Jan

10

No good guys, no bad guys

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It took me having real distance from my marriage to be able to acknowledge this in my head and out loud: I was not an easy person to be married to. For plenty of reasons probably, including my lazy habit of not screwing the lid back tight on the peanut butter jar, but specifically for the fact that I struggled with addiction off and on for so many years. We were married for a long time, so there were many periods of sobriety, but too many where I tried and failed to hide substance abuse. I dealt with this like every addict does, by lying and getting defensive and turning things around and often behaving like I was the victim.

That created an unhealthy dynamic in our marriage for a long time, where he had to be the cop and I was the fuckup. It was hard not to internalize and believe these roles, I felt like ultimately I was never in the right because I was the one who was the addict. I was the worst one, you know? I always felt that way, deep down. I felt like I had no right to feel like things weren’t working for me if he was the one who stayed when I was at my worst.

He did stay, after all. He stayed through the lowest of my low points. The worst day of my life in terms of pure shame was also the day I stopped drinking. I still can’t really talk about it without wanting to, you know, die, but it involved me secretly getting drunk when I was at the cabin with my young boys and his parents. His parents had to take the boys to sleep with them while I slept off being absolutely shitfaced, and then I had to face them the next morning. And I drove home with the worst soul-eroding hangover on earth and I did not drink again after that day. May, 2013.

I hope my boys have very few memories of me being altered. I did get very good at hiding, I was a high functioning fuckup for the most part. But of course we always think we’re good at hiding when the reality is it’s apparent to other people.

Struggling with my demons always felt to me like it was my battle to fight alone, but the truth is I impacted those around me and John most of all. He was angry with me, he was supporting of me, he was encouraging, he was frustrated, he was all of the things. He probably could have benefited from something like Al-Anon. He was dragged through it and none of that was his fault.

All to say, there are no heroes or villains in our story. We are both just humans. I do think overall we had a good marriage, it wasn’t always easy but there were some really good times. I’m sad and sorry we aren’t in a better place now, but maybe that will change someday.

I cannot live in shame and regret, I did that for too long and it was so damaging. It is the job of every addict to find acceptance for what was and let that be, let it help us strive to be better but not hold us down in self loathing. I am so sorry for every bad choice, and yet I have come to feel like it all shapes who I am now. I have so much empathy for those who struggle, I feel so humble and grateful for all the good things in my life. I am so incredibly thankful that my boys don’t have to worry about me or experience me in unrecognizable behaviors.

I spent a lot of my life wishing I could undo so many things, but I don’t feel that way now. It all had meaning, even the shittiest parts. It all taught me something. I’m not who I used to be and that’s okay, we all change as time goes on. And sometimes we grow apart.

Jan

7

Back in the pulse

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Ms I died, the day after I was able to say goodbye to her, and it was heartwrenching but also I was so glad she did not linger in a poor state of being. She only had to endure a relatively short period of major decline and her body died when she was in deep rest, it was fast and it was peaceful.

Have you heard the saying, grief is love with nowhere to go? Of course everyone grieves differently, but it does sort of feel true, like your heart is full to the aching point with emotions about the person who is gone and it seems impossible that you don’t get any more time with them. I do think that you can grieve someone and let that love be spoken, shared, and amplified, and then that feels like it has somewhere to go. Like how I was able to spend time with her daughters afterwards and talk about her with them, how that felt so sad and so good at the same time.

She was not in my life for a real long time, but she sure did make a real big impact. I’m glad for my relationship with her daughter who did the hands-on work of caring for her the last few years, she is such a sweet friend and it will be good to be with her in a different way as she adjusts to a new way of living.

I think of myself as agnostic, not quite atheist because who can be that confident? I don’t personally believe in a Christian afterlife, heavenly gates or fiery depths. I mean who knows, not me, but here is what I want to believe: I want to believe that when we die, it feels like the greatest sense of coming home. I want to believe that we are all part of the same connected field, that time is just something we humans perceive as linear but in reality everything everywhere is happening, has happened, will happen, it’s all one thing. I want to believe that we are gifted the knowledge of this as our bodies die, that everything that seems separate is not, that everything is one and individual consciousness is part of being a living human.

I don’t understand any of these things I want to believe, only that I want to believe them. There’s a Fiona Apple song, I Want You to Love Me, with these lines: And I know when I go all my particles disband and disperse / and I’ll be back in the pulse. That’s what I want to believe.

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