The Note

Yesterday, I cleaned. Who would do that, right? Not usually me, but my cousin is coming in town and rather than have his room ankle deep full of rubbish, I decided to sort through some of that shit. And lo and behold I found “the note”.

I can’t remember if I’ve written about the note on this blog, but on Christmas Eve 2007, two months after my wife and her therapist kicked me out of the house to “create movement” my wife found this note. I was staying with a friend. I was allowed back in the house to do Christmas Eve with my family. The note fell out of my coat pocket and my then wife read it.

That would have been a really shitty thing to read. It was a note that I essentially wrote to work out my feelings for a girl I had met while kicked out of the house. That girl happened to be working as a stripper at the time and I happened to meet her at the strip club.

Of all the things my ex-wife wanted that Christmas a note I wrote to a stripper wouldn’t have been very high on the list. I remember the first time I reread the note after knowing my ex wife read it and feeling like I could die. I never even gave the note to my friend aka the stripper, but it was more to work out my feelings and thoughts, which writing has helped me do ever since.

I had a really hard time verbalizing or feeling emotions, but I’ve slowly gotten better at it and writing seems to be the catalyst for me to feel and think my way through difficult stuff. And getting kicked out of the house, separated from the kids, and meeting a stripper when your whole life you’ve been a Christian…hmm…that’s difficult stuff for one to process.

So, I wrote. And there’s definitely shitty parts of the note. I said something about telling my friend that I was getting divorced even though I hadn’t told my wife that. That would be brutal to read. And there was mention of spending time getting drinks together or getting lapdanced by my friend, who I had all kinds of confusing feelings for.

When we’re working out our feelings, I think it’s best to let them all out, the ugly parts and the more positive parts. Despite the fucked up parts of the note, it was really cool for me to reread it and see the good parts of it. It’s easy to read the headline “Matt’s wife finds love note he wrote to stripper” and miss the rest of the story. My book’s cover might look shitty on the outside, but read the whole damn thing before you cast the first stone.

In starting to think about that time, I guess the story is too long and involved to simply recap. I want to tell the whole thing in my actual book, but one line in particular stood out to me when I reread the note yesterday, “(It was) the only day since I’ve moved out of the house that I felt really good. After my counseling appointment, I went back to the empty hotel room and was content. I knew everything was going to be fine.”

Deep breath man. Just to mentally go back to that time is hard. The note also contained a line about my frustration with my ex wife about not being able to see my kids. So, to relive that picture in my mind…to have been kicked out of the house, away from my kids…so depressed…so down…feeling like a failure across the board.

I don’t know why I left that hotel room and went to the strip club, but my story sucks if I hadn’t done that. My kids might have lost their dad. Alone. So fucking alone. But, a stripper was the one who smiled at me. And made me want to go to therapy.

And how fucking talented is my therapist that in one session I went from emotionless and alone and feeling crazy to a man who wept uncontrollably and went back to his empty hotel room and was content. My home was not a home. And I was not at home with who I was. But, my therapist and my writing have been crucial to me not only finding peace with myself and figuring out who I am as I sift through my shit, but also to me creating home for my kids.

I just got a message from my girlfriend telling me about a day last week when I was out cold with my tooth injury. She was nice enough to entertain the kids and have a campout with them in the living room, since I was in such pain. She said Blake woke up early and was trying to think of something quiet to do so that he wouldn’t wake up his sister and said, “Okay I need to get my notebook, because sometimes I like to write in the mornings.”

Brings tears to my eyes. The boy’s dad didn’t die alone in that hotel room. He fought his way out with pen and paper and lots of therapy. Not too long ago Blake made a comment like “I didn’t know you when I was two.” And he’s right. I didn’t even know me yet. But, today he wants to be me. He wants to write and he knows I go to therapy. He and his sister will have plenty to deal with, but I hope to continue to create the kind of home for them that lets them express themselves and feel and talk their way through hard shit.

One day, they’ll find out about the note their dad wrote to a stripper. They can see the bad parts, but I hope they see the good too. Yeah, I got kicked out of the house. Yes, I tried to choose the fake of a strip club so that I didn’t have to feel. Ironic that the stripper led me to therapy and my therapist called the stripper an angel. Couch time with a stripper was the therapy I initially chose, but couch time with a real, caring therapist was what I needed the whole time…I just took the scenic route. Glad I got there eventually, because that lady took a dead man and breathed life into him. Praise the Lord.