Blog Title: The Junky's Wife

Prayer and Meditation.

I have been focusing on meditation after having a really wonderful experience meditating a few weeks ago, but I have had less success with being able to pray. I have had a few different kinds of prayers over the last few years while struggling with my reactions to my husband's addiction. Most often, my prayers are centered around the themes, "Help me! Help me! Help me!" or "Please help my husband!" Sometimes, I have prayed in gratitude when I've broken through some barrier, and after working the steps the first time, my prayers have frequently reworded the 11th step..."God, please show me your will for me and give me the power to carry it out."

Last night, though, I recognized something new...

When I pray, it can function similarly to my meditation. When I sit to meditate, I am trying to quiet my mind, and the way I quiet it is to bring awareness to my thoughts. If I start to have a sexual thought about my husband, I can label it as "desire," and come back to my breath, my mantra, my center. If I have a thought about a resentment, I can label it as "aversion," and again return to quiet. Once I shine some awareness on my thoughts, they tend to dissipate, and I find some peace and stillness within myself.

If I apply these same principles to prayer, then, I can shine a light of awareness outside myself. I found myself praying last night, and the thoughts that came to my mind were all extensions of loving kindness to people who I love. I thought of my husband, and I brought my attention to hoping that he is able to follow God's path for him, and that the path will include some healing. I thought of certain members of my family and friends, and I bathed them with similar loving wishes. I thought of my students, and I wished them success in finishing the semester and hoped God would guide them to breakthroughs in their work. It felt so good that I even thought of some the people I like least in the world, and wished them peace and a softening of the rough edges of life.

I've heard many times that meditation is listening to God and prayer is talking to God, which was a helpful starting place...but this new understanding of meditation as an inward-facing concentration of loving kindness and prayer as an outward-facing concentration of that same energy helped me understand it all in a new way. I'm excited.

In God's Hands

I've posted another update at The Second Road. In all the crazy, I've gotten behind in my obligations to post over there, so I'm catching up. I plan to be back to my regularly scheduled blogging next week.

Online Step Study: The First Step

I'm working on a new website for people interested in working the steps online, and I'd love some feedback. I'm putting together the content for the first step right now. If you've worked the steps and you have something to say about the experience that you'd be willing to share on my new site, which I hope will go live around the first of the year, please leave it in a comment here. I'll return the favor with a link if you'd like, and it's sure to plant excellent karmic seeds!

Thank you all.

Thanks to everyone who has sent me kind messages after this weekend's mess.

You can read an update at The Second Road.

Commitment.

Marriage means commitment. Of course, so does insanity. I'm up to my neck in both.

Over the last several days, my husband has increasingly talked of a desire to hurt himself. He has been caught somewhere between wanting to turn himself in to the police to deal with his warrant and to find some help to detox. Feeling like these two options were the only ones, he's vacillated between hopelessness and fear. Yesterday morning, when we woke up, he wanted to go to the emergency room. He'd called a few detox facilities, and they'd all suggested that going to the emergency room would be a good first start to being connected to resources to help him with his suicidal feelings and his detox.

We went to an emergency room, and he told the doctor that he was feeling suicidal and that he wanted help with his substance abuse problems. He told him that he was on methadone maintenance, but that he is out of money and has no way to secure methadone and continue weaning down. He said that he is horribly afraid of being dopesick, and that he's feeling like he'd rather kill himself than detox on his own again. He told him that he is violent toward me, aggressive, and angry when he's detoxing, and that he doesn't want to be a risk to me, to himself, or to anyone.

The doctor called a detox center, which said that his methadone dose was too high to help him. He explained that while he has been prescribed a high dose of methadone, that he's not been able to get it regularly because of his financial problems, and so he's been spreading out his doses over several days. They said that he should get back on his methadone program, and that was all the advice they had in spite of his protests that he is out of money. This doctor gave him a prescription to help him with nausea, and sent him home. No one addressed the fact that he was saying that he wanted to kill himself, and they didn't offer suggestions for anymore resources.

He was becoming increasingly agitated and talked more and more about wanting to cut his throat or slit his wrists. I recommended that we try our county's psychiatric emergency room, as it seemed like that might be a place where they'd listen to you when you were saying that you wanted to kill yourself. We went there next.

Again, he told the intake nurse that he was thinking about killing himself, and he wanted help with his suicidal feelings as well as some ideas about resources to help him detox from methadone. The doctors took him back in a room, had him dress in scrubs, and took away his pocketknife. They brought me out a bag full of his things, and I was very excited. I thought that they must be admitting him, and it seemed like they were trying to get him some help. They let me go back to visit him, behind a set of locked doors, and he said that they were going to send him to the county detox facility, where they'd promised he'd be able to see a nurse to get some help for the symptoms of his detox. I sat in with him while he explained his fears and his suicidal thoughts to a psychiatrist, and I expressed my own fears for his safety as well as my own. I told her about all his crazy behavior in the recent and the distant past, and how I was both afraid to leave him alone and to stay with him when he was detoxing. The psychiatrist said she understood, and she promised him that he wouldn't leave her care without getting the help he needed. She said that he seemed paranoid about the medical system, but that there was no reason to be afraid. She assured him that there was help for people like him. He thanked her, and she asked us to go wait in the main waiting room.

A nurse brought out a customer satisfaction survey, and my husband filled it out, writing a note at the end thanking them for helping him. We sat for a few minutes, and the nurse came out with his paperwork. She asked us to step into another room.

She handed him his discharge papers, and then she said, "I'm sorry, but we're not going to be able to help you. They can't take you at the county detox unless you get your methadone dose down to 30 milligrams. We recommend you go back to the methadone clinic and wean down according to their plan."

And that was it...no further suggestions for other resources. No attempts to help him with his suicidal threats. He began to cry, and he asked, "Is that it? There's nothing else? Nobody can help me? What if I kill myself? Can somebody help me with that?"

The nurse said that he'd have to leave. A security guard came and escorted us away from the premises. Another nurse, who'd not spoken with my husband at all. yelled at him from the parking lot that he was going to have to help himself if he wanted to get off drugs. He said that he was trying to help himself, and she continued to shout at him that he was going to have to get some help and that he couldn't do it on his own. When he tried to respond to her, the security guards became increasingly aggressive.

My husband was pretty worked up at this point, and he called the emergency room back to try to speak with the psychiatrist who had promised he wouldn't leave her facility without proper care. No one would let him speak with her, and when he threatened to kill himself again, the nurse on the phone said, "I'm going to have to end this call now," and hung up on him.

A friend of mine was on the phone with me listening to all this, and so she called the police. My husband insisted I drive him to a hardware store so that he could buy some razor blades to kill himself. We were intercepted by police officers, who took the razor blades from my husband and escorted him back to the emergency room. Even when escorted by police officers who had just removed razor blades from him, the psychiatrist refused to treat him. The same nurse who had never seen my husband and who had yelled at him in the parking lot before came outside and told the police officers that they needed to have him arrested, and they told her that they couldn't arrest him for trying to get some help.

The police officers recommended that we meet with their suicide crisis team, and my husband and I went home. The suicide crisis worker came to our house, and her goal was to smooth things over with the psychiatric emergency room. My husband was afraid to go back there, so the next suggestion was to have him involuntarily committed.

So that's what happened next. I went to the magistrate's office, and I had my husband committed. Oddly, the same magistrate who married us filled out the paperwork for the commitment. About an hour after I swore on a Bible that my husband was a danger to himself and to other people, the police came and got him and took him away to get help. They told him that they'd have to investigate the warrants for his probation violation, but that getting him medical and psychiatric care was the first priority. The police were the people most interested in getting him help. It was kind of strange...the medical and psychiatric folks kept saying, "No. No. No," while the police kept saying, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

So now, he is in a hospital bed in the county psychiatric center, waiting for a bed at a detox facility that's not too far away. Word is, it will be next week before he gets there. In the mean time, they are treating his detox symptoms to the best of their ability. I spoke with him briefly, and he seems afraid and uncomfortable, but hopeful.

I also have spent a lot of time today telling his story to anybody who will listen to me. I know that he's a drug addict without money or health insurance, but he deserves to be heard, and he deserves respect and help when it's available. It is sad to me that he had to be carried away from his home in handcuffs in order to get the help that he'd been seeking all day long. A few hospital administrators are investigating what happened yesterday, and they've assured me that my husband will get proper care in the mean time and that they'll let me know what comes of their investigation.

So that's my story. It's complicated and hard to write. It's not a story that reads prettily, but it's what happened. I'm tired now, and I'm going to nap.

Gratitude.

Earlier this week, I got a mantra from my guru, and I've been meditating with it since. It's working for me. I'm not sure if it's my commitment to meditating twice a day and my persistence in sticking with it, or if it's the mantra itself, but I feel like I'm finding authentic peace.

This morning, I was walking between jobs, and the air was so, so cold, and the sun felt warm on my face, and the sky was beautiful and blue. I felt overcome with gratitude. I'm finding a better way to live, and it's working.

When I finished sitting in meditation last night, I couldn't get up. It felt too good to sit so surely in myself. I bowed my head in prayer, and sat for a long time repeating, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lifting My Own Spirits.

My new guru says often that positive thinking means lifting our own spirits. I'm trying to live in that definition today.

I'm lifting my spirits by cleaning my space and making it smell nice. I'm wearing comfortable clothes that make me feel beautiful. I'm spending time with people who make me feel calm and happy. I'm petting my animals and taking long baths.

Most of the time, it's working. It works best if I don't talk to my husband, but sometimes, it works even if I do talk to him.

Who would have known that self care would be so simple and so difficult. Every time I think I'm doing it right, I recognize that there are whole realms of places where I can do better, nurture myself more.

I wonder where it happened that I lost track of how to love myself. In the end, I guess, it doesn't matter, since I'm getting it back today.

Ache.

I am feeling awfully emptied out in so many ways. I'm tired. I'm overwrought. I miss my husband. I'm afraid.

I am angry. He's sucked me dry, and now he's shoving me off. I spoke with him briefly last night. I'm not sure why I opened that door. He talked about what it's going to be like in his next relationship and how he can't do anything to please me. Nothing's ever good enough.

It frustrates the hell out of me. No, it's not ever good enough for you to be high and a leach, but I'm pretty sure that it's not going to be good enough anywhere he takes that behavior. He responds to me as if I'm some kind of a gold digger, which is absolutely maddening. In his mind, he can either be clean and unemployed or using and working...and in his mind, the money he makes for working is his reward that should have nothing to do with bills that need to be paid.

I want the sick stuff inside of me that still loves him to get out of me. It's like poison in my blood, and I want it out. I don't want to feel the need to be close to him.

I'm on the ninth step, and I'd planned to make amends with him this time. Last time, I'd committed myself to making a living amends and to stop enabling. I've done that part well, but there's more I'd like to make right with him...like my inability to let him go...my obsessive clinging to the fantasy of the man who I wish he would be. I'm recognizing, though, that he's not ready to hear it, and I'm not ready to say it. Every bit of me aches for him, and I can't let go of the outcome. I'm still composing my amends as if it's going to save my marriage, and that's not the right way to go about it. I've got to sit on this one for a while.

God's Will for Me and the Power to Carry it Out.

"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on."

Dear Husband,

I still taste his kisses
like candy in my mouth.

No Trapdoor.

I got home tonight, happy to find my husband here. I wasn't sure if he'd be at my house or not, but I thought he might. I sped all the way home, like I used to, excited to be close to him.

I saw him peek out the window, and then he got up and left, quickly. His movements made my heart skip a beat. I knew it couldn't be good. I came inside the house, and he was in the bathroom. He'd turned the exhaust fan on. It smelled like pot in the room.

I asked him if he'd been smoking. He said, "No." He asked me to come closer to him. I did. I smelled smoke on his breath. I asked him again if he'd been smoking, and he said, "No." I told him he smelled like smoke, and it smelled like smoke in my house. He then said that he'd smoked some pot a few hours earlier, but that he'd gone outside to do it. I told him it was probably best for him to leave, and he freaked out briefly, and then regained his composure.

As he was leaving, he pulled a bowl out of the drawer where he used to keep his underwear. "You probably smelled this," he explained.

"I don't know why I thought this was possible," he said.

I don't know why I thought it was possible, either.

He has a place he can go if he wants to be high. He can do that at his parents' house as much as he wants. I don't want drugs in my life, and I don't want the chaos that comes with him using around me.

I am sad that the escape latch I'd imagined isn't actually there. It's another door into the same room.

The Both Boat.

A message from my guru:

You are having a problem with finding happiness within self. Probably this is a problem that comes from your childhood. Probably also your husband is having this problem as well, and for a while, you were sailing in the same boat. You were very happy in the both boat, but now, you are going in different directions.

I really, really loved his "both boat." We did find happiness in the both boat. For a long time, my husband fulfilled all my needs. He was my god, my social life, my career, my muse. He was everything to me. It was really, really beautiful and felt really, really good when it worked, but I see now that it doesn't work. It can never work forever. We can't keep sailing in the both boat.

He came over last night and spent the night, and it was an interesting exercise in boundaries. He wanted to stay for a few days, and I had to work through a lot of stuff to figure out what would be ok with me. The idea of him for one night felt wonderful; the idea of him staying for three or four days with no definite end felt unbearable. I can't express what made the difference between those two scenarios, but it was clear to me that I was happy for him to spend one night, but not several. I told him that he was welcome to spend one night, and I was afraid that he'd react badly, as my setting boundaries have never been happy for him.

He actually reacted well. We joked about how we're on vacation from each other, and that it's probably best to keep some space. I told him that I like the distance, and that I hardly hate him at all now. He said that he still hates me a lot. We giggled.

I am recognizing that I can find a lot of options if I am authentic. If I look into my own heart to find my answers, there are many possibilities of what I can do with my life. The options aren't either to live with my husband and be miserable or to live without my husband and be miserable. There are varying degrees of separation that might be what we need to save our marriage, and I'm happy that, at least today, we both seem able to navigate our separate boats.

I enjoyed falling asleep in my husband's arms. We both had a hard time getting out of bed this morning. It just felt good to be together. It felt good to be together and feel good about each other. It's been a long time coming. He went to work, and I worked from home after meeting with my guru. He came back here later in the evening, and we had a few minutes together. I am glad we had those minutes because they reminded me of what I can't live with: He called the next door neighbor, who came over to exchange video games. They were loud. They both had big shoes that got dirt on my clean floor. I got angry that my husband was messing around buying video games while I struggle to pay the bills.

I'm not ready to have my peace disrupted with his need to socialize with big, loud, pot-smoking men. I'm not ready to stay out of his business about money. He's not ready to devote himself completely to adult relationships or to make grown-up decisions about money. We're not in a good place to come together, no matter how much we love each other. It's clear to me from the contact we have.

Another thing I'm happy about that has come from our new "dating" relationship is that we are going to get marriage counseling. I'm on a waiting list at a place that offers income-based counseling for folks without insurance, so it will be affordable. I'm excited to have a third party help us to work through our issues and to help us set goals. He's very good at telling me what I need to do, and I'm very good at telling him what he needs to do. To have someone outside the relationship help us to see what we both need to do to be able to live with each other seems really, really helpful.

Today, I have a lot of hope.

A Date with my Husband.

My husband took me out to the movies last night. He bought both of our tickets, which was nice, and he even snuck me in an ice cream sundae. We held hands through the movie. When the movie was over, we kissed each other goodnight. I went home. He went to his parents' house.

I guess this is working? At least for now?

Dear Husband,

I've spent much of today thinking about your mouth: your lips, your teeth, your tongue. I've spent too much time on it.

Sometimes, I'm overcome by my physical desire for you, as if I've been traumatized by it. It's kind of like the feeling after being in a car crash...you're walking down the street, just living your normal life, and suddenly, you hear the cracking glass, the screeching tires. I'm living my life, teaching and writing and thinking and breathing, and all of a sudden, all I can see is your face. All I can see is your mouth. I feel paralyzed by it, and thrilled, and afraid.

My life has been fogged, like a mirror, by your breath. I wipe a little window to see through, and then I invite you back to heat the space all up again.

I'm still, oddly, enjoying this time alone. I am feeling much better about it after seeing you a few days ago and reading your sweet, sweet letter, but even if I am not comfortable with you out of my life, I am comfortable with you out of my house. I am proud of myself for coming to a place where I can recognize my need for separation from you.

I hope you are healing. I know that there's not likely to be much more time before you are going to want to come home, and I'm afraid of it. We aren't ready to live together. I won't tell you no. My fear is that we will continue to come together and separate, come together and separate, until I finally reach a point where I break.

Or that I won't ever reach that point.

I love you.

Your Wife.

Diamonds and Rust.

Good Morning.

My husband came to visit me this morning. It was a good visit. He and I are good at complicating things. Things are complicated.

I know I can't live with him, today, and I don't think he can live with me, either. I also can't live with the idea of him out of my life forever. Maybe I'm dating my husband.

It was good to visit with him, with all parts of him. I spent a long time with the back of his neck. I'd been thinking a lot about the back of his neck, right where it turns from flesh to hair.

I like the idea of developing a new way of interacting with each other, of living separately and together at the same time. I don't know if it's realistic or achievable, but it's worked today.

I love him. It won't leave me alone. The space I've had from him has been healthy for me, and today, it feels healthy to see him also. If dating my husband will work to allow me to have him in my life without his madness, then it's what I want today.

I left him in my house when I left for work. He hung out with the dogs before going on to his own work, and he left a letter for me by our bed. I won't tell what it said, but it was perfect and imperfect all at once. I pressed my lips to his red writing and left it by the bed. I want it there to remind me of something that I thought I'd lost, something I think I may never be able to lose.

Dear Husband,

Talking to you is hard. It's hard and it's wonderful. It's wonderful and it's terrible.

Honestly, I've had a better day today, though, for knowing that you're missing me. It's sick. A lot of people, mostly people who don't know you and who don't know me, are telling me I'm a fool for even entertaining the possibility of having a future with you. They're all absolutely right. I'm a fool. I've always been a fool for you, and I don't see it ending any time soon.

I like the idea of living apart and seeing each other sometimes, of taking some space to heal separately but with an understood intention of coming back together. I feel like I can catch my breath. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's a true thing.

I meditated with my new guru today, and somewhere along the way, I recognized that I was sitting quietly without thinking of you. It felt like a victory to be able to sit quietly and not think of you, but letting my mind go to celebrate that victory turned it back on, and sent it spiraling after you. Before I was able to get back to myself, I found my hands wandering through your hair, holding still at the place where your hair meets your neck. I found my eyes picking through its color, the dark singed with gold; my mouth pressing close, breathing deep. My mind finds its way to you always, but I'm working on it.

I love you. No more, no less. I love you like I've always loved you. I feel differently about you, but the love is just the same as it ever was. It's never grown. It's never shrunk. It sinks me in myself like an anchor. I guess that's marriage, really: a love that never changes.

It bears out to the edge of doom. We stand together on the edge. I know you'll leap, and I won't let go of your hand.

Your Wife.

Spiritual Shopping Spree.

Today was my second meeting with my guru, and I am very excited about one particular suggestion of his to enhance my meditation practice. He recommended that I get a set of clothes that I use only for meditation, which sent me on a giddy shopping spree for my perfect white light outfit. I had $25, so I headed to a discount store to see what I could come up with.

I started out in the exercise section, but nothing was quite right. Fortunately, though, the exercise section was right by the pajama area. I never wear pajamas, preferring either to go naked or to wear an old t-shirt to spending money on sleeping clothes...but there, in the pajama section, was a selection of the most ridiculous, beautiful, outrageous daishiki-muumuu looking things I've ever seen. They are long, one-size-fits-all kind of things, and they were only $8 each. It took me a while to settle on which one looked most meditative, but I settled on a black, silky number with a peacock design that has beautiful red, blue, and purple feathers.

Since I only spent $8 on the meditation outfit, I had plenty left over for additional spiritual accouterments. I got a beautiful black box with a Buddha on top. It's going to be my God Box now. I also got a set of candles and a pretty, sparkly candle holder.

I can't wait to get home and set it all up!

Dear Husband,

I'm having another hard day.

I spoke with your mother today. She told me some stuff it was difficult to hear, but I'm not surprised. I can always tell when you turn into a different person...when the lies start. When you stop making sense. When you're so angry. When you can't finish anything you start. I always know, and I don't want to know, and I believe myself and don't at the same time.

I want the ache in my heart to go away, forever. I want the space next to me in my bed filled with you, but I want that other you. Maybe I want an imaginary you.

I want to understand my own ups and downs in grieving, but I guess it's not a thing that's logical or understandable in that way. I had such a good day yesterday, without falling apart at all...and then today, I've had much more bad time. For several days in a row, I felt like it was getting easier every day, but today is not easier than yesterday. Because of the particular ways I'm mad, I start to imagine that this is how it's going to be: a long, painful decline.

I'm taking good care of myself, though, and doing all the work I know I need to do to get through this stuff...I went to my yoga, and I've talked to my friends and family. I'm reading my books, going to my meetings, and working my steps. I am recognizing a tenacity in healing myself that makes me very proud of who I've become. I wish you could be proud of me, too. I wish, more than anything, to share this growth with you. I want you to be a part of the journey, and you're not.

I wonder what kinds of things you're thinking about. I wonder how deeply committed you are to sabotaging this relationship. I'm so afraid that you're going to do something stupid and irreparable. I'm afraid that you will do something stupid and irreparable, and I'll accept you anyway. I'm afraid that there's no good outcome.

I do want off the roller coaster, but I want you just as much. I'm very angry that it doesn't seem possible for me to have both.

I'm angry at your madness. I'm angry at myself for battering me against your madness, trying to make sense of it. I'm angry at your disease for making you think it's ok to treat me badly. I'm angry that you expect me to exude endless sympathy, endless money, endless love and support and nurturing because you're sick (because you're using). I'm angry that you think abstinence from heroin is the end of the problems you've created. I'm angry that the sudden, sharp personality changes I watched happen in you are all related to drugs, drugs, drugs. I'm so fucking sick of drugs. I'm sick of being sad. I'm sick of being sorry. I'm sick of being mad, lonely, afraid...I'm sick of it all.

I am shocked that there is such a profound part of me that is thinking it might be worth it just to go to you and ask you to come home, regardless of the cost. There's a part of me that thinks I'll put up with anything, always, just to keep you close to me.

I think I'm sicker than you are.

I love you.

Your Wife

Transition Words.

definitely, extremely, obviously, in fact, indeed, in any case, absolutely, positively, naturally, surprisingly, always, forever, perennially, eternally, never, emphatically, unquestionably, without a doubt, certainly, undeniably, without reservation, yet, still, however, nevertheless, in spite of, despite, of course, once in a while, sometimes, whereas, but, yet, on the other hand, however, nevertheless, on the contrary, by comparison, up against, balanced against, vis a vis, although, conversely, meanwhile, after all, in contrast, although this may be true, first, second, third, and so forth. A, B, C, and so forth. next, then, following this, at this time, now, at this point, after, afterward, subsequently, finally, consequently, previously, before this, simultaneously, concurrently, thus, therefore, hence, next, and then, soon, in brief, on the whole, summing up, to conclude, in conclusion, as I have shown, as I have said, hence, therefore, accordingly, thus, as a result, consequently

Dear Husband,

Today has been a little better. I am feeling ok. A friend of mine from Nar-Anon has been struggling with her relationship, and we spent a lot of time together this evening. It was good to be able to get my mind off of you, us, me...

I think it's the first day in the longest time that I haven't fallen apart completely. I'm surprised. I still feel a deep, deep empty in the pit of myself, but I'm able to keep moving and overlooking it.

I am still talking about you, though, and thinking about you, and thinking about your problems as mine and my problems as yours, and our problems as the problems of a married couple. I'm not treating it as if we are moving toward becoming something different. I'm not feeling less married. Maybe it's too soon. You haven't even been gone a week.

I hosted a chat session at The Second Road tonight, and it was fun in a lot of ways, but in other ways, it was hard. I talked about you, and I talked about how things were before you came unglued. I am having trouble getting my mind out of that time. It was such good time.

More than anything in the world, more than anything ever, I want it back. I want you back, whole and healthy. I want the life we almost had.

That's the story of us, isn't it? The almost perfect, almost complete. It's infuriating, as I keep doing my part. I keep finishing the plan, but it doesn't work when it's only me. We make these stories for our shared future together, and I wish you'd find a way to make your part true, or achievable. I know it's not in your power when you're in your disease, though...you'd never say, "I'm going to be a heroin junky and be unemployed and parasitic and miserable for a couple of years!" Neither of us would have composed the story just this way...but I can't stop imagining the differences between what is and what could have been.

I miss you so much. I've been missing you for a long time now, though, and I know that having you back home won't bring You to me, the part of You that I recognized the first time I saw You, when it felt like the sun had finally come up in my life. You've got what's best in you all vaulted up, and no matter what I do, I can't get at that man. Even knowing it, though, I crave your physical presence. I want to see your face, smell you skin, taste you neck. My eyes are hungry and my hands hurt from being emptied of you.

I love you. I always will.

You Wife.

Guru.

"Oh, you are a writer! That is very good! You are creative! You have something beautiful that I don't have," said my new Guru.

"You have something beautiful that I don't have," I responded. "Maybe we can work something out."

At one of the places where I work, I'd noticed that one of the clients was a company that had "Yoga" in the title, so I checked out the website to see what it was about. I was intrigued to find a real, live guru, teaching mediation, Ayurveda, and yoga therapy in the city where I live. I'd looked at some of his workshops, and thought I might check one out one day.

A few months later, the boss mentioned that he'd practiced meditation with this guru for a while, so I was able to ask a few questions about the process. And finally, recently, one of my favorite yoga teachers put up one of this guru's business cards on our bulletin board at the school, endorsing his services. Those were two pretty good testimonials for me, even if it did seem a little silly for a guru to have a website and a business card.

This past week, I've felt like I've lost track of my center. For a long time, also, I've been interested in pushing the spirituality I've discovered through my 12 step work a little further, and I guess now is as good a time as any. I wrote to the guru yesterday, and I met him today. I'm going to meet with him once a week for the next little while to see if I can slow my mind down a little and to explore this stuff a little further. It can't hurt, right? And surely, it will be something interesting to write about.

Dear Husband,

It's getting a little better every day, but still, at least for a few minutes each day, I feel like I can't breathe.

Today, for instance, there have been two times where I've lost my breath. The first was this morning. I went out with some friends for breakfast, and there is a duck pond by the restaurant where we ate. I was doing ok. These are friends in recovery, so it felt good to be among my people while I'm feeling so raw inside, and I felt as centered as I've felt since you left. But I stopped for a few minutes when I left to look at the geese and the beautiful, black swans, and it seemed like my heart might break. They were beautiful. You are beautiful. Beauty hurts my eyes now. I don't want to see beautiful things because I can't see my most beautiful thing.

And then there was a song. I'm at a coffee shop, and I'm trying to work. I haven't been able to get anything done all week, and I committed to myself that today, I'd get caught back up. I can't get financially behind, and I can't let my work pile up until it becomes an avalanche. I had great intentions of catching it all back up today and tomorrow, so I left the house (which honestly is feeling a bit haunted in your absence). I was working along pretty well, and then I hear that song by Amos Lee that you liked a few years ago called "Colors." Remember that song?

I know we all,
we all got our faults.
We get locked in our vaults,
and we stay..

When you're gone,
all the colors fade.
When you're gone,
no new years day parade.
You're gone,
colors seem to fade,
colors seem to fade.

I thought it was so charming how you liked that stupid, sappy song. Now, it reminds me of you walking around our first apartment together, singing. It reminds me of you grabbing me and throwing me down on the bed. It reminds me of the joy I found with you, the pure, sweet joy that we had before it got so ugly. God, remember the first day we were in that apartment together? Remember looking around and realizing it was going to be us, ours? Together!

I've also been pretty mad at you today, or at least mad at your disease. I've been hurting too much to be mad, so I'm hoping that getting angry will be progress. I woke up this morning with the word "parasite" in my mouth, and I had to say it out loud. It was beating its wings, and it needed to fly. You see, it makes me really, really angry that you're starting to be able to make a little money on your own, and that at the same time I'm getting good at enforcing my boundaries. What it feels like is that you've been sucking the life out of me, and as soon as I start to tell you, "No," and you start to be able to take care of yourself, you're casting me off. I don't like the idea that I've been a free house near the methadone clinic for you. I don't want to have been your host body.

But it is whatever it is, and I'm powerless over it. I kept going and going and going until the waters were rising up above my head, and I had to make a move. You're moving, and I'm moving. Maybe we'll move back together one day.

But today, what I want is the hooks you have in my heart to let me go. I want 24 straight hours of being able to breathe without feeling these panicked snakes crawling up my throat. God, I love you, and I hope you're ok. I hope we both are.

Love, love, love,

Your wife.

Letting Go.

I realized something today in our meeting. I am having a hard time letting go. It's been a bad couple of days, and I'm not able to get still with myself. I know that it's a choice I can make to start using my tools, gathering myself up, and moving forward, and that I'll feel better if I make this choice.

But I don't want to. I don't want it to be over, because then it's really over. If I move on, it means it's done. I don't want to give up yet.

Today, I'm choosing to stay in pain to keep from letting my husband go.

Sunday Night Chat Session

I'll be the guest of honor at this Sunday night's salon chat at the Second Road. If you haven't set up your account over there yet, you'll need one to be able to join the session if you're interested in talking to me.

Go to The Second Road, and after you set up your account, you can click on the "Chat" tab. The session will take place at 8:30 EST.