Tags
I’ll Change
One day, I’ll change
You’ll be the first one that I call
I owe you an apology
Too many thanks, and that’s not all
‘Cause I been runnin’ long before I learned to crawl.~The Indigo Girls
1989
That guy. The one who charms a woman with the grace and ease that he lights a stolen smoke off a borrowed zippo. The woman that enchants him on Friday night is alone on Saturday. Somehow he goes through them all without getting his ass kicked, leaving many of them believing it is because they aren’t pretty or interesting enough, as some women tend to do.
He’s already been through me and I am no different – on some level I think it’s because there is something wrong with me, too. But I am not one to go quietly, so as I leave, I say to the girl with the long curly black hair, the one he’s been buying drinks for all night, right in front of him: He’s ok in bed. Not great. He’ll never call you again and he’ll make you feel like shit for thinking he would. Good luck.
And I walk on.
When she came back, looking for him, she found me.
How can I make you understand?
She is profoundly fucked up. Her family is rife with dysfunction, and addiction – to money, to religion, and in her case, anything that takes her away from them.
We fit together in a way I have never known. Everything that is soft and understated about her is abrasive and awkward in me. We each are dark where the other is light. She hides behind me, hides from herself, and all I want is for someone to SEE me.
We become inseparable; two sides of the same tarnished coin. No matter how many times that some ambitious would-be lover uses up his ration of clever for the day with I’d love to be the guy who gets between you two, no one ever will.
She shows up day-drinking in the drive-thru of the bank where I work, wearing enormous sunglasses, cigarette tucked in the corner of her mouth, and drops lengthy handwritten notes in the kiosk for me and drives on. We spend our days in a cardboard duplex built for WWII military families, given to her as a back-handed token of support for finishing rehab, and for the inconvenience of needing it in the first place. It didn’t stick, anyway. Afternoons drinking beer on the couch in front of the TV with her head in my lap as I comb her hair with my fingers.
I love you.
I love you too.
No, I mean I think I really love you. Like move in with you and raise children love you. Don’t laugh!
You don’t like women. I can’t live without sex, and besides – I can’t afford you. Have another beer.
That’s not why!
I know. I love you too.
If we were cartoons, she would always be pulling me back after I’d walk over a cliff and see I am standing on air. I’d be throwing myself between her and falling anvils.
***
Master loves the servant who blind heeds him;
Husband, the obedient wife
Snake will always bite the hand that feeds him;
Even if you love him, even if you save his life.
1993
In five minutes I will sing Elvis Presley in front of an ostentatious number of wedding guests; I don’t even know that many people. But right now we are staring at each other, her in the white dress that her stepmother tried to shame her from wearing, and me in ridiculous frothy lavender that I’m pretty sure is a punishment, as she prepares to pledge forever to a man I cannot stand. I want this for her, this love she believes she has found, even as I am choking on my own cynicism. He is not good enough; I believe he wants her in the same way some people want birds in cages. She looks panicked, suddenly, and takes two steps back and says It’s never going to be the same after today, is it? This is the last time.
It’s gonna be okay, I tell her, because maybe it is, and that is what she needs to hear.
And I let her go.
And it was okay, for a while. For a long time. Time enough for them to make two beautiful dark-haired children, for her to finish college and look at her life and find she wanted something else, something more.
More than him. Faced with losing her, he did the unforgivable.
I have no eloquence for it – some drugs are easier to glamourize than others. Crystal meth, the incestuous, toothless, unwashed cousin that no one remembers inviting. Just one bump. Just try it.
He brought it to her. But don’t believe for a second that I don’t know that she chose.
***
When I feel that stirring,
the illicit kiss
It’s just the cool tongue of the devil
With a sucker in his midst
2000
I am crouched on the floor in the corner of the bedroom, on the phone, hiding. The man I am going to marry is in the next room, and he will not understand why I am flirting with Danny the tweeker.
Danny is a mountain of angry redneck trash and I know this much about him: he beat the mother of his children unconscious and left her in the street in front of his house, so that those children could be forced to sit on the porch and watch cars swerve around her.
He has also made despicable trades for drugs with my best friend. I have reached a point with her that I don’t always know or hear the whole truth, but I know that he is a very dangerous man. The conversation is deceptively courteous, as it sometimes goes with sociopaths – his opening gambit was to remind me who he is and to flatter me with malignant charm, but now we are getting down to it.
She owes him money, and he can’t find her. He thinks I can help him with that. But I won’t.
He tells me that if I pay him, he’ll go easier on her. He is lying. We have been here before. I can’t help her. I can only hope that he can’t find her.
I can’t find her.
***
When I start to feel it making sense for me
That’s just hope springing eternally, yeah…
2007
It’s 3am in a town that makes that far less interesting than it might be otherwise, and I screech to a halt at a red light and we both scream and giggle as the last note of some belligerent rock anthem fades.
We are out of breath from singing and stink of cigarette smoke and tequila and adrenaline and suddenly she turns to me and says You know me better than anyone. Why haven’t you fixed me yet?
I don’t know what happened.
Maybe it was the song, or that we were drinking, but in the moment it took for me to find an answer, I ruined it all.
I flashed back over every return to rehab that ended exactly where we were. Every “alternative” cure that never made it off the ground. Thankfully, the tweeker days are behind us, but she never stopped drinking. I plan our outings around the pivotal moment where she becomes hateful and bitter and starts fights with strangers. I hate it. But clearly not enough, because here I am.
I remembered every time she was on a bender for days, me scouring the arrest reports in the paper. Every 2am call from the pay phone in some piss-soaked dive, Come up here, I need you – I’m drunk and they won’t leave me alone and I’m scared can’t you just come? and I’d drag myself out to find two old men, barely conscious, slumped at the bar paying no attention to her, the girl in the corner who just didn’t want to be alone. Every walk to the car with her sedated form draped across me like a mismatched accessory.
I told myself I’d help her stop, but she had to actually stop first, and at least this way I could still be there – the flawed logic always escaping me. I watched her carelessly destroy relationships for twenty years, and sometimes I didn’t know how ours survived, or if we would ever get back to that place where we just loved each other, no matter what.
I had started ducking her phone calls and erasing her unheard messages. Showing up two hours late, or never.
Making her angry. Making her cry. Failing her.
As she looks at me I am filled with a venom that I can’t stop. She is beautiful and damaged, the core of my heart and the bane of my existence and in that moment I can only remember every time she has fallen and how dare she ask me that question.
You don’t want to be fixed, I say.
Yes, I do, she says, her eyes bloodshot and full of pain. We stop singing and the silence hovers around us like malicious gossip.
Don’t believe for a second that I don’t know that I chose.
There is so much more to this story. So much that shines and seems like it doesn’t belong. She was my best friend. There was far more love than hate, more laughter than pain.
I was a stupid, sheltered girl and sometimes the only thing that kept me from falling was the fact that she’d already jumped. There were times that I saved her, I know. But she saved me, too – from the thing in me that tells me that no one could ever think I was worth saving.
We stood by and for each other against…everything. We lied to and for each other, and to ourselves.
I know enough about addiction to know that it is a coping mechanism. It’s like an infected poultice on an open wound – the delivery method is relevant only in the speed of it’s destruction.
They say addicts don’t have friends, they have enablers – and I always said I was her very BEST enabler, her number one, our way of dancing around what we already knew.
She threw me out of her life. I need to be clear about that. I never would have gone, had she not. I wish I could say I intervened, or gave her an ultimatum, but what I actually did was hurt her so badly she wanted me gone. The details are nothing more than girlish gossip. In the end, we turned on each other in the kind of unforgivable fury that I think only women can understand.
I was the thing that had to go.
Can I say that I loved her, even I as I know what I was?
Beautiful story. It reminds me of a friend I had and wanted to help, but didn’t know how. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Josie! Sometimes we don’t have the perspective to help, and do more harm than good. 🙂 I appreciate the read and the comment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello! I know this is annoying but would you bother to check my blog out? I’m a new writer on wordpress, it’d mean a lot to me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Will do! Thanks for the read!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This piece is agony. Beautifully told, but agony 😦
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you dear! But sorry to agonize. I had the usual angst over it, but I’m glad it’s far and away now. I can write something else.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad, too. I’m glad it’s done and dusted and you’re in a different place.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is so heartbreaking… and so many layers of hurt and understanding and love. It is so frustrating and gut wrenching to watch someone you love self destruct. And to see yourself through all of it. I almost don’t know what else to say. This line is the one that got me “sometimes the only thing that kept me from falling was the fact that she’d already jumped.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yeah. As usual, I am angsting myself to death – it’s hard to realize someone is better off without you. I think we outgrow friendships like this, and while I have not spoken to her, I think she is in a great place personally and professionally. I did NOT do right by her. And it’s something I will never be able to fix, but at least it propelled her forward.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on That Shameless Hussy and commented:
Here I am on Sisterwives today…and as usual, I’m angsting about it here. Twenty years is a long time, and friendships that begin in our twenties are frequently the ones that have to weather some of the worst decisions we make. Sometimes it makes those bonds stronger. Sometimes we have to outgrow them.
LikeLike
This was so beautifully written and expressed. I was afraid for a bit there that it would end in tragedy where she would slip one too many times and never have a chance again. At least she is alive in this world and probably has you to thank for all the love you gave her in those years. You did what any friend would do. You helped in the way you could and didn’t attempt the impossible. Alcoholics and drug addicts are some of the most selfish people on the planet. Thanks for sharing this, Shameless as it really hits home for me.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for reading! Such kind words, especially since I left this feeling like a pretty awful human being. There is a lot to addiction that we don’t understand, and under all of it there was a bond for which I am grateful. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have no words beyond, this was an amazing piece of writing and it fucking hurt to read.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Matticus! I appreciate that you took the time to read and comment!
LikeLike
Thank you for writing and sharing in the first place. Addiction is a subject that preys on my mind all too often.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So beautiful and so sad. I agree with Matt, hard to read, but happens. You are amazing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for reading! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Heartbreaking and beautiful. I’m so sorry for you and this loss in your life. I can’t help but wonder (as I listen to the gorgeous voices of The IG) if perhaps when that change comes you’ll find each other? Too much of a movie ending, I imagine. But hoping the best for the both of you nonetheless. Peace.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad you listened to the song. It’s one of my favorites. She would have hated it, and that makes me laugh. Thank you for the kind words, and for taking the time to read and comment. 🙂
LikeLike
That is one of the most powerful, honest, and moving things I have ever read anywhere… even on this blog… thanks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow – thank you for the generous compliment! I am glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
LikeLike
well.. enjoy may not be the right word… I mean, I was moved… it was incredible… but it was like watching Saving Private Ryan… like a kick in the stomach powerful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well thank you for reading, and again for the kind words. I appreciate you.
LikeLike
yay… and awwwwwwwwwwww
LikeLike
My whole body reacted to this…I’ve never lost a friend to drugs but in many ways I’ve lost people to addiction. Just wasn’t enough to sustain them in a way they felt they needed.
this was eloquent and so real, so honest, so heartbreaking and freeing I have tears stinging.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are very kind. I’m glad you enjoyed it. It was a struggle to get it right, I’m glad you took something positive away from it. Thanks for reading.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re really such a beautiful writer, that this was still gorgeous to read, even in its sadness.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for the kind words! It means a great deal coming from you. 🙂 ❤
LikeLike
So beautifully told. I always love reading your pieces. Toxic friendships are so hard to cut ties with when so many memories of love are involved. Roll on roller coaster.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Papa. It was very hard – the best for us both, in the end. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. <3<3<3
LikeLike
This is beautiful and sad and I read it and read it again.
You have some amazing storytelling talent, gorgeous.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! That is a lovely thing to say. 🙂
I can’t believe no one stalled out at “you sang Elvis Presley???” 🙂 It was “Fools Rush In.” JFTR. 🙂
LikeLike
Wow. Well done. A great story. 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you Lynette! I always appreciate your support!
LikeLike
What a heartbreaking story. Unfortunately, a story that is familiar to me. I almost lost myself as I tried to “fix” someone who didn’t want to be fixed. In my case, I had to leave her so that I wouldn’t end up falling into her bottomless pit of hell. Great writing!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was a tough one to write. Toxicity is sometimes clearer in retrospect, which is why this story was never going to have a happy ending. Thank you for reading, and for your kind words.
LikeLike
Wow. Just such an intense and powerful story… truly reflective of how addiction takes your life away, recklessly and carelessly and somehow those who are loved and love become part of the wreckage. I do love that you can hold on to the gifts of the friendship though… the needs were on that tightrope of balance, it seems. I’m just so glad you did not forge your own way into addiction through the relationship. That shows an internal strength and fortitude in you. ❤
Crushing ending. I pray she is sober now… maybe one day, she will make amends when she is clear headed and healed. I just hope above all hopes, she finds her peace… and you do too.
LikeLike
You give me more credit than I probably deserve. I hope the same things for her – it took a long time for me cool down enough to see this relationship as anything but a “waste of twenty years”, as I was fond of saying. Thank you for reading and saying such kind things. ❤
LikeLike
We all make choices. In the end we can only affect ourselves. You can try to influence someone else, but it is THEY who have to do the doing, the work. I am learning this very challenging lesson from my son (12). Even when he was 3 and 4, if I wanted him to do something or act a certain way, I could influence him, but it was he who had to do whatever it was. And if he didn’t want to do something, there was no “making” him do it.
I am also learning this lesson from an acquaintance who is an addict who refuses to help himself. Both my husband and I have tried to help him for years, but I’m finally understanding that until he wants to make a change, his life will never change. I have also learned that the best way to support him is to send him love, or to pray for his well being, from afar. This sort of thing does actually make a difference, even if we don’t necessarily see it with our eyes.
You write so beautifully.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I appreciate that you took the time to read. And you are correct – the impetus to change has to come from within, and I was doing harm to someone I loved. It’s a hard lesson to learn. Thank you for your lovely words.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, boy. I think an old problem just started making sense to me. I need to go write. (Thanks for writing a piece that made these things click in my brain!)
LikeLiked by 1 person