It’s a man’s world

Say you get wonked in the head – hard – the sound so horrific it makes spectators gasp, and leaves EMTs concerned. But if you’re walking, talking, and eyeballs eyeballing, then not overly so – not yet. It’s like rubbernecking an accident on 684, a crash happens, but you must be super careful to avoid yet another.

Because it’s the second hit that might kill you. Or maybe leave you permanently impaired, or best case, forever hurt and afraid: will I be down and out with the next one? Is this what I’ll be like forever?

It’s the second blow that takes you out. It did me.

The first blow I took was a little over two years ago, when a Zoom screen of middle-aged white men determined my marriage officially. When I balked – choking, out of turn – at only 8 years alimony for a 34-year marriage, the Chief-Middle-Aged White guy, the judge said, “Well the plaintiff will be 65 by then, so we can’t expect…”

And my own attorney added, the guy supposedly advocating for me: “No one is going to make a man work past the age of 65 or 67,” little girl – he didn’t add the little girl part, but might as well have, so obvious in his tone and inclination and all over his face, while the other Hollywood Square litigators nodded in agreement.

I could feel a virtual pat on my head.

I swallowed my angst and pride in a mouth drier than a burr in a horse’s tail, blood roaring in my ears and eyeballs, my head spinning, and a sinking heart made of wet cement.

The second hit came last week, when, $10k in (thank you Deads), I met for a post-judgement hearing to decide whether my now ex-husband, conveniently out of work, with no prospects in sight, can officially modify alimony down to nothing – zero. He had already stopped payments back in July, claiming from his country club gated community, or maybe from the marina with his new future ex-wife, that he had no job, no prospects, depleted his savings, with no means to pay.

Poor guy. Out of work, he had stopped looking for jobs right after telling me he could no longer pay alimony, coincidentally, right after our daughter’s wedding, and even more financially telling, at the same time my dead mother’s house went up on Zillow.

Coincidence? I think not. Neither did my attorney, who depicted the timeline.

After 8 hours of humiliating testimony, my new attorney, on the clock at cha-ching per hour, via the magic that is Zoom, with a new judge, yet again, another middle-aged patriarch, showed nothing but empathy and sympathy for the plaintiff (not me). And opposing counsel, a woman, doing her job: relentless, condescending, humiliating.

“Why aren’t you looking for work? Why are you only looking for admin jobs? Why do you only work part-time? What was your previous career and why aren’t you pursuing that?”

Like I’ve been playing golf this entire time and not buying adult diapers, clearing my mom’s airway of puke, apologizing to home health aides, PTs, nurses, infusion centers, social workers, and begging for more morphine. AGAIN.

When questioning concluded, the judge rendered his decision, after disciplining me for 10 minutes, holding me in contempt for being late with financial documents. I had no idea I was being chastised, and even less clue about what was late and why.

When the scolding was through, he pivoted to the star of the show: complimenting and commending the cliché of man plaintiff on his resounding resilience: trying so hard to find work, it’s so hard at his age, kudos for reinventing himself as a realtor (?!?!?!), and agreed whole heartedly, she doesn’t need the money, inherited IRAs made my account grow, and she should secure full time work shortly.

Thanks to the Deads (father, sister, mom), I have a place to live and car to drive. Lucky me. (Not worth the cancer rinse and repeat, fyi.)

Yet this poor guy, working hard to do the right thing. And of course, he’s spending money at Wayfair, going to dinner, paying credit cards in full each month, and paying marina fees and reupholstering his (future ex-wife’s) boat.

“We can’t expect him to stop living his life,” quote unquote said the judge.

And to think I was afraid to show an $18 movie ticket charge to see the Springsteen movie.

My Deads are meeting my husband’s financial obligations of a 34-year marriage, and he’s fixing his future ex-wife’s boat.

Lucky me, another yet dead person who left 83 years of nostalgia to clean up, this time with a couple IRAs, crates upon crates of boxed Hess Trucks to cash in on, along with mold-riddled boxes of rotting antiques, engine parts, doll parts, and bureaus and chests of mice nests, that barely sold at an estate sale.

“Why aren’t you working full time?”

I’m not homeless and struggling, not like after he first hit, and he can walk away with a clean conscience, fat wallet, and the Judge’s resounding seal of approval.

And I’m still walking, talking eyeballs eyeballing, and have the people I’ve buried to thank for protecting me, until death do us part.