I was so excited to throw my love at something and have it stick.
After a time spent alone, learning to be fully comfortable with myself, I welcomed romance into my life with a newfound appreciation and wide open arms.
I remember asking if I could kiss her and seeing stars when our mouths finally collided. No one has ever wanted me that bad, she said.
Now that it’s over, I have all this love to give with one less container to hold it. I can’t sleep, I don’t want to eat, but I need to keep moving because if I stop I’ll start crying again and I’m so sick of crying.
They say crying is good for you—that it regulates your nervous system—but these tears are all the love I have leaving my body, falling to the ground, sinking into nothingness. The act itself offers me no relief or catharsis. But it’s better to cry than to mask, project, or self-destruct. I am grateful to feel it all. Grateful to not be numbing the pain with alcohol, drugs, or another body.
I try to redirect the love to myself and to the people in my life that stay. I eat, I cycle, I walk, I write, I kiss my friends, I let my family hold me, but there’s still so much excess.
The excess love is wasted, washed away, like tears in the rain.
I recognize that my love, while earnest and far-reaching, could not save a relationship that had split in two and moved in polar opposite directions.
I can see now how my sobriety and recovery was/is fragile, so sensitive to the ebbs and flows of life and love. I didn’t know then how quickly my addict brain could shift from substances to a person and then back to substances. I didn’t see it happening. And I couldn’t have predicted that this big love could not save us in the end.
So gradual was my relapse. I started taking sips of wine from friends’ glasses. At first, they protested and slapped my hand away. But I persisted and eventually, they conceded. And anyway, it wasn’t their responsibility to keep me clean. It is on me that I befriended and fell in love with friends who love to live and let go in Bacchic bliss (as I once loved to do).
Because I want to keep these people in my life, I will spend my days relearning and setting boundaries; avoiding certain people and activities, figuring out when to leave the party, or just knowing when to stay home and get a good night’s rest.
Nothing good happens past midnight.
My occasional sips turned into a full glass of wine with my partner, cozied up on her couch, safe in the bubble we created to shelter us from the world. One glass. It felt so pure, so wholesome, so ceremonial. But as the story goes with addicts, my thirst was and always will be unquenchable. One glass would never be enough.
My partner did nothing to stop or discourage me. She rolled with the shifting tides of my relapse, enjoying our new activities together that centered around alcohol and being out past midnight. Plus, she loved having fun, even if it was at the expense of my sobriety. She did not understand and could not predict the damage those little sips would do. And it wasn’t her responsibility to save me from myself, either.
I had become terrified of myself soon into the relapse, so depressed, worried, and helpless. I was a shell of the person I had grown into before falling in love. And now I wanted this love to save me. I pushed all my pain onto my partner expecting salvation, redemption, and hope. But she didn’t have the capacity, the understanding, or the empathy for such an undertaking. Only I could extend that grace to myself. I had a lot of work to do…
but I still didn’t see it coming—and have difficulty wrapping my head around it—the end of what was.
Unknown to me until the bitter end, she never wanted the calm, sober life I needed to lead and forever tend to. She didn’t want quiet or peace or to be content in the present moment. It was easy to slip into relapse after abandoning myself to a love that was so misaligned with the life I wanted.
I chose, for months, to stay blind to how unviable our relationship had become. I longed for slowness, ease, and to embrace a gentle heart as I learned to love myself over and over again. She craved new experiences, unending self-improvement, and the freedom to find herself.
Despite the confusion, pain, and loss, I still have immense love for her. Never have I trusted a lover so instinctually, been treated so tenderly, or experienced the level of belief she had in me.
I still cry every day. Although less frequently and more controlled than before.
I am 2 months and 22 days clean. Sober. Healthy. Happy, for the most part. I mark each day on my mirror with a dry-erase pen.
I take a cycling class 3 days a week. It’s expensive. But what a glorious way to spend money as opposed to on a bottle of natty wine or a ridiculously overpriced cocktail. Now that it’s summer, my legs are as tan as they are toned.
I wake up every morning around 7:20, 10 mins before my weekday alarm, regardless of what time I fell asleep.
I attend therapy once a week.
I take 1 Benadryl every night, despite my therapist informing me that it is highly addictive. It is the only thing keeping me from staring at the ceiling until the sun rises.
I finished writing this past midnight. You know nothing good happens past midnight.
So love your writing, even when it’s painful. Sending love ❤️