So I’m struggling with what to write tonight which is funny because I’ve been so motivated to write lately that I have a list of at least half a dozen entries rolling around in my head… all of them half-written up there and just waiting to be finished up on the keyboard. I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, opening and closing post after post, and just not finding the words. I’m really excited about NaBloPoMo and I love that it’s giving me an excuse to take the time to write every day but I’m taking a minute to remind myself the reason I love to write.

A burden shared is lightened, right? That has always been the reason I write. Tonight my mind and my heart are heavy from the loss of a beloved pet. J is not here and I really need him to be. I feel this overwhelming need to write a positive post about him (it’s one of the drafts I couldn’t finish) because the entries so far on our back story don’t put him in the most favorable light. I feel guilty about that. I want people to understand WHY I love him… why I stay. For now I will just say that he has many, many good qualities and the good far outweighs the bad. But still it’s eating at me… the thinking that someone is reading these posts and judging me. Or even worse, judging him.

I’m a strong person – a trait I inherited from my mother and my grandmother. I have survived depression, panic attics, divorce, deaths, my own life-threatening injuries, loss of jobs and loss of hope. The truth is that after the fire last September (post coming on that too), I believe I am strong enough to get through pretty much anything mostly on my own. But seriously… when does it all end? Maybe it wouldn’t be too much to ask to stop having traumatic and/or dramatic events in my life until my man is back here with me? And then I realized that I was asking the wrong questions.

I wrote him a pretty harsh letter last night. I was angry that he wasn’t here and I couldn’t lean on him on such a horrible day. I told him that it was time for him to figure it all out and from now on I would be assuming that’s what he’s doing. The important part went something like this:

Get your head straight and get all your thinking done and figure out what is going to work for you when you get home. Then get your ass home to me and really be here. To stay.

I believe in you. I know you are capable and I know you are willing.

You are my husband and I should be ALLOWED to need you. So please do it this time. I have always had your back and been as supportive as I know how to be. But the next time I really need you, I need you to be here.

It’s your turn.

I mailed the letter today and, in honesty, I’m very anxious about it. One of the principles I live by is that sometimes it’s better to be kind, than to be right. It was right to try and take care of myself. It was right to ask for what I need. But I rarely do that. I spend most of my time trying to be what he needs me to be and I forget the things that I know about J… one of those being that he is a very typical male creature in a lot of ways. He isn’t great at talking about his feelings and isn’t incredibly intuitive when it comes to the feelings of other people. But the truth is that I have never really asked him to do this in this way. I have screamed and bitched and threatened and “laid down the law” but I have never really told him how much I need him to get better. Maybe it was a wrong approach. Maybe he’ll perceive the letter as a guilt trip thrown at him when he will already be feeling horrible because he wasn’t here. Maybe he will be angry with me for making him worry when he can’t see for himself that I am okay. Maybe he will have read some of the same things I’ve read about recovery that point out he has to do it for himself.

But, looking back on our relationship I don’t recall anything I have ever asked him for that he hasn’t done for me. Not one single thing. I suppose it’s splitting hairs to differentiate between my telling him he has to get better and asking him to do it for me. He knows he is out of chances with the state and is running out of luck with his body.  And he definitely knows he is better than the person he becomes when he’s using. And so I will wait for a phone call or a letter to come in reply… and hope.

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