Tag Archives: Relationships

Three Days in Never Never Land

Posted on by Standard 9

judgeOkay. I’d like to clarify something. Saturday, I received a call from Chef saying he had been released until Tuesday, at which time, he was to report to the VA to be entered in to rehab. For about 4 hours, I refused to answer his calls/texts. I had his wallet and telephone, so he basically had no identity and no one else’s phone numbers. :-) I found out from the hospital that he’d been released, but nothing more, and of course, I immediately assumed the worst. Finally, after hours and hours, I gave in, picked up Chef, and demanded he show me in black and white that he had not just signed himself out. When he did, I shot him a quick apology, and then lectured him on the consequences that come from lying through his teeth to me for over a year. And some of you thought Chef was lucky still have me…tsk, tsk. I’m not so sure my help is worth it to the poor guy. Everything he says or does is run through this mental “How will he hurt me this time” filter I’ve erected around me, and that is just making me feel awful.

Tonight, he and I attended a Celebrate Recovery meeting, and he gave his life to the Lord. I am happy he did this while sober, but again,wndy that B******t Filter kicked in, and I have a wait-and-see attitude. I just hate myself for that. I really do, but I’ve just seen too much when it comes to him. Still, I think God takes those prayers seriously even if the pray-er doesn’t, and I’m resting assured, God can handle His business with Chef.

What I’m learning this last few days, though, is rather humorous. First of all, the do-or-die junkie life is a whole culture unto itself. Don’t get me wrong. There are addicts on every rung of the financial ladder. I’m a firm believer that Bill Clinton did indeed inhale, probably more than once. Personally, I have mad respect for people who tell the embarrassing truth. I’d have been blown away by the guy if he’s have looked at the camera and said, “Hell, yes, I smoked a bowl!! You trying doing this job and then come back and tell me you couldn’t use a little dubage, smart-a**!!”  He, and others like him, would be what I would call high-functioning addicts. They keep jobs, are able to restrain themselves from spending the mortgage money on dope, and maintain a flimsy bit of control over the drug of their choice.

bed and breakfastI’m not talking about the high-function-ers. I’m talking about the people who move past being recreational users, sail by the drug abuse category, slip past the high-functioning crowd,  and crash-land into being completely lost in their addictions.

These lost people always make me think of a warped Peter Pan & the Lost Boys, with Bernice in the role of a deprived, evil little Tinkerbell. The little set that hail Chef as their Peter Pan are a rough little lot. None of them have jobs, yet they seem to always have a way to pay for a date with Bernice. They move about town on foot, sad little clumps of humanity, each bearing the invisible stamp that marks them as the truly addicted. Each day seems to start off with a tally of Bernice-worthy possessions to sell in order to secure a date with her. This usually entails stealing….. from each other. There really is no honor among thieves!! Invariably, a skirmish will break out between members of the Bernice Fan Club, tempers will run high, and there’s always a ton of smack talking going on. Once money has been had, next comes tracking down the dealers. This is all too easy, in my opinion. Finally, Bernice will make her appearance, and everybody becomes friends again. It’s crazy.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is that each of the ones with a real address become host/hostess to a kind of whacked-out  Bed & Breakfast. Wherever the motley little group lsdrun out of steam, and Bernice, is where they crash for some long needed sleep. The first time this happened at Chef’s house, I all but came unglued. I could just see the cops raiding his house, and Chef trying to convince the law that this twitchy group of misfits were just having a sleepover at a 55-year-old man’s house. I just don’t believe any cop is going to buy that, and given the ages of some of the girls, I’m inclined to think Chef could have bigger problems than Bernice if the law stopped in for a visit. Best to avoid giving the appearance of evil, I’m thinking.

The thing that just makes me shake my head is that they will text/call/drop by for a little chat at literally any hour of the day or night. Chef’s phone had gone off all night long those first couple of nights he was in the hospital. When I finally couldn’t t stand to hear that stupid Sons of Anarchy ringtone reminder go off, I got up and checked the phone, figuring there had to be an emergency or something for someone to be so very persistent. But, no.  Without fail, they all were the dumbest reasons to be texting someone at 3am. “Are you awake?”, “You up?”, “I’m at your house. You in there?” and my personal favorite, “This is Tiff. Remember me? Are you still going to buy me a new tire?” The first three I texted back, “No.” but the last one I just ignored. The next morning, Tire Tiffany, started calling and calling Chef’s phone at the un-Godly hour of 6 am and every 10 minutes again after that. Finally, I answered, grumpy from being woke up by Chef’s Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black ringtone. There’s no need to go into a lot of detail. Let’s just say, Tire Tiffany understands now that she won’t be getting a new tire from Chef and there are polite times to call  people and times that frankly, are dangerous to a person’s health, and should be avoided unless it is a dire emergency like bleeding from your eyes. I voiced my curiosity that Chef had promised to buy a tire for some random chick whose phone number he didn’t even have programmed in his cell or may have reason to not even remember of her existence.  But, as a member of Chef’s Lost Boy’s, Tire Tiffany didn’t seem to think this was odd at all. She’d given him a ride once, and he’d promised to buy her a new tire. I cancelled the verbal contract, and sent old Tire Tiffany on her way. Still,  I find it kind of sad.

I know that I’m sounding snobby, but that isn’t what I feel for these people at all. I know they are of equal value to God as much as anyone else. But given that I feel I’m engaged in a battle for Chef’s life, these people are his enemies, and I have to treat them a bit harshly at times in order to make my point clear — Chef isn’t going to be your Peter Pan much longer. If Chef should emerge from rehab and pick up where he left off, then I’ll dust my feet and walk away. But he will have this one chance.

I just wanted everyone to know what the circumstances were that made him leave, and what I’m learning about this weird drug sub-culture. I appreciate all the support we are receiving from you guys, and hopefully we’ll have even better news pretty soon!!

– Bird

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You Can Take the Girl Out of the Ghetto…..

Posted on by Standard 29
Not if you lose my truck, I don't!!

Not if you lose my truck, I don’t!!

There are days that I am just in the mood to write, and I’ll sit staring at my laptop, perusing different memories, looking for something that might be interesting. Sometimes I find one, sometimes I don’t.

Today is definitely not one of those days. Today, I know exactly what I want to write about, and yet, I’m over-run with a plethora of different angles that I can steer this story-ship towards. In a warped way, I’ve hit the jackpot, and I don’t know where to spend my first dollar. This day was the gift that just keeps on giving. :-)

My mom used to tell me it wasn’t polite to laugh at the misfortune that befalls others, and I agree with her 100%. But I do have to ask,  what if it’s funny?  I mean, what if you are genuinely sorrowful for the complication that has landed on someone’s life, and yet your warped gene pool gave you this dark sense of humor, and you just can not help giggling at the absurdity of the situation? I am trying to see this through the stern, adult eyes of a grown woman, but the writer in me is just going insane!

I pondered this little ethical dilemma all day long. Should I write about it, or not. Back and forth, back and forth….

Hey. What can I say. The story is awesome... and I’m only a mere human. Let it be noted that I did wrestle with the decision.

By the time I left work, though, I had stumbled upon a technical way to tell you the story without actually telling you  the story….Below is my letter to the Story Wrecking Company, who handles all towing of vehicles for the City of Tulsa. This isn’t even a fraction of the whole story, which, let’s face it, is going to be magnificent when its been played out. Seriously. Maybe I should wait for it all to play out, but I just can’t.

It’s making my brain bleed not getting to tell you all the whole thing yet!

Let’s think of this as a little appetizer.  :-) Enjoy!!

Why, yes. I did send it. I was grumpy from lack of sleep and the fact that Chef's newest squeeze LOST his truck.

Why, yes. I did send it. I was grumpy from lack of sleep and the fact that Chef’s newest squeeze LOST his truck.

All Talking Donkeys Aren’t Messengers From God

Posted on by Standard 10

Occasionally, I’ll look at the dashboard of this site, and one or more of the search terms will catch my eye. Mostly, even after the hellacious year I’ve had, the search terms that are the most likely to drive traffic here are “three boobs”, “motorcycle gangs”, and my personal favorite, “nipple shirts”.

Let’s face it.

Three Boobs and Nipple Shirts are subjects that aren’t really good foundations for a serious conversation about life. It’s just appalling to me that men wear shirts that showshrek and donkey their nipples. Ugh. I’d like that to stop immediately.

“Motorcycle Gangs” is more interesting, but again, I doubt I have much to contribute to that subject anymore.

Ahhh, but today, I found one in my little collection that made me stop and say “hmmm”. The term was this;

meth spiritual enhancement

So, to the person who typed in this awesome search term, this post is dedicated to you.

In my quest to understand what Chef was going through, I studied everything I could find about this creepy drug. What I found out could fill up volumes, but for this discussion, I’ll boil down some things I understand about the drug that I believe should be considered directly in connection with spiritual enhancement, or any kind of enhancement, for that matter….physical, academic, cultural, etc.

Bird Fact #1: Enhancements when you are high are only Huge Brain Farts when you sober up again.

To my understanding, the drug affects the pleasure center of your brain. This magnificent computer we carry around inside of our skulls works like a file cabinet, storing stop dudeand categorizing things constantly. If a memory makes you happy, it tends to store that memory close by for future quick reference. If some memory makes you sad, it gathers that clutter up, and safely keeps moving it back into the recesses of your brain, out of reach of accidently being hurt by it. It’s the same for things that give us pleasure. Those things that give us pleasure are  stored safely within reach in our pleasure centers of our brains.

That being said, I do wonder if people actually stop and really examine what we each have stored there. Meth is an excellent way to find out, except who really needs to know that badly? The bad side of this drug greatly outweighs the good, so no, I’m not saying you should try it even once so you know what really makes you happy. Figure it out..You’re smarter than that!!

Bird Fact #2: Don’t be an idiot and try this drug because you want to know what really makes you flush with happiness. You might not like the answer, and you can’t unlearn what you already know. Frankly, neither can anyone else who finds out either.

If singing show-tunes on top of your roof in your birthday suit for the entire world to see is something that you derive real pleasure from, chances are this drug will enhance that desire in you, and your filter which considers consequences of such an action will be bypassed. You’ll dance, sing and traumatize the neighbors to your heart’s content, and you’ll feel good about it…

“I finally get to be me!”  you’ll be assuring yourself.

wrong if it feels good

Wanna Bet?

And then,  your filter comes slowly back to life again as you sober up, and you find yourself  in jail for public nudity, dressed in a discarded moomoo that smells like someone died in it, holding an eviction notice in your hand. To make matters worse, your best friend not only recorded your spectacular plummet from respectability, but then uploaded your shameful experience onto YouTube, and the creepy perv down the street that no one makes eye-contact with, has baked you a cake with a shank in it. Suddenly, the problems you were trying to escape from in the first place don’t seem as bad as the ones you’ve just created during your “mental vacation”.

See how that works? If God, spirituality, religion, or some such thing is something you get pleasure from, you bet your booties, it’ll come up when you are high. I know, because when I used this drug, God was foremost in my thoughts and actions. And yet, even in my intoxicated state, while I felt like God appreciates all the publicity He can get, my conscience kicked in at the same time, imploring me to wait until I was sober before launching into whatever ridiculous thing I was poised to do for Him, like what I’d learned about Him while I was high. I’m pretty sure He’s grateful I didn’t try to “help” the cause during those moments.

It is my opinion that most people, especially men, tend to have sex in their pleasure centers, and women tend to have love in theirs. Meth is considered a sex enhancement drug, but it didn’t work that way for me at all. Because of my complicated relationship with sex, it didn’t actually take up residence in the pleasure center of my brain; but love did. As long as Chef made me feel like he loved me…high or not…I was on board with the sex thing. But if he didn’t, he was on his own. Meth is a very selfish drug. Right there, you can almost see why this crappy drug ruins marriages. One person wants to feel loved; the other wants pure, animal sex. And for most people, there is the ability to love someone without having sex with them, and to have sex with someone you don’t love.

Hence, breakdowns occur.

Bird Fact #3: I’d always be very careful about anything that you “learn” on meth, or any drug. Without that consequence filter, we are susceptible to accepting lies, and turning them into truths in our own minds, which invariably leads to being slapped on the side of the head with our “Oh-Crap!-What-Have-I-Done” brain-gag reflex instead.

Can you learn spiritual truths when you’re high? Sure. You can probably learn anything on dope if it’s important enough to you.

Once upon a time, God made a donkey talk but just because you see the Donkey from Shrek  jabbering at you while you’re high, it doesn’t mean you actually a) saw a donkey physically speaking to you or b) that you’re a character on the next Shrek, or that c) all donkeys secretly know how to talk and are laughing silently at us clueless humans, or even that d)  God had something special to tell you from this lively donkey. It just means you burned your brain a tad too much, and you’ve hallucinated a fake donkey singing a Tina Turner song  to you.

My advice: Render that little nugget of experience to the mental trash can it probably deserves to be in.

If it was so important that God get a message to you that He’d use a donkey  or even more unbelievable, a Tina Turner song, He’d have probably waited until you were sober and there could be no question it was a miracle of God instead a miracle of Dope.

We all look for reasons to excuse something we’re doing that we know we are wrong to do, by finding something positive enough to justify it to others, and mainly ourselves. I’ve found that the “I’m spiritually awakened” excuse is pretty common amongst those of us that tend to like to have a little chemical uplifting from time to time, and frankly, it’s a pathetic one.

Here’s life choices in a nutshell — you don’t owe anyone a reason or excuse for what you do or want to do; but by the same token, you’re the one stuck with the consequences, so don’t be surprised when you’re eating a bucket-full of guilt, shame, and general self-loathing. Own your crap, pay your dues, learn from it, and start a blog or something. Most importantly, forgive yourself and move on.  Don’t waste a whole lot of time on coming up with an acceptable reason or excuse that people will buy. Nobody really cares about that but you anyways.

I’ll leave you guys with one more observation that I’m pretty sure everyone can identify with.

learnBy a show of hands, how many of us know at least one old hippie-wanna-be who’s burned out his/her brain so much, we roll our eyes when they head down Enlightenment Lane?

Yeah. That’s what I thought… :-)

Don’t be that person. Find your enlightenment and spirituality with a full set of brain cells working. That way, you’ll be prepared to defend your opinions and views, and not have people rolling their eyes as you walk away, telling their little children to stay away from you because you think you’re Shrek or something. I’m just saying…

Hope all the mothers had a wonderful Mother’s Day! Especially you, Diane! I love you!

– Bird

PS: I want to wish DJ, my son, a Happy Birthday! You’re my favorite son, little man! I love you!

Failures Make The Best Stories Later

Posted on by Standard 11

good friendsI was talking to my friend Scott the other day, and I mentioned how I had read every single advice column known to mankind about infidelity, divorce, separation, etc., and pretty much broke every cardinal rule there was in my quest to recover from the damage my ex did to me. I can laugh about it now, but I can see where most of this sage counseling would have made things a little easier on me. Problem is, I’m rarely in control of any of my emotions when I’m hurt. I figured I’d share my mishaps with my friends here so all the women out there who know what they should do, but still do the very worst things anyways will have some company.

There’s tons of sites, but I’m not going to quote from just one. Instead, I’ll pick out the ones that really, really were glaringly  correct, and I equally glaringly blew them off anyways. :-)

INFIDELITY ADVICE FROM THE EXPERTS

1. Practice indifference. Cheaters are usually flaming narcissists. The cruelest thing you can do to a cheater is pay no attention to them.psycho

And this is what Bird did: I completely agree that this would have been my best course of action. Instead, I wrote him emails, letters, blog posts, text messages, and slapped him with a PO order. I waited by the phone for him to call. I dropped everything and came running any time he crooked his finger. All said, the guy has a library of correspondence from me that he admits he never read.

2. Let them live with the natural consequences of their crappiness. Cheaters are really good at not taking responsibility. They pin the blame on you.

And this is what Bird did: Because I felt fate and consequence would take entirely too long, I moved the timelines I could control up a notch. I tanked a million dollar lawsuit we’d been a hair’s breath away from winning, because of one snide comment from Chef about pretending he loved me to get the money. One comment. One. :-) I turned off every utility that was in my name, and scheduled them to be off on the same day. I sent texts messages to his new girlfriend about embarrassing secrets he had. I called them both every mean name in the book. There’s more, but I think you get the jist. I was pissed.

3.  Succeed. Go be awesome. You’ll enjoy that in its own right, but I promise you, it will get back to the cheater.

And this is what Bird did: I didn’t totally fail on this one, but it’s all relative if you think about it. Chef lost pretty much everything because of an addiction, so he didn’t set the bar to succeed all that high. Yes, my rent is paid, but I also live in the ghetto. He is unemployed, and I have a job, but it’s the same job I had before. I think where I really succeeded is that I learned to laugh again quicker, and he is still struggling to just get up each day.

4. Expand your world, make new friends and try new things.

And this is what Bird did: Especially at the beginning of the separation, I withdrew from anyone and anything. I hated that I seemed to not be able to think about infidelty fail 911anything or anyone but myself and how much this all had hurt me. I drank like a fish, mixing ambien with it at times, wrote mean posts, sobered up, pulled them down again, and cried, cried, cried. I could hear my anger in every word I said, and it made me feel even worse. Finally, after Bekkie put her foot down about booze, I began to address the emotions, live through them, and as they were tackled, I got the sense that things just might calm down. Still, it took a really long time for me bother with new friends or new hobbies. My world was really, really lonely.

5. Keep being the individual you were before you got in the relationship. When you give up aspects of yourself, you stop being the person your partner fell in love with.

And this is what Bird did: When you get married in your early twenties, and stay that way until your mid-forties, my guess is this advice isn’t all that good. In true form, I reverted back to a dork teen-ager that had been dumped by her first boyfriend. :-) Shall we call that a point for me? I’m still learning who I am, and that has been one of the few things about this whole crappy chapter of my life that I’m really enjoying. I’m a work in progress, but at least I’m progressing.

6. Don’t talk about relationship problems with other potential love interests. Common sense, right?

And this is what Bird did: And still does — talks to The Guy about Chef a lot. But I’m actively trying not to bring things up all the time. Or at least wait for him to ask before bringing it up. What can I say? I’m traumatized.

7. Don’t use contact with other people to make your partner jealous. This is a form of manipulation. Even if gets your partner’s attention, he or she will resent you for it and think less of you.house for sale

And this is what Bird did: Rubbed his nose in all of them. Maybe he thinks less of me for it, but I don’t really care. 

8. Don’t cast insults at your ex or his affair partner. You are the victim, and as such, you maintain more dignity than either of them will ever have if you remain composed.

And this is what Bird did: I did not remain composed in any shape, form, or fashion; nor can I say I was in the least bit dignified. Once, I physically hit both of them in their/my living-room. I perceived smugness from them both, and reacted accordingly… I muddied the waters with my reactions, and when it was all said and done, I regretted almost everything I said and did all along the way.

These are just a tiny scattering of the many, many wisdoms I couldn’t seem to follow. So, to my fellow sisters on their own journeys through hell, my only advice would be

Me & T - Ninja Warriors battling for the love of a man who cheated on us both. We're both winnners..even if you can't really tell. :-)

Me & T – Ninja Warriors battling for the love of a man who cheated on us both. We’re both winners..even if you can’t really tell. :-)

to not be all that hard on yourself even if you fail. If all of this didn’t hurt so badly, we could have all followed these truths with no problem. But when something strikes us to the very core of everything we’d built our worlds around, a bit of psychotic, extreme behavior is to be expected….and later, those are the episodes that make the best stories. :-)

– Bird

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Goodbye, My Favorite Human.

Posted on by Standard 13

According to my journals, Chef’s official Midlife Crisis started on 10/16/2011. Well, actually, that is just when I became aware of it. From one minute to the next, I never images (1)knew what to expect from this person that I’d practically shared my entire adult life with. He’d be normal, and then quickly cold, withdrawn, reserved. I’d try to talk to him, and would be quickly silenced. I’d do things for him, and yet he’d hardly seem to notice, much less care. Where once we were inseparable, I’d find myself alone a lot, always sad or disappointed, or scared. When I found out why the personality had changed so quickly, I was foolishly not as concerned as I probably should have been. My entire family has grappled with addictions, me included, and while Chef & I had seemed to escape this lifestyle for decades, the naive part of me thought this would be temporary, and quickly addressed and fixed. Hmm. Seems I was wrong.

It’s been a whole year and a half since this ugly period of my life first raised its ugly head, and I’m sitting here in the tiny apartment that I love, marveling at how slowly time seemed to crawl by back then, and how quickly it had sped up to get me here.

As I mentioned before, T left Chef. Chef had been basically playing both ends towards the middle. He was constantly calling me/coming over, always full of promises of fixing things with me. He would go on long rants about how I was the mother of his children, his soul-mate, his best friend, and most importantly, his wife. On the other side, he was telling T that he’d been looking for love in all the wrong places, that he’d stayed with me for the children, that she was his best friend, his soul mate, and someday, would be his wife. I’m a girl. I can see how T would fall into this. Chef is convincing, especially if you don’t know him very well. But, as his problem with drugs increased, and his behavior became more and more erratic, she finally had to concede that I was indeed right — Chef wasn’t being truthful. Unlike me, T would dig for the truth quietly, unobtrusively, and frankly, she showed an amount of self-discipline that is kind of impressive to me. The first time I found a Love-Text from her on Chef’s phone at 5:30am one morning, a few months before I left, I woke Chef up by beating him in the head with his phone. :-) See? I didn’t decide to keep it to myself for awhile, to gather more evidence, and to confront him when there were no ways to wiggle out of it. I went for the jugular immediately.

imagesI dealt with a ton of emotions all along the way, and I’m still a bit unsteady some times. For the most part, I’m kind of over all of this. After T left him, and we confronted him together with our Notes of Comparison, I was able to accept that it was over. I watched this exhausted, stressed, frantic man try to baffle us both with b***s***, and a part of me felt relieved. Even completely healthy, this guy has been no picnic. I always felt, and still do, that back then, he was worth it. But, as I wrote about in Old Roy Dog Food, this disease had taken so much away from him, there just wasn’t enough bang for my buck, if you know what I mean. As each promise was broken, and each lie surfaced, a little bit of what I had always really loved about this human being would wither and die. And one day, the bad outweighed the good, and I was less likely to be broadsided with sadness at how all this had turned out. Instead, I had times I actually felt a little guilty. Because of his lack of addressing some health problems, he is sicker than he should be at this stage of the game. He already is needing some help physically, and I’m pretty sure, it is going to go downhill from here. I hope for the best, but I can’t say that I’m all that optimistic. What a stubborn man!! I can see God‘s hand in all of this, trying to get this man to look up, and even when he’s been told this by so many people in his life, he stubbornly refuses. And that is his right as a human being.

I wrote that we were supposed to start marriage counseling next week. Let me clarify, as I got some panicked comments. I have probably no faith whatsoever that our marriage has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being resurrected from the dead. I am not simple or stupid. Nor am I a glutton for punishment, and I truly get nauseated at the thought of having to make myself somehow trust someone who pretty much callously tossed the trust it took me years to develop for him, aside like so much trash. I wanted to believe that our relationship had been real all these 20+ years, and in a way, I have that. Sober, he was a decent husband. Flawed, but then who isn’t? I can be a nightmare myself with my trust issues, hyper-vigilance, insomnia, and bouts of depression. He didn’t marry Mary Tyler Moore. But we worked hard, made a good life for ourselves and our children, and we all laughed a lot. The drug changed everything, as it will do, but it didn’t render my life before worthless. If anything, it put the past on a pedestal, and that is what almost crushed me. Remembering and longing for, and weeping over, the beautiful, beautiful past. Only the past had it’s own issues, and in the light of day, it didn’t have that angelic gleam. Our marriage had survived for so long because we were both willing to work really hard to keep it going. But when Chef bowed out, and I had finally quit trying to carry  it along on my own back, it died. And just because I wouldn’t let go, or he wouldn’t go away, it wasn’t any less dead. I think God knew that, and He was very patient with me as I came to understand that if He, Almighty Author of the Universe, Creator of Mankind,  won’t fiddle with man’s free will, I’m certainly not going to be able to either. It blows. But God isn’t a liar, and these are the rules. Love isn’t love if you don’t have a choice to not love. I didn’t want Chef to come back to me out of necessity. I wanted him to miss me, and to come back because he realized he loved me. That just never did happen.

Everything this last year and a half spun in the gravity of Chef’s choices, and while we are each dealing with our wounds — Chef, T, me, the kids, friends, etc. …. There really is no way to un-ring the bell. I won’t venture to say what Chef has learned about me through all of this. I’ve been one pissed off, angry, somewhat vengeful, hurt wife. But I know something about him now. I know what he is capable of saying about me, behind my back to people I consider my friends. I know what he is capable of doing to me when he is crossed. I know how cold those eyes can be when they watch me cry. I know how easily lies form in his heart, and how quickly they become truth to his mind.

 I know.

I just know too much, and while I sometimes like to see him when he’s sobered up, and he’s singing as he’s working on his wood projects, or see the occasional remembermischievousness that lights up his pretty brown eyes as he tells me a story he remembers from years ago, and hear him laugh at something I’ve said, there is a wall around my heart that doesn’t let him too near me. He had the keys to that heart, and he threw them away. They aren’t so easily given again, especially to the person who didn’t treasure them in the first place. He was my very favorite human on the earth. Now, he is too dangerous to my own self-image, my self-worth, and my self-esteem to be trusted. He’s been ousted, and no matter how much counseling I have with him, I don’t see myself trusting him again, ever. He hurt me. I don’t want to be hurt by him again.

I see Chef as very, very sick right now. On a spiritual level, he wouldn’t fall on the Rock and break, and so the Rock is crushing him. It’s horrible to watch, and painful to feel that bond between us severed. But the kind of person I’ve always been is not going to let this person die unloved, unwanted, and completely utterly alone. I can’t imagine how horrible and hopeless that must feel, nor do I ever want to. Until Chef’s dying breath, he’ll at least know he has one person who gives a rat’s butt whether he is alive or dead, and that person will be me. I most likely will not be his wife…but I will be his friend, even if he hasn’t been a very good friend back. And that’s okay.

The counseling sessions may or may not happen. Chef begged for an opportunity to have a mediator referee an honest, open dialogue between us. We don’t get very deep into anything constructive before one or both of us draws blood on the other. I’m hurt by him “falling in love” with someone else. He’s ….who knows? Angry. Pissed. Humiliated. Selfish. I’m really only guessing. My instincts believe that he takes out how he feels about himself on me, but I have no real proof of this. Either way, I have enough to address that I’m responsible for. I can’t shoulder his, too.  But I desire with all of my heart to communicate to him just how much this has cost me, how much I really loved our lives together before the drugs, and how thankful I am that I had so long with him before this all came crashing down. And I want to hear what was going through his mind that made me suddenly undesirable as his partner. I’m afraid to hear it, but I just need to know. And I think counseling would help us there. It would be some kind of closure for me.

So, that all being said, no, I’m not high on pot! I’m not flip-flopping around. I’m content that things are the way they are for a reason, and I hope God kicks satan right in the teeth with Chef, with me, and with T. In the meantime, I’ll just keep taking each day as it comes. Thank you for your concern, though. I really do appreciate it!

– Bird