Holding my breath, waiting...

Wednesday. Halfway through the work/school week. Wondering what the next few days will bring. The last couple of weeks have been in that never ending cycle of drugs.
The popping of pills, the anger, the frustration, the pain. Living with a drug addict is almost the hardest thing I've had to endure. I feel cheated, I didn't know he was an addict when I married him. I didn't get to choose my path because I didn't know. That makes me so angry. That I am living this life with this awful burden. I wouldn't have come down this way. I would have turned and ran. Now, I sit here and all I can do is this.....Get out? Not an option that I can see. No matter how hard it is for me, I know how hard it is for him. He dosen't want to be this way. He tells me that all the time. He tells me I'm his rock. He says he listens to me more than I realize. Does that mean he only stays high 2 weeks out of a month instead of 4? 2 weeks of being high, one week of coming down, and one week of jonesing for the next script.......The never ending cycle. Seven years of this and I'm still going around and around in circles. How is one to turn their back on someone they commited themselves too? That's my dilemma. I can't turn my back on him. Rehab. He's been there. He says it's not "right" for him. Too much hugging and mushiness. He can admit that he is an addict. That was supposed to be the first step of many. For him, it was the first and last. To him, that's good enough. For me, it's not. I don't understand this grip that addiction has on a person's mind. If you have one voice in your head telling you it's wrong and another voice telling you to stop what you're doing, go to wherever it is to get that script, get it, take it and get it filled, and then pop half the bottle, then what do you do? When you're doing something you know you shouldn't, what makes you do it? What makes an addict ignore reason and continue doing what they know they shouldn't or "can't". By "shouldn't" it's not because someone "says so", but because of what it literally does to the person's mind. The chemicals literally changes him into an angry beast. And when he's high he has no idea what he says, what he does. Weeks on end are like this. He's high, he's mean, he sleeps, wakes up angry, gets high to "simmer down", and sleeps again. Never knowing, until he's straight again, what he has said, what he has done. My burden is keeping it all together. Trying to cover for him. Hiding it, or think I'm hiding it, from my daughter. But she's getting older, she knows when "something's wrong with daddy", and I have to make excuses. I don't want her to know, but how much longer can I do that before she catches on. She was younger when he went to rehab. "Daddy has gone on a business trip" I told her. I don't want her to know her daddy is an addict. Why does she have to know and carry this burden as well? I'm trying to hold it all together all by myself. I sit at home alone all day, waiting for him to come home, hoping and praying he'll be straight when he walks through that door. I hold my breath and I wait. I wait to speak, I wait to see......

a few seconds

The last few days I've been thinking about what I would say and who I would say it to, if I knew it would be the last words I ever spoke. Facing an impending doom of death would I cry out to someone? Would someone be physically there or would I be reaching for a phone? Who would I call? Would they even answer the phone? If I only had a few seconds, would I have something to say? Am I saying everything I need to say now while I am here and have the ability? Words unspoken. .... How much commitment does an unspoken word have? What is truly the meaning of an unspoken word?............ Back to a few seconds if that's all I had.... It would be worth every last breath, every struggled word, it would be the last words I would want to speak, to my daughter I would tell, how very much I loved her and always will....

4:44 AM

The old girl
Left early this morning...
On her trip home.
She walked through
The portal door
At 4:44.
4:44 AM.
4:44, amen...

cg010407

Things are greater than we, and will not comply with us; we, who are less than things, must comply with them.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, 1703

Leaving Life and Death

Family gathered around
In a tiny hospital room.
Watching, waiting
As the woman in the bed
is dying in front of them.
They talk of the past,
memories of life years ago.
Wondering if she is listening,
If she wants to share too...
I look at this woman
in the last stage of her life,
and the last stage of her death.
Life and death at this point
are about to collide.
For when she leaves this life
She also leaves this death
As she begins her journey...
Her journey home.
I silently cried for this woman
this heartstrong woman in that bed.
I cried for her life,
I cried for her death.
I had to leave that room.
I had to leave.
My last memory of her
Was not going to be
Of her with no breath...
Lying with no life...
I can't do it again...
Her children and family are there
There by her bedside.
She won't be alone
As she is on the road home.
When she reaches the path
From this place to the next
And home is ahead...
They'll be there with her
Sadly, gently sending her off
With all their love.
Sending her home...

cg010307