Arsenic

Intermittently, I feel normal, like a gal going about her business, going to lunch, writing a rent check, sipping on a lemonade. Other times I feel as though I have been punched in the stomach, some random song, or story title, or moment of weak thoughts knocking the air out of me, and I double over, remembering that my life is NOT business as usual. I am making big changes. I am in recovery.

Today I did something mildly obsessive, and that was to visit the web site of Elias' newly created writer's group. He has been working on it as a bulletin board forum and posts are only visible to the elite members who are personally invited by him. He does have a paragraph of publically viewable text on it, though, and even though I know better than to check it, because as administrator he can view the IP addresses of any visitor and guess that it is me, I had to. I know it's like an alcoholic taking a nip, but words penned by him, in that informal syntax-less style, have been my very nourishment for two years.

I felt awful afterward, that one paragraph, maybe five sentences, spreading through me like arsenic. I really must control myself better. Even this mild contact, seemingly harmless, drains me, pushes me out of the whatever small comfortable spot I have carved for myself.

I try to remember despite all the pain we inflicted upon each other, we did give each other back our writing. That is our gift, and perhaps, our legacy. I try to hope his writing group works for him, and likely it will--he will find others to obsess with, and this makes him really produce, really write hard. Despite everything, I recognize his talent, and I envy the women (for I guarantee you they are all women) who get to read it now. I hope they keep enough distance, or are smarter than me, and get out when it gets rough.

The will to change your life often begins at 3 a.m

If he had been pills or powder or an injection, I could have started a 12-step program to kick him.

If he had hit me or yelled at me or knocked me to the floor, I could have moved to a shelter.

If I had been drinking him, a burning liquid scalding my throat and searing my belly, I could have called a hotline and received a mentor to walk me through recovery.

But he was none of these. He was my lover, my passionate partner, a gifted writer who could make words pierce my psyche, inspiring an addiction with the power to make me bleed, literally bleed, and rise up from the white tile flecked with crimson to make me want to feel it again, forsaking my own life.

I begin this blog on the night I decided I had to end this relationship or it would kill me.