Thursday, September 15, 2011

can't see the forrest for the tree's.

i worked. i drank. i smoked. i found small routine and peace in monitoring people's habits. that lady always wears turtlenecks. he always grins and has red cheeks. she feels nervous but acts angry instead. funny mannerism's that must bring routine to people, their consistency comforting me. do people stay the same? what does it take to change? although the same guy riding his bike past my house at 8am everyday makes me feel like the world is on schedule he also makes me wonder what if it weren't? being there makes me imagine what his not being there would potentially signify. what if he gets a flat tire? breaks his leg? what if someone in his life that he loves dearly dies and he is too sad to ever ride his stupid bike again? what would it take to change his routine? to change a habit, or even a lifestyle? i have always been able to identify myself in strangers, and although i was keeping an extremely isolated profile, in their humanness i remained by a thread connected to their world. to my world. through people living i stayed alive. i watched them and eventually they allowed me the courage to ask myself. what would happen if i changed? i drifted like this because my spirit was shut down after my last binge and the damage i had done during it. i restrained from consuming cocaine because i was terrified of where my addiction had already taken me. or where me and it had gone willingly together rather. often at the end the result isn't what you were willing to have become your life. my lungs let air out without me asking them to breathe, my body moved forward without me wanting it to walk, i spoke without really meaning to say anything.  i existed within the motions, all the while not wanting too.

i limited my energy. it is so much work being an alcoholic. it's an uphill battle daily and it enters every part of your mind. when does my shift end. how much in in my bank account. minus the essentials. what a waste of money paying rent is. food. i guess i have to spend a bit on what i can't find/steal/get elsewhere. edible things from dinner's and parties taken home for later. don't spend money on food if you don't absolutely have to. always have enough smokes. bum as many as you can so your own stash stays full. what time does the liquor store open. how bad will the hangover be. who do i have to avoid. what time is the next shift. repeat. this cycle if your lucky ends in one startling event that makes you stop. liver disease. jail time. car accident. an event that allows you to see the the progression of disease. the danger coming your way. because you have 3 choices if you keep it up, jail, institutions or death.
i however like many alcoholics failed or was unwilling to see how bad was only getting worse. i did what most levelled headed drunks do....i decided to control my drinking. i will maintain a level of what comes just slightly before total destruction and failure. i will not drink into oblivion. i will not be arrested. i will not bleed. i will not fight. all of this was unnecessary and truthfully quite unladylike. 'it is the great obsession of every alcoholic to one day be able to control his drinking'. i will just keep the hurt at bay with a therapeutic amount of alcohol. i will avoid cocaine. this took a great deal of strength because every cell in my body at this point was against me, not to mention my own mind. but i had resolve. i would be strong!

within a week or two i met a man in a bar. a man who i would later discover was himself a sober alcoholic but still partaking in something i would also much later discover to be called the 13th step. in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous there are 12 steps to regain spiritual ground and live with integrity and happiness. the 13th step is one people frown upon because 13 stepping is when a sober member picks up women/men who are spiritually/physically addicted/early in their sobriety. a sober person should know better because they are suppose to 'be' better. the thing is, this isn't always true. some sober people remain the sickest of the bunch because although they remain dry from alcohol they continue to behave in an extremely unhealthy manner. picking flies off a fly stip isn't too hard. R had at that point himself over a decade of sobriety. a tanned, charming smooth talker. well dressed and just arrogant enough that he appeared sexy and entitled to a life better than where he stood. compared to the hoodie wearing broke 25 year old snowboarder's normally occupying the bar stools he looked like a beautiful apparition. how i wanted to go with him, whoever he was. well he turned out to be ricky's father. but in that bar that night in banff he was just some guy who wanted to get laid, a guy who was in if for himself. i'm not sure anything has changed actually. he is on his 5th wife, separate from the 4 other engagements. imagine asking 9 women to be the 'one'. but each of them probably has a really good story too. this is how our relationship began over the next few months, me flying down to visit him in florida.

i quit my job at the hospital. i had one last coke binge in a hotel room that resulted in a man from san diego who was known to police forcefully covering my entire upper chest and torso in deep bite marks. broken welts where he had held and pinched and bitten me. a rape kit was suggested. there was footage of me walking through the hotel lobby arm in arm with him so therefore enough for police to declare me a willing participant. willing enough to not be able to press charges anyways despite  on the same video 3 hrs later  stumbling back out holding my torn skirt hysterically hailing a cab. unfortunate but not proof that what had happened in the room that night was not all ok. illegal? i'm not sure. the guy had forced himself on me while i lay passed out but to me that wasn't really the offending portion. in fact that was how i had sex majority of the time. looking back i didn't actually want to 'have' sex with any of the men i had sex with. it just sort of happened to me. it had to happen. that was part of the deal. it wasn't rape, i still don't think it is. but maybe i'm wrong. had i been able to hold my head upright would i have protested? probably not because i had resigned myself to the understanding that it had to happen. the part that bothered me was the biting. breaking multiple patches of my skin. was biting illegal? it should be. an officer told me the man had said i had asked to be bitten. i also hadn't been the one to call the cops, my friend at work had called which to them appeared unconvincing of a victim. i shook this off as a very bad experience in which way too much blow was snorted by two very fucked up people who accidentally had some sort of sex. they took photo's of my injuries. they made a file on me. always thinking on my toes for the next escape i scammed an adivan prescription citing the foreseeable events of inability to sleep without intense fear as a result of the events that had taken place. i was proud of getting that script. see i thought there is a good side to every bad one. sedatives. i definitely needed sedatives. the marks remained purple for weeks, bruising and eventually turning black and then blue. blue is my favourite colour, although not that shade.

within a month i was visiting R in the florida keys which if you have ever been a practicing alcoholic in the shitty frozen overpriced town of banff alberta is like winning the fucking lottery. i happily packed all my best tight things and my cigarette's and flew down on his dime. i was a perfect coat tail riding candidate.  arriving on scene with little to no self worth or esteem. check. no voice of my own. check. agreeable to being used, treated poorly, kept and paid for. check check check and CHECK. thankfully i wasn't damaged enough physically that i still qualified as arm candy. blonde hair, big breasts. beside's in that moment what i wasn't willing to do.

due to a dui and a revoked license i had to wait a year and retake my permit to be able to drive in the states. i made sure i did this because my new car wasn't a 1991 rusted out honda prelude with no insurance, it was a detailed white convertible bmw. dinner's out at fancy restaurants on private islands where the table sits in the sand on the beach. white linens. champagne. service! money equals power and prestige! people are catering to him/me. i kept my drinking 'civilized' because obviously i cleaned up nice and was much more prized than before so couldn't blow it. it meant sneaking drinks in beforehand and afterwards. being an alcoholic himself i'm sure he must have realized on some level. i however had no idea my drinking qualified as alcoholic. in my mind alcoholics were bums on streets. dirty and jobless and crazy. i was wearing 500$ high heels. i was not alcoholic. and even if i had had hard times before meeting him it was obviously circumstantial and now i would be ok. i would adjust to this new lifestyle and be less stressed therefore not having to drink so much if i chose not too. you see i thought i still had a choice. when in reality i had crossed the line of not being able to stop long ago. i started visiting florida regularly flying back to my mothers in red deer in between. biding my time. don't come on too strong. but how do i make him want to keep me? although i though i was playing the part of R's girlfriend quite well the truth is he had an awful temper often going into rages, screaming and occasionally violent. sushi dinners on his boat at sunset. flying to vegas to see the rolling stones. staying at a cabin on literally the edge of the grand canyon. miami shopping spree's. people work out anger issue's.

once in the very early stages of dating we were in the car fighting, hollering and throwing his hands everywhere he intentionally ripped off the rear view mirror saying i was lucky it wasn't my face. look what i'd made him do. grabbing the wheel and laying rubber spinning the car around driving us off. i might loose him. i would do better. being told his friends hated me and they knew i was just a whore. being told he loved me and how sorry he was. being told i was a stupid worthless cunt. a vicious cunt. i started fighting back and told him what i thought. often to my demise i have always had and voiced my opinion. when i was home back in alberta he screamed into the phone accusing me of cheating. we loved to hate each other. i thought about throwing in the towel. it's just that the thread count in the towel was so soft. sitting in my mothers house in red deer quickly encouraged me to put a different spin on things. there had to be an upside....he would change once i proved myself. maybe he had been hurt in the past thats why he was angry and untrusting. i would help fix him.

while in florida i didn't have much to actually do. i didn't have friends. he worked non stop. i snooped in his house finding boxes of 'trophies'. dozens of picture's of naked/half naked women. when we had met and spent the night together in banff he had also taken my photograph. was i in here somewhere? ooh was i at the top? these women looked like they were from the 1980's. i was born that year so i assumed he had been 'collecting' for a long time. on his computer dozens and dozens of nameless women. on his boat with their bikini tops off, giggling in bathtubs full of bubbles, even running happily up beaches towards the predatory camera lens awaiting them. the picture's were dated not too far apart from one another, sometimes even overlapping. but they weren't here anymore were they? i was. i would just have to be better. be the skinniest, the prettiest, the most obedient. i would make his friends jealous because thats what he seems to want, to be better than everyone. i would sit in his fancy cars and houses and pretend to be perfect for him. i wanted to be the one he chose because i was the most deserving. and obviously i needed to be saved the most. complete relinquishing of power. i lived for him.

abuse=jewellery. it started out small. he didn't come home and just hit me. it would be arguments over quality of life, your not home enough, you don't love me, you work all the time. arm grabbing, hair pulling, dish throwing, police visiting arguments. he was a criminal defence attorney so the cops knew him excused a lot of it as he pleaded crazy girlfriend. when she met me his outspoken drug dealing cuban secretary declared 'that one sure as shit ain't leaving quietly!' she knew my grip was tight. for every fight or time i got slapped or shoved into a wall i received a gift according to the severity of the crime. being slapped or kicked meant a chain with a pearl or stone. being back handed and spit on usually meant a diamond. within the year i had diamond stud earrings, 2 diamond tennis bracelets, a diamond pendant necklace, a diamond encrusted watch. you do the math. i became the woman who jumped out of still moving vehicle's onto the interstate slamming her high heel into the side of the car door. i became the woman who lost weight and dyed her hair platinum blond. i became the woman who drank only diet red bull and smoked to stay slim. i became the woman who worried only about what he thought of me. i became the woman who asked for her money, for keys, for permission. we had good times but it never should have been we were both sick. he always reminded me that the things were his and would never be mine. i was constantly reminded how lucky i was that he 'loved' me. sex was cold and passionless. i felt like i was in a movie and i played that part. a woman can fake orgasms but she cannot unfortunatley fake an entire relationship. although i did try. despite all this i was desperate to stay with him, fearing the entire while my days might be numbered. i might end up a picture in a box, some other girl finding me. my resourcefulness knew exactly how to ensure my survival. on a list of amends 'except when to do so would injure them or other's' this admission i pray never hurts R because today our relationship is somewhat mended and he is in ricky's life in a positive way. ricky ellis benjamin wunsch was born on october 8th 2003. delivered naturally he weighed 11lbs 5oz and measured 2 feet long. no pain medication. i was a supporter of pain. now he had to love me forever, i had given him a son. i couldn't see the forrest for all the tree's.

2 comments:

  1. crying here I love you too much want to hold you >>> maybe you bring out the mamma in me >no matter Heather is loved and cherished by me .

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