Not for Rent
I don’t know where to begin so I will begin with the end. At this point in early October, I should be farther along than I am. I should be. I could be. But I’m not. That’s on me. It isn’t that I haven’t been writing; it’s that I’ve been writing and re-writing shit. The reason for that is I have put myself in a bad space. I put myself in a short-lived hell. I will spare the details aside from admitting that it has been dramatic, abusive and ugly. The silver lining is that it didn’t take me long to make the decision to leave. I guess you call that maturity…or you might just say that at this age, I have read this book enough times to know how it ends, and it doesn’t end well. To save time and skip reading the middle – I made a sharp right turn and flipped to the end. Maybe instead of calling it maturity I should call it experience. Although I have never experienced anything quite like this.
My part:
I have thought long and hard about my part. It always takes two – to make or break things – it takes two. Over the past few months, I have spent more sleepless nights than I can count, and I have allowed myself to get stuck in the why. I freely admit to serious and glaring mistakes that I made. First, I had warning signs, and I ignored them. I fooled myself and fed myself a story crafted in my arrogance at thinking that I could know someone better than he knew himself. I denied the red flags pointing to a serious alcohol problem, and I also denied the knowledge that I could never deal with that – for me that’s a deal breaker. Alcohol or more specifically alcohol abuse is nothing new to me. I have been on every end of it. I have seen it from many angles, and the disease has cost me before. I never thought it would cost me again – not in my lifetime. It did – like a thief that creeps up silently and robs your joy when you least expect it. Watching someone who I cared for greatly turn to alcohol and then turn ugly, abusive and hateful was painful.
I lied to myself by turning a blind eye to the obvious. I had several occasions to witness drinking get out of hand and subsequently became the target of alcohol-fueled rage. I spent more than one night in tears and broken-hearted at the words thrown like knives at me, and I bought into the day-after apologies and shut my brain off – I went along. I try to justify it in my mind by feeding myself the story that it wasn’t that bad until after I uprooted my life and moved to the other side of the county and into his house. But that, like every other story I try to feed myself, is a lie. True that I didn’t see the full-blown disaster until I moved smack dab in the middle of it, but I did see signs. I should have done a more thorough job investigating the depth of the problem…but I didn’t.
My second glaring mistake was pulling away almost from move-in day. Again, the details are long and dramatic but the short version is that a few large truths came out shortly after moving in with him. I lost trust and instead of putting all those boxes right back into the truck and going back to the peace I came from – I stayed, physically. I ran away emotionally. All that did was add fuel to a fire that had already started. The outcome was many months of living in hell – a high price to pay in the name of love. I didn’t ask anyone else if they wanted to pay that price, and by anyone else I mean my kids. My oldest son came back from Ohio; my college kid was home for the summer, and my little girl was living in between the hell I moved us into and the peace at her dad’s house. The energy in our house was nothing short of miserable for all of us and over time it only escalated until it became what it was at the end.
The tail end looks something like an episode of Jerry Springer meets Forensic Files. Neither is a series I ever wanted to become intimately involved in. But here I sit, one week removed from time spent fearful for my safety and my sanity. I took the abuse night after night, counting down the days until I was out and praying that things didn’t go too far. I’m stubborn and prideful and wanted to walk away on my terms even though I realize that making the decision in and of itself means that I was clearly not walking away on my terms.
Suffocating under the heavy weight of my decision and the toll that the last six solid weeks of emotional and verbal abuse has caused will stay with me for a long time.
The cost:
Its difficult to put a true cost on lost time and impossible to measure the price that emotional damage brings with it. I missed so much with my kids…a few big moments that the joy got sucked out of, and countless small moments that I attended with a fake smile. I allowed my physical health to suffer. I pushed back two book releases. Moving twice in three months cost something too. Aside from the financial cost, which is the smallest in this complicated equation, I faced environment changes twice and most importantly rocked my little girl’s sense of security. Being a kid and watching all of your worldly possessions boxed up and relocated does something to your sense of security. I know this from my childhood, and that is the last thing I ever wanted for my little girl. The anger that I have inside is at myself much more so than it is at him.
The cost of feeling like a failure is also one that cannot be measured. Self-esteem takes a hit when you have no choice but to admit that you used poor judgment.
Those of you who know me have seen me overcome some major setbacks. You have seen me leap tall buildings, and I am sure I spent hours perfecting the posts that made it seem effortless. What I am going through now will look small and insignificant to some of you considering what has happened within my family over the past several years. I assure you; it does not feel insignificant right now. It feels like a huge, unrelenting obstacle. It looks like defeat, and it feels like failure. It has been building almost from the beginning, and that is what makes it so hard for me to understand. That voice…oh, if only I had listened. Funny thing is, it was more than a voice. It was others questioning and giving advice against forging ahead with the decision that put me here. Back in the beginning though, I thought I had it all figured out. It looked good on paper. The pieces of the puzzle, though splayed across the card table like a maze of jagged edges, seemed doable. I truly believed that before the last of the boxes were unpacked, I would have that puzzle solved, sitting put together perfectly for everyone to see. I threw up a Hail Mary with the arrogance of a high school All-American in the last game of senior year – totally confident that it would work. That arrogance cost me…it cost all of us. Now, as I sit here with my tail between my legs like a whipped puppy, I see the error in my judgment so clearly. Admitting I was wrong is almost as hard as admitting I knew better. The knowledge that at my age I threw a Hail Mary makes me feel like I was too slow to get it the first several times – like an insolent child who insists on learning the hard way. I did learn the hard way, and it sucks to say that.
The lesson:
As I sit here in my newest writing space and look around at the freshly unpacked boxes, I could kick myself in the ass. It goes beyond the drinking – I know this for a fact and that brings me to my next harsh reality and that is the reality of my lack of proper judgment. I have been very deliberate about whom I allow into my life – ‘you are who you’re around’ is a mantra I have spouted for years. I was doing well – before him. But, after him I did that thing that we sometimes do when we enter into an all-consuming relationship – I pushed those important people in my life to the outskirts. Before I knew what was going on, I was suffocating on toxic energy and battling against a foe that I would never be victorious over. No matter how much we want happiness for another who hasn’t come to terms with their demons – there is only one direction to go – down. I allowed myself to be pulled down into a non-motivated, negative and destructive place. In my defense and for what it’s worth, I went down kicking and screaming and was completely cognizant of the slippery slope I was navigating. I didn’t stop in time though – the fear of being a failure in the eyes of those I love kept me on that ride for longer than I care to admit.
Some things you can’t change. Some things you can’t undo. Some things are hard to understand. We must go on despite the lack of control, the pain of moving on or the fear of how to put the pieces back together. There is only one alternative, and that is to stay stuck on the wrong path. There are multiple ways to approach the embarking on a new path and a myriad of things and feelings during that process. I believe that they are the same for many of us. There will be tears; there will be struggle and angst but in the darkness we rediscover the light. We can pull it off; clumsily and without grace perhaps, but it can be done. I know this to be true from experience and by watching others I know move on from the unimaginable. As I embark on a new path – a new starting over point, I am reminded of how small of a bump in the road this will look like years from now. I am also reminded of how fortunate I am to be able to make the choice I am making. The biggest choice I made is that I refuse ever to rent out my peace again. I am no longer for rent, and I doubt I will ever go on the market again either. I am so much happier here, with my little family in our cozy little place filled with positive energy, love and no fear of the unknown baggage of outsiders.
I am fortunate, and I know that. I woke up today in a clean, blank space that I am filling with positive energy – healing energy. I will re-build. I am back to those things that serve me best, make me smile and fill me with peace and I am so thankful for that. It could have been much worse.
Although it’s still hard to wrap my head around what has happened, I can breathe without my chest hurting today, and that’s something. That means I am better than I was a week ago. I am sitting behind the keyboard producing – that means I am back to living my dream. My little girl has a big smile on her face, and we now live just minutes from her daddy. The new house is almost all put away, and I love the energy here. I spent thirty minutes talking to my college kid on the phone today and the entire time was full of laughs, happy things, talks about his future and our upcoming trip out to see him. Life is getting back to our normal, and I love our normal. Structure is beginning to take form, and I can see a routine on the horizon. That feels good, safe, and it’s comforting to know that we have come so far in one short week.
Happy Writing,
RJ
On Facebook: Author RJ Belle
First One Down Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFkr7M8V8DI
