It’s like coming off a drug – a drug that you know so well, and which knows you in return. Just as you are enthralled with its familiar buzz as its warmth creeps through your being setting nerve endings alive one by one with the most pleasurable of sensations, it in kind knows just how to keep you enraptured and bound to its intoxication. Just like any addiction, there’s the hunger, the craving, the need for this vice and the comfort it brings. You’ll do anything, give anything just for the promise of one more hit. It is an empty comfort, though. It is a placebo which takes on the guise of that which is wholesome and beneficial when in reality all that lies at the end of the high is the promise of destruction and death. One day you wake up and realize that you are no longer the one in control. Hell, you don’t even really know who you really are. All you know is that you are an entity enslaved to something far more powerful that your strength alone can overcome. The muscles of your will and your drive for self-preservation have atrophied and all that is left is a shell of what once was. A figment of your memory, and a blurry watercolor of the vibrant original masterpiece you once embodied.
This is what it feels like when reality comes crashing in like a swat team landing the fatal blow to the front door of your life. All the comfort, all the security, all the familiarity is gone and all that is left in its place is the hunger – the need to once again feel satisfied and know that tomorrow the world won’t be the unfamiliar and backwards thing it seems now. You feel vulnerable and exposed as the addict you really are. And for some reason you feel the need to write about it.
I usually begin these things with an abundance of emotion and pent up musings on a certain subject. There have been thoughts floating around in my head space for days and when the opportune moment arises, I grasp it and hole myself away with my laptop to purge my self of its nonsense. What usually happens, though, is between the honest thoughts and carefully constructed sentence structure comes the quest for perfectly poignant statements and groundbreaking use of obscurely poetic words which all serve the purpose of doing what I do best – constructing metaphorical walls of pretense behind which to hide. Of hiding, I am master. Even now, this whole paragraph has done nothing but tangent away from the original subject. This isn’t about hiding, though. In fact it’s much the opposite.
I have spent the last five months (and in varying incarnations, the last seven years) feeding an addiction. It may not have been a substance but it served the same purpose. He was a distraction. He was the comfort, the affirmation, the support, the reassurance that my biggest insecurities were completely unfounded. He counteracted every negative untruth I had ever been fed and caused to believe about myself – body, mind, soul, and spirit. He undid the damage of the summer preceding last and managed to heal that which I thought would never be the same. The relationship between us was perfect. Our interests, wants, needs, likes and dislikes were so similar that we seemed ideal. It was a good fit.
But it never should have been tried on in the first place. This was the problem. Many know the exact factual reason why this is the case. Others know that it was an “unhealthy relationship”. The last statement is one I always have to fight correcting. There’s only so much you can say while leaving out outright truth of the matter without the other person becoming incredibly confused. Still, I hate people having an inaccurate picture of the way things were. As I said to my father during a recent conversation, on every human level he was everything I wanted. And likewise I was to him. Obviously, however, there is the use of past-tense.
Which leads us to the harsh reality of now. I say harsh, but that really is only one variable of the equation. As harsh as the loss of him may be, the reassurance that what I’ve done and am doing is the right thing is enough to help keep me afloat. And for those not in the loop, a resounding “huh?” echoes.
A few months back I wrote a blog about marriage. It’s the one preceding this one, most likely. What few picked up on was just how much that blog had to do with me. It was more than just my theory on life or my jaded view of the institution. It was the backdrop of my life. More accurately, of his. And for those needing things to be spelled out: yes, he was married. Is married, to be exact.
For anyone not in the situation and certainly most around me it is hard to understand how this sort of thing could have happened. Anyone who has known me for any reasonable length of time knows how I’ve felt about marriage, infidelity, honesty, and most importantly God’s laws. My love of God has always come first. I may get wrapped up in other distractions, but the diversion is sort lived and once again my eyes and heart become fixed on the One who has held them captive since childhood. Why, then, would I get involved with something so blatantly condradictary to all that I hold to be true and right? What follows is by no means and excuse for my wrongdoing. It’s a bit of the time line of events that led me to make one, of not the most questionable and eventful choices of my life thus far. I can only assume that if anyone’s still reading, the desire to know more is there also.
If love makes you do the wacky, then hurt makes to do the unthinkable. That’s what led to it for me. Hurt. A whole freight train (because truck load just wasn’t sufficient) of pain. After the demise of a relationship that many are familiar with, I spent the next few months being a moron. I did little if anything that was irreprable, but the majority was ill-advised. I dealt with the majority of it last February, but none of it took away the damage of the prior relationship. Last summer I was briefly involved with someone who many know to be the “shopping list guy”. I’ve never been one of those girls who writes down and itemizes everything they want in a guy. Those people I’ve always rolled my eyes at and questioned the wisdom of such thinking, my theory being that if God had something else in mind, such predisposed expectations would be counterproductive. That said, in meeting this guy, I met what would have been my list. The entirety of my list. Everything from looks, height, family, personality, sense of humor, interests, level of communication, intellect, background, upbringing, love of God, love of children, values, even down to eye color…everything I wanted or could think of wanting was embodied by this person. I wrote him off as out of my league, but my opinion was vetoed by his immediate interest. We spent the next month or two getting to know each other, spending many evenings in conversation that ended in the wee hours of the morning. To many including our own opinions, we suited and complimented each other near perfectly. We made sense. But the timing was off. Well, the timing and an unidentifiable feeling that something wasn’t quite green-lighted. We cut off whatever was with no finality, just the understanding that at least at this time things weren’t right. There was no ill will on my part (quite the opposite) and no resentment. What did lodge its self, however, was a fear which would take root just a few weeks later.
Before those few weeks later, I had met the one I became involved with during a GO! Trip with RockHarbor. He was one of the higher-ups in the organization we were working with. There was immediate attraction. Immediate whatever, but all that was cut off and unquestionably cast aside the moment I saw the wedding band. End of story. To the best of my intentions, that is.
So, a few weeks later I met the other character in this story. We met through a sports connecting event through the church (where I’d met the List guy, interestingly enough) and had little interaction until running into each other at a mutual friends house. That evening we talked for quite a while, hit it off, and he got my number. A few nights later there was the phone call, then the following month or so of hanging out and the usual boy likes girl, girl likes boy nonsense. He wasn’t what I would have pictured for myself on a few counts but what I saw of his heart and personality was more that enough to spark interest. Alright, the exterior was appealing to match as well, but that’s besides the point. I let myself care about him, not on a major scale, but enough so that when the end came it hurt. I was upset, not because of who it was (he’s awesome, but that’s irrelevant) but because I saw it as a reinforcement of that fear I mentioned earlier. I took his decision to step back (which was completely understandable given his situation at the time and what he was/is going through) as a rejection to complete a series of rejections and the overwhelming fear and feeling was what I had ’learned’ from the previous summer, the previous guy, and now this one: I wasn’t enough.
This fear became something I accepted as reality. The last failed attempt at relationship was the one that tipped the scale and to this day the mention of this one carries a sting associated with it. The sting isn’t the fault of the one involved (still think he’s awesome), but the consequence and the knowledge of what transpired thereafter as a result is what causes the pain. What was hurt became fear. What was fear became reality. What was reality turned into vulnerability and weakness to that which I never would have dreamed possible. And all that led to what became a four and a half month long affair.
As I said, hurt makes you do the unthinkable. He came from a place of incredible hurt and disappointment. None of this excuses what took place. None of it makes it alright. Four months of heartache, guilt, pain, lies, fear, regret, disappointment both with myself and God, and the knowledge that I’d not only hurt myself but a multitude of others including those most dear to me, taught me much. During a quarter of a year, I witnessed more fights than I can count, became peacemaker in the most absurd of circumstances, became personal counselor and therapist to one with far more years than I, was made responsible for both my life and the lives of four others, practiced more crisis-intervention than most get in a lifetime, dealt with suicide attempts and threats (both personal and by association), and became the 24/7 lifeline and savior to someone who became my world. Every waking moment became consumed by this one. Between texts, phone calls, and emails there was never a moment (seriously) where one didn’t know the whereabouts and activities of the other. To say that it was co-dependent would be only a bit of an overstatement as my utter reliance upon him was still limited.
Why would someone in their right mind be addicted to something like this?
First of all, I’ll admit that by no stretch of the imagination was I in my right mind. Secondly, the above is only one side of the equation. The flip side was what I alluded to earlier. There was happiness, friendship, trust (up until an event more painful than any I’ve had to deal with. Ever.), companionship, and as previously stated everything I or he could humanly want. But that doesn’t change the bottom line which is the reality that it never should have happened in the first place.
There are dozens of details and situations which flesh out this skeleton to a far more interesting and dynamic story. Many stories people know, some they don’t. The details are incredibly relevant to the progression and outcome of this ordeal but they’re not solely mine for the telling. Besides, an expose is not the intention of this blog. The intention is to give those who have asked and I’ve brushed off the honesty that they deserve. That at the admission of wrong doing and the petition for forgiveness from those who I’ve pushed aside, hurt, and been an abominable representation of one claiming Christ.
A story of redemption can not exist without something to be redeemed. In my case, there is much. I look at the person I was a year ago with sorrow due to the recognition of the height from which I fell. It’s humbling. It’s heartbreaking. But it doesn’t have the final say.
The story of the Bible is not just a how-to of how to find God and salvation, it is a love story of a God who relentlessly pursues that which he created and adores. Through all of this, even though I acted in complete opposition to His commandments, He still pursued. He set me in situations and set key people around me which all pointed the way back to Him. Some of them know who they are, but I think the vast majority haven’t a clue how their presence and words have affected me and my choices. There’s the friends I’ve had for years and the ones for nearly a year who gave their opinions and thoughts on the matter without the judgment I expected and feared. There’s my parents…the most amazingly loving, unquestionably forgiving, yet completely forthcoming and directly correcting people that God could have gifted me with.
Then the ones who have no clue of their significance. One who’s sort conversation about being who you are regardless of what other people have to say, and who’s advice on a relationship he knew little about stayed with me and greatly influenced the final chapter of the story. His words, spoken through text of all things, gave me the resolve to make what would be the first cut in the relationship – a phone call between the other and I one Friday morning while I remained in the classroom. Though my relationship to this person may be trivial, my respect for him from what I have seen carries enough weight to matter.
The final cut came most unexpectedly from the one from last summer. The List guy, that is. I hadn’t seen him since September, but ran into him by chance in the hallway of RockHarbor on one very crucial Sunday. That’s another story, but his re-introduction to my life is what brought the strength for the ending of my situation. On March 20, nine days after the other had left the state on business, and less than a week after the initial rejected cut (I say this because it wasn’t something he accepted and still pursued contact, against the original agreement), After a four hour phone call (an average time span for our usual conversations in the past) I did what was necessary to end the relationship. Through those four hours, it was some of what had already been said by many, with the addition of concepts that could only reach me from this one. I said before that our communication was brilliant…still is. He can get through to me on levels few if any can. For both him and the one mentioned above, I thank God for.
Obviously there’s a lot missing in the details of all that happened then and since. My addiction to this one is something which, through only an act of God, has lost most of its hold. I still care about him and his well being and his future and all that – but none of it is my responsibility or concern. Ironically enough, it was in the first hours of Good Friday morning that I said “It is finished”, and on Easter Sunday started on a road that is unfamiliar and slightly daunting. It’s a road away from what was, both recent and long since past, and on towards what could be. It’s a mission taken without the aid of male companionship, something I hope for with the right timing, but that in the past has been far more significant that it should be. But all this potential responsibility and stress is something I no longer feel the weight of.
It’s all in His hands – as am I.
