Status Quo Vs. Online Love

She wondered had he not blown out his knee in college, where'd they be now. Maybe, she'd get the diamonds, the mink, the roses, and be driving the Lexus. Maybe Phil would be married to Gayle and she'd still be sitting here watching the world pass her by from her living room window with Glenn instead of with Phil. She imagined watching the Wheel of Fortune on Phil's super-sized television screen from across the street with Glenn. She wondered if Glenn would treat her better than Phil or if all guys were basically the same jerks.

It was then that she realized that her husband was just as unhappy as she was. He was lucky to have found his passion early in live, but he wasn't living his dream life. He never wanted to be a traveling salesman. He wanted to play football.

Once he could no longer play with his bad knee, they revoked his college scholarship a year before graduation. It was then that she realized that he was as depressed and as angry, as was she. That wasn't fair. Life isn't fair. Yet, that was his reality.

He never talks about it to her and he certainly doesn't seem to dwell on it. Maybe he suffers in silence. Maybe he numbs his disappointment with alcohol. Maybe he'll take up coaching when his son, Brady Grady, is old enough to play and live the dream that Daddy couldn't.

She didn't know how to fix what was broken or to find what was missing. How could she? She didn't know what was broken or what was missing, nor did he. She had an inkling of those things that were wrong but they all got tangled up in her head with the pressures of everyday life, whenever she tried to verbalize them and explain them. She had a feeling of how things could be better, especially living in the shadow of Gayle's bright rainbow. Only, she couldn't help but fee that her life was all such a mess and was all so overwhelming.

Only, for her, her daughters filled the holes that Phil escaped through and she found it safe to live on the other side of the wall that she had worked so hard to build, even though it was riddled with cracks. Occasionally, she'd look out through the openings, as she does when looking out her living room window and envying Gayle, while hiding behind her draperies or disappearing behind her veiled curtain wearing her mask of contentment. She smiles and listens, if only to avoid the confrontation and the conflict of another fruitless argument with her husband.

Just as she focused on her frustration, it was then that she realized her husband's inability to cope by numbing himself with alcohol, while hoping to sooth his bleak reality by reliving his youth with the excitement of vicariously watching football after football game. It was obvious to her now that they were a co-dependent couple staying together out of habit, financial necessity, and for the sake of the children, but not for love. How sad is that? Viva la status quo.

They could be happier, no doubt, but it wasn't so bad. They had two great kids with a third one on the way and they had this beautiful house, after all, in this safe and better neighborhood. Things could be worse. She should have a problem. Inhale and relax, she told herself.

Decompress from the stress of everyday life. Meditate and be happy. Trying to maintain her tough veneer that had already cracked more than once, her constant affirmation that "things could be worse" and "it wasn't so bad" numbed her into settling for status quo. Not ever having a rapport of give and take, yin and yang, and hot and cold with her husband and with their relationship, never testing the extremes, exploring the outer boundaries, and traveling the deepest depths or the highest peaks of love, they were in a rut. Instead, like a cancer, their relationship slowly ebbed into a deep ditch of silent suffering and complacent co-existence.

What happened to the giddy happiness they experienced when they found one another and fell in love? Where did that couple go? They've realized all their dreams with marriage, children, and their very own beautiful house, but why are they both so unhappy?

Too weak to save themselves; an artery of their relationship severed long ago, they were slowly but fatally bleeding to death. The temporary bandage that saved them from dying were the children and the house. Indebted and unhappy living their dream of owning a big house in suburbia, they languished somewhere under their rainbow always able to see it, but never able to grasp it and pull themselves up on top of it. Somewhere over the rainbow, they didn't know how to dig their way out. Instead of making their way to the top, not expecting any better, they grew accustomed to living at the bottom and watching the rainbow from afar.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star," she said to herself for no one to hear. "I wish I could win the lottery."

"We don't expect more than a dusting," said the weatherman interrupting her thoughts of being a big lottery winner and rich with his incompetence. She turned off the television and looked out at the snow that had already dusted several inches of deep, white, fluffy stuff.

"Fools! They must not have a window at the weather station, otherwise they'd know it's a blizzard and not a dusting."

Already hurt from his lack of interest, she hoped that Phil had remembered that it was Valentine's Day. Just as she thought that, she felt pathetic that she clutched to the one day of the year that was commercially earmarked for love, when every day should be held in high reverence of that emotional bond felt between two people who freely committed their lives to one another.

Generally, he gives her a card and candy in the morning before leaving for work. Instead of a box of candy, she wished he'd take her out to a movie and/or to dinner. Maybe, he forgot and will remember during the day that this is their special day, a celebration of love and remembrance of times past before children, mortgage payments, and credit card debt. This is their day to unite as a couple and to reinforce the reasons why they are together still. Maybe tonight he has a special surprise planned. Maybe tonight he will give her the romantic evening of her dreams. She was excited with the thoughts of Phil whisking her off for dinner reservations some place fancy.

Only, she had a special meal planned for tonight, his favorite. If he had planned a surprise on taking her out, she could always save what she cooked tonight for leftovers tomorrow. She spent the day wondering what she'd wear for tonight's surprise festivities. If she had known he was going to take her out, she would have scraped up enough money somehow to have her hair done.

He called her a few minutes before he was scheduled to arrive home to tell her that he was going out with the guys and not to wait up for him. He told her not to worry about feeding him. They were having a big Valentine's Day party at the strip club for a co-worker, who was leaving the company, and they'd have food there, a buffet.

As she talked to him on the phone, no longer listening to his excuses for not being there for her again, she watched Gayle and Glenn climb aboard the Lexus for their Valentine's dinner at that new swanky restaurant that Gayle so enjoyed telling her about. She had her hair done and was wearing her new sparkly dress that glittered with so many colors of the rainbow beneath her mink coat. They looked nice. They looked happy. They looked in love.

Alone again, it was just her and the girls again eating another supper without him. He didn't wish her a Happy Valentine's Day. He didn't say that he loved her. "I love you. Happy Valentine's Day," she said too late to the reverberating echo of the dial tone.

"Insensitive jerk," she said slamming down the telephone receiver.

She looked at the pile of gifts she bought him with the Valentine's Day card crowning the top that hid a sexy message inside for a special romantic evening tonight. She suddenly remembered that she needed new batteries for her vibrator. She was horny. She was alone. She was frustrated. She ripped the Valentine's Day card in pieces and threw it in the trash.

She looked down at her pregnant belly that she had hoped held his son, Brady Grady, and felt fat. Now, she hoped for a girl for herself, instead of a boy for him. She felt hungry and the food that she did not want and did not need, and that her husband drove her to eat, and that drove him to the strip club to pass out more dollar bills than he could not afford to give, would never fill the emptiness that just transpired between them.

She felt hurt. She felt sad. She felt rejected. With the girls in bed, she turned away from Desperate Housewives reruns for the comfort of some erotic conversation online.

As soon as she logged onto her site, she was greeted by the one she had hoped was there.

"Hello, Mistyblue."

"Hi, Tonytiger."

"Happy Valentine's Day" he wrote. Suddenly, the image of a bouquet of white roses appeared across her screen. He remembered.

"Happy Valentine's Day to you, too." She was blushing and couldn't type her message to her mysterious cyber friend fast enough.