I Shaved For This?

By Kelly Yente

I started writing for two reasons. First, this became my journal, my catharsis, my purging of everything I’d put myself through. If I wrote it, I could read and study it, and therefore, learn from it. And two, when I went out to find some sort of literary connection, I found it difficult to relate to anything I found on the shelves of my local book store. I will admit that certain books did speak to me, and others did rhyme with my experience, but nothing truly said, “Yes, I’ve been there too.” The closest thing I found any connection to was Elizabeth Gilbert’s "Eat Pray Love," which I believe spoke to just about anyone with a soul. Perhaps it’s a bit of an auspicious goal, but I can’t help but hope that my experience will speak to women in their twenties the same way Gilbert addressed the paralyzing dilemmas of women in their thirties. I, too, hope that my story will have a happy ending that includes a sexy Brazilian ex-pat who wants nothing more than to fill his days and nights with the task of loving me.

Unfortunately, the trials and tribulations of a woman in her late-twenties (Holy sh*t!), such as myself, rarely end in such a way. Or maybe they do, but my experience would say otherwise. Unfortunately, my experience could more likely and appropriately be titled F*ck Dwell Cry or Screw Pee Pray. (I’ve been peeing on entirely too many sticks lately.) Kiss Wait Tattoo or the more overarching Honeymoon Decline Torture could also be aptly applied. I suppose I’ll be happy as long as I can also claim Mistake Lesson Application as a title and I don’t slide into the cycle of Mistake Mistake Mistake.

These are a few of those mistakes, lessons learned, and lessons applied. I should also mention that these are true stories, as I remember them, however I have changed the names to protect the innocent...namely me. Ok, so maybe I’m not entirely innocent, but I am honest, at times raunchy or blunt. I make no apologies for this, you have been warned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Yente
• Release date: Jan 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301118458

Kelly Yente

Growing up in Colorado, Kelly used writing as an outlet, though as an adult, it began to take on therapeutic role. Married and divorced by the age of 23, Kelly began writing again to make light of such a difficult time and to reach out to other young women who like to learn lessons the hard way. Blogs eventually turned into the idea of a memoir, though Kelly wasn't sure how to wrap up her story. It was a tarot reader who explained that she had to live it first, and so Kelly quit her job, sold her stuff, and set off for adventure in Costa Rica. Kelly lives in Costa Rica now with her beach mutt, Ron Burgundy, where she is living the next stories she will put to the page.

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I don't need no Tico baby

or

The Prologue

I've been living in Costa Rica now for nearly a year and I've learned two very important things in that time. First, I have become quite the expert in the Tico male, Ticos being the local Costa Ricans. Let it be said that while this over-simplified description of Tico males does not apply to all of them, there are enough of them who fit the bill that this stereotype rings true. The following is my most scientific of observations on the subject and reading said observations with a British NatGeo sort of accent is encouraged.

It's not uncommon to see a young boy, no more than 12 or 13, riding around expertly on a motorcycle in these parts. They're probably on their way to or from a job, mostly like as a cashier or hustling the latest round of tourists in town.

This process starts young. The Tico toddler will spend endless hours perched on various parts of any number of forms of transportation, before graduating to his own over-sized bicycle that can hold an astonishing number of his friends and/or family members.

Once this skill is mastered, around the age of puberty, the boy receives three very important things.

1) The Rosetta Stone of pick-up lines, designed specifically to be spoken in broken English and drive its way directly into the heart of some lovely and unsuspecting tourist with burnt shoulders, a MasterCard, and an Imperial label peeled from the bottle and place on her arm like a badge of she's prime, get honor.

2) His scent - Luckily, such amorous predators are terribly conspicuous in their natural environment, leaving the wafting trail of over-applied cologne. At or around the same time the Tico male receives every line he will ever need to woo the gringa ladies, he also receives a 55-gallon drum (with atomizer) of the scent he will bathe in for the rest of his life. The fortitude with which some of these men apply and wear their scents I can only compare to "Sex Panther - 60% of the time, it works every time." And fear not, even with such liberal application, it seems to be the one thing other than sand that seems to be in never-ending supply here.

3) The keys to the motorcycle. Some Tico males ascend to this level of manhood sooner than others. You usually see this 13-year-old riding home from a long day of working at the local super or selling bootlegged DVDs on the side of the road. He is on his way home, to his mortgage, his wife and three kids. Now before you go off crying to Unicef or PETA or TODAYSCAUSE.org about child labor laws, don't worry, this kid's life isn't all work and responsibilities. He's got the key to a motorcycle and a mistress he'll sneak off to see once everyone is fed and in bed. She's probably the last foreigner walking by that actually perked up at the sound of Hola guapa! or Oh, mamí! or the various kissing and whistling exercises outlined in the appendix of his pick-up manual. (Those lines have to work on someone, right? Otherwise they wouldn't keep trying. It's like that one chick who said that the butt "wasn't that bad.")

As he gets older, he might attempt more advanced pick-up techniques, usually including Plying Her with Drinks, Falling in Love with Her, and the lethal Es la aventura de vida! (Chapter 7, She's Onto You) that seems to make inhibitions and panties evaporate. It's Tico Spanish Fly. So effective, that even the most egregious of faults can be forgiven and forgotten, you know, like the fact that he has a wife or that he rides a scooter.

BEWARE ladies, even the most level of heads find their judgment impaired by the combination of heat, strong booze and beautiful half-naked men that can feel their energy, (Chapter 4, New Age Chicas).

This is an important, but difficult lesson which led my to my next conclusion: I don't need no Tico baby. As the following account will confirm, had I come down here, to Costa Rica, five years ago, when the dream first planted itself in my heart, surely I would have a Tico toddler by now.

I'm not going to lay on a whole schmaltzy Everything happens for a reason testimony, but truth be told, I couldn't have made it from A to B without a few stops in AwFuck and Sonofabitch. These are a few of those pit-stops.

This is my version of every story – the universal pain and triumph with its own flavor and nuance.

I lost my virginity a week before I lost my virginity

I lost my virginity when I was 17. I’d had it long enough and it was time to get rid of it. I had been dating the first boy I’d ever loved, as much as it can be love when you’re that age. And now that I think about it, he has been one of the few that I had been sexually intimate with that I feel truly cared about me, not just getting a piece. Jake and I are still friends, and I still carry a bit of a torch for him.

Jake and I had started dating in the spring of our junior year of high school. I used to sneak out of my house through the cellar door and drive to see him and do the awkward things that teenagers do at three in the morning in a camper in his drive-way. But we never actually had sex.

On a summer day, when I was running errands for my mom, I stopped by his house. He was the only one home; his parents were at work, and his younger sister on a summer camp field trip. We ended up in the shower, probably something we had seen in a movie. As Jake shut off the water, he heard the front door open.

JAKE!! It was his sister.

She’d left something at home. Jake went to cut her off at the pass dripping wet, wearing only a towel. She never knew I was there, but it was enough to scare Jake into celibacy. He wanted to set a good example for his sister and her finding us in the shower with his dick in my mouth wasn't it.

We broke up soon after this. It wasn’t so much that we broke up, but circumstance kept us apart for a while and neither of us made the effort to bridge that gap. It was for the best. Or that was the story I sold myself in order to save any face and not feel rejected like a common harlot by my newly Saved by Jesus boyfriend.

Meanwhile, I was stuck with this pesky virginity that I was really saving it for Jake. He was the One. But I wasn’t about to wait around for him to figure out that I was his One, and finding Jesus wasn't in my cards either. Teenage impatience and the indelible urge to grow up was taking hold. By this point, my virginity seemed like an albatross around my neck, a bulky reminder that he didn’t want me. So I would find someone who did.

Before Jake and I had started dating, I would occasionally go to my friend, Bryan, for a good make-out session. We had a consistent pattern. We’d watch a movie. One of us would start to tickle the other in a flirty, this-is-a-safe-way-to-get-close-to-you fashion until the other one was pinned to the ground, prime for some sloppy, retainer-n-braces filled French kissing action.

It as a fateful day in September when I allowed him to go all the way. We were watching a crappy B-movie aimed at teenagers who thought they were indie.

I’d heard all the stories; I had no expectations of enjoying myself, but I did expect to feel something. Bryan wasn’t the most well-endowed 16-year-old to begin with, but it didn't help when in the middle of what is supposed to be a special moment in the life of a young woman, his best friend called, AND HE ANSWERED! After he hung up, any hope of even a meager erection was lost, yet he continued to grind up against me for another five minutes before he shuddered and grunted for a second and then completely collapsed on top of me.

A week later, while drunk at a party I had no business to be at, I let a guy put it in, just the tip, just for a minute, just to see how it felt. I figure between the two experiences, I’d chipped away at my virginity enough for the next year. I didn’t go near the stuff again until after graduation.

My early college years could be characterized by my shameless willingness to search for someone who wanted me like I wanted to be wanted. And when I found it, I latched on as if my life depended on it.

The Ex Files

About six months after receiving my final divorce decree in the mail, I received an email from the man who received the other copy. I don’t recall the purpose behind our exchanges, but in his short message, he made sure to tell me that he had legally changed his name. Shane Walker Leer was no longer. He was now Cole Walker. My jaw dropped when I read the screen.

I’m sure he chose the name Cole after the USS Cole, which was bombed in the Gulf of Aden in 2000. He had joined the Army Reserves right out of high school, tried college after that, and then into the Navy. He tested into the Defense Language Institute and learned Arabic, making him extremely marketable in the years following 9/11. Unfortunately, as he puts it, CIA fucked me!

Despite being a vet, the only time he’d been shipped out, so to speak, was as a civilian contractor. I met him almost a year after he’d come home from the Middle East. In that time, he had to sell his house and undergo several surgeries on his digestive tract. He was eleven years my senior and slept on his parents’ couch, suffering from both physical and mental effects of seeing battle. A friend of his had gotten him a job at the bookstore where I processed publisher returns. Despite the age difference and his obvious emotional Samsonite, we quickly latched onto each other to cope with the daily frustrations of retail hell. Being with him was comfortable and easy. The first night I spent with him, he was house sitting for a friend, and the Zoloft he'd been prescribed to treat his PTSD snuffed out any chance of an erection, so he went down on me...four times. What 20 year old wouldn't love that?

I was still an undergrad, about to start my second sophomore year at Colorado State University and my second semester as a prime time DJ at the school’s radio station. Sometime in August, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, the band that made me fall in love with college radio, was playing a show in town and I had been able to score an interview the night of the show. I offered Shane the extra ticket I’d been comped by the band’s manager.

He stood behind me the whole show, holding my bag, and took my picture with Roger Clyne after the interview. The next day, he told me that it was the first time since he’d been back in the US and in a crowd that large without feeling threatened.

And that’s when it happened. I was done for. I made the mistake of thinking I could save him. I had to learn the hard way that you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to save themselves.

#

Pregnancy Scare #1 (a.k.a. Peeing on a stick in a men’s room at Wendy’s on my lunch break.)

#

I was proposed to a week before I was proposed to.

After only a few months of dating and one baby-bullet dodged, we had already decided that we were going to get married. He consumed my whole world and treated me like a queen, something that had been lacking in my past. It was the closest thing to being swept off my feet and I latched on with my trademark ferocity for love. The original plan was for me to finish my Bachelor’s and celebrate with a wedding. But taking the path I was on, that would be about two and half years out. Over Christmas break, after dating for just four months, we decided to move things up a bit. I was tying my shoes while he zipped up his jacket. I don’t remember where we were going, doesn’t matter. He looked at me and asked casually as if suggesting that we see the movie after the movie instead of before, What if we didn’t wait to get married? What if we got married next year?

I was twenty years old, the subject of the doting attention of an adventurous, intelligent man who could have been a character in a Tom Clancy novel, and he wanted to marry me. I paid no attention to the man behind the curtain, the man with the giant sign that said this is a bad idea. I looked up at him and said, Okay, with a giant smile on my face.

He told me he still wanted to propose, actually ask me to marry him. Sure, why not?

I was proposed to, for the second time, in the middle of sex. I suppose you could argue that we were making love and what better time to ask someone to commit to loving you forever. But I thought it was odd then, trying to sell myself that same justification.

Instead of a ring, I got an engagement guitar. I really did want to learn how to play, but he was already a talented musician and intimidating to be around. He ended up playing it more than I did. It was lost in a pawn shop loan shortly before I decided to leave.

My wedding ring was stolen with my wallet the spring after we got married. I should have taken it as a sign. We had discussed tattooing rings. Instead we got matching tattoos in Costa Rica – a Tico indigenous symbol taken from their origin story. It looks like a spiral of blue and green waves, to match the color of our eyes. Blech! It still sits on my ankle reminding me of a completely foreign chapter of my life. I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do with it just yet, but I will be adding to it. I don’t want to totally hide it; he is a big part of who I am today. But I feel I need to do alter it somehow, since it represents such a period of growth over the past few years.

#

…and I rehearsed my exit.

Valentine’s Day, 2006: The Beginning of the End. The house we lived in had a shower with two shower heads. We almost always showered together, claiming that someone had to get that hard-to-reach spot in the middle of the back. On this particular morning, Valentine’s morning, he asked me what my plans were for the day while I scrubbed his back. We were taking some classes together at UCD, so he knew what most of my plans were, but when my answer didn’t match up with what he wanted to hear, he started in with the passive-aggressive before it turned into a full-blown fight. He had to get to school, I stayed in the shower, getting more and more angry as the water lost its warmth. I felt powerless, exhausted of feeling inadequate and only one thing seemed like it would restore my feeling of enfranchisement.

I stepped out of the shower, resolute, not caring that I was dripping all over the bathroom. Wrapping an oversized towel around me to shield against the cold, I walked into the kitchen and started throwing open drawers until I found what I wanted. I returned to the bathroom and stood solidly in front of the mirror. With a fistful of hair in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other, I proceeded to hack off at least eight inches. It only took ten or so minutes to fill the sink and leave me with an emotionally charged hair cut.

When I met him before our last class of the day he spoke quickly, I'm not going to class this afternoon. Get notes for me?

I stood, slack-jawed in disbelief.

Great. See you at home, he turned to walk away, but stopped. Did you do something different with your hair? He gave me two thumbs up and walked away.

#

Pregnancy Scare #2 (a.k.a. My 23rdbirthday, dropping our last $10 into penny slots.)

#

I started seeing a counselor shortly after that, the second one since we’d gotten married. We argued it was my issue to deal with. It didn’t become an issue that would take him to counseling until another argument sometime just before Halloween. I don’t remember the specifics of the fight, but we only ever fought over Problem A or Problem B, so for the sake of the story, we’ll say it was Problem B this time. It was all becoming too much for him to handle, he needed to take a walk. Just before stepping out the door, he said, There are a million women out there who would kill to be with someone like me, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who treats you like I do.

To which I replied, I won’t be here when you get back.

I called my mom, who had only begun to hear of our mess a day or two earlier when I lost it at what should have been a lovely girls' brunch with just the two of us. She was better than Batman responding to Commissioner Gordon. She was on it, STAT. She picked me up and treated me to a Burger King breakfast before taking me home and getting me settled in my old room. I spent three nights there, until I saw Shane on campus and he agreed to go to counseling with me. To this day, he believes I was staying with a friend from work, one more piece of evidence for his case that I am a lesbian.

Since we were living off of student loans and little else, we could only afford the low, low prices (free) of grad students on campus working toward counseling certification. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m blaming the shitty counseling services for the failure of my marriage. In truth, I don’t think anything short of a miracle would have saved it. But the hour a week we spent with our trainees only slightly prolonged the inevitable.

The second time I left, the time I left for good, was about six tortured weeks later. I never wanted my marriage to feed the divorce statistics; I wanted the amateur shrinks to work. I wrestled with all of it, not sure of what to do. And then I lost my wallet on the bus home and that turned into another argument about Problem A. I couldn’t have that argument again.

It was like verbal-rhea, I don’t want to be married anymore.

I didn’t shout it. It seemed like the natural response to whatever he was saying to me. He wasn’t surprised. I apologized quietly (What else can you do in that situation?) and took a walk.

Despite being surprised with myself, I didn’t feel torn or conflicted. No part of me wanted to un-ring that bell. That self-inflicted tortured feeling was gone. Sadness and a little bit of fear set in, but for the most part I was just calm, peaceful. And despite my heart breaking in two and my pride suffering some collateral damage, I felt better than I had for a very long time.

I graduated with my bachelor’s ten days later and by the time Valentine’s Day rolled around again, I was headlong into my teaching program without a clue what lay ahead. Good thing I was too busy to notice the storm on the horizon.

Hello, My name is Ironic

When I finally felt the strength enough to utter those final divorcing words, it was largely because something in me ached to explore the world, and it was becoming more and more clear that if that was to be my future, it probably wasn't going to be as a Mrs. to his Mr. (My reasons were much greater than that, but I'd be lying if I said that it didn't play a role.) Perhaps he was a necessary step for me, a lesson that needed learning. He taught me much about myself and my strength, but his past was a painful one, one that he carried like a cross. But at his best, he fueled my interest in all things foreign, and ironically that would be partially to blame for adding our marriage to a pile of sad, told-you-so statistics. He would refuse his culpability, instead pointing to Kerouac's On The Road, another ironic Christmas gift, and his suspicion of my being a lesbian – a suspicion he also held for his own mother. As Elizabeth Gilbert wrote that cities can be encompassed in a single word, I contend that my marriage's name tag would read:

Now, I must give credit where credit is due. More than he may ever realize, though I have told him several times, my good friend Andrew, who I've known since high school, threw plenty on the fire that burned down my marriage, in the same way that a firefighter realizes that the building's gotta come down. That happens, right?

Andrew and I shared an awkward night in college and an insatiable hunger for travel. But while my status as student and my husband's holding out for management kept our feet firmly planted in Cash Advance offices, Andrew had made decisions that planted his feet in many a Customs line.

As I trekked through a rocky marriage feeling isolated from the life and friends I'd once known, Andrew sent stories of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, Tibet and Nepal. His emails, his stories, his adventures made Andrew a beacon of possibility in a dark dark night.

I don't know if it was a completely egoic decision on my part, or if it was the lowest time in my life that revealed my divine path and purpose on this planet – either way, when I found myself nearly involuntarily uttering the words I don't want to be married anymore, I salved the pain and shock with the knowledge that I had done so under the condition that I should travel. I like to think that the calm I felt immediately after, if only briefly, was an indication that I'd made the right decision – and the hope, the promise I'd made to myself would make the upcoming storm a little easier to weather.

And what a storm it would be – mostly self-inflicted torture at the hands of my heart and bellybutton's insatiable need to meet other bellybuttons, and subsequent lessons.

What? Don't touch the burner? What about this one?

I'd heard recently that often suffering is one's spiritual teacher – and yes, suffering taught me a lot – though for a long time the only lessons I'd learned were a healthy dose of cynicism and a jaded heart. I protected myself with a shield I'd created out of my future travel plans, a never-purchased one-way ticket to someplace exotic. It was easy to say no to any sort of emotional intimacy with anyone that could potentially anchor me the way my ex-husband had. All the while, I proving to be anchor enough. Excuse after excuse held me back. I'm already enrolled in my teaching program. Ooh, I like employment. A steady paycheck with bennies is nice. I hate my job; I'd rather be poor. I can't travel without money. One excuse after another, but as I look back now over four years after leaving my marriage, it's clear that each obstacle and excuse served a purpose.

Mr. Las Vegas

Let this story serve as proof of the difficulty that comes with ending a marriage, even on the best of terms, especially when you're a baby of 23.

I was still working at PF Chang's when I told him that I was leaving. It was a menial hosting job I got because Shane was in between projects. Going through the holidays with a divorce on my back made me especially vulnerable, the weak one in the pack, still in the thick of that Hi,I'mKellyandI'mgoingthroughadivorce, phase. Clearly this was the time for me to start dating so it was perfect that I met Colin Fitzpatrick, or as I more frequently called him, Mr. Las Vegas.

Mr. Las Vegas was also getting divorced, but the fact that he was a millionaire with four kids made his split slightly more complicated. His shared custody agreement meant that I only saw him every other week. Did I mention that he was twenty years my senior?

He plied me with expensive drinks and helping me to find a new place to live so I could move out of the home I still shared with my soon-to-be ex-husband, who by the way, I was still having sex with. (I never claimed to be that smart.) Mr. Las Vegas seemed to have the motivation that Shane lacked and I believed him when he promised to take me three of my closest to Vegas for a long weekend.

It was a few weeks before we slept together. He made it a special night at his house, where I had to park down the block and sneak in so his neighbors wouldn't know. He ordered Chinese and made me a ridiculously strong raspberry martini to wash down the medical grade MDMA he gave me. He abstained because AA frowns upon such things. As I write this now, I realize how fucking creepy it all was, but after our session in bed I understood the need for such drugs and libations. I have no idea how his wife tolerated his jackrabbit sex, let alone conceived four children, but that coupled with so much other douche-like behavior, I understood why she left.

We dated for another few weeks and had sex (sober) a few more times before I got fed up and finally hit my limit. When he informed me that my Spring Break trip to Las Vegas wouldn't happen because he had his kids that week – a fact that I had alerted him to weeks earlier and he completely dismissed, as if I didn't know how to count – I said enough. Sure, I may have been behaving a bit like a gold digger, but I wasn't about to be a stupid one.

A few months later he showed up at the sports bar where I worked for my mom and step-dad, all dressed up like a rhine-stone cowboy, like a man with too much money and not enough sense. He'd come to make good on his promise of Sin City, but I was already at least three or four mistakes past Mr. Las Vegas.

Adventures in Bellybuttons

I dealt with the grief of my divorce with a three pronged approach: caffeine, booze and bed-hopping. I spent my weekdays priming myself for a teaching career and the weekends as a cocktail waitress at my parents' sports bar. I had a plethora of willing accomplices in my quest for