Going back to your house // Back from the dead (sorry I left you hanging for like six years about those shirts I did for The Matches, but here's what happened after that)

There’s probably a very small (if it exists at all) subset of my audience that read this blog post about my handmade, limited edition merch collaboration with The Matches and were like.. um what happened with that? The announcement was made and then… what??? What happened next???

The short answer is: I got divorced.

Not really because of the shirts.

But… definitely not not because of The Matches.

It’s been quite a few years now of wanting to share more of the story of what happened as a direct result of the 2014 tour that The Matches did to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their first album, E. von Dahl Killed the Locals. But every time I think it’s time to finally put it into writing, something else happens and the entire narrative has even more layers and subplots and becomes even more difficult to summarize into a single blog post. Or even, a coherent series.

It will eventually, probably, someday, become an entire book (there’s a chapter outline saved on my laptop waiting for me to not be afraid of querying such a personal story). I’ve reached the point where I don’t think that this story will ever be over.

But today, I sit at my computer, in exactly the same spot I was (metaphorically speaking, I don’t actually remember where I was physically) when my (now) ex husband (we were very much still married at the time of the previous blog post) texted me that he was going to file for divorce.

TEXTED ME.

THAT HE WAS GOING TO FILE FOR DIVORCE.

TWO DAYS AFTER WHAT WAS LITERALLY THE MOST FUN AND EXCITING MINI TRIP TO GO CELEBRATE MY FIRST EVER PAID ART JOB AND THE END OF AN ERA WITH ALL OF MY INTERNET FRIENDS.

THAT I TOOK HIM ON AND PAID FOR WITH MONEY THAT I’D EARNED THROUGH SAID ART JOB.

AND HE TEXTED ME TWO DAYS LATER THAT HE WAS GOING TO FILE FOR DIVORCE.

(sidenote: this blog post is not about my marriage as a whole, and there is obviously a considerable amount of context that is missing for brevity’s sake, but what I do need you to know before we continue, is that the entire relationship was rife with abuse, isolation, and manipulation, which helps to give some explanation as to why, what seem like such small instances of kindness from strangers that occurred between 2014 and 2018, were 1. so significant to me, personally, and 2. directly resulted in the end of my marriage and the paths I took after that. I am self-aware enough to know that to someone who has not lived the life I have, these stories seem inconsequential, and I seem to be making a big deal about nothing, so I do need to make this clarification. Also, no I will not be detailing incidences of abuse to “prove” anything to anyone, if you think that you need to hear “both sides” of the story to decide if you believe me or not you need to leave RIGHT NOW and never come back, and if ANY of this sounds familiar to you in your current relationship dynamics please call the national domestic violence hotline you deserve so much more and there are so many services and organizations that can help you start a new life in safety)

AGAIN, TEXTED ME.

HIS WIFE OF SEVEN YEARS AND MOTHER OF HIS TWO CHILDREN WHO STOOD BY HIM THROUGH SEVEN YEARS OF POVERTY, HEALTH CRISES, QUESTIONABLE FIDELITY, AND PRETTY MUCH EVERY KIND OF ABUSE.

THAT HE WAS GOING TO FILE FOR DIVORCE BECAUSE ONE SINGLE DAY OF OUR ENTIRE MARRIAGE COULDN’T BE MADE ABOUT HIM.

Ok I’m going to stop yelling now and explain what I mean by “in exactly the same place” because, I didn’t really explain that, did I?

Well, where I am right now (again figuratively not literally), is two days post seeing a Matches’ reunion show at The Fillmore in San Fransisco, where I had an absolutely delightful time seeing one of my favorite bands and catching up with so many (now long term) long distance friends that I met through The Matches (I did not have a custom merch collaboration this time, but we’re still counting this as being back in the same place). A little sore, a lot tired, and so, so happy to have gotten to have that experience.

Only now, I’m not just so, so happy to have had that experience once.

I’m so, so happy to have had that experience, survived not only the immediate aftermath but what can only be described as a six year long baptism by fire that has only somewhat recently begun to subside, and made it all the way back around to complete the circle as someone reborn from the ashes with an entirely new life, and have the experience again, only this time, it was good. It was so, so good.

From here, it’s… it’s dare I say… almost… funny that, if you zoom out far enough, my abusive ex husband was so threatened on an existential level from one (married) frontman of a (not famous and not currently touring/releasing music) pop punk band was nice (in 100% completely wholesome ways only) to his wife and hired her for one (one!!!) small (under $1k total profit) art job that she did in addition to her responsibilities as a DEDICATED wife and mother.

But obviously, IT WAS VERY MUCH NOT FUNNY AT THE TIME.

So where had we left off?

The shirts! I had spent months sourcing vintage sweaters and button up shirts, embroidering them with my designs, preparing the shirts for sale, AND, the part that I didn’t tell anyone at the time, being screamed at on the regular because of how stupid it was that I was “making overpriced t-shirts for my high school crush” instead of whatever the hell it was my ex husband wanted me to be doing (which, I want to add, was clearly not spending time with him because at this point he was basically never home and barely participated in family activities), and as a result, wondering every day if I should text Shawn that I give up and can’t do the shirts anymore.

But, like a dumbass (or an idealist, depending on how you look at it), I not only finished the shirts, but used my money, from the separate business bank account that Etsy sales went into (this is another THING that I don’t have space to go into here) to take him with me to go see the show and celebrate the culmination of this project and the tour.

I booked the trip, we flew up for the day, and for the record I had a great time and it was everything I could have wanted. We even met up with some of my new internet friends before the show!

The show was great, my shirts either completely sold out or almost sold out, EVERYONE was complementing them/me and when we hung around outside the venue so I could see the guys from the band and get a picture with them, and the whole time people were asking me how I was doing and all I could get out was “this is just surreal.”

In retrospect, yes, my ex was making rude remarks through the entire thing, but I was able to brush them off as just, he’s not a nice person, its fine. But THAT WASN’T GOING TO TAKE AWAY FROM THIS MOMENT WHERE I FINALLY FOR ONE TIME EVER GOT A TIME TO SHINE.

And then, two days later, the aforementioned text message.

And I think… I think there was a big part of me that thought this was the end of the story.

I didn’t want my marriage to end, so I did do everything I could to make myself small, not rock the boat, and not let the embroideries cause any more problems.

This lasted… a few weeks, until I got, yet another once-in-a-lifetime, living-out-my-teenage-dreams opportunities: flying out to Minneapolis to go see Justin Pierre (from Motion City Soundtrack) play a solo show, and have breakfast with him at his house the next day, because, and I am not making this up, my gynecoligist’s niece, who I only knew online because we followed each others blogs for a bit and had. never met in real life, moved from LA to Minneapolis, and JUSTIN PIERRE WAS HER NEIGHBOR.

(This is another thing that, yes, there is a lot more to it but again, now is not the time or place for it, but what you need to know is that my ex husband was pissed and I went anyway and it was lovely and 100% worth the consequences when I got home)

And again, an even bigger part of me wanted this to be the end of the story, that the embroideries were just a fun little detour, a glimmer of joy in an overwhelmingly depressed and isolated life as I tried my best to hide the abuse and keep going while, by this point, raising my kids entirely alone in every meaningful way while being regularly screamed at over these small things that I have going on that he can’t make revolve around him (again, all of the context for this does not fit into nor is it appropriate for a blog post).

To catch you up on this timeline: I made and posted my first embroidery hoop in August of 2016, launched the Etsy shop in… the fall of 2016(?), was initially asked by The Matches to work on the shirt collaboration in the fall of 2017, for the tour that would happen in summer 2018. The trip to Minneapolis was in November 2018. At the time, it didn’t seem like these events were that close together. But, in retrospect, wow that was so much in so short of a time.

And I finally left him for good in May 2019.

There is far too much that has happened between then and now to include it all in one blog post. BUT.

The first two people to reach out after I publicly announced the split? Shawn (from The Matches) and Pablo (their manager). The first people to rush to support the jewelry business I started in the aftermath of my divorce (the one that that literally supports my family to this day)? Instagram friends I met through The Matches. The literal, actual last thing I did before the pandemic changed everything? A screening of Bleeding Audio, the documentary about The Matches.

As you can see, there has been a recurring theme here.

Getting out of that situation and the long, drawn out recovery process would have been an entirely different experience without everything/everyone that was in my life because of The Matches.

(Sidenote: What a follow-up to that blog post announcing the embroidered shirts, right? Was it worth the wait? I know it’s not the sequel I was expecting to write!!!)

And now, to bring things back to the present day:

This weekend I was back in San Fransisco, to see The Matches at The Fillmore (this time with my cousin).

Which yes, is the nicest, tidiest full circle moment that we could possibly have in regards to everything that happened as a direct result of… the last time I went to San Fransisco to see The Matches at the Fillmore. It was also the best time (once again all thanks to Pablo for taking care of us, like he always has, for ten whole years now).

But there was another kind of full circle moment: once again, coming back from the dead.

The second half of 2023 was, effectively, a speedrun of every bad thing that could possibly happen to a single mom in an already precarious situation that I have christened the “cavalcade of Crises” to try and diffuse the trauma a little bit (this is yet another thing that we do not have time to go into in a blog post). While things were absolutely not the same as they were in 2013, there were echos. I did not like this. And of course, it’s as this is finally calming down that The Matches announce a 20th anniversary show, giving me something to finally look forward to, a familiar glimmer of hope amidst a sea of burnout.

While for me, seeing The Matches at the Fillmore is not a homecoming in the geographic sense that it was for the Bay Area kids that had grown up alongside the band, this show was definitely the reminder I needed of how far I’ve really come in these ten years. Since that first show. Because of that first show.

For ten whole years now, Matches shows have been a safe space, where people are nice to me.

For a lot of those ten years, Matches shows were the only safe place where people were nice to me.

Those parts of the story that I’d hoped were the end? Those were the times where I believed that those nice things people said weren’t things that were true or that I deserved to hear, and it’s taken a decade of therapy to realize that… all of those good things people at Matches shows see in me and say nice things about? Those are real, those are me.

So I’m glad the story didn’t end at any of those times, and have accepted that it’s probably only going to get longer and weirder (again… this will need to be a book to fit the whole thing).