Chapter 6: Dear Janey

Hey! Hello, my friends. Hope you’re well. Happy and healthy. It’s Maya. We are starting my letter to Janey- remember, she’s my good friend of 40 years. I wrote in Chapter 5 that I would be sharing the letters I wrote to people at the time of my discovery. Here we go!

Maybe I should frame the letter, to offer a point of reference? I’m going to pause and think a bit about that. In one way, I’d be describing the yard, so the cartwheels could be done within the landscape. However, I don’t want to get ahead of myself and there’s just so much to tell. Hmmmmmm…

(Pause break over. I’m back and I’ve made a decision.)

I’m going to provide the same level of information Janey had at receipt of the letter:

• Marc
• Me
• Family adventures and travel together
• Multiple years as a couple, living in a home we purchased together
• I erased him from my life

Cue the cartwheel racers and listen for the start of the race. It’s not fireworks or even a short whistle. It’s one phrase; “Baby, don’t be livid. I’ve done something really bad. Really bad.”

The eight second starting whistle changed my life, and those changes will last forever.

Below is the first letter I wrote to Janey.

Hey Janey:

I hope this message finds you happy and healthy. First, please know how sorry I am about sending this via email. To discuss live, causes me great anxiety. I hope you understand the email and not live discussion. For example tonight, I had to talk about it live. Right now, I’m in a bit of a teary eyed panic. I just can’t do live talk about this. Not, yet. Give me about two weeks. Live talk just drives home the point of how real and scary this all is.

Additionally, well, today is the magic six month mark, so I had to do a lot of medical testing today. Double checking all results from discovery. It turns out that most sexually transmitted diseases do not present for several months after possible infection. My first results all came back negative. Clean bill of health. Maybe that’s part of my panic, too; waiting for those results today. Duh… ya think?

You know, no one really can process the aftermath of an affair. The kids and I have taken to calling it “connecting the dots.” It’s just too much to process. Maybe folks can’t process it because it is a defense mechanism. Your brain can’t handle too much, so it only processes a few bits.

Or, maybe people can’t process the information because it certainly can’t be all true. Well, I have thousands of pages of pictures, email, text messages and Facebook posts that can document every single instance. However, believing the thousands of pages would also be a small reality check of “could this happen to me?” It’s easier to believe none of the madness, if it also means you can tell yourself that such nonsense would never happen to you.
But let’s think about this for a second.

Back in July of 2015, Ashley Madison, which bills itself as a “discreet encounters” website, had their 37 million discreet adulterers exposed. 37 million. In November of this 2015, Adult Friend Finders had a data breach of their 412 million users exposed. 412 million (not a misprint, honey! 4. 1. 2. MILLION). But what does that mean to each of the million individuals involved with the folks who used these services? No one stops to think about THAT! I am but one of a total 449 MILLION people who have been on the opposite end of the affair- the innocent victim of falling in love with someone who decided that the best route for his life outside of me, was to discreetly invite others to do drugs and have sex with him.

Here is what it means to “connect the dots”- strangers have been in my home. Strangers have left their bodily fluids on my 1600 count sheets that I bought on sale online. Maybe, like me, an unsuspecting loved one climbed into that same bed, sheets unchanged, and made love with their partner; the same man who had sex with someone else, in the morning, after I left for work. Same bed. Same sheets. I cannot take enough showers to scrub off my skin upon THAT realization.
They’ve seen my family pictures around my house. The pictures of my kids. Our family pictures on vacation. Graduations. Family birthdays. My parents and grandparents, his parents and grandparents. Maybe these women and men picked up the picture and thought, “cute family” before they headed to MY bed to have sex with the person I love.
And then there is the physical fallout. Again, I am a net of one, out of 449 million, but I’m betting a good chunk of folks marched themselves to the nearest doctor’s office to get tested for every sexually transmitted disease. I cried for a week until I got my HIV test back- negative. Herpes- negative. HPV? Well, they can test for that, but really it can show up years later like a ticking time bomb of love just waiting to cause cervical cancer. But today, as instructed, I had to be re-tested for everything. Now the waiting begins again.

And the mental anguish? Geez, take the pain of the destruction of your entire life, and then layer in your anger and guilt at yourself for not knowing it was happening. A chorus of Diana Ross has popped into my head and won’t leave. Even when I sing it out loud…..”upside down, boy you turn me, inside out and round and round.” I’ve gone over everything in my head a million times and I can’t figure out how I didn’t know.

HOW COULD I NOT KNOW?

I’m going to need to think about that a long time. It is the refrain I hear echoed most often in books and therapy. Blaming yourself for not knowing. I have essays that address that, too. What role did I play in glossing over my reality? What did I justify and blow off that I shouldn’t have? How can I do homework to ever love and trust someone again? I’m hoping people can learn from my journey. Damn-it!! I hope I heal from my journey.

Maybe it is because I am a first born, maybe it’s a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder, maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I’ve done the homework. I can actually track my Facebook posts, check-ins, diary entries and travel receipts against his text message and email time and date stamps. Consequently, I can now tell you exactly what I was doing when he was arranging these sexual encounters with men and women. If you take that new found knowledge and layer it over Marc’s activities, suddenly the picture comes into very clear focus. It’s like the darn eye doctor- “Which is more clear, lens one or two?” Me: “OH NOOOOOI! Number two- my dog Perro Blanco was dying and I had to put him to “sleep” while Marc was arranging to meet a stranger from Craigslist for sex.”

Yeah- Marc really preferred Craigslist, which is a whole other ball of disgusting wax we can burn for years and it will still smell like pig slop. Honey! I’ve gone from sad to mad to livid. Under it all? Scared out of mind for my safety and the safety of my kids. Marc exposed my kids to danger. Marc exposed his kids to danger. I do believe his ultimate motive was to have me raped and/or killed, because there is evidence of that, too.

“The Madness”, as I’ve taken to calling it, has been a huge life adjustment for me. But even in full fear, I am determined to be happy. Look around us- life is awesome. You just told me about your birthday and about your new business. What blessings! How cool! Life is really good, and should be cherished.

I look around me and realize how blessed I am to know, and travel this road so that I can keep myself and my kids safe. I intend to tell my story and keep others safe, too. I have great friends who love and support me. I am a determined gal.
Look- here’s the deal; I have to know people, right? Really smart people. These people are brain-i-acks? The smartest of the smart. I gotta find them and connect with them and somehow change The Madness.

I’ve done all that and more in my career. I think I can rally enough troops, and change the world for women (and men, and LGBTQ+ identifying people) who are abused, scared, homeless and alone. I have advanced college degrees- I’m thinking I’m capable of finding the smartest people to help me make the world a better place for everyone facing abuse. I have a plan, and intend to spread the word on best practices to do when you are suddenly placed into a tornado of insanity without any red ruby slippers.

I gotta go, honey. More later…

Love your shiny and magic soul….you’ve always been magic to me,
Maya

P.S.
We have a playlist created for these chapters I’ve written. Think of it as a soundtrack for every chapter. Head on over to Spotify and find our Maya Jane Clark Playlist. 

Save and follow us there today!
(Click the logo to the right.)

SOUNDTRACK:
Tom Cochran “Lunatic Fringe”

LYRICS:

I know you’re out there
You’re in hiding
And you hold your meetings
I can hear you coming
I know what you’re after
We’re wise to you this time (wise to you this time)
We won’t let you kill the laughter