They were half way through the contract. He could still support the new family of 5 on his income - for the moment. He suggested I work as much as I could on the story but asked me again to expand the job search. I did.

At the next monthly meeting of the 'the girls' I ignorantly referred to my ex as the 'effeminate back-of-the-closet coward he is'. They were incensed that I was ignoring the years of training to be 'sensitive to the lesbian and gay life'. They admonished me - how dare I disparage said lifestyle, and quite frankly I was showing my ignorant, redneck roots. The silence was deafening.

Sitting on the deck overlooking a row of majestic mountains they asked if I had resolved the 'work issue' with my new hubby. I shared our discussion and asked that they help keep an eye open for jobs in the area. One handed me a glass of wine, leaned her self-proclaimed 'woman of size' on the deck rail, the other pulled her rocking chair closer and together they began to brow beat me into finding a way 'to make him support you'. Here were two women who had a half dozen failed marriages between them, and had offered more than a little innuendo that they had 'gone over to the other side', were not giving, but demanding that I put this man, my sweetheart, the most stable and understanding person I'd ever known, in his place and trade in my hard won independence to make him support me. After a half hour of back and forth it took a dark turn to 'well you obviously married him for money, make him pay'. I gave it up and headed for flatland.

I took the long way home winding around the lake and considering all that had been said. I had found 'Bikerboy', someone that, for the first time in my life, I could see myself growing old with. For the first time I felt free to be myself, develop my own opinions and reject those of of my spouse. This was having a profound change in self esteem. I was developing opinions and recommendations of my own -not my parent's or my ex's, or my husband's. Sure, I tried on biker boy's opinions, sometimes parroted them back to see how they felt. But knew when the didn't ring true, and something amazing happened...there was no pressure, no verbal badgering, no emotional abuse to think like him. Each time there was no backlash, I got stronger and more comfortable in my own skin. This was totally new territory and I loved living there.

And yet, as I began to express my own thoughts and preferences, to try and pull my friends into the joy I found in life, each recommendation and idea was resolutely dismissed as 'too pedestrian', or 'too wifie', something neither of them had any desire for. I realized what I had missed in all of those conversations was 'have an opinion as long it differs from the men around you but it has to be the same as ours.'

I got home and followed up that uncomfortable visit in friendship hell with an e-mail thanking them for their opinions but stating that my husband and I would work our the issues of a new marriage, and parenting step-children. Not saying, but clearly indicating that as marriage was something neither of them had any success in doing, I'd get advice elsewhere.

Blended families are defined by strife and how you resolve and meet the needs of every one's children while preserving the marital relationship. This is no task for the faint of heart, but one I chose. We were barely married a year and struggling through our first real crisis - something I thought we were handling fairly well.

My e-mail was only a few seconds early crossing cyberspace with one from each of my two friends. They let me know in separate but synchronized messages that they had no desire to 'suffer through another divorce with me'. Hugh? Divorce, who said anything about a divorce? Oh ye of little faith. They told me not to respond, they had blocked my calls, blocked my e-mail and that was that. They simultaneously cut me off faster than a vegan escaping a bar-b-que.

What had triggered this? Worse transgressions had taken place among the three of us over the combined 15 years we had known one another. I cried, mourned the loss of my support group, my friends and came to the very sad realization that I was only a friend as long as I was pliable and so lacking in direction or opinions that I was fun to manipulate. Now THAT hurt.

Heartbroken and unable to shake off a sense of betrayal, I brushed off my ego, got my resume together, and found a job.

Unbeknownst to me, the opportunity for the more experienced writer to 'get her career out of the toilet' came from this experience. She took my story line, my main character, tweaked her, and wrote a story around her. Then SOLD it as her own idea as a mystery series to a publisher. (I found the book online this past year when I was searching Amazon and just for kicks and giggles entered her pen name). I laughed until I cried. What a wonderful affirmation of my ideas. After 5 years of I found the answer to the unexpected 'being dumped". She had to get me out of the picture so she could rewrite my idea. How truly sad.

I decided then and there to soldier on and finish what I started. Lesson learned. You will see a copyright notice at the end of each blog. I Love ya'll but ignorance is making a mistake once, it's plain stupidity to do it twice. No offense intended. :-)

This incarnation of my story of what I call 'my girls' is very different from the sad story she plagiarized. But I'm ready to trust other eyes and ask you to try out the story. See if you like the characters - or hate them depending on their role in 'the book'. I'm a bit older and a bit wiser, so maybe 'the girls' have grown as well, fleshed out a little like their mother.

But before we get to the story, let me share with you how I found myself here at 'porchview' working a two decade old idea, transforming from a door mat to bringing 'my Divas' to life....