Wild Little Hare

The most surprising thing of all, is that I haven’t missed you a bit.  I don’t wish I could call you and tell you about my day, or the animals, or my progress in buying a house… you’d just change the subject anyway.  I don’t miss seeing you, or asking you to come over, or even going to lunch… where you’d hound me for free legal advice, or make me feel badly for making more money than you. I don’t miss hearing about your made up dramas, or who’s the villain in your story this week. At first this surprised me.

I’m grateful I don’t have to listen to you complain about how the people in your life haven’t done enough for you, even after bending over backwards for years to help you out.  Or listen to how the world hasn’t coddled you enough, even though you’re a 58-year old woman.  Or listen to how much your mom fucked you up, while you somehow manage to ignore that you’ve shown your own children the same emotional neglect and instilled the same fear of abandonment.  I’m grateful I don’t have to answer your call and receive a spew of unsolicited opinions, or listen to you complain about my brother freely living his life after you eagerly hitched your wagon to it.  I’m grateful I don’t have to listen to you talk about how 18-years later, you think your ex-husband still wants you back, and that he’s unhappy in his new life.  I’m grateful I no longer have to absorb your feelings while I suppress my own, just to avoid another explosive reaction from you.  I’m grateful I no longer have to ignore my boundaries, or the fact my inner-child cries the loudest when you’re around.  I’m grateful I no longer have to listen to you accuse everyone else around you of being a narcissist, while you skillfully avoid any shiny surface that might show you your own reflection.  I’m grateful I no longer have to feel like I owe you something, simply because I exist.  Or that my feelings towards you aren’t valid, simply because you refuse to self-reflect.  I’m grateful that even though the last 7 months have been gruesome, that you weren’t there to make it harder on me.

There’s not a single thing about your narcissistic personality that I miss, yet being happier without you somehow makes me feel like I failed as a child.

I was searching for dinner recipes on my phone the other night when you called.  I paused, letting your initials dance across the screen for a moment, trying to determine if this was accidental or intentional.  I swiped to answer, then clicked the speakerphone.  I put my elbows back on the countertop, and continued scrolling, “Hey.”
The other line was quiet for a full second before, “Hey.”
“Whatcha doin?” I tried to sound casual.
The line was quiet.  I stood up from the counter and began to walk through the house.  I still haven’t figured out where the best cell reception spots are; they all seem to be pretty bad.
“Hello?” I asked again.  I was halfway to the front door.
“Yeah, I’m here…” he began to say.

A few days ago, I’d been watching videos I took on my phone from the week we were moving into our house.  The railing on the stairs hadn’t been installed yet, but the tools for it were laid out on the steps.  The windows had the manufacturer’s stickers in the corners of them still, and we’d just finished polishing the wood floors a few days before.  I was recording myself walking from the bathroom to the kitchen and for a few seconds in the video, I could see you squatted down in the garage doorway as I passed by, talking to probably Mike in the basement.  In that moment, I’d realized I hadn’t actually heard your voice in years.  It sounded foreign to me at the time, and it made me feel sad.

Last night I was sitting atop a steppingstone in my backyard, pushing my fingertips into the freshly watered soil while I listened to you talk.  You didn’t sound foreign to me now.
I could hear the hurt in your voice, the weight in your words, the slur in your speech.

Each time we talk, I know you try to hide the fact you’re still drinking. I guess I appreciate it.
“It’s my first beer in a long time,” you told me last night as I rolled my eyes.

I can’t ever help but to feel close to you, even after years of distance.  I can’t ever help but to think of you and imagine only the nights I’d wake up and sleepily sneak an arm under yours.  You hated the way the cats were always in your face, and it always made me laugh when I woke up and found them both surrounding your pillow.  What I miss most is getting to bring you coffee in bed the mornings; you rarely stayed in bed after waking up, but it was such a treat for me when you did.  I remember calling out to you from the shower at 10:00pm, “baby the sprinklers are still on!” and hearing you clamor down the stairs, through the back gate to the garden. Why didn’t we ever install a drip system?

“I like being able to have you as a friend. I didn’t think I would. I’m glad I was wrong.”

It’s been a long time since I was able to genuinely feel gratitude. Its been months since I was able to freely give thanks. Naturally being an optimistic, carefree person, this shift in mindset has been debilitating.
Earth shattering.
The most terrifying ego death I’ve ever experienced.

These relentless feelings of hopelessness and despair is not because I don’t have a reason to be grateful. I know more than anyone that I have so many people in my corner, rooting for me, and protecting me every day. I know more than anyone that I have countless people in my life bending over backwards to help me succeed, while I’ve felt like I’m out here fighting for my fucking life.

“I’ve just been in survival mode for so long now,” I told Carina, “Any inkling of an emotion is taking me 2-4 weeks to even indentify.”

Just get through this week, has been the mantra to my life, since Thanksfuckingiving.

You can’t heal in the environment that broke you, we know that.
But you also can’t heal in any other toxic environment.

I’ve wanted to seek counseling for awhile. I wanted guidance on maneuvering my ever-deteriorating relationship with each of my parents. Or at least find reassurance that No Contact wasn’t heartless. But, I know that I’m no good at lying; I knew that I would sit there and speak honestly about the details of ALL my personal relationships. I put it off for so long. I was embarrassed to admit to another adult human being that even though I was painfully aware of the toxicity levels, I’d still spent last Fall entertaining Nick.

“You’re not benefiting from No Contact with your parents, if you date people just like them.”
She basically impaled me.

Just having the therapy appointment on my calendar gave me a sense of relief for weeks leading up to it. The ability to be 100% honest with someone, without receiving words or looks of judgment in return, was a level of liberating I somehow didn’t anticipate. The ability to be honest in an environment that not only welcomed it, but accepted it, and moved forward with it, was something I’d rarely encountered in life.
I suddenly became hyperaware that I’d been confiding in the wrong people, for most of my life.

“If they’re not building with you, they’re destroying you.” Carina told me two weeks ago, while she urged me to re-evaluate the people I’ve allowed so close to me.

I heard myself laugh yesterday, and for the first time in months, I actually recognized it. I actually recognized myself. I spent the night in the kitchen cooking dinner for my friends, and we sat around the table telling each other funny stuff that happened during the day. I’m grateful for the simple, miniscule details that go into making me feel whole.

The gratitude is finally flowing freely through my mind again. The optimism it takes to give thanks, has finally returned. The unconditional love, support, and understanding I’ve been surrounded by has scoured the impatience, anger, and paranoia that I’d been stuck in for months.

Grateful, is an understatement.

“I need your feedback on something,” I told him as I dropped my backpack onto the back of his dining room chair.
“Rocks?” he glanced up from the other side of the kitchen island.
“Nah, I’m good,” I casually waved my hand above my head, looking up just long enough to catch him scrunching his nose.
“Gross.” He laughed as he poured the last of the whiskey into an empty glass.

I thought back to 2019, El Verano de Divorcio:
I’d made a habit of letting myself into his house. After work. On the weekends. After the bar. Borrow power tools. Play with his goats. Steal his booze. Fuck in the shower.
He never seemed to mind.
“That summer was crazy,” he told me last year, elbows on the bar.
I shook my head with a laugh, “no kidding. Literally just flying by the seat of our pants.”
“The whole time!” He laughed.

I stopped to take a look around his house. My plants in the kitchen sink. My laundry across the couch. My shoes lined up at the front door next to his.
I remembered one summer morning, when I’d found my earrings neatly placed on my outdoor table. I spent the day trying to figure out why my feelings were hurt? I’d asked him to drop them off, and here they were;
I loved the idea of my stuff at his place.

“Sounds like it’s been a one-sided relationship,” he told me after I’d settled into the couch. “And to be honest, I’d be upset, too.”
I watched him move about the kitchen before he looked up at me. I always wonder how obvious it is when I’m battling the tears welling up in my eyes. I always wonder how it’s possible that he’s so good at nurturing my inner child.
She’s literally always screaming for emotional validation. My poor, sweet girl.

He suddenly turned himself to face me on the couch: “I can’t believe how well you’re handling the stress.”
Fuck, I thought to myself. We’d had far too many talks that started just like this one, for me to not see what was coming next. He’s gonna make me talk about my feelings.
“Glad I’m hiding it well,” I huffed impassively.
I thought about all the times we’d sat around the house before, and he’d randomly assault me with my own feelings like this. The air was still for a moment, and I wished so badly he’d just put his focus back on the game. I could feel his eyes on me still: “how are you handling the stress?”
He was really going for the gold on this.
I paused for a moment. I wanted to dramatically throw my arms in the air: You’re fucking looking at it, guy.
I raised the glass of whiskey he’d handed me earlier.
He laughed, and finally looked away: “I’m sorry so much is happening at one time.

Not every lose is a loss.”

I was at a red light last night when Jeremiah’s mom called me.  I was on my way to tour a property in the next town over from her.  Seems like moms always know that sort of thing.
“Hi mama!” I tried to sound like I hadn’t just been scream crying in my car.
“Are you okay?” She asked immediately, “You sound stuffy.”
“I’m okay,” I threw a hand at my turn signal as I laughed.  “I was just crying.”
“Well that doesn’t sound okay to me.  What’s going on?”

I always try to tread lightly when I talk about my relationship with her son.  I try to tip toe around the fact that’s her 41-year old baby boy, and maybe she thinks he can do no wrong.  I try to leave out the parts that indicate I’m still so fucked up from having loved him for all those years.

“He’s an idiot,” she told me.  “No one ever expected you to change him.  You made the right decision to look after your own happiness.  And you need to continue to look after your own happiness.”

o0o

The line rang twice before Carina answered: “Are you here, darling?”
“I hope so,” I laughed apprehensively.  “The gate was opening for a car to exit when I got here, so I just pulled in.  But I don’t see an address number anywhere.  I just parked next to a-“
“I’ll be right there,” she told me, taking control of my nerves for me. “I’m gonna bring a little mule!”
I laughed as we both hung up.

I got out of my car, tossing the keys onto the dashboard.  The sky was beginning to change temperature with the sunset, the mosquitos were coming in from the lakeshore.  The roar of the croaking frogs demanded my full attention.

I heard a little engine revving, getting closer just before I saw her round the corner.   Blonde curls flying behind her in the wind.
Okay so, not a donkey, I laughed to myself.
She pulled up next to me on the dirt road and pointed to the handle on the door, “Let me show you around before it gets too cold.”

Twenty minutes, and three house tours later, we stood on the brand new patio of an empty cabin.
“I was in an abusive relationship in my twenties,” she told me. “Everyone hates talking about it, ya know?  But it’s important to normalize talking about abuse, to give strength to those that haven’t found it yet.”
I tried to hide the fact my eyes were welling with tears.
My trauma responses have been fully engaged for so long, I couldn’t even tell what expression I was making.  I probably wasn’t.
“What’s with your parents?” She pressed.
That’s it.  There was no pretending not to cry anymore.  I had already tried to act cool earlier when her boyfriend asked me where my parents lived?  I should have just replied “they’re dead”, instead of trying to explain that they’d both been local my whole life.

“Yeah, my parents are dirtbags too,“ She took another drag of her clove.  “Moved out when I was 15.”
I laughed at the constant comparisons between our paths, “Yep,” I smiled.  “Me too.”
“You have spunk, you have talent, you have strength.”  She told me, “Everything is gonna get better from here, okay?”
I’ve basically just been leaking tears for three months straight.

“Crank up the tunes, sing like a rockstar,” She told me as my car idled over the threshold of her security gate. “You’re safe, you’re loved, you’re going to thrive.”  She smiled as she patted the top of my door through the window.

I cried the whole way back.  I cried for myself.  I cried for my animals.  I cried for the past me, and the present me.  I cried in an attempt to forgive myself.  An attempt to forgive myself for having gone against my better judgment for a solid two years.  An attempt to forgive myself for ending up here.  I fought so hard to escape Jeremiah’s drinking problem, and then what did I do?  Hopped right into Nick’s.
What’s the worst that could happen?  I remember thinking to myself, It’s just a fling.
Cue in: Police reports.  Slashed tires.  Restraining orders.  Court hearings.  Midnight 911 calls. 

I must have driven past this driveway a couple thousand times over the past two years.
I never knew there was a paradise waiting for me at the end of the dirt road.

I took a look around me today and realized I didn’t recognize a single fucking thing about my life.

The car I’ve been driving is not mine. The couch that I woke up on was not mine. The house that I woke up in is not mine. The folks feeding my goats breakfast each morning is not me. The bed my cats are curled up in each night is not mine. I was sitting in my law office, pretending to have my shit together, while I was wearing the same pants I’d slept in the night before.

“You’re not homeless,” Tim poked at his fajitas over lunch last week. “You’re just houseless.”
I wish I could pretend to be as nonchalant about it as he was. I wish I could pretend I wasn’t experiencing one of the hardest times in my life. I wish I could pretend like I wasn’t spending every second of the day imagining how I could have handled things differently in the past to not be in the situation I currently am. I wish I could pretend I wasn’t constantly contemplating forgiving the people that do not deserve it.

Everyone around me has been having a shit time lately, but I can’t help but to wish I was facing their problems instead. There’s something slightly comical and wildly angering about listening to someone complain about the things you’d kill to have.

Maybe it’s jealousy. Maybe it’s lack of accountability. Maybe I haven’t been tough enough on myself.

I’ve been living in someone else’s head, it seems.

“You’re acting self destructively,” Max told me this morning after I’d explained my weekend, right before I’d quickly tried to change the subject.
“Yeah,” I rolled my eyes, “I fucking know that.”
He didn’t let a moment pass before he asked, “SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?”

I took a look around me today and reazlied I didn’t recognize a single thing about my life.

I don’t recognize myself. I don’t recognize my thoughts. I dont recognize my voice. I don’t recognize my reflection. I don’t recognize my behavior.

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything, that we’re free to do anything.”
Chuck Palahniuk

“I’m so glad you were able to come by tonight!” my phone chimed as I pulled the truck onto the main road.
“I am, too!” I quickly typed and dropped my phone into the center console.
The sunset was smeared across the sky. I’d been crying so much these days that I didn’t even feel the tears casually streaking my cheeks.

Queen of taking the long way home on the days that have overstayed their welcome.
What’s the cure for a heavy heart, if not whiskey?

“Hi baby!” I squealed to the brunette behind the bar.
“Hi honey!” She called back to me, counting tips, as she slid her eyes down the bar.
My eyes followed hers, and they landed on a friendly sight at the other end.
“Hey!” I heard him call out to me.

I didn’t see his truck when I pulled into the parking lot. I didn’t see much of anything at all the entire way there, to be honest. Shout out to muscle memory for getting me there safely.

A fleeting memory of the night before crossed my mind.
“I’m sorry things are so hard right now,” he told me, “You’re a tough girl.”
I tried to play it cool. I’m always trying to play it cool.

“How are you?” I sang to Amanda.
“Don’t you dare sit on that stool!” He called to me from 30 feet away.

I swung a leg over the stool between him and another guy, and immediately caught onto the fact he was annoyed with the amount of small talk that was being done by the strangers around him. He grabbed at my thigh the way he always does before he steals a kiss. I pretended to not feel it. I pretended to not feel like I wanted to unbutton his wranglers and gobble his dick in front of everyone in that bar.

“You get a new car?” He nodded towards the keys that had been sitting in front of me on the bar.
I sighed. “No… I’m just- uh… test driving.”
The bartender scrunched her nose at my story.
Most of this bar had seen what happened to my car just a few weeks before.

Just one more, we kept hollering to her.

“So, what do you want for your birthday this year?” He asked me, 4 whiskeys later, “A baby goat?”
I laughed as I caught a glimpse of my contact photo in his phone.
You’re the prettiest girl in my phone, he told me on the couch last summer when he updated it.
“Just your hand in marriage, will be fine I guess.” I pushed another empty glass to the bar mat.
He slapped my ass as he stood up, “Maybe it’s time.”

I tried to play it cool. I’m always trying to play it cool.

“…so yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to,” I tried to fake a casual tone as I battled to swallow the golf ball growing in my throat.
“Well,” His tone seemed to pierce the air; I could tell he’d been trying hard to bite his tongue the entire time I’d been talking. “I think you’re smarter than the choices you’ve been making.”
I rolled my eyes but, he was right.

I’m smarter than the choices I’d been making, was the exact phrase I kept repeating to myself the whole year.  Life is hard, don’t make it harder.
You can’t keep dancing with the devil and wonder why you’re still in hell.
Take your pick, they all fit my present.
“Can I text you later?” I abruptly asked him, “Natalie is calling.”
“LOVE YOU, BYE.” He announed quickly as he clicked off the line.

“Hi baby!” I whined to Natalie in a huff of relief.
“Hey girl!” She called to me, “Where are you, what are you doing?”
“Can you come get me?” I basically crumbled.
“I’m getting up right now!”

I could feel myself detaching further from you each time I had to listen to you apologize. I could feel myself growing with resentment each time you forced the blame of your insecurities onto me. I could hear the voice in my head getting louder each time you drunkenly berated me. I thought constantly of the girl sitting in your garage 3 summers ago telling herself, this is not for me.
“Sometimes you have to learn the same lesson fourteen times.”

I’ve orchestrated my entire path in life by taking leaps of faith. It’s been beautiful but-
I didn’t make the right choice this time. And I’m working hard every day to forgive myself for it.
Can’t win ’em all.

“I’m so sorry,” she told me as she collected me into a hug the morning after the most recent showing. Drunk and Angry: Party of One.
“I knew it was a possibility,” I told her through tears, “I just didn’t think it would get this bad.”

About a half mile past the very last street lamp, I found a beam of light swiping across the entrance of the muddy drive. A flashlight. I came to a stop as I saw her approach the passenger window.
“Micaela?” She asked me from under the hood of her jacket. Rain fell all around us. Her headlamp illuminated my puffy eyes and tear streaked cheeks. Killer first impression.
I wiped my face dry as I nodded. I knew I looked pathetic. I knew I was going to start leaking more tears any moment.
“I’m so happy you’re here.” She smiled with a pause. “Dean is a little further up the road, he’ll guide you in.” She pointed her flashlight towards the back of the property. “Just take a deep breath. You guys are alright now, okay?” She grabbed my hand through the window.

I was glad I’d poked around the place in the sunlight, or I may have felt nervous about navigating this U-Haul up the road in complete darkness. I saw another headlamp dancing in the distance: Dean.
“Hey,” I greeted him quickly as I pulled up near him and put the truck in reverse.
“Oh, it’s you driving!” He told me, “then you know where you’re going.” He took a step back as he shone his flashlight onto the gravel drive behind me.

“They’re here!” I heard Cathy call out to the property as she trailed through the mud on the way to me. I heard a voice more voices gather before they headed my way.

o0o

“Isn’t it strange,” Kalista told me, “How we are so used to being treated like shit, that the second a stranger shows us an ounce of kindness, we’re just so- surprised. But we’re all just humans, you know? It’s literally just humanity.”

I have a bad habit of romanticizing the past.  I’ve always struggled with my own hindsight, remembering monsters from my past as modern day saints instead.  Remembering people as if they had been who I wish they were, instead of who they actually were.

This past summer I was on a bar stool next to Tim as we played word games on his phone.
“I used to play this game with Jeremiah all the time,” I told him as I leaned back on my bar stool to finish my drink, “He’d send me messages through the app and talk shit to me, even though we were both in our apartment laying on the same couch.” I laughed lightly, as I allowed the memory to play freely in my mind.
Tim set his whiskey glass down on the bar, “You know, when you tell me stories like that, it makes me think that he wasn’t awful all the time.” he said almost absentmindedly.
I gave him a sharp side-eye, “He wasn’t.”

The summer after he threw our world upside down, I moved as far away as my commute to work would allow me.  A small town I knew very little about, next a half-dozen other towns I knew nothing about.  When people would ask me, “How did you end up all the way out here?” I used to shrug with a laugh and say, “I needed to make sure I didn’t share a Home Depot with my ex.”

A couple weeks after I’d moved, I was sad and lonely, and hitting the dating apps hard.  I was broke and hungry and agreed to a second date with a boring guy under the premise of “the best chicken parm I’ve ever had”.  When I got there he was watching A Star is Born- the newer one with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.  I had no idea what the movie was about, I’d never seen this one, or any other rendition before.  It was at the scene where Alley wins a Grammy, and during her acceptance speech Jack crawls onto stage drunkenly slurring, “did you just win?”  He eventually stands up next to her, but then pisses himself on stage next to her, and the crowd roars with laughter in the middle of her speech.  The embarrassment in her voice, and the panic that overcomes her, as she uses herself to hide him, sent my heart racing. The few minutes I spent watching this scene sent me into fight-or-flight.  I felt nauseated.
“What the fuck is this?” My trauma response barked at him.
“A star is born.  You haven’t seen it?”
“No,” I told him as I remained standing at the end of the couch.

It continues onto a scene where Jack is finally released from rehab.  When her manager denies her taking him on tour with her, she decides to cancel the tour altogether.  My heart broke, for her.  I was angry, for her.  I felt betrayed, for her.
“That’s a good woman,” whatshisface said out loud.
“What is?” I snapped at him, clearly exuding my own past. “Putting her life on hold to coddle his drinking problem?”
It was quiet for a moment as we both recognized the tension in the room.
“A good woman stands by her man.” He told me.
I laughed loudly as I grabbed my keys off the coffee table: “Yeah, and a good man wouldn’t put her through hell for it.”

In a recent conversation exchange with my ex, he drunkenly blabbed to me that I wasn’t able to “handle him”, in reference to the fact I’d chosen to leave him.  A cheap way to shift accountability of his actions onto me.  As if I hadn’t spent years of my twenties watching him continually jeopardize the health and safety of our relationship over a glass of johnny walker.  As if I hadn’t once driven to every bar between Folsom and Elk Grove, looking for his truck the night he didn’t come home from Sunday golf. As if he’d never jumped out of my car at a red light and busted his face open falling into a ditch, on the way home from my nephew’s first birthday party. As if I hadn’t begged him for weeks to go back to AA with me.  As if he didn’t gaslight me for months, insisting that he “wasn’t even drinking”. As if I wasn’t coming across empty vodka bottles hidden in the closets any time I cleaned the house.  As if I was supposed to just remain unhappy, because he was comfortable.

By the end of our relationship, I’d felt as though I’d given up so much of myself- so many pieces of personality, just trying to keep him on track. After I finally got to clean out the debris of our relationship, and create my life again, I felt like I didn’t know myself at all.  I spent the summer pushing my own limits, throwing myself into situations just to see how I’d react, trying everything once, maybe twice.  Saying Yes to almost anything, trying to make up for time with myself that I’d lost.

A lot of things that happened this year have made me realize I’m not yet healed from the trauma of loving an addict.  I’ve been in denial of the post-traumatic stress I’ve been carrying.  I’ve been telling myself, “It’s been 2-years” as if time alone will heal me, as if healing is linear, or has a timeline. As if my healing hasn’t been hindered by the company I’ve been keeping; As if choosing to live with a different addict did not absolutely halt my ability to heal.