It's Kind of a Long Story... about WHY MY EX IS MY EX

You haven't heard the whole story. Until now.

We’ve all had those experiences that in the moment we know will forever be milestones. Life will be before the thing, and after the thing.

Some are anticipated and expected: graduation, marriage, new jobs, births, deaths.

Some are not, but are within the realm of normal human experience: illness, accidents, divorces, winning the lottery.

Having a giant oak tree fall on your house in the middle of the night? That doesn’t happen every day. It happened to me.

If you know me in real life, or online, you’ve likely heard some version of this story. Very few know all of it. Until now.

And I hope you’ll forgive the click bait-y subject and sub head. This isn’t the whole story of why my ex is my ex. There is a lot more to to it, and I will be sharing more of it here.

I did post a draft of this story in a Facebook group for women over 40. If you’re among the members of that group or people who I have told IRL and for you this is old news, I beg your indulgence and patience. And likely will again in this space.

I often say, “Please stop me if you’ve heard this already. I can’t remember who I tell what.”

That’s because:

1. I talk a lot and tell stories a lot.

2. I’m fortunate to have many people to tell my stories to.

3. Not remembering is becoming more common. #MenoBrain

When I tell a story here that I have told before, I’ll endeavor to add more detail, observation, and insight. If I don’t? Scroll to the fun stuff at the bottom. There will always be something there I’d love you to to listen to, read, watch, check out and/or eat!

Thank you so much for being here,

-Lara

If tree falls….

Short story: 

On Monday, June 28, 2021, at 1:30 in the morning. A giant oak tree fell on my house. On the house. Through the roof.

I wasn’t injured, and very little of my property was damaged, but it set off a two-year ordeal in which I moved 13 times, my mental health and many relationships suffered, and I learned what I am made of and who I can count on.

Long story:

The sound was loud. So loud. And like nothing I had ever heard before. And I felt… impact. At first I thought it was an earthquake, but the house didn’t shake and there wasn’t a rumble.

I heard glass breaking. Had the heavy mirror that Jenny’s son Aiden hung fallen? And then I remembered, he hadn’t come over to hang it yet. It couldn’t be that.

I glanced at the clock, 1:30 am, and went out into the living room.

The first thing I saw was the ceiling had caved in over a console table. About a 3 x 3-foot section was gaping open. Boards and plaster exposed and rubble on the floor.

I remember hearing a drip. Was it water damage? There had been that time that the light fixture in the family room had filled with water. 

I wasn’t sure how that could happen. There was no water in the attic. I’m still not sure how that happened with the light fixture. 

Then a feeling flooded over me, “What had I done?” Fault is my default. It’s almost a superpower how I can come up with ways that I’m to blame for what happens. Whatever it is. 

I saw that the glass doors and big window in the dining room were broken and busted. If it was water damage from the attic, it wouldn’t have damaged the windows.

I then went into the family room and saw more ceiling damage over the armoire. 

I went to the sliding glass door out to the backyard and turned on the outside light. What I remember is the whole of the glass absolutely filled with branches pressed up against it. It was like a disaster movie.

The tree. It was the tree. The huge oak tree in the backyard had fallen.

I rushed around the house, looking into every room. My son Max’s room, which I had just made over into a guest room, had been damaged the worst. 

There was a thick branch that had pierced the ceiling like a javelin.

Which dislodged a 2-foot wide strip of plaster and wood the entire length of the ceiling.

It was attached on one side, and hit the floor on the other, visually slicing the room like a backslash. 

I ran to the bathroom shaking. I sat there and breathed heavily and calmed myself down.

What do you do in the middle of the night when a tree falls on your house? I didn’t know. I don't know why it didn’t occur to me to call 911, but it didn’t. I have since learned that is exactly what I should have done. The lady at the Red Cross, who was so kind and helped me with an instant $500 grant and other resources, later told me “That’s what 911 is there for.”

What did I do? I called my mom. It’s never good to get a call in the middle of the night, so I lead with, “I’m OK and Max is OK, but there’s no other way to say it, the giant oak tree in the backyard fell on the house.”

We talked for a bit and I said, “There’s nothing I can really do about it now, I guess I’ll just try and get some sleep and deal with it in the morning.”

“Lara Starr,” she said, “Get out of that house!”

I called my… whatever he was to me at that time, Cris. We were technically exes and also spending a lot of time together. We’d broken up in October 2019, and then kind of fell in together during COVID when neither of us were going to meet anyone else and agreed it was a pandemic re-pairing. We’d started having talks about ending that and moving on.

And also? Just the week before we’d had a romantic, fun weekend in Half Moon Bay. Kayaking. Walking around downtown and poking into cute shops. Very nice dinner at Pasta Moon. Overnight in a hotel. Drive down the coast. 

When I went on that road trip I knew that there was no future between us. I would not go any deeper than dating or friends-with-benefitting or whatever it was we were doing unless he addressed his drinking. He wouldn’t/couldn’t. I was more than happy to keep going out, hanging out, making out. He was a lot of fun. We clicked on many levels. He made me feel like the prettiest, funniest, smartest girl in the room. If I had stopped seeing him like so many of my friends wanted me to do, I wouldn’t have had weekends like that. I liked weekends like that. I felt like a character in a rom-com. 

He was very primary in my life, and I was hopeful that whatever happened to our romantic relationship, that we would always be friends. 

So, I called him too. He said he would come to get me, but he couldn't. He was “tipsy.” I said the same thing as I had said to my mom about getting some sleep, and he said, “You’re being an idiot. Don’t be an idiot. Come here.” (he actually may have said “retard”) His voice sounded more angry and frustrated than caring. I chalked that up to me waking him up and it being the middle of the night (also: tipsy) and told him I’d come.

I called my mom back and told her I was going to Cris’ - it was closer than hers - and I’d call her in the morning. 

I called my landlords. They didn’t pick up, so I left a message. I can’t imagine how weird it was to hear in the morning, “Ken? This is Lara Starr. There’s no other way to say this, the oak tree in the backyard fell on the house. I’m OK and am going to a friend’s house.”

I drove the forty minutes to Cris’. I was still in my pajamas. I’d grabbed my laptop and maybe a change of clothes? I don’t remember. 

When I got to his house, he had fallen asleep. When he stumbled to open the door he seemed to have forgotten why I was there. No hug. No, “I was so scared. I’m so glad you’re OK.” he just kind of mumbled, “Lets go to bed.” When we did, he was asleep within minutes. No holding me. No caring. No connection. 

I couldn't fall asleep. I was hyped up, and confused by his behavior. There had been so many times where he had been there for me. That time we went camping and I couldn’t sleep and had to be at work the next day, and he drove me home in the middle of the night so I could get some sleep and went back to clean up the camp himself the next day. How he showed up for me when I left Chronicle Books. Several other times.

Why was he being such an ass?

I went out to the couch to try to get some sleep there. Eventually, I did.

In the morning, he came out and gave me a strange look. He later told me he’d forgotten I was there and was confused when he saw me. 

He was acting very weird. Still no hug. He started in on how I needed to find a new place to live. He was talking fast and his voice was loud and hard and didn’t have any caring in it.  I said, “Please. Cris. The tree just fell. I need to figure a few things out before I think about that.”

After that he was on the phone with his dry cleaner and doing what I think he thought was flirting, but was gross and creepy, “Your name is Ariel? You sound cute. Do you have seashells on your breasts?” I’d never heard him talk like that before.

I asked him if he would come with me back to the house to see it in the daylight and pick up a few things. He said no. “I have plans to go to the river. Make a plan and stick with it.” 

Mondays were his days off, and he often spent it at the Russian River. When we first started dating I thought he just went there to relax by the water. I eventually learned he spent the day drinking beer. I thought he might be meeting some new friends he had made from Starke’s (a local restaurant group - he’s a chef) He didn’t say. I didn’t ask.

I remember thinking, “Fine. Go. This is why we’re not together.”

My team at work had our weekly meeting on Monday mornings. I had my laptop, so I logged in. I briefly considered not telling them what happened. I’d always been pretty open about my personal life with work colleagues. It was something I thought served me. I had made friends and relationships that I valued beyond our professional connection.

Melissa, my best friend at the time (She’s not anymore. That’s another story.) had made me question that. She played things much closer to the vest. She didn’t reveal her cancer to many people for a long time. I admired her as a professional and thought it might be a good idea to follow her example.

But, I didn’t. I told everyone and they of course they were shocked and sympathetic and said I should take care of whatever needed to be taken care of.

I drove back to the house and saw the damage in the daylight. It was very bad. The arborists were already there taking down the sections of the tree that didn’t fall and clearing the branches that did. 

I saw that there was more damage than I had seen last night. The backyard was full of branches.

The attic had been pierced by branches. One landed right next to the box with my great grandmother’s dishes. It missed them by inches.

Max’s closet ceiling had also been pierced by a branch.

The shelves completely collapsed with everything in it - lots of sentimental things - crushed in a pile. 

I gathered some clothes and things, and went back to Cris’ house. I spent the rest of the day dealing with insurance and talking to my family, friends and landlords.

Before he came home, I texted him, “I don’t know what was going on with you last night and this morning, but I need your support when you get back. I need a hug and caring and comfort and softness.”

When he came back, he was more than tipsy. He was drunk and obnoxious. He put a record on the turntable and was singing loudly. He went into the bathroom and took a shower. 

When he came out, I said, “I texted you. I told you what I needed.”

He said, “I didn’t read my texts.”

He hadn’t read his texts. Not only did he (claim to) not see the one I sent him, it never occurred to him to text me and check in on me. Someone he supposedly cared about. One of his best (and few) friends. 

I said, “I’m not getting what I need here.”

He said, “Fine. Go!” 

And I did.

***

Why that wasn’t the nail in the coffin of our relationship is something I’ll probably be unpacking for the rest of my life, but it wasn’t. Within a few days we were talking and a few weeks we were seeing each other and within a few months talking about what it might take to be together (it would take him getting in control of his drinking, which he wouldn’t and/or couldn’t do)

At the time, I thought his behavior that night was a defensive response to the reality that if we were at a normal place in a four-year relationship, the tree falling would have been an opportunity for us to live together, which I knew he wanted, and there was no way that was going to happen. I would not live with an alcoholic. 

I’ve since learned that no, he’s just a garden variety narcissistic asshole, and that night I saw the real Cris. How I learned that is a story for another day. It’s the stuff of Lifetime movies and podcasts.

It took me a long time before I framed the tree falling as trauma. And it took someone else calling it trauma before I did. Trauma? What trauma? Everyone’s so traumatized these days. I wasn’t hurt. I didn’t lose much of my property. It was an inconvenience, a pretty major one, but not trauma.

I had never really given trauma much thought. I associated it with soldiers, refugees, and survivors of physical abuse or assault. Nothing to do with me. My nervous system wasn’t on my radar. Cortisol? Isn’t that what they put in cough syrup?

I have since learned a thing or two, and have become more comfortable labeling my experiences as traumatic. I’ve also learned that traumas are cumulative, and mine go back many years.

I’ve come to understand the impact of childhood trauma on my late husband in a way I didn’t when he was alive. He didn’t either. I don’t have fixed ideas about the afterlife, but it gives me comfort to think that John Starr now knows what I do.

It took me an even longer time before I understood that being let down by someone I thought I could count on is also trauma. In those first tender hours when I was more tender than I knew, I was profoundly disappointed. More than that. Betrayed. 

The night the tree fell was the start of a two-year journey of being out of my house and disentangling from that relationship. Those parallel paths were long, painful, and had unexpected twists and turns. I was joined by an expanding community of fellow travelers who walked alongside me. And there were a few who took detours and went their own way. 

It took a lot out of me. Emotionally. Physically. Spiritually. When I reached the end, I was exhausted. More exhausted than I thought was possible. From the inside out exhausted. Every fiber of my being was exhausted. 

When I got back into the house and rid myself of that relationship for good, I started a new journey. One that prioritizes rest, down time, and true self-care. Exactly how that happened is also a story for another day. One I’m looking forward to telling.

There are parallel paths on this journey as well. 

One I’m walking at a slower pace. I fell into step with it quickly and easily. Where I once walked through life a constant soundtrack of NPR, podcasts and audio books, I am now content with soft jazz and often crave silence. I’m doing things slowly and with intention and with time for transition and reflection. To my surprise, at this pace I am never antsy or bored. There is so much to read, write, think about and do. There is value in just sitting there and reveling in the luxury of inefficiency. 

On the other path, I am still skeptical that what I have been through is trauma or any different or worse than what anyone else goes through in the course of a life. A former friend said to me, “You are so selfish!” She accused me of making everything all about me. A part of me believes she is right. This path is cobbled with doubt, inner criticism and negative self-talk. The toll I pay to walk it is productivity, insight, service to others, and stories that result in triumph or lessons learned in order to justify being on it. Where each step is taken by pulling up your bootstraps.

I’m working on making the second path the one less traveled.

Lara sez…

Listen!

80s deep cut of the week! This isn’t a deep cut if you’re a Lloyd Cole fan. It’s probably already one of your favorites. It’s also foreshadowing an upcoming kind of long story about Lloyd Cole.

Read!

I’m shamelessly name-dropping and basking in the reflected glory of my pal Dan Santat whose autobiographical graphic novel A First Time for Everything is a National Book Award Finalist!

Buy!

How much do I love these my Vivaia Pointed-Toe Aria Walkers? So much that I, Lara Starr, paid full price ($97) for them. Not only that, I bought a backup pair in case the company goes out of business. I may buy a dozen and wear them for the rest of my life.

Watch!

Offspring on Hulu! A delightful dramedy that’s not at all schmaltzy. There are 8 seasons so you really can dig in. The Proudmans will feel like family.

Eat!

The New York Times’ Pasta with Tuna, Capers and Scallions

This delish dish is super easy and adaptable. I’ve made it with shrimp instead of tuna , and with chicken, onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes.

Before I let you go…

There are a couple of fun follow-ups to my first post, It’s Kind of a Long Story… about JON HAMM!

The day after the event, my friend Maria, knowing I was a Hamm fan, sent me this message:

I replied:

And totally randomly in the parking lot of Safeway a few days later I remembered that when Steve told Jon I was from Marin County, he said he had just been there.

"What brought you to Marin?"

"My celebrity baseball team plays the inmates at San Quentin. It's an intense experience."

MENSCH THY NAME IS HAMM!!

And from the "Things I Should Have Said File," no, I didn't ask him who won.