I'm not sleeping very well. I've been finding ways to be happy and to have fun but I have this really big thing in the background... hovering just behind me like a dark dark cloud. I focus on work. My house. Getting back to the gym. Boy drama. Whatever I can to NOT think of this. I can only handle so much of a broken heart and my tears are there brooding so immediately below the surface, I have no idea when I can expect them to break through all the rest I try to put in the forefront. One or two sneaks out regularly throughout the day... especially just as I'm tucking in to go to sleep. I think of him and where he is and how much I love him and a few of those tears must slip out. I have no idea how much longer I'm going to be able to hold it in. I guess I'm just ... waiting... holding my breath and praying that it just doesn't get worse.
Hi, I'm Lindsay. And my father is a drug addict. And has been for 18 years. Probably longer. An active addict for 11 years (meaning using more than a handful of times a year). My family has seen so much pain. Has heard every lie. My mother's had to file for bankruptcy; has had to sell the home she built and loved to move into a cookie cutter she hates; has continued to go into debt supporting him. It's so amazingly difficult to see someone you love find no joy in their life. None. Who, behind every smile, there is pain and a real effort to fake her way through it all.
We all play our roles. Mine has changed over the years as I've gone through my codependency work, but I sweep in to listen and be firm and take care of everyone. My brother sweeps in to be analytical and rational and justifying. My mom just tries to hold it together and my dad... well... that's what this is all about isn't it? It's always what it's all about.
My father lost 4 days last week. Has no recollection of my mom asking him to leave or where he went or how he got there and how he got back home. My mother let him sleep it off for a day and he left again last night. He has burned the only bridge he had for a couch to stay on so we don't have any idea where he's sleeping. We have to do our best to not worry about it. Which is impossible. But it's not any of our jobs to take care of him. He is a grown man and is infinitely protective of his addiction. So he's made his choice. Which has driven us to make ours.
But I am sad. I am sad for him. For a man who used to have a good job and be a good man. Who is a talented artist and a hard worker. Who used to be my hero. Now he's someone who can't keep a job. Who will steal and lie and cheat to score drugs, whether it be heroin or Oxy or Valium. Who cannot and will not get better.
I'm sad for my mother who has no joy or happiness in her life. Who has continued to make the life choice to live this lifestyle. To lose almost everything she and my dad had worked so hard to earn. Who so rarely sees my dad for who he is but who he was and who she wants him to be. Whose codependency has made her so sick, I'm actually shocked she's not physically ill.
And for my brother. Oh my dear brother. Who I love more than life itself. Who I would do anything for. Who is my heart. Who suffers the same propensity toward excess as my father and is so scared of any real emotion, that he keeps it locked firmly away behind reason and logic and educational psychobabble.
I honestly just have no idea what to do. So I wait. I shore up these tears to use them for something bigger. And just pray that the something bigger ... something worse... doesn't happen.
