Let's Be Honest

Honesty is the best policy, so let's just be honest today. Last week I wrote about the poison that was in my life that I needed to be rid of and I was determined to let it go and resolved, I still am. It's amazing though how poison can linger in you like a bad cold that just won't go away. You think you have it licked and then once again you're lying in bed with hot flashes and a cough that won't stop. It comes up on you when you were feeling fine hours before. This morning I woke up determined to find out the honest truth of what has been going on. Face it head on whether or not I liked the medicine prescribed for me or the diagnosis given.
Has anyone ever dealt with someone in their life that has a substance abuse problem? No matter what the drug of choice is, everyone that that person touches is affected. On one hand, there are those lucid moments when the person you love is available and ready to be the person that you want them to be and hold tight to. You truly believe that they taste what normalcy is like and they will want to stay in that state with you and the rest of their sober friends and family. Then as quickly as that lucid moment comes, it goes away as a fast as a tide recedes from the shore. So fast that you can barely touch it for more than a fleeting moment. You say you won't tolerate it any longer and they say they are sorry they know you are right and they want to do better if they only knew how. And they do mean it in the moment that they say it, but that moment never lasts. The promises are shallow and the lies wide to cover their tracks.
I've been down this path more times than I can even care to remember with him. It's even worse then I'm conveying here. I'm hiding what I'm ashamed to tell. Embarrassed that I dismissed the 'told ya so's yet again. Believing in the empty promises one more time. To be sure, there have been some very good times in the last several months and over the last 6 years and I've been helped quite a bit by this person in the only way he could help me--with my car, with my house, with my yard. But a dear price I paid for that double fisted assistance. I guess in his mind, helping me in those ways made up for the wrong doings that have been going on practically daily.

Flash back to last weekend. We were supposed to get together for my birthday. Then I never heard from him. Normally there are 10 phone calls a day all up in my kool aid whether I want the calls or not. Immediately I thought either a) he's in jail b) he's in some drug induced stupor or c) he's taken up with someone--or perhaps some combination of all the above. A few more days passed and I get a phone call during the day when I'm at work with a half hearted apology, "I'm sorry I missed your birthday, I'll call you later". Then nothing again. I wasn't about to call but I still wondered what he was up to, half wondering if he was dead some place along side of the road or in some sort of trouble. Nothing I wanted to see, but all things that cross one's mine. When you deal with someone that has problems such as these, to go away for several days at a time is not unusual--they get on a high and they don't stop until all money and resources are totally spent and then regret sets in and they crawl back with more empty promises and sorryness. Not this time. No calls, nothing.

Today I talked with his Mom who came over my house to help me do something and asked her for honesty as it was long overdue. She busted out crying--the whole family is beside themselves--on the day he was supposed to come down here for my birthday he decided to take up with his Uncle's ex-wife. Ha. What a story. I couldn't have wrote a fiction tale better than this one if I tried. Well, you don't just do something dramatic like that on the spur of the moment and especially not before the person you are supposed to love's birthday. I'm sure it's been going on all along. It just happened to come to a head because I made him leave the house because of the chaos that had started once again because of his issues. The woman has children which are technically his kin--she is the best friend of his brother's wife who is friends with me, she is the x of his uncle for goodness sake.
Have at it.
Done.

I struggle with even writing about this. I make art that's happy and colorful, whimsical and inspirational. What do you do when you are not feeling at all like your art? At all like celebrating the holidays? I'm embarrassed because of the truth. I could kick myself from one coast to the next if I was able to.
Is there a medicine that can wash the 6 years of hurt away?
Should it be washed away? I know I'm sick of the rollercoaster I had been riding and it was more than time to get off it, but still....finding out the truth just about put a dagger in my heart. If you only knew all that I have been through because of this thoughtless, coward, insensitive, cruel, sorry piece of you know what, man--you'd agree I'm better off. I agree I'm better off. But it still hurts.

I chose these pictures for this post today because they represent bigger things, more important things then what I've been dwelling on. 2010--a New Year, a New beginning. "What if One Day Never Comes" Maybe today should be One Day. Then the angel painting reflects on how quickly things can be taken away from you--a child like Jade, taken well before she could really bloom. One day can make all the difference in someone's world. It has in mine. Tomorrow will be better as it normally is after you fall down and skin your knees. It's sore at first and probably will still smart tomorrow. Day by day it heals, until there's just a tiny scar to remember that moment when you fell down, but quickly got back up.

Let's hope time is the medicine I need tonight. I'm hoping I'm given One More Day to make my difference. Lord knows I've wasted many precious ones lately.

Here's to honesty. As much as it can hurt, it really is the best to know rather than to wonder.

*****
I promise the post will be better tomorrow!! I do have some good news to share that happened today that I am excited about. I just needed a day to vent!

Lucy's HOME, but the House is a Mess

Here's a look at at part of a package I sent off to a blog friend that has done several nice things for me over the last 6 months or so. Just a little thank you for being sweet to me. Karma....good things come back to you when you do good unto others. I hope she had a wonderful wedding and a romantic and fun filled honeymoon. Hurry back, we miss you :)

•I'm having a little bit of a struggle as to how much to share here on this little blog, do you get to peek in the windows, or should I invite you in the front door? Somedays, I only want you to peek in the window. It's nicer that way. It's cleaner. It's almost as if through writing this blog, I'm having a dinner party but never letting my guests indoors and thankfully so, because if I did, they'd see all the laundry piling up and the floor that needs to be swept. Sometimes you'd have to really look for the dust on the floors, but you would see it, because it's there...it always will be. Other days if you came into my world, you'd see how I struggle to get everything done. Work eats up most of my day, then we get home, do homework, I throw something together and call it dinner, finish homework with DS, clean a bit, then we all have a little quiet time to do what we want, blog, craft, watch tv, play outside, play games, then before you know it, it's shower time for DS and off to bed. It feels like a marathon, I swear somedays. Gratefully there would be days when everything has come together like clock work and life is a piece of cake. If you came over those days, you'd see everything clean and sparkling, no laundry in sight, homework done early, dishes already put up and everyone laughing and playing and no signs of struggle anywhere.

•Unfortunately, I've been struggling lately, a lot. A real lot. If you want to come in the front door....come in. If you want to stay outside. I understand, I'd probably want to stay outside too if I had a choice. Remember this post? Well that's the only time I'll be able to post about DS riding it as someone.....and I pretty much know who that someone is.....stole DS's motorcycle sometime between Sunday nite and Monday when I got home from work. He cried...I cried....then I tried to put on a smiling face, and brush it off as if someone probably borrowed it, and is going to bring it back. I probably should have been straight with him but I had one of those desperate moments when I really couldn't think of what to do, or what to say other than it will be okay, one way or another, it's probably not what we think, so hey...let's go do something else while we wait to find out.....then I swept it under the carpet and got started on homework and dinner, like nothing happened at all. Inside, I was screaming mad because I knew what probably happened to it but I had no real way of proving it.

•My last couple of days have gotten worse since then. I'd say I have a broken heart but that's not completely true. It's more like my hearts already been broken and broken at that for a long time now. Someone just finally dug it out of my chest and stomped it to pieces on the ground as if it were on fire and in need of extinguishing. This post here had hope....and promise. I should have known better, because promises have never been kept by this person who I was going to marry (although I wasn't planning on doing it anytime soon....thankfully I didn't dive in that shallow pool), and this time wasn't any different. Like I said, it's hard to know how much to say on the blog....but without going into the play by play...suffice to say I've been dealing with someone in my life that has some serious problems and it's just really affected me and my family's life too much, too often, and I've had enough. I've tried going to help groups, I've tried to be supportive, I've tried to be strict so he stays on the straight and narrow, I've been loving.....but all I am anymore is angry. Angry at him, angrier at myself, angry at the problem....ANGRY AT MY SELF....very angry at myself for believing in someone I probably should never believed in the first place. Maybe there was a purpose....I'm sure there was a reason we were together for the time we were. I hope I taught him something, I had hoped he learned completely from what I had to offer but, I guess, in the end, I wasn't really that good of a teacher.

•He told me, or rather accused me of always having to be in control. I'm in control at work and I have to be in control at home. I'd spit back, Im not in control at work. We work as a TEAM. We get things done together. I just help hold it together there. At home, I'd rather not be in control all the time. I'd like to take a break every once in a while and let someone else do all the worrying, paying the bills, fixing things, making sure everyone's teeth are brushed and that they have something to brush them with. Believe me, I'd rather not always be in control at home. But what it boils down to...someone has to be in control, especially when there's children involved. There's more to raising a child then wrestling with them and playing Playstation2 with them. You need to buy them sneakers, you need to make sure they have something to eat and are safe, you have to say no sometimes, you have to be their cheerleader, and their coach at the sametime, the list goes on and on. Responsibility. That's the bottom line, not control. I take responsibility, not control, although sometimes those two things go hand in hand.

•Finally, today, or rather yesterday I tried to make it happen and today I took some more steps to take back my life, my son's life, our life and okay, maybe my control over the situation, and decided to put my foot down on the problem that I could not fix no matter how hard I tried. I was going to do it several times, most recently, right after the fire. But, my conscious wouldnt' let me. I felt like I was leaving someone when they were terminally ill and on their last breath. I couldn't do it. I had to hope for a miracle. I wanted a miracle. I wanted to believe he could be healed. Healed with my help, my support, and my belief in him. It didn't happen. And so I sit here, in my favorite room in the house, my craft room/computer room. Pondering. Wondering. Re-hashing. Beating myself up. Occasionally crying, but surprisingly enough, not crying as much as I thought I would. Actually, not crying hardly at all despite everything. Strangely enough, or not; I feel relieved. Tomorrow, I hope I wake up refreshed and full of motivation to open a new door and walk on through it with my head held high because I have done the very best I could do and I am ready to move on, I have to move on. I will move on. I've already made my decision. I'm holding my ground, and I will not back down. I am in control, finally. And I'm not ashamed to say it in this case.

•I'm sure I'll be crafting more and creating more over the next several weeks...months..., I do my best when I'm going through change and challenges. I hope if you came for dinner tonite, you understand that not everything is sweet and pretty here some days, but I hope the next time you stop by my house, the laundry will be put away and the floors swept so I'm truly ready for my guests. In fact, I know I'll be waiting by the door for you, smiling again, very soon.

lucy