It’s been a month.
We’re in Maine.
So much mess to clean up from our squatters, but it’s been so good for us (even though one of us disagrees. Spoiler: it’s the teen.).
Healing Maine air.
Healing nature.
Healing ocean.
So much time to practice gratitude despite difficulty.
He never lived with us in our new house in DC, but here?
He’s here.
I loved him here.
I missed him here.
I hated him here.
I miss him here.
I love him here.
I’ve learned that boundaries are the distance that I can love myself and him at the same time, but…I didn’t want this to be the distance.
I never wished him dead, except for those times that I did.
But not really.
Not really dead.
Not in the sense that he could never come back.
Not in the way that he would never repair his relationship with Ara.
Not that way.
Not this way.
Before and after he left for treatment the second time, we spent a lot of time terrified. Traumatized.
Timid.
Then we were angry.
For a while it seemed like all he gave us was heartache. A la VM: “Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, bloodshed. Epic.”
We never meant that to be literal, and yet here we are.
[more VM] Each time he’d leave Maine to go back to DC, I’d say
“Come back to me.”
And he’d say “Always.”
And he did.
Always.
Until he didn’t.
He parted from himself before he parted from either of us.
Long before he departed.
It seemed like he was moving further and further away…
and not just geographically.
He abandoned us like he abandoned who he was, who he could be…
But
At not yet 44, he was only sober for maybe 16 years of his life
(including zero to 10).
Maybe he didn’t abandon anything..
Maybe we were the interruption.
Maybe he felt like he was returning to himself?
Maybe living on borrowed time felt like home?
As we got stronger, he was more
terrified
traumatized
timid.
He gave up his life.
He gave up his recovery
He gave up his love.
He gave up his understanding.
He gave up Ara.
Even if it wasn’t his intention. And even if the feelings still existed, he just lost the…action. Love is action.
Fucking addiction.
But, before that? He gave me so much.
He gave me his love.
He gave me his understanding.
He gave me a beautiful and heartbreaking book.
He gave me the *only* truly sober and in-recovery years of his life.
He gave me Ara.
I have spent so many of my years crying about, for, over this man
in his sickness
and for poorer
and til death.
Grief like this is so complicated.
It’s been six years for me as a full time single parent.
I had this idea that when she was a teen he’d get healthy and rebuild with her - largely because I’d seen others do it.
I guess not.
But. She is his greatest accomplishment.
Thank you so much for helping me raise this amazing human.
