This post was originally going to be very bitter. I am incredibly hurt by another who I thought loved and cared for me unconditionally. My first thought was one of conflict, my mind instantaneously went to a place of hate. Then my energy shifted (with thanks to a very thought provoking meeting). I realised I had fucked up my life so royally that nobody was to blame other than me and myself personally.
For I chose and continue to choose to love him unconditionally. I don’t hold a place for hate in my heart, in my bones, in my mind. It doesn’t matter whether he has chosen to step out of his love for me or whether he ever truly did. I spent the first few weeks questioning it. I can’t and still can’t understand how one can beg for you to stay then so readily throw it away. At first I almost drove myself to the point of insanity. Then I realised I had to come to peace with it. I choose to be at one with my love for him, he too is sick. Much sicker than I and for that I worry a great deal. A promise is a promise and I promised not to give up on his illness. Fuck the love, fuck the relationship but never ever fuck the loyalty. I don’t need that love back, yes I would like it and of course I fucking miss it. He was my best friend too. Just because my love is kept idle and not in current present doesn’t mean I cannot personally practise it. That my heart can’t keep it. That I won’t speak ill of him, no matter how ill he chooses to speak of me. These meetings have taught me not to judge, to criticise, to be patient (I am still VERY much working on this one).
“Years of living with an alcoholic is almost sure to make any wife or child neurotic. The entire family is, to some extent, ill”. - The Big Book.
I remember the night when I was going to leave him. It was three weeks ago today. We planned a night in of eating and watching movies, I wanted so much to keep the drinking at bay. A bottle of red went down all to easy, I realised quickly, I was the only party eating. He ran to the shop and got another. I stuck to my word, took to the bed to watch movies. He left me waiting there for two and a half hours. I was oblivious to the fact he was sinking his only savings into the cashiers hand at the off license downstairs. When I finally figured it out, I begged for him to better. You’re becoming a loser I cried. So talented, so beautiful but at the drop of a drink it dies. Once so beautiful his looks were now fading. His belly given way to his alcohol cravings and his shaking is so rapid it could almost make me dizzy. Still he installs butterflies in me. I’ll get better he said, don’t leave me, I love you. So I stayed with the false hope he wanted to get better. I promised a life of sobriety so we could always and forever love one another. I guess I am not enough or he doesn’t want to address it. I left him there passed out on his swivel chair. He passed out mumbling how much he wanted to die and how sad he felt yet still he didn’t cry. I sobbed myself to sleep knowing I could no longer help him. It was taking such a toll on me. Delivering me death by instalments. I tried and I tried and only when I saw the messages, I realised he lied. I spent the following week sober, I stuck to my word. Receiving texts in solidarity. He hadn’t drunk for three days he claimed. Then I saw messages to a girl. I don’t know her name. Clutching at a glass of wine. He sent me a text to say he hadn’t drunk that very night. Still I am the one, in the eyes of his familiars, to be blamed.
I had to come back to work on Thursday, I decided on the tube today was the day, I was finally going to kill myself. There was a left over bottle of white that would install the courage in me, today, to take my life. I got back to my flat, I sobbed, oh boy did I cry. Then a text went off, it was my sponsor to remind me I was seeing her shortly at a meeting. Something propelled in me, lifted, begged of me to go along. So I did and the chair gave a speech of how when we are drunk we are in the gutter looking up at the stars. Essentially your spending your life in a perpetual state of delusional daydreaming. Kidding yourself that everything is fine, when in reality your destroying yourself and others. Wrapped up in a nightmare. It clicked and I realised the majority of my life, I have been living a lie. This was to be my first sober weekend in London and it terrified me, so my mother came up and stayed to guide me, keep me company. I went to a meeting on Friday, funny enough it was along a street in Hoxton where he last broke my heart. I paid over the odds for a shitty basement Air BnB so we could spend the night together properly. I couldn’t afford it and I knew he would never pay me back but I wanted so desperately to wake with him. We fucked and he told me it wouldn’t be so bad if we had a baby. You see the year before I suffered a horrific miscarriage. So for me that fucking floored me. I cried and I cried. That was it he walked away and shut the door on me. Usually I wouldn’t be able to go near a place I had once affiliated with such hurt but I put aside my feelings and spent the evening with strangers that I have felt so much love from. More love than I have ever felt before. Yet still I forgive him because he is sick. I am sad he doesn’t have the support I have found lately. He is the one that needs it the most. I am scared he will die way before his years and I can’t help but care. How on earth do you turn your back on someone who so desperately needs it?
We’ve thrown ourselves in cold water. Attended meeting after meeting. Some days I laughed. Some days I cried. It is Sunday now and I feel stronger. She leaves tomorrow and I have to admit. I am terrified.
I guess the point of this post is somewhat confusion. I am trying to preach love and care because that is what I am learning from these meetings but at what point do you say enough is enough? This person has damaged me all too much? Are you supposed to hate? Be angry? Or do I keep spreading my message and try to help him? When do you give up on someone? Do I leave him in the gutter? Whilst I join the stars?