When Mark and I were at the very beginning of our relationship, moving from a flirtatious friendship into love, he signed off some early little love note "a thousand ships for my beautiful." Now who was I to resist a suave Helen of Troy reference to my powerful, intoxicating, doomed and dangerous, mythical beauty? (If I were that woman, I would have married a different kind of man.) But the name stuck and for years that was what he called me: "Beautiful... My Beautiful..."

It meant so much to me that he saw me that way: that whatever I saw myself as, or other people saw me as, I was his Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman who ever lived. So, at some still early stage in our relationship, when we were making silly promises to one another (we seem so young when I think of this), I asked him, if he ever were to be with someone else, to find her some different pet name and keep mine sacred. Of course, he promised (so seriously and sincerely), I would always be his one and only Beautiful.

The years went by, we got married, and I assumed "Beautiful" was safe, mine forever. And more than that, I thought other words were safe: words like "you're so special" and "I love you." But five years after our wedding, knowing something was wrong but not knowing what, and desperate to track down the source of my discomfort, I installed keystroke tracking software on our computer and saw some of those sacred words (along with our credit card numbers) given easily and freely to women who were known only by their suggestive screen names. And when the precarious towers of addict lies came tumbling down, I learned of other words, left casually for other women.

That old life of mine, in the fantasy of the Matrix, had been consumed with the quest for knowledge, for proof, of some objective factual truth. I sought to know by installing tracking software, by checking phone records, by holding an ear to Mark's lips to catch the words he mumbled in his sleep. But the answers I found only left me wondering all the more what was real. How could I know "I love you" was real if he could say it to a woman he met on the street as easily as his partner of over a decade and the mother of his children? How could I know "special" was real if the barista at Starbucks was hearing the same? How could I know "beautiful" was real if it applied equally to me and a tiny, pixelated video image in a chat box? If the man I trusted more than anyone I'd ever met could deceive me, how could I know anything that anyone says is real?

The truth is I don't. I can't. Not really. I can't see into Mark's mind and heart (or anyone else's but my own). I can't ever really know that his current words (or anyone else's) aren't another vast charade about to come crashing down on me. So my journey now plumbs the next question, the one that came when the answer to that old question broke me: How do I live with not knowing?

I know I can try to take back the words, like so many roses, petal by petal, over time. I can learn to look at Mark's actions — at the fact that, nearly six years after disclosing his sex addiction, he has grown and changed dramatically and that he's still here working — and I can take a leap of faith from there. I can trust in his commitment to his recovery program and through my own I can learn to see myself as beautiful, special, loved and wanted, always, and regardless of what happens. All those things I have done and am doing, but it only takes me so far. Not all the way to a new Beautiful.

But sometimes I glimpse it. Sometimes I can see it resting serenely in the unknowable: in a deeper, grander reality, something that goes beyond facts. Sometimes, when I'm able to see every individual moment of my life — the joyous and the painful ones — as just the way they ought to be, rather than as good or bad, sometimes then I see how my life can become my own Helen of Troy. My own Beautiful.

I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here. Why, oh why didn't I take the blue pill?
~Cypher, in The Matrix

I feel good about my recovery work and good about the way my life is. I've come to accept that life doesn't work the way I thought it did and that my marriage wasn't what I thought it was. I've come to understand that happiness comes from my own mind, not from working endlessly (and without error) to ensure that everything in my life remains in a constant state of perfection. And that's so freeing. I've found a relationship to my Higher Power, that (when I can tap into it) brings me a peace and serenity and freedom from fear like nothing I've ever known.

But sometimes, I still miss the life I never had. I think of that scene in The Matrix where Cypher is so sick of eating real life gruel that he'll turn in his friends for a chance to eat imaginary steak again. I know the steak I miss doesn't really exist, and yet sometimes I long for it anyway.

Sometimes I want to fix other people's problems by bossing them. I want to live in that belief that I'm smarter and better than they are because I have their lives all figured out for them, and I would be able to follow through where they can't.

Sometimes I want to slide into that land where everyone who loves me acts in my self-interest to the detriment of their own, because that's what love is: everyone else putting me first.

Sometimes I want a lie detecting superpower that would let me know in absolute terms who I could trust and who I couldn't.

Sometimes I want to dive into that lottery fantasy where I own my own island and swim in pools of hundred dollar bills and all that wealth insulates me from every having to deal with anyone or anything disagreeable anymore, so my life is perfect.

Sometimes I want to work hard enough and do well enough that I can quit, retire, stop having to be in recovery and just be a shining angel of white light.

And sometimes all I need to do is admit all that and know that I would choose, still do choose, to be where I am today, in the real world.

Cat asked: "If you could have named yourself any name - when you were younger (first name) what would it have been?"

I actually would have named myself Mary. Um, not "Mary," as in "I really would have picked my real life name," but Mary, as in "my name is not actually Mary, but I do like it."

When I was little I had this (growing up Catholic, go figure) plastic statue of the Virgin Mary that had a little white light bulb in it. The plastic Virgin Mary was dressed in blue, looked very serene and exuded a soft blue light in my bedroom at night that made me feel safe and calm. I've left the Catholic church, but that little plastic Mary light left me with a sense of the mystical desirability of the name Mary.

Addicted Rantings asked: "How many pets do you have (if any) and what are their names, or pen pet names?"

I have one cat and one goldfish. The goldfish doesn't have a name in real life, because it just happens to be the sole survivor of a tank full of nameless fish, who were at one point victimized by my kids' addition of glue to the tank. The cat does have a real life name, but I haven't given him a pen name yet. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned him on the blog at some point, if only because his vomit was adding to some chaos or other I was busying cleaning up.

It's hard for me to come up with pen names for the people and animals in my life I've had a hand in naming. I haven't yet given my kids pseudonyms on the blog because I love their real life names so much and think they suit them so well. I named the cat with love too, so I'm not going to pick another one for him right now.

Sophie asked: "If you could be part of Neo's posse, fighting the Matrix, what would your name, bio, and avatar costume be?"

Oo, that's a good and difficult one. I can think of lots of cool names, none of which fit me... I think I'd like Ophelia, because I identified with her character once upon a time and always liked the name. I think, like Cypher and Neo, I would have been born in the Matrix with all the complicated feelings that engenders. But I'd generally stay on the ship, working the computers and equipment, because I'd be too scared to go back in again. And I think my costume would be something a little like a tattered 80's version of the post-apocalyptic world of the future: some black, updated version of Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield" dress.

Shawn asked: "Why the name MPJ?"

The initials are not my real life initials, but they do contain elements of the initials of people who are important in my life. I picked the initials first, then added the name "Mary P Jones" to them when I decided I wanted to my gender to be identifiable when I commented on other blogs.

SAWife asked: "This probably has been answered before, but who's the lady with the typewriter?"

The lady with the typewriter is some poor unwitting model whose image was licensed to Strumpfkunst, who created my blog header. I wonder if the model knows that she gets pasted up all over the Internet as the alter ego for a crazy lady?

Photo credit: Photo by shadowfax the second on Flickr

My husband and I were having a discussion once about life, the universe and everything (not the book, although we've been known to discuss that too, but actual life, the universe and everything) when he told me that, for him, God is in choices. And I just loved the way he put that. (Darn that man for doing what people are always doing with my thoughts: summing them up much more succinctly than I can.)

You see, I believe that when I am open to God (the universe, my higher power, the light within myself, the divine, call it what you will), I see reality more clearly. I see beyond the artificial limits and constraints my mind puts on situations, and I'm able to recognize and pursue alternative solutions. (See how much more pithily he did it?)

Or to use (as I'm prone to) a sci-fi movie metaphor for the way I see things: think of the climax of one of the greatest movies ever made: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Kirk and Khan are flying their spaceships around trying to kick the crap out of each other. Khan is using his super-intelligence to do some galactic scale ass whooping and Kirk (as usual) is in trouble. But in the end, Kirk is able to get the (literal) upper hand because he can think in three dimensions, while Khan (long trapped on the surface of Ceti Alpha Five) thinks in only two. It seems like a ridiculous premise that the super-intelligent Khan could forget, while flying a spaceship, that he could travel in any direction (even up and down!). However, it does allow God to be on the side of the Enterprise (so to speak, since my God is not on anyone's side), and a strangely lovable Shatner to gain the advantage over the sexy Ricardo Montalbon in battle. And after all, don't even the most super-intelligent of us sometimes forget we have other options because we're so used to doing things the way we have always done them?

Of course, you might say that in the Star Trek scenario, any one of Khan's crew could have yelled, "Hey, Khan! Don't forget that these ships fly up and down!" And Khan would have taken that into account and made a different decision. Then Kirk would have died a more respectable death than the way he was eventually (pointlessly) written out. (Oh, don't get me started on Kirk's demise in that Next Generation crossover movie! Sigh!) But in real life, having someone tell me that I have the option to make a choice doesn't actually make that choice any more real or available to me.

Why? Because we each live in our own Matrix of beliefs and assumptions. (Yes, I am pretty sure I have no way of explaining my spiritual vision of the universe without resorting to science or sci-fi metaphors.) If one of you all tells me, while I'm still living in the virtual reality world of the Matrix, "Hey, stand up on your own legs and breathe," I'll mutter, "I am, dumbass!" Because I don't know I'm in a bubble; as far as I know, I am on my own feet, breathing. It's that connection to God (or inner knowledge or call-it-what-you-will) that lets me start to see beyond the constraints I've placed around myself.

I'm on a journey -- toward growth, toward truth, toward a sustained connection with that God of mine -- and at every step, every fork in the road, every moment, every decision, I am doing the best I can with the knowledge and resources (physical, spiritual and emotional) I have available to me at that particular moment. I may look back and think, "If I knew then what I know now..." or "I should have...," but the truth is that I didn't know those things then or have the strength or see those choices from where I was at that moment. I could only have done something different if I were a different person, in a different place, than who I was and where I was. So every choice I make, odd as it sounds, is the best choice for me at the moment I'm making it.

And bringing this back around to Silda Spitzer, who started my thoughts in this direction: Silda Spitzer is a real-live grown-up, adult, big-girl-panties-wearing woman. If the decision to leave was truly available to her and she made the decision to stay, I may not know the reasons or may not have made the same decision myself, but I have to respect her decision.

If her choices were constrained by where she has been in this life and by who she is now, if she was unable to stand up to pressure or unable to see her needs as separate from Eliot Spitzer's or unable to see the difference between what she wants and what she is supposed to do, then that's where she is on her particular journey and I have to accept and respect that. No one can tell her what the Matrix is, and no one can force a red pill down her throat. If she was constrained by an inability to see other options as valid, maybe going up on a stage in front of the whole world by her husband's side is her way of taking the red pill she needs to escape into the real world.

So, the way I see it, the right thing for Silda Spitzer (or anyone else) to do is the thing she, as a unique individual, wants to do, and what she, as a unique individual, is capable of doing within the constraints she lives with at that particular moment. And the best thing I can do right now, as a woman, as a feminist, as a human, as the unique person I am at this moment, is offer my support and respect for the journey she is on.

Of course, I know that if you have a different set of beliefs about the world than I do, you certainly won't agree with those the last three paragraphs. But agree or not, what I really want to know is, how do you all see the world? Free will? People's choices? If you post on your own blog, let me know. (And feel free to use sci-fi metaphors so I can understand it.)

I got a mere one paragraph (the final paragraph, oddly enough) into my promised post on Silda Spitzer and the nature of the universe (I know, that's my problem, I think small) when I realized that I might want to use this concept of "The Matrix" yet again. And I found I've never adequately explained it (in spite of the fact that my friend Tigermom asked me to nearly a year ago). So, let me take a step back, pause and explain The Matrix. After all, even if I don't end up using it in this particular upcoming post, I know I'll refer to it again (and again and again) eventually.

Those of you who've been hanging around reading me for any substantial length of time already know that I find the movie The Matrix to be a brilliant metaphor for addiction (and codependency). And I know that many of you who have both seen the movie and lived with addiction (either as an addict or a family member) have told me you've experienced that same resonance. But many of you haven't seen the movie (in spite of the fact that I assigned it to you as homework nearly a year ago) and/or haven't lived with addiction. If so, this post's for you.

First, a quick plot summary: Neo (played by the inimitable Keanu Reeves) is a humdrum cog in the corporate wheel by day and computer hacker by night. In his computer prowlings, he hears of something called "The Matrix." After several tense and eerie scenes (with special effects to lend a nightmarish quality) Neo meets Morpheus, who knows there is something wrong with Neo's world and offers to share his knowledge of The Matrix. However, Morpheus says he cannot tell Neo what The Matrix is, he must show him. (The first time I saw the movie, I thought, "For goodness sakes, just tell him!" But I was in The Matrix then myself.)

Morpheus offers Neo a choice between two pills: one red and one blue. "You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." Neo takes the red pill, of course, and when he does, the world changes: a mirror melts and swallows him, he chokes for breath, and finds himself in an egg filled with goo, attached to it with wires connected to him through jacks in his skin. The wires are ripped from him, and he plunges down a chute into dark water, where he is scooped up and rescued by Morpheus and his crew in the real world.

Neo finds that everything he's lived, everything he's experienced, was a virtual reality dream fed to him by a computer. He (and the billions of other people in The Matrix) never actually walked or talked or breathed or touched another living being. He lived his life in a perpetual dream, in the womb of a machine, and has only now been born to the real world: a world that is cold, sunless and decimated by war (you know, the typical post-apocalyptic world of the future).

The movie goes on with guns and prophecies and romance and groundbreaking special effects, and while there are other parts of the movie that resonate, for the most part, that disconnect between realities, that violent birth, that birth as an adult, that birth of consciousness, that is what I'm talking about when I talk about The Matrix.

Addiction and codependency center, each in their own way, on fantasy. Addicts and codependents aren't attempting to escape from reality, they've never in their lives experienced reality. And that sudden, brutal awakening in The Matrix, more than anything I've ever seen or read, captures what it felt like to have that fantasy ripped away and to wake to reality. It captures what it felt like to me to find out that my husband was a sex addict and what he tells me it felt like to realize he himself was an addict. And I never took a breath, never walked a step, never truly saw and touched my husband until I left The Matrix.