Story

They say to heal you should try to write your story. I don’t know where to start. Maybe at the end. Me on the floor, book covers ripped from their backing, sobbing, broken, weary. Not the bottom, but not the top. Maybe the lower quarter if you want to get mathy. That’s where I’m at.

I married an addict. I did not know this when we dated, when we got engaged, when we were married, when we had our 5 year anniversary, when we went to Paris, or the night I told him I was leaving.

But I loved an addict for 10 years. I did not know he was an addict, though I lived with the repercussions of his addiction every. Single. Day. And wondered why I felt so lonely and crazy and unsafe. I’m still unwrapping my last 10 years: tenderly, slowly and sometimes all at once in a puddle on the floor.

Only a spouse of an addict could understand the loneliness and confusion perpetuated by The Addiction. He is a good person. Anyone would tell you that. He grew up with difficulties children shouldn’t have to deal with. His addiction goes back to his father and to his father’s father and who knows how far beyond him. But he had convinced me he did not have his father and grandfather’s issues. He was different. He was unaffected from his trials as a child. And I knew he was telling the truth; I never thought twice. Why would I? I knew him from 13 years old. Dated him when we turned 16. Marrried him at 20. I knew everything there was to know about this person except his deepest, darkest secret, which would shape my childhood, young adulthood, and now my future in ways I never imagined.

I am the recovering ex-wife of a sex addict. It is the most silent, the most emotive smothering, most invisible addiction out there. It breaks hearts, dreams, and families. But I don’t want it to break me.

Don’t look back.

Run like mad.

And I don’t want to be a pillar of salt,

So don’t look back.

Run from babies never imagined,

Run from bunnies in yards

Who made it, even when we couldn’t.

Run from those broken dreams

Run from those realities that weren’t realities that were realities you didn’t even know were existing

While you woke up every morning

And ran like mad.

So, child, don’t look back.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I have yearned, always,

For something indefinable.

Something buried in the hymnal,

Or the bottom of a communion cup.

Maybe something hidden just beneath my skin,

Or within the puff of this cigarette,

…the song hummed by my niece while coloring…

And I think its life beckoning.

I found the never defined, and fuck, is it moving.

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I spent my evening on the freeway.  I drove a Suzuki LS650 Savage 60 miles in the gusty wind and it was so much fun.  My hands and feet are still reverberating from the trip and I felt great on the bike.  The clutch was quite a change from what I've been dealing with on my Buell Blast...I'm tempted to steal the Suzuki for myself but I do love the Buell; I'm hoping after some time in the garage tonight installing a MRC clutch assist it will be a better ride for me.  My jacket also came in the mail, and I'm struggling to decide if it's worth keeping.  If it was just a jacket I'd send it back and find something new, but unfortunately for me, XS is the smallest they make motorcycle jackets.  I suppose motorcycle jackets are meant to make one look like a line backer, but I'm fairly certain the shoulder armor is actually supposed to rest ON the shoulder, not the arm...
Freeway riding is actually easier than city driving, at least when there isn't stop and go traffic.

I feel a little buyers remorse over my bike.  It certainly is the right thing for me right now, but I feel I will grow out of it sooner than I anticipated.  The great thing about used bikes is once they are a certain age they seem to keep their value.  I think I will spend a year on the Buell getting used to all the new technique and skill I still need to develop and perhaps consider upgrading next season.

Mostly, the hour long drive on the bike helped solidify the decision I've made to ride.  It's scary and thrilling and dangerous and satisfying.  People at work remind me everyday I'm going to kill myself doing it, but right now riding is something I want, and it's a want I can actually fulfill, do something about...T hat doesn't happen all that often, getting exactly what one wants...so I will take what I can get.

It took a few hours, but finally, while making a turn, only in second gear, I leaned with the bike and it was the euphoric high I've experienced after a great run.  The sun on my back, the amount of control in my body leaning to the right while the wheels stuck to the ground and I made a lovely whoosh sound as I changed to third...and everyone keeps reminding me people die on these things. And it's true. I know. My childhood friend, James, who I had a terrible crush on in my early teens, and who grew into such a kind, handsome young man, died in a head on collision on his bullet bike.  I found out while in study group through a text message.  And I hate open caskets, because that isn't the person at all, it just makes everything worse...I visited his grave once.  It was near a chain link fence and someone on the other side was smoking and life can be snuffed out so quickly and suddenly we are rotting bones with feet on top of us.  People talk about where he might be in life now, but I think about all he did. How happy he was.  And though he died young, at least he died doing something he loved.  And maybe that's better than being slumped over in some nursing home being fed apple sauce...
I know what love feels like, what life feels like, and I think it's a little silly not to do something because it's risky.  Because if I make it to the nursing home, I'm going to have some fucking great memories.  Hopes and dreams that may or may not have come true, triumphs and failures, and risks taken that make me joyous and broken and filled with gratitude.
So, whoosh...

Railroad tracks separate me from where I want to be.
And I run like fuck to cross,
wondering if I've ever been home before this.

I'm just running like fuck.  

We are all just running like fuck.

And it's neither here nor there;

it has little to do with where at all...

I think it's mostly who we're running near.

I would whisper the dirtiest word and scream the loveliest dream and it would all mean the same thing.

I sat at my desk in my cubicle with my hands cupped over my nose and mouth.  Staring.  Not seeing anything.  Just trying to tell myself to take a breath and move my hands.  You are fine.  Move your hands. Count to three and then move your hands from your face and get back to work.  But I couldn’t ever count to three, and so I just kept sitting there that way.  And then finally I took a deep breath and moved.

I don’t freeze up like that often.  But sometimes it happens when I become anxious; generally caused by a perfectionist mentality where I feel I've made a mistake or I’m not smart enough or any such nonsense that I try to sift through on a regular basis.

It makes me feel weak to have an aspect of myself so vulnerable and needy.  It’s not something new; it has been a background demon my whole existence.  Every year I conquer more of it, or at least a different aspect of it, but I cannot completely rid myself of it.  Maybe someday, maybe not.  How I react to it has morphed throughout the years and currently I believe I’m in the best place I’ve been.  But becoming anxious…freezing up…sometimes it’s just too much for me.  Sometimes I really just don’t know what to do but give in.

I can change a lot about myself. I have changed a lot about myself.  But right now this is still a very real aspect that I deal with on a daily basis.  It may look like I’m complaining.  It may look like me whining.  But it’s really just that I don’t know what to do and I don’t know how to handle what my mind is telling me.  Because I don’t want to believe it, but I don’t know how not to.

Today I crashed my car.  I let this anxiety control me.  I let it turn a day that was beautiful, sunny, clear, into something hurried and ruined and terrible.  That was me.  That wasn’t the anxiety.  That was me that did that.  And I can be better than that.  I am better than that. 

I am responsible for my actions, my reactions, how I respond to situations around me.  I’m not broken. I’m not weak.  I may suffer from anxiety but that’s no excuse to let it own me and my happiness.  Someday, I will make it my bitch.  Until then I will keep trying, keep growing, and just be grateful for the sunshine when skies are grey.

I am not perfect, but I am authentic, and maybe T hat is better anyway.