Love + Sex

So there I sat, for hours at a time, staring at my hands in my lap.  There is nothing quite so depressing as realizing some pretty major things about yourself...and then asking for help for them.

Curl into a ball, cry yourself silly.  Don't believe anything they're telling you because you've always been told that you were right, you had every right to speak/think/feel/act that way.  People in peer counseling, they don't know what they're talking about because they're not YOU.  They haven't been in your life, in your relationships.  They don't know what the heckfire they're talking about.  Live totally in the denial that has encompassed you your whole life.

So I started counseling for my own problems.  I continued to run screaming from the stalker.  A totally random event brought me back into communications with my ex, the one I still loved, the one that still haunted my dreams and was the one that all were compared to from the get-go.  I remember talking about him one day, and my mom said, "God, would you just get OVER him already?"  The only answer I had to that was, "No.  I can't get over him, I am still in love with him, so I'm not going to get over him."

I still loved him so much.  And after three months of no speaking, we end up on the phone.  Updates for the last three months of our lives, and to my complete and utter surprise, I find that he took me seriously.  For real?  That actually happens?  He went to anger management, he went to counseling.  He was released, with flying colors.  Apparently, he did some major soul searching, and while I was in bed, crying for the man I loved, he was doing the same...and when I told him to go to counseling, HE DID!  When I said that going to anger management and taking care of that outrageous temper was the only way to talk to me again, HE DID!  I was amazed, but I wasn't going to just believe that he changed that quickly.

I maintained contact with him, but kept my own life separate.  I performed in shows, went out with my friends...and continued on my path to alcoholic destruction by continuing my social life.

side note...what the heck is a 30-something single mom doing hanging out in bars every weekend she doesn't have her kids?!?

Every time I went out, there my stalker would show up.  One of the beautiful things about living in a small town is that everybody knows everybody.  That's also a down side.  So no matter where I went, there he was.  And he couldn't make it through a night without harrassing me in one way or another.  He would upset me, I would get more drunk.  This stupid circle of events continued to happen over and over and over again...

In the meantime, I'm rekindling my relationship with my ex.  I'm not afraid of him at all anymore...there is a new softness to his voice, his demeanor.  I don't trust that it's permanent yet, but as I go through the process of redefining myself and re-learning all of my habits and how to deal with people, I understand just how hard it is to change everything about yourself.  It isn't really EVERYTHING...but it sure seems like it when you feel like you've been broadsided by the van of life.  So anyway, we're working on it.  Actually, we're working on working on it.

And then...

I went out.  One last fateful night out...I didn't mean to.  Swear, I really didn't.  I was meeting my friend for a drink before heading out to a barbecue.  I sat down, and while waiting for my friend, the stalker shows up.  He practically attacked me, right there in the bar.  Pointed his finger in my face, telling me that if I don't leave him alone, he's going to f(*k me up.  ME, leave HIM alone?  I was so bewildered, so confused, so upset and offended that I went to talk to my brother (at again, another bar).  He bought me a drink to calm me down.  And then another.  And another.  By now, I'm too many in and the stalker shows up again.  I freak out and leave.  In my car.

Twelve hours later, my father is picking me up from jail.  And NOW...my addiction takes center stage in this whirlwind of craziness.  You just have NO IDEA what was going on.  And to tell you the truth, I had no idea, either.  If I had known...I still wouldn't have admitted it.  Denial is pretty much something that I never thought I had (which I suppose is the definition of denial), but was streaming out of my pores.

What could POSSIBLY be next?