Once again, the "try" for both of us was little more than lip service-with neither of us contacting a counselor or embracing sobriety. I guess we were still under the mistaken impression that doing the same thing you have always done will somehow, magically, result in something different. What it resulted in was our being homeless. Nicole found a place to stay, with a former friend of Candra's..a friend who supposedly wouldn't allow her spouse to stay with her. Not enough room. Didn't want any drama. Nicole accepted the offer. To say that I found that disturbing would be an understatement. I couldn't even imagine a world in which either my father or my mother would have accepted housing where the other couldn't be...thereby leaving the other with no shelter. I knew that, without a doubt, I wouldn't have even entertained the possibility of leaving Nicole in trouble while I took care of myself. But...that is how she handled the situation. And, she was safe and warm-which is ultimately what I wanted to happen. I got a tent and headed to the beach below the beautiful home where we once lived. Nicole was coming to talk with me the next morning. I wanted to do something special, I spent the afternoon and evening walking the beach, gathering firewood-and heart shaped rocks. After dark I arranged them by firelight. I had found a few large ones, and I had set them up as a little table, I had found some beautiful driftwood pieces, and had made her a bench seat, trying to consider which direction to set them so that she would be protected from wind and campfire smoke (as I imagined she might sit and stay with me for awhile), but still be facing the incredible view of the surf and seastacks. Finally I took a charred stick and wrote "I Love You Nicole" on several of the rock faces along the little pathway to her makeshift "seat"...in the morning I awoke early and picked some wildflowers, laying them on the her table and other places around my campsite. She was late arriving by several hours. The campfire had gone out, and I had gone back to sleep. When she came down the trail to the beach she didn't want to sit and talk, seemed to be in a hurry, and didn't notice the rocks, the driftwood, the flowers at all. She wanted to get back up to the car. I finally pointed them out to her, saying, "I did this for you..." What had taken me hours to do, she dismissed with an impatient wave of her hand and, "yes. yes. Very nice. Let's go..."
Why do I bring up this tragic, blues album inspiring story now? Because the picture above is of rocks I have been gradually collecting since Jamuary-January....when Nicole contacted ME again. Again. The time before she had contacted me as well-to tell me she loved me and knew we were going to be ok this time, that time once again dashed just before Thanksgiving when she inexplicably stopped calling, or planning with me...agonizingly cruel emotional roller coaster...the way she generally "dropped the other shoe" included becoming extremely mean, along with accusations that my pained reactions were evidence that I was "crazy...", my expressing feelings and asking her to explain what happened were, "blowing up her phone..."
...anyway, the rocks. I wanted to do something special with them...symbolic of hope, healing, love. I was planning to include the stones into something I would have for our house and give her when she came. THIS time we were to have a counselor before we even attempted to diseuss anything....this time sobriety was something we were to take seriously and gather help and support around us as we did...this time she SWORE there wouldn't be the other shoe. I told her how it always happened, and how afraid I had become to let myself hope...to feel anything...ANYTHING....and she absolutely promised upside down and sideways that I would be safe this time. To prove the point she had called one night with the suggestion of registering as "domestic partners" in Oregon, or Washington, or wherever we ended up this time. "That should make you feel safer, right? And who would ever have thought it would be me suggesting a thing like that?" Of course my heart soared. I let myself feel peace again. And it took about two weeks before she started with the long silences, excuses for not calling...and then the blame for my pointing it out and desperately asking her to truthfully tell my WHY?
Amazingly enough, the response that I published on this blog is nothing new. When I state that her habit was to be ruthless and mean each and every time she decided (for reasons never honestly shared with me) to pull away, and eventually end again with me, that is exactly what I mean. I hear those who love me say, "why do you want her back if she says things like that to you?" Prior to this time the answer has been, because she has said things like that before to me. And then after time passed, called again to tell me she loved me, was sorry...and because I am definately no innocent in the pattern. I have come unhinged on her-though only in response to her erratic rejections. I have called her every name in the book, spit absolute venom at her, and even evoked the sacred and forbidden by slinging my hurt and rage in the one direction I knew would cut her the most-her mother and her brother. Ultimately, I had hope that, as they say, would always spring eternal. I just loved her. Her strengths and weaknesses. Her sources of both pride and shame. Her beautiful and her ugly sides. I loved her. I married her. And I had faith that if we could just get help, we could stop the nonsense and recapture what had been really great once. To me, it was worth the effort and the risk.
It's diffeerent this time. This time her long absent father has returned, checkbook in hand, and is providing all of the things she needs as he makes ammends in his own life. This time, she doesn't need to keep me on a back burner. With her home and school paid for, she can be certain there is no possible use for me. And this time, the dismissal is accompanied by another replacement. I explained that I never had a choice in how this marriage ended. I explained how I had counted on her promise to try everything as an anchor that made it safe to be myself around her. I clearly told her.how by refusing counseling she would be sentencing me to a lifetime of regret and wondering "what if?" What IS different this time is that now I can plainly see that she never had a real, mature love for me. A love that did not seek it's own. The more I accept that fact, the more I cringe at the implications. Things suddenly come into sharp relief that had seemed so 'off' at the time they happened. Most of all, it is painfully apparent how used I have been. How my parents were used. My friend of twenty years was taken advantage of, and I spearheaded the effort. I still haven't found my footing or healed enough to be able to re-enter my daughter's life-with all of the emotional struggle it will entail...I have remained broken, Relationships impacted permanently. Aside from the obvious heartbreak, I am again dealing with the esteem stuff. I am repulsive to the person I loved as my partner. It has been hard to reconcile the person I married...who I once saw myself reflected through her eyes and felt beautiful...with this person now, who would be indifferent if I died....would actually feel pleased...
I don't want her back now, and it is the first time I can honestly say that. But, there are a few things I have to figure out a way to live with. She definately put my heart and mind at great risk, benefitting from doing just that. I let her...even encouraged her...but often after getting faulty information in the form of lies or huge omissions. I am trying to guage whether this rage is a thing that will pass, so that I just won't care. She isn't sober, has chosen someone who has her own addiction crap...both actively using alcohol at the very minimum...and those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The outcomes there are but formalities, have nothing to do with me, and I could get on with things knowing the inevitability...will that be enough for me when my life is not even recognizable as the one I lived prior to meeting Nicole? The damage is so extensive and reaching into every corner, Her newfound "family", with the bankroll, untested as they all may be...it's hard to take. Very hard to take.
The fact is, if you really want the truth, you have to be prepared to HURT. I have asked for truth for a long time. It does hurt, more than I can say. I should have had it long ago.
