The Angel of Darkness

Thirteen years ago today, at 11 pm, I tried (nearly successfully) to end my life.  My life had become so dark and I was so lost that death seemed like the only cure to the intense pain I was feeling.  I took several different medications (including beta blockers I had stolen from my grandmother to overdose on), and laid on my living room floor, surrounded by photo albums, listening to "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan over and over, and sobbing.

My angel came to my rescue, in the form of my daughter.  I heard her shuffle in her crib and realized what a horrible mistake it would be to leave her motherless.  Unable to face my ex-husband as I knew he would be angry, I called a friend.  She hung up and called 911, then called back and woke my ex.  He found me lying on the floor, nearly passed out by this point.  Although we lived far, far out in the country, the ambulance arrived in record time, and the EMTs worked heroically to reverse the effects of the drugs I took.  I don't remember much beyond that point, aside from seeing my infant daughter crying while the doors of the ambulance closed.  I woke several hours later in the ICU, restrained and feeling like someone had ripped my throat open.  I found later the hospital staff had pumped my stomach....believe me, you don't want to know how much that hurts afterward.  I was kept sedated until the hospital psych came to evaluate me.  I spent 3 tortuous days in the psych ward.  There are truly frightening people in residence there....I knew I didn't belong.  I was only released after signing an agreement to enter treatment.

After an intense year of combined medication and counseling, I overcame the depression that nearly killed me.  I should have died that night - the staff at the hospital told me I nearly died twice.  The spirit inside me, combined with the love of my daughter, saved my life.

I've struggled with depression and anxiety since, but I've never sunk back into the darkness again.  There is goodness in the world, and even if I spend the rest of my life alone, I will continue to seek it.  Thankfully, fate has smiled on me and given me the love of my life.  With him by my side, I know the darkness will never return.

I still have a hard time listening to this song, but it reminds me that my angel saved me.  So, today, as every year on this date, I listen to it, cry, and realize that I belong here on earth....if only to watch over the angel whose love kept me alive.

What's Love Got to Do With It?

As you all know (all 7 of you who read this blog), I'm in an amazing relationship.  We talked about love in texts yesterday, and it got me thinking.

Love is pretty fickle, isn't it?  We're so sure we've felt love at some point in our lives, but when it happens for real, we realize all those times before were probably not love.  Let me explain my point.

My first real relationship, I believed I loved the man (boy, really) completely.  He was charming and receptive, but didn't give love....rather, we had a screwed up kind of brother/sister relationship.  Gross, right?  He treated me like a sister; he was protective and affectionate, but that is where it ended.  I was so hopelessly in love with him, but I never got back what I gave.  We did end up having a deeper relationship later, but I discovered things about him that made me uncomfortable and made me question the depth of his caring....so it ended.

I went through a string of really effed up relationships between 18 and 21.  Readers of my old blog know I was beaten severely by a "boyfriend" and left, bleeding and in serious condition, miles out on the sand dunes of North Bend.  Thankfully, I was rescued by kind men who raced back to the staging area to call for help.  If it hadn't been for them, I shudder to think how long I might have lain out there.  Not long after that, I met my now ex-husband.  Normally, I would never (and I mean NEVER) have found him appealing, but he was seemingly normal, and seemed to adore me....not to mention I wanted desperately to be married and put the bad relationships behind me.  He proposed to me on Christmas of 1994, and I said yes immediately.  We were married in August of 1995, and I realized only a few weeks into the marriage that I had made a horrible, horrible mistake.  The ink was hardly dry on the marriage certificate when he became the total opposite of the man I married.  He gave up on being loving and became lazy....putting no effort into our relationship and spending all his free time with his friends.  I was planning to leave him just 8 months after our wedding when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter...wanting to give her a life with two parents, I hung in for 4 years before I realized it was never going to work and left him.

After moving to Grants Pass and starting over, I stayed single for a looooong time.  I even made a vow of celibacy and forced myself to stop the cycle of one-night stands and "friends with benefits" relationships.  Enter MRE (most recent ex).  It was just a friendship at first....hot flirting, long nights of talking, movie dates....but no sex.  Once it did turn to sex, we made a mutual decision that it wouldn't be more than the friendship + sex.  And the sex....well, it was amazing.  Enough so that I ignored the warning signs, even though they nagged at me constantly.  We had a solid year of constant phone calls, texts, and nearly daily sex....but no other relationship-based interactions.  During a tough moment in his life, he told me he wanted me to be more than just a booty call, and asked me to be patient while he worked his issues out...and of course, I fell for it.  Shortly after that, the phone calls dwindled to nearly non-existent and our interactions became fewer and fewer each month; plus the sex became more about his pleasure than mutual satisfaction.  I put up with it for 4 1/2 more years, trying to ignore my suspicions and trying not to throw jealous fits.  When I did confront him, he made it seem that I was "imagining things" and being ridiculous.  It wasn't until I caught him out one night with a co-worker that I realized my suspicions were true...I was not the only person in his life.  I cut it off, but he made overtures to come back into my life.  I caught him once again at the coastal town Faith and I so dearly love and cut the relationship off totally.  I refused his phone calls, texts, and emails, and he finally went away.  Mutual friends told me that he had not just one, but several women in his life at a time.  It's sad....he's obviously looking for something that is missing, and hurting a lot of people along the way.

After the long process of healing, I lost hope that I would find anyone.  In fact, I embraced it and made it my new friend.  I set up a 5-year plan of celibacy and focused on getting my girl through high school and into college before I would focus on my personal life.  I also committed to remodeling myself....finally getting back into therapy and fixing the issues that had accumulated over the last couple of years.  I went through a major illness, fought it, recovered from it, and started addressing the wreck it made of my body.  In my fledgling stage of the remodeling, life threw me a curveball.  I met the love of my life.  I knew pretty much instantly that I loved him, that the love was very real, and that I would spend the rest of my life with him.  The trouble with that is how to change my 5-year plan to incorporate this new relationship.  I struggled with the decision....but I didn't need to.  When it's right, the decision makes itself.  I've never in my life been so comfortable, so loved in a relationship.  Everything feels like it's just falling into place.  I'm ready for a new life with someone I love deeply.  I'm ready to give my daughter a good, strong male influence to guide her towards her adult life.  I have no reservations about change, which is so NOT my usual reaction.  I'm just....happy.  Even when my life outside of him seems so bleak and hopeless, I know that he is there, being supportive and loving....and suddenly it's all okay.

I hate to be cliché, but when you stop looking for love, it finds you.  I had completely given up, and that's when I met my Richard.  I am so thankful that fate gave me the love of my lifetime.  My soul is complete.

Father, Stepped

I came across this picture of my step-dad in a box of my mother's things this weekend, and it has put him into the forefront of my mind since.

Mike was a beacon of light in my early life.  Up until he came into the picture, mom struggled with single parenthood and hard work as a cocktail waitress.  I practically lived with babysitters, and saw mom in the afternoons and Sundays.

I was too young to remember the evolution of their relationship, but I do remember he taught me how to ride my bike without training wheels.  That memory is very strong.  Soon, he and my mother married and our lives became a bit more stable.

Knowing that my real father had abandoned me, he stepped up and adopted me, giving me his last name.  For the first time in my life, I felt I had a father figure and a name to be proud of.  Also for the first time in my life, mom and I had the same last name (this is a big issue for me in a world where divorce is the norm and children grow up without identity).

Things weren't all happiness and light though.  We moved into the beautiful house his parents built in the country and while it was an ideal setting for me, mom found it too solitary and lonely so far from civilization.  Mike was a long-haul truck driver, so he was away from home for weeks, sometimes months at a time.  These factors evoked mom's alcohol use and mistrust of my step-dad.  After mom was involved in a car accident while she was drinking, Mike separated from her and filed for divorce.

After the divorce, I spent some time being shuffled around; living with family and friends until mom was able to take custody of me again.  By that time, Mike had moved on with his own life and I didn't see him or hear from him.  I spent five years in Bellevue, Washington struggling to get through a life filled with poverty and unhappiness.

Circumstances were so bad at the end of my Junior year in high school that I was failing terribly.  On vacation in Oregon, I met up with Mike again and he offered to let me move in with him to finish high school.  Against mom's wishes, I left Washington and moved in with Mike and his new wife.  I knew instantly it was a mistake....his wife despised me and I suppose she had good reason.  I would not have been able to handle taking in my husband's children from other marriages, especially one that he didn't father and had only an adoption relationship with.

While I did graduate from high school that year, it was terrible living with someone who disliked me so much.  The day of graduation, I packed my things and left their home.  I visited them a few times after they moved to another city, but I never really felt welcome.  To this day, his wife hasn't really allowed me to have contact with them (I've attempted to contact her several times through Facebook to no avail), and I have no idea how else to reach him.

I miss Mike very much.  It would have been nice to have him in Faith's life while she was growing up, especially since she has so little family and her father has basically abandoned her.  History seems to be repeating itself there - mom's dad walked out on his family, my real dad abandoned me, Faith's dad abandoned her....I sure hope it ends with Faith if she has kids of her own.  Children really ask for so little from their parents, and it takes so little effort to make a difference in their lives.  I wish so much that I had a dad in my life to share things with.  I don't have a mom anymore.  I've never really had a dad.  It's hard to make a go of life sometimes without those important relationships.

A Heart Fulfilled

I am so wide awake right now, but for once it's not insomnia torturing my mind.  Tonight, I am awake because I'm in love.

I know, it sounds trite.  Honestly, I'm searching for words to describe the incredible feeling that is coursing through my soul right now, but none seem right.

I am not a woman who has experienced real love.  I've considered myself "in love," but I've never really, truly felt it.  It sounds as confusing to read as it is to experience, so bear with me.  I married my ex-husband because he was good to me at the time.  Did that mean I loved him?  Perhaps, but it was not a fulfilling love.  It was very one-sided, and I quickly grew away from my feelings toward him.  The most recent relationship I was in was the antithesis of love.  I thought what I was feeling was love, but it was not....he was able to manipulate me into believing his hollow words.  What I was really feeling was a deep need for him to cherish me, and that never happened.  In between these two men, there have been others with similar emotions.

Tonight, I felt what love really feels like.  I heard the words for the first time, spoken without expectation or manipulation.  My heart made a funny leap and my stomach filled with butterflies.  My head spun as I felt the impact of those beautiful words, and my breath was but a sigh.  For once, my mind didn't fight against the reality, rather it wrapped itself around the emotion and I felt a rush of endorphins.  There is no drug in the world that can compare to knowing you are loved.

The intensity of the love I have for him is deeper than I have ever felt.  I had emptied my heart long before I met him, convinced I would not find anyone who could love me with my flaws.  I became an empty shell, going through the motions of life but not really experiencing it.  Then, he came along and like a pitcher of hope, filled me until I was brimming with happiness.  As I said to a dear friend, that is a gift I don't know how to say "thank you" for.  I will make it my goal to show him every day how happy he has made me.

My heart is fulfilled.  I love you like I have loved no other.

The Confidence She Wears

My lovely daughter gave me the most cherished comment in my life yesterday.  As we were walking through Fred Meyer, she said "Mom, I love the way you walk."

Astonished, I asked her why.  "You walk with your head held high; chin in the air, your arm swinging.  I love you." she said, almost shyly ("I love you" is used as a compliment in this context, more than as a statement of feeling - similar to "I admire you").

The full impact of her compliment was a burst of happiness through my soul.  It's an amazing thing to hear yourself so highly regarded by someone special in your life.  It brought about some insight that I thought I would share.

I walk with confidence.  It's not something I always feel, but projecting it can convince me that it's true.  Sometimes it's an armor against the world that I feel is judging me.  Other times, I feel it so intensely that it's impossible to contain.

My goal is to trust myself enough that self-confidence becomes a comfortable outfit, rather than one that is tight and restrictive and ill-fitting.  It will be a final step in learning to love myself and to accept love from others.