5 letters.

I made my pilgrimage back to this blog- I only read one passage since my departure in 2012, but will summon some courage to revisit more.  Somehow, it seems strikingly appropriate to house some new thoughts here.  

New chapters.  

There are times I feel I've written a few lifetimes worth of chapters in the last 6 years.  There are many themes, some are ongoing, but perhaps the most monumental one was penned a week ago.  I've talked about healing for a long time- the topic woven into everything I have said or done in recent years.  Last week, I moved out of the home that proficiently housed my pain- it was the final symbol of me clinging to a life that was no longer working for me.  This week, I effectively closed the door on the darkest period of my life.  In my home was a mosaic crafted by my experiences with abuse, cancer, and an overarching lack of care for my personal well being.  There was only so much I could reconcile while still living in the walls where so much abuse took place, but a large part of me wanted familiarity with my pain.  The house itself was making less sense as time wore on, was no longer functional, but, truthfully, if I were not expecting, I may have stayed in that purgatory for much longer. I'm grateful to be propelled into a better life, pushed to move on... now an oh-so-recognizable pattern in my life.

The process of sifting through years of chaos was depleting.  There was a graveyard of hidden bottles, including the more extreme varieties like mouthwash and vanilla extract.  The entire basement told the story of a mad (sad?) man who spent days at a time recording music or building computers in a depressing, concrete setting, while draining these bottles and becoming less able to relate to others.  I let the moratorium exist for 2 years until I was ready to deal with it.  My current partner helped clear out most of the things in the basement.  It was challenging to let someone in so close, to allow them to see the evidence and aftermath of this lifestyle.  I read a lot of the personal, historical poems, songs and letters- each of them either making perfect sense or leaving me completely bewildered.  Mostly, it made me incredibly sad and I would weep over the lost potential of a man who is the father of my child.  I felt guilty and victimized all over again.  And then I found something that stopped me in my tracks.

5 handwritten letters, all addressed to me.

I found them in the basement 10 days ago, during a final clean sweep of college papers.  The 4 that were on top were written in an obsessed cursive- someone claiming we were each other’s until death.  I remember getting them and thinking it was just meant to be that way.  That it was my fate, whether I wanted it or not, I would belong to someone else in this prepossessed fashion.  It was powerful being told I was all someone had ever wanted- I was 19 and had never had a real boyfriend; I had never been wanted like that.  These 4 letters summed up what I now view as a toxic, fixated and treacherous relationship, but back then, I believe it brought me a sense of belonging.

Somehow, the most tragic of the collection of letters was on the bottom, as if I was meant to find this forgotten letter in succession after the others.  Few things have affected me so much in my life- I tear up when I think of the words.  They were formed by my Mother, and it was a plea to me; she was reaching out in an effort to salvage our bond.  There she was, pouring her heart out in an effort to be close with me and even suggested we write each other letters to find some common ground at that strained, obscure time.  I know for a fact I did not write her anything, but can’t remember if I even acknowledged being in receipt of her letter.  How is that possible?  

My memory, likely out of protection, prevented me from even remembering when I received it, and truthfully, I don’t remember reading it.  I immediately raced through the decade of reconciliation I had granted myself.  I was so sure things were never this bad.  Only now can I imagine how my family must have felt to watch me slip away in a few short years.  I was always on top of my drug affiliation, always in control of my chaos, or so I thought.  As I look back now, I am incredibly lucky to have come out of the lifestyle I was in.  I was endlessly searching for meaning in my life and surrounded myself with unique, admittedly abstract people who were searching for the same bizarre connection we thought only a drug-fueled night could establish.  When I was told by my ‘soul mate’ that he had found me and we would be together, I hesitated but ultimately accepted.  When the abuse started, there seemed no way to turn back on that acceptance of a mate.  He offered up our future together in such a way that I could only accept him, thus beginning a slow isolation from healthy relationships with my friends and family members.  I take responsibility for the way I allowed it all to happen.  I was mortified at times to have people see glimpses of the reality I had chosen, so I designed a beautifully woven web of airy humour, artfully deflecting any arising questions.  

I was dangerously good at hiding my pain.  

After particularly frenzied nights, and perhaps, more shockingly, days, I would put on a brave face and go about laying on a thick, charming presence.  I would hide that my partner hadn't come home for days, make secret phone calls, including to the police as he was arrested from time to time, and simultaneously live in fear of his return.  All predictability was taken away- any semblance of normalcy or safety, gone.  After a few years, there was no way I could open up about it.  No one would possibly understand it, and I had no tangible way out, so I kept thousands of secrets, lied to everyone and found a way to survive in the fucked up world I had helped create.  I wanted adventure and a unique life, and here I was in the twisted reality of my own secret world.

When my daughter came along, things were falling apart.  There was no way of hiding being abandoned at my parents in Swift Current for a few days the week before my due date, with him taking my car, going on a bender and getting a DUI.  When she was born, the most sincere, but least followed up on promises spewed out.  It would never, ever happen again.  Now we could commit to a better life because he had finally hit a rock bottom.  I could never have predicted the layers of rock bottoms that awaited us.  It was unbelievable how I could be so ashamed and hopeful at the same time.  My cancer diagnosis months later required me to lean on my family even more.  I'm lucky to have the love of a family who waited for me to come back to them.  They never knew most of what was happening, but they knew things were not right and they weren't happy with my choices.  The best thing they could have ever done for me was to make it clear that I could always go to them if I needed. 

As they organized their lives in pairs to either care for my girl or be at my bedside in the hospital during treatments, he flitted in and out of my life.  I was relieved to be in the hospital, in a blank, sterile space.  It felt safer and I could exercise my right to choose his presence.  He rarely offered it, but when he did come, he wasn't sober.  One depressing night following an exhausting chemo cycle, I involved the hospital security to ensure my safety for the night.  Reports came in from mutual people in our lives- he was a lost man those days.  I couldn't blame him, couldn't waste time or energy on it.  I was fighting for my life.

My family endured the awkward on again, off again explanations that followed.  I wasn't sure how to leave but I desperately wanted to stay in my home.  He wasn't able to leave, and I continued to finance almost everything.  His spontaneous income didn't stretch much farther than his habits and attempts to make more money through paid gigs typically resulted in more expenses, due to DUI's or lost/broken equipment.  It was a difficult thing to try to translate to anyone and I shied away from pitying looks.  I wanted to appear capable, and flipped between feeling strong for all I had endured and weak for knowingly staying with a broken man.  Our daughter remained mostly safe, though I look back with repulsion thinking of the first 3 years of her little life and wish for more for her.  Every chance we could take, we went to Swift Current and felt safe for a few days as he inverted between white knuckling it with sobriety and relapsing.  My ultimate departure from the relationship was a calculated one that took months to pull off.  That can wait for another time though...

Being on the other side of that life feels so strange.  I'm aware it happened and I remember the fear. He had broken into the home in the middle of the night after we broke up and I had always felt it could happen again.  I wasn't ever entirely restful and didn't fully feel safe.  The distress and disorder is encoded in me, as my past can not be amputated.  I  suppose I am just growing around it.

My family is slowly becoming aware of all that I went through.  Sometimes I blurt things out, awkwardly wanting the truth to be on the surface.  Other times, I am more protective of it, more methodical about how I share.  They have only been loving and accepting of me, and we continue to have tearful conversations about the breakdown of our relationship from time to time.  I feel blessed to be in this space of forgiveness.  I haven’t been a perfect member of this family, but the unconditional love that exists there is encouraging.  

The day of the move, my loved ones came into the house and slowly, each room became less claustrophobic, less scary.  Clearing the space.  My parents took us out for brunch the morning after and my daughter sat beside me as I recounted the discovery of my Mom's letter, apologizing and crying over all that I missed over the years.  It was simultaneously liberating and painful but I believe we can only move forward.

And I personally can only move forward from the 5 letters.  I am a different version of myself, someone aware of how much I have and how I could never let it slip away again.  In this grisly decade-long process, I have finally found myself healing at the core, where I was the most protective of my pain. 

I am grateful I have enough time to make it right.