I'm so sorry. I would kill to be able to write a journal entry about how pretty my violin glows in the sunshine or how amazingly well-written the pattern seems to be for my intricate Fleur-de-lis lace piece but I really have to work through this stuff first.
He didn't leave but he's going to.
Jacob accepted a position in Africa. South Africa? Or something. Somewhere. This is unbelieveable. I stopped listening after that because my consciousness began to darken around the edges as everything suddenly became clear. I thought I was going to pass out. They kept this from me. He didn't tell me.
Trey didn't so much as stand by while I left him, he GAVE me to Jacob as a farewell...present. A human present, which I'm pretty sure is trafficking, wife-sharing, whatever.
Jacob isn't going to be here for much longer, I was his grand sendoff or some evil thing.
He leaves July 1.
I'm a lot confused but it didn't stop me from refusing to answer the phone, the door, text messages or emails for a day or more. The kids and I played inside and cleaned and watched a movie and had some downtime.
I don't understand any of this. Here's the part I have been avoiding because maybe if I didn't say it out loud I'd escape judgement somehow.
Jacob is a minister.
Yup, an enigmatic nomadic hippie crusader Unitarian Christian minister. (He goes where he feels he is needed. That's how he ended up here shortly after we moved to this godforsaken place. I needed him! Ha!)
And a very good one. He's led his congregation to tears. He's one of those people you just drop everything and listen to as he weaves a story. Everyone thinks he is a beautiful man and he is and maybe it's because his inherent goodness radiates outside of his skin and affects everyone within a 5-mile radius. He has brought people into the church by way of his charms, his youthful age and his convictions, his beliefs. He is contagious.
Now do you see? He and I spent hours arguing faith, talking deep, baring our souls. We discussed my want for faith to be proven, my struggle with God and superstitions and bad luck and fate and wanting so desperately to understand how he can believe something so strongly. He brings it up so often to keep me on my toes.
I suppose it's the way he approaches every aspect of his life, passionately, with every fibre of his soul.
Lovely, isn't it?
Yup, I ruined a minister's marriage and my own because I am one hell of a selfish girl. Or am I? The minister Jacob left his lovely wife and took up with that blonde. The one who swears too much and has the nerve to say she questions God. But was I the one who ruined it? There is no point in fingerpointing now.
Would God do this? What sort of God puts three people in a room and says-take turns! For a limited time only!
Hence, the anger and the grief. He's leaving. I left and now he's going to leave. Wouldn't it have been better if he had just gone? And Trey, well Trey knew and he did this anyway. He made it easy. He made himself out to be the bad guy and he stepped aside.
Jacob wants Trey and I to get back together when he leaves.
WHAT?
Actually, I think I swore a lot more but I really have no need to put it here.
Why aren't we going? Well, I'm not moving permanently to the southern hemisphere. While it would be nice and all sure but it puts me in a weird position. The kids need to see their father and it's as if Jacob knew I wouldn't go, so I become his Bon Voyage Cadeaux.
And the rub is that he didn't even ask me to go, because he knows that I wouldn't take the kids that far, and he knows that I do love Trey too and that after Jacob leaves Trey will step back in and we'll somehow pick up where we left off, only this time I will have evened the score of heartbreak so that we will be starting anew and years from now this whole experience will be merely a blip on our radar. Someday.
Again, WTF?
What are these guys thinking? I'm not a commodity. The only thing they were smart about was not really telling the kids what was going on. Trey asked me to wait a few weeks, instead we told them that Daddy was working a lot and that Jacob would be here as often as possible to look after all of us. I was the one who told everyone else. Again, lovely.
See? Didn't I say it seemed a little too smooth, too well-thought out.
So the question only remains, why? Why did Trey remove himself from the picture and let Jacob step into his place?
Why did Jacob destroy his own marriage simply for the sake of a brief time with me? Why would Trey agree to any of this, thereby potentially ending his own marriage? How could Jacob go through with this? How did I fall for this?
It's simple really, and I think I failed to notice. I see how it happened because I would never have welcomed him into my home as a lover without letting go of our spouses first.
Jacob isn't only my best friend. He was Trey's too after they worked through their issues together and they found a way to make peace with each other about the only single thing that both one of them ever truly wanted.
Me.
The betrayal lies in the fact that he stood on my front step and asked me if I wanted to be with him for good. Forever, he said.
He lied.
~My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Hypocrite.
