..piss it all away..

..piss it all away..

I honestly do not know where to start. Everything was great, or so I thought. If it truly was great, it was only great up until a certain point. And then it stopped being great and it became terrible, miserable, and frustrating.

Heather has a lot of personal problems, dating back to before we fell in love; before we even became friends. I knew about some of them going into the relationship; I learned about some of them after the fact. But even just knowing about them does not truly put them in perspective until you see them in action. But those issues are hers, and they are hers to share or keep private, and this is my space to talk about myself and what I've done and what I'm doing.

Keeping that in mind, the catalyst of our current situation seems to stem from...well, from about a year ago. Last September, Heather was off birth control for a short period of time. We had sex. She missed her period. And then she took a home pregnancy test. I wanna say it was an early Saturday morning, like 7 or 8 a.m. I was still in bed when she came in and dropped the stick on the bed next to me.

It said "+." Actually, I think it was a digital read-out that said "Pregnant." But you get the picture.

Still half-asleep, I asked her, "Is that for real?"

We were excited. Probably too excited. We spent most of the morning calling several family members to tell them the news. No, it wasn't planned, but we knew what could result from our unprotected sex, and we were okay with that. So when it happened, it was...shocking, but not unexpected. And definitely exciting.

Less than two weeks later, our little dream life shattered. Our...baby...it was only about 4 weeks old, if I recall, would have to be taken from us. Ectopic pregnancy, it's called. I had never heard of it before and, at first, didn't understand what it meant. Slowly, I learned that it meant the fetus couldn't survive - it was attached to the fallopian tube - and we had to kill "the cells" with medication typically used in chemotherapy to kill cancer cells. Our baby was a cancer, in a sense.

This medication process lasted a week. In the end, we learned the medication was working...the cells were decreasing each time Heather went in to be checked.

It was a Thursday night - I had worked that morning and Heather was off for whatever reason - and we were sitting down to watch FlashForward. Heather became quite uncomfortable. We sat here for another ten minutes maybe, and she appeared to be in a great deal of pain, so I asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital and she said yes.

After waiting and watching Heather agonize, she was eventually given an ultrasound, and the results weren't good: the entire area around her belly was full of blood. Her fallopian tube had ruptured. Five or six hours after coming to the ER, at 10 or 11 p.m., she was finally taken into an emergency surgery. They removed the tube and the ectopic pregnancy and cleaned out the mess left behind.

I texted my supervisor around 11, because I was supposed to be at work at 5 a.m. With the severity of the situation, there was no way in hell I was going to be at work the next morning. How I managed to get any sleep at all that night is a miracle. I slept on a pull-out couch in Heather's room and I think I woke up everytime a nurse came in, which was once an hour. We ate breakfast, she relaxed, and we walked the halls a little bit before going home that afternoon.

Much like the previous week, when we initially found out, all my workplace was concerned with was whether or not I was going to be able to come in for at least half the day. I think it infuriates me more now than it did then...I was too confused and too worried about Heather's well-being to understand what, exactly, my work was doing to me: they were using me. It's only been in recent weeks that I have put the puzzle together and realized that they don't care about me, they don't care about my health (physical, mental, or emotional), and they certainly don't care what's going on in my life. They just want my warm fucking body there to work. Especially when one of them is supposed to be off.

I took it hard. I knew Heather took it hard too, even though she tried to play it tough; being vulnerable isn't something she's comfortable with. But we had lost a baby, our baby, and even though it happened so fast - we didn't really have time to develop a bond - it was still a loss. Beyond that, it put our future family plans in doubt - this could happen again.

She cites this as the point in time that she started drinking heavily (again; first time since we entered a relationship together). She kept her hurt bottled up inside. She drank to hide it, or mask it, or make it go away, or just to feel better...whatever her reasoning was. She would have a few beers and she wouldn't come to bed. I'd fall asleep, and she would sneak out to her car, where she apparently kept her hard liquor, and brought it inside for a few shots. Then it went back to her car for safe keepings. How long this continued, I am not sure, but she eventually told me (while drunk, if I recall).

During this same conversation, she made her first attempt (for me, anyway) at admitting she had a problem. She wouldn't call herself an alcoholic, absolutely not, and even saying "I have a drinking problem" wasn't something that came out of her mouth. But the sentiment was there.

From the beginning, we never agreed on drinking. I didn't do it, obviously, and I didn't much care for her doing it. I tolerated it, but anytime I felt she had too much, or was doing it too often, we would clash. The clashes became more frequent, more heated.

After that revelation, I stupidly agreed to a system of "checks and balances," where she could have two drinks a night if she were home; three on the "rare" occasion she went out with friends. I, of course, had to take her word for it when she went out...but based on her drinking at home (two tallboys =/= two drinks), I could figure out that she wasn't abiding by the three drink rule either.

So we had another particularly bad fight about it, the night of St. Patrick's Day. It ended with her agreeing to stop. I had never explicitly told her "stop or I'm leaving," at least I don't think I did, but even if it wasn't explicit - that's how she took it.

This huge miscommunication made things worse. I thought she made the decision on her own; she felt forced. She stopped drinking for two-and-a-half months (mid-March through early June), but in place of drinking, she took up another bad habit. I didn't find this out until several weeks later.

Also during this time period, she switched from second shift at work to first, putting our schedules opposite one another, and giving her all kinds of free (of Jason) time. We also stopped having sex, so she could track her cycle and to make our wedding night a little more exciting and special. I think all of these things contribute to the expansion/development of Heather being a bit of a powder keg. And as a powder keg, she only needed a slight spark to set herself free and that spark came in the form of an "old friend."

In June, we visited Madison, Wisconsin. It was supposed to be a fun time - bridal shower, bachelor and bachelorette parties, my friends were coming too...instead of being a great time, for me, it was a disaster. She resumed drinking. She hung out with this "old friend" every fucking day. She wanted nothing to do with me, expecting me to hang out with my friends exclusively - yes, I was going to spend time with them, but I was under the impression this was our vacation, me and her, and it was also in celebration of our wedding...I don't think it's out of the realm of reasonable thinking that we'd spend our vacation together.

I cried. A lot. Her (and her friends') idea of "keeping her safe" wasn't to limit her drinking, but to give her something else in place of alcohol. Good call. We fought, for hours. I took her engagement ring back, for a few hours. I didn't sleep much.

I don't know why she came back to Des Moines. I think it was because of her job. And her stuff. All of her stuff was here. It certainly wasn't for me. I thought we were over then and there. It was ugly.

I spent the rest of the month of June trying anxiety medications and fighting off my own relapse.

I failed.

June 30, 2010 I started drinking again. I was a handful of days away from my four-year anniversary. I continued to drink throughout most of July. I drank coffee and caffeine during the day, taking my meds along the way (as prescribed). Then I would drink my night away, capping most nights off with a clonazepam washed down with Jack Daniel's.

Heather drank, too. We weren't exactly drinking buddies; she'd drink in the early evening, I'd drink in the later evening. We were roommates, who both happened to be alcoholics. We continued to fight. I was hurt, disappointed, lonely, confused...a myriad of emotions. I had lost my own personal battle with alcohol and I felt like I was losing the person I loved, too. Sex was rare, any kind of common ground was hard to come by. I'd go as far as saying we hated each other. It continued being ugly.

And every time it seemed like things were improving, we took several more steps backwards. I stayed a portion of a week at my mom's house. I took her engagement ring back again, this time for an extended period of time. Our wedding is postponed. My vision of the future is gone; annihilated. I continued to pry into her private life, in search of the truth (and finding it).

Her list of transgressions is long and painful, but I guess that's my own fault? Had I not snooped, I would've never known and gotten hurt..."ignorance is bliss" is the saying, I guess? I understand that what I did was wrong, but...not knowing doesn't mean it didn't happen.

So here we are. I'm 38 days sober. No, it's not four-plus years, but I am making things right for myself. The first two weeks were excruciating. I had trouble sleeping. I had a constant headache in the back of my neck. Ironic as it seems now, being called into work on about day 11 was a Godsend. It was supposed to be a day off, so I stayed up til 2 a.m. When I went to bed, I couldn't sleep til after 4 a.m. Work called around 4:40 a.m. and I was pissed then - half an hour of sleep, a headache, and having to work on my day off? Fuck that! But I got home, showered, and crashed out around 1 p.m. Slept like a baby. Woke up and my 11 day headache was gone.

Heather is 24 days sober. She is struggling, but it is a positive struggle. She has been in treatment since early August and she has learned things and appears to want to be sober. I'm worried about whether she'll stay sober from all her behaviors, or if she'll continue to look for other bad habits to fill the void. It's still a struggle.

She has her engagement ring back. I didn't quite give it to her the way I wanted to, but she has it, and she's wearing it. "We'll get married one day," she told me. We're not engaged again, not yet. We're just back in a relationship. Sometimes that doesn't even seem like an accurate description. She has treatment (and soon, work) in the mornings. I work in the evenings. She has meetings, I have meetings.

And she wants "space." For what, I am not sure, I guess it hasn't been explicitly stated. But she has been dealing with withdrawals, cravings, the irritation that goes with those things, and trying to process things in her brain so that she can accept sobriety into her life.

I feel like I barely get to see her, or spend time with her. That's all I want. As I told her tonight, I didn't get into a relationship to have all this time to myself, I got into a relationship so I could spend time with another person. If I wanted to be alone, I'd be single. When I was single, I was fine with that alone time; I cherished it. I liked myself, I was happy and positive about my life, I had friends and hobbies.

But I am not single anymore. I'm in a relationship, I was engaged, and I should be getting married next month. That's what I want: a wife and a best friend to share my life with. I want to be a father and have a family. I'm ready for that. She's not and I understand and respect that, but it can still be frustrating for me.

My vision of the future is fractured, my spirit broken. I am beginning to pick up the pieces, but there is no semblance of time anymore. I still see a wedding, but it certainly isn't next month. I still see a baby, but I doubt it will be next summer (when we were hoping to have one by). I still see a new job and a new city, but where? When? And will it be the two of us going together, or will we split ways? I'm scared.

I know I shouldn't plan the future so far out - I didn't think I was, it's not like I have a five-year plan or anything, but I figured a year or two out was natural. Get married in October. Honeymoon. Get pregnant. Have baby in July or August. Find a new job next fall. Buy a house sometime in the year after that. That's it. I mean, three of those were to be accomplished next month...am I not supposed to even plan my life a month in advance?

I honestly don't believe the way I have lived my life is unreasonable. Have I done some things I wish I could change or take back? Yes. I have a lot of regrets, and I always will. But I am a generally good person who has led a generally good life and believed myself to be in a generally good spot with a generally good plan for the future.

And that's all been pissed away.

Being "generally" good isn't enough. Nothing is ever enough with/for me. I need to be "exceptionally" good. Ha. Weird, how it always seems to come full-circle. Kind of a cryptic way to end it, but I suppose I'll save that for another blog, another time.