“She’s got a smile that heals me…”

↓

 

 

 

 

 

I still recall laying in bed.

 

Watching her dress in my bathroom.

 

Looking at her in her jeans and bra.

 

Doing her make up in the mirror.

 

Even now, after her cheating, betrayal and madness—

 

I still recall every supple curve, every flash of those bright eyes and every in-joke we shared.

 

Restaurants and bar excursions; amazing sex and root beer floats.

 

Most of all, I remember how she’d make coming home – from my miserable, frustrating government job of selling my dying country in broken pieces – the best thing that had ever happened to a poor kid from (literally) the wrong side of the tracks.

 

 

 

She was also the woman that absolutely razed every single belief I had to scorched rubble.

 

She pushed me onto the long-road suicide attempt that caused another woman to give me the nom de guerre I employ on Twitter (including its abbreviated form among select friends) ► Whiskey & Ashes ◄ and landed me here, in our corner of the ‘net.

 

Yet, there was another thing she did that was equally powerful.

 

 

 

Although she left me – tears streaming down my face – on the roadside, wearing a suit, awaiting my attorney to take me to fight my dismissal from government service…

 

She left this poor kid for other women to pick back up.

 

To show me there was still a life worth living.

 

To help me heal.

 

To laugh again.

 

To realize, like everything in life, there’s good and bad.

 

That fire cooks as well as burns.

 

Truth be told, that was the biggest irony.

 

 

 

See, I’d had infinitely more success with women after her than I’d ever had prior to her (and I did well enough for myself).

 

She taught me that women will put you in the gutter faster than anything.

 

But fish you out just as quickly— often quicker.

 

Losing my polish and revealing my rough edges only served to have more women latch onto me, oddly enough.

 

And bless me with their kindness.

  

Sure, she broke me.

 

But her sex [gender] saved me, too.

 

 

 

 

Many have come and gone since her.

 

To be honest, I’ve loved every one of them.

 

They were good girls, each in their own way.

 

My relationships became healthier than they’d ever been.

 

Because now I knew women were just people, too.

 

Struggling to get by.

 

Why do you think I do this?

 

 

 

I hate women the same way a food critic hates food, a film critic hates film and music critic hates music.

 

In short: I don’t.

 

In fact, I can’t think of any [earthly] thing I love more.

 

I just don’t pretend women are flawless.

 

 

 

Now, I can only speak from my experience, but it speaks pretty damn loudly.

 

And it tells me that there is something encoded deep within men.

 

That we’ll never see depths of Hell without women.

 

But we’ll never really see the heights of Heaven, either.

 

As, God rest his soul, the Private Man used to say:

 

Feminism liberated men, not women.

 

To which I add:

 

Lamentably, the freedom thus granted scares and confuses the life out of men since they (at a deep, unconscious and likely genetic) level, have no idea what to do with it.

 

I’d argue that’s the plague from which so many men suffer, these days.

 

A soul-rending hole that previous male generations never had.

 

In fact, that’s why I’m always banging on about learning to love and respect yourself as men.

 

So you can live with or without women, seeing as the good ones continue to be scarce.

 

 

 

However, there’s something about the right (for you) kind of woman in your life that will keep you going like nothing else ever could.

 

Something that makes dark times, shit jobs and shittier days manageable.

 

I flatter myself I’m a good writer.

 

But I’d be a fool to think I could articulate it.

 

Let’s just say a good woman is like a second wind during an exhausting marathon.

 

Or akin to getting into your house from the car just before the heavy rain starts falling.

 

Or simply a well timed and hearty laugh at gallows humor.

 

I’m sure it’s a feature, not a bug.

 

 

 

Look, if you want to go MGTOW, I completely understand.

 

Seriously.

 

If anyone has right and reason to do so, it’s me; I’ve paid enough dues to march my way to the front of that line.

 

But I don’t.

 

And won’t.

 

Because, although I’d never have fallen without her.

 

I’d also never have soared.

 

 

 

 

 

Q♣