Month: September 2015

Open Letter to the Alcoholic Who Broke My Heart (December 12, 2013)

Becky Sarwate4 Comments

This may seem like an odd post right on the heels of so much Thanksgiving happiness and gratitude, but life is full of twists and turns that way. I did not write this material as a blog post. I actually wrote and sent this to my now former flame earlier this week. It will never be responded to and I am not likely to ever have the answers I need to help me make sense of it all and move on cleanly. But my life and voice matter and in order to try to minimize what is already a huge pile of sorrow and waste, I am reprinting the letter here.

I realize that certain portions of it may be shocking, embarassing, perhaps even anger-inducing to certain people who have come know and respect me. Clearly I am an imperfect being with a lot of work to do on herself. I am one who lived a life (prior to age 30) mostly in the shadows – secrets, hidden pain, truths almost too awful to speak. In a sense, though there was much love, serious portions of the last 18 months have been a lived lie as well. I just didn’t see how clearly that was so and it’s time to throw the doors open so that maybe, just maybe, I can find some peace.

Dear Sir-

For reasons I will never fully comprehend or understand, I am sitting here thinking about and viewing the wreckage that was our life and home together. As the entire Facebook world knows now, you went out last Friday night on one of your famous benders, came home later than promised and nearly burned the house down for the second time in a month – all this when I had the flu and needed security and care. The next morning, I woke up understandably incensed but instead of apologizing, you mocked me, told me you were tired of my shit and said you were going for a walk. Yes, I threw your coat and sweatshirt into the hallway and invited you to walk it off and return when you had some sense of responsibility. Who wouldn’t? I am not a doormat and this had happened too many times

As you know I never saw you again despite many, many pitiful begging outreaches for you to return, let me apologize (when I had done nothing wrong) and work things out. Instead you chose the situation we have now. What I regret more than the loss of you and I is the way I let your disease control me. I degraded myself convinced that your logic, grasp of right and wrong and love for me would lead you back to sanity. I was arrogant. I never understood until now that I was never a match for alcohol.

I was so confused, depressed and desperate, I put myself in harm’s way on Saturday and it is quite fortunate I am sitting here typing this message today. I took way too much (apparently overdosing is harder than it looks) and I woke up vomiting, hating myself for my weakness and giving you the satisfaction. You never looked back at me despite 18 months of love, family, experiences, intimacy and life planning. I will never be sure or be able to prove it, but will always suspect that something angry and destructive clicked in your head Saturday and you wanted to definitively punish me for my inability to accept your disease and commitment to drinking, knew we could never come to agreement about it. Perhaps you were right, but I am a human being who took good care of you: invested in you, your dreams, your child and grandchild, believed the best in you. You were and still are the love of my life but if there is any justice for me it will not remain that way forever. 

Your ongoing flight from reality has allowed you to hide from the harm you’ve caused, the fact that I am terribly, terribly hurt when you know well from my history that I am a person who can ill afford another disillusionment. You’ve taken advantage of that as you have so many other elements of me. I remember when we started dating, you predicted it. You told me more than once: “My drinking is the source of all my problems: financial, career, relationships. If I lose you, it will be my fault and everyone will know it. Know that I blew it with a woman who loved the shit out of me that I probably never deserved anyway.” I should have taken you more seriously, clearly, but another one of your tricks is to always straddle the line between “humor” and reality so that no one ever knows what matters to you or how serious you are.

I deserve some sort of conversation, closure, some taking of the responsibility that you haven’t been able to assume while I propped up the relationship and gave you a great Facebook love story.

Almost everyone who knows us, even those who don’t like me much, know I was good for you. They also know you’re a drunk and that at your age, there’s not too many chances left for health and happiness like we had (because really, at the end of the day, every problem we faced stemmed from your drinking – the embarassing episodes, the womanizing, the fights and police activity, the damaged ribs, the broken promises, my hysterical confusion – all had genesis in your bottle). The same couple that could build a Run for Fun and the family we were forming is thoughtlessly and effortlessly brought down by one man’s refusal to be well for himself and the person he claimed to love and cherish. This is an epic tragedy and one I will just never understand. I have to believe somewhere that you did love me, that what we had was real, but it’s so hard to grasp given your heartless behavior.

What I wanted Saturday was a loving, calm partner who could see what his patterns were doing and work with me on finding solutions. Only a completely blind person could miss that this dream is now impossible and I have to find another. It will be hard but I will do it.

What I won’t be anymore is a dehumanized warehouse for your belongings and the remnants of our life, left to come home to an empty apartment each night to look at what was: the only adult who seems to be wondering how we’ll end our storage lease, whether you have enough clothes and toiletries, or if you’re drinking yourself to death. It has been clear for several days that you are not wondering about or missing me. The fact that I haven’t eaten since Friday night, can’t sleep and feel a gnawing pit in my stomach probably means nothing to you. My sister advised me not to tell you these things but I have nothing to hide. It is you who should be ashamed. I am proud of the effort I gave us. I was my best partner with you. 

So here it is. If I don’t hear anything from you by Sunday evening, this is what I am doing: I will have friends help me remove your belongings from the storage place and my apartment and put them somewhere, anywhere out of my sight so that I am no longer burdened with the pain of having to see them. Both the apartment lease and the storage space are in my name and it is my legal right to do so in the absence of some accountability from your end. I have said this to you in a voicemail but I am also typing it out for posterity with witnesses so there’s no later confusion: I do not want you in my apartment moving and packing things when I am not present. I no longer trust you with anything.

All this said, you do not have to let it come to that and any wise person would probably encourage you to act like the 42 year-old man you are supposed to be. You can collect your belongings at a mutually agreeable time and it doesn’t have to be by the close of Sunday, but if you’d like to take advantage of my patience in that regard, you are going to have to communicate. You don’t make all the rules. This is not your world with me just gratefully living in it. I want to leave no room for being misquoted. 

The storage lease is due December 28th and the rent on the first. I will not pay the former out of my own pocket just because you refuse to make a transition plan with me. The rent I will deal with as it would be mine whether you lived there or not. If you need to leave things in storage beyond the 28th, you will have to pay me half the fee. Not negotiable and silence is not a response. If that is what you choose, I will revert to Plan A which I delineated several paragraphs up.

I have advised my building super that you have a key but are not welcome in my apartment so again, I must fervently discourage you from trying to go there without my presence. I cannot believe I am having to type any of this. I have been through divorces that were more adult and caring and amicable. One of the only comforts left to me at this point is the absolute certainty that somewhere in your confused brain you are well aware of the mistakes you are making, and will regret them long after I have ceased to feel pain. I would have loved to say all of this in person but you will not grant me any courtesies. So this is what I have.

In my secret dreams, I will nourish a fantasy of you showing up at my door, 30-day sobriety chip in hand, saying all the words you couldn’t say when you had the chance and vowing to take care of me for the rest of your life to atone for everything. Of course that will never happen but it’s a lot more plesant to ponder than the sick and awful events you have intermittently subjected me to over the course of 18 months. I will do my best to always remember the good in you, your humor and your potential. I also promise to always be there for your child and grandchild, as well as treasure the bonds I formed with other members of your family. I do not have to lose all of that just because I am nothing to you.

Above all, I will always live in fear of that call – the one that says you’re in jail, the hospital or dead, the outcome of some terrible drunken tragedy. You deserve better than that. I hope you see that, believe it and take action one day. You are letting alcohol do your living for you. It’s not the choice you pretend to yourself that it is.

I await your response – or not. Then I will follow-through with Plan A with a very heavy heart, simply because you’ve left me no other option. Through it all, I love you. I always will. I also thank you. You were really the man who brought my heart back to life after my divorce two years ago. My sister will tell you she’d never seen me happier with a man, for however long that lasted. I know better than to expect you to say anything kind in return, no matter how true. It’s safer to keep to yourself, I’m sure. So I will have to learn not to need it and hold onto my own truth.

30 Days of Gratitude: 2013 Edition (November 26, 2013)

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Yes, I have seen this meme work its way across Facebook over the course of November. I thought about participating, but my brain is usually too stream-of-consciousness for that level of daily content commitment, and I refuse to violate my personal rule of one status update per day (any more than that and I run the risk of the dreaded newsfeed “block” by bored connections). So with that in mind, here’s a month’s worth of people, events and phenomena for which I am grateful over the course of 2013, all in one shot.

1.Occupying the top spot with good reason, I am grateful for April’s reconciliation with my sibling and her family. Life is a lot less funny and loving without my baby sis.

2.Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, recently described by funny man Stephen Colbert as a “possessed Cabbage Patch doll,” I thank you for two things: reminding North America that the USA does not have the monopoly on mentally challenged local politicians, and for instilling waves of nostalgia for the comedic stylings of Chris Farley.

3.Early summer period of unemployment: I salute you. Were it not for the unexpected job loss, I would not be happily ensconced as a Marketing Manager with a wonderful company in downtown Chicago.

4.I am grateful that pompholyx eczema, while challenging and painful, has thus far limited itself to my hands. In many cases, the feet are also affected, ushering in a whole new wave of debilitating restrictions.

5.Early Fall welcomed Act III with the love of my life. We’re making it work this time, applying the lessons of the past with strategic guidelines for a balanced future. That might sound more business jargon than romantic sweetness, but I’ve finally learned that hard work and commitment are every bit as important as passion. And we’re lucky enough to have that too.

6.I’m grateful that the Illinois Woman’s Press Association chose me as their 2013-2015 leader. Together we’ve grown membership by 20 percent in six months, introduced dynamic new programming and collaborations with other communications organizations. The era of siloing and membership bleed is over. This makes me proud.

7.Thank you to the rollerblading ukulele player and singer who often greets me as I alight from the Red Line stop near my apartment. The sight of you gliding in circles with perfect tune and pitch never fails to put a smile on my face.

8.I cannot stress enough how much I love my de facto stepdaughter Amber and four year-old grandbaby Chloe. I leapt right over motherhood into a full and diverse family life as unexpected as it is treasured. Our growing bond is a source of continual joy.

9.Dr. T: You with your string of pearls, pale blonde hair and Stepford Wife looks. You may not have been the ideal of how my perfect therapist should appear, but when you echo my angry “f” bombs, I never feel more understood.

10.Salt Lake City: As an atheist from an all-business metropolis, I never expected to find your exceedingly friendly locals, natural cultivation and Mormon-culture appealing, but your $4 beer and shot specials, clean streets and sincerely helpful citizens won me over.

11.Breaking Bad: Thank you for five seasons of jaw-dropping storytelling and acting. I held my breath, I cried and I was angry. You shall never be duplicated. Thank you as well for leaving the party long before you got stale.

12.Mr. Roger Ebert: Your April death provoked a sense of public loss I had not experienced since the 2008 premature passing of NBC’s Tim Russert. My sincere gratitude for your thoughtful, diverse body of work and the opportunities to bond with a father who was and remains, mostly incomprehensible.

13.Thank you soft, black doughnut cushion (February 2013 – August 2013) for making hours of sitting bearable as my poor, busted tailbone slowly healed. Thank you also for doubling as a comfy Metra train sleeping pillow. I apologize for carelessly leaving you behind in the Salt Lake City airport. I like to think you are enjoying a second life comforting the buns of another injured soul.

14.Epsom salts: I just wrote about you last week, but it bears repeating. For your affordable, diverse ability to treat and soothe so many conditions, this Bud’s for you.

15.My growing adoration for the NFL, despite its imperfections and the perennial so-so-ness of the Bears, is the reason I do not entirely succumb to Seasonal Affective Disorder each Fall.

16.The Republicans behind the late-Fall government shutdown: grazie for providing a much-needed, if temporary distraction from the abominable rollout of Obamacare.

17.President Obama: Thank you for breaking with eight years of W’s “Cowboy Diplomacy” to show the world that we are capable of talking and negotiating our way to a more peaceful world. Thank you also for being tough enough to stand up to warmongers who love to try to settle scores with bombs, yet failed to learn from the Iraq and Afghanistan examples that getting in is a lot easier than getting out.

18.I regret the coming conclusion to PBS’s Downton Abbey, but am grateful for the modern-day Austen void this society drama has filled.

19.Red wine: You’ll be on this list every year, you angel/devil, you.

20.The Boston Marathon bombing was tragic, frightening and a terrible blow to the assumed security of community events, but it taught the nation a couple of critical lessons: don’t assume Islamic terrorists are brown-skinned folks from distant lands and most of all, DON’T mess with the Boston PD.

21.Pope Francis: Like I said I am an atheist, but I am a huge fan of the compassion, good sense and humility you’ve unleashed on the Vatican thus far. There may be hope for a modern, relevant Catholic Church yet. I still can’t believe you made it through the Conclave given your radical ideas about poverty and tolerance, but I’m glad you did.

22.Not a fan of Edward Snowden, but I’m grateful for the public conversations about privacy and surveillance his shenanigans invited. It can easily be argued that we would not be having them otherwise.

23.Paul Krugman: For keeping Keynesian economics alive and mainstream and for standing up to destructive austerians and “deficit scolds” on the regular. Your brilliance, approachability and determination demonstrate why they don’t hand out Nobel Prizes to just anybody.

24.I thank the National Federation of Press Women for seeing fit to bestow my second first place national writing award in four years. The fact that my 2013 prize was for last year’s work on this very blog makes the victory that much sweeter. This page is me.

25.I am grateful for my diverse, eclectic neighborhood of Rogers Park, and the multi-faceted benefits of lakefront living.

26.Zipcar: Thanks to your affordable membership prices and pickup location plentifulness, I don’t miss vehicle ownership one whit and shall never purchase an automobile again.

27.I don’t know whose decision at CNN it was to allow Newt Gingrinch to assault the airwaves on a weekday basis, but thank you. I now have a place to channel my sweaty hate whilst running on the treadmill.

28.Much love to PK and his painful, awful craniofacial massage techniques that have helped the Great Migraine Crisis of 2012 seem like a distant memory.

29.Wendy Davis: Your June, 11-hour filibuster badassery in the Texas Senate may not have killed the State’s assault on abortion rights, but your honey badger determination announced a new leader for women’s issues – and spiked sales of pink sneakers.

30.Last but not least, I am grateful that I have been given another year on this planet upon which to reflect.

Flotsam and Epsom (November 22, 2013)

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Several months ago, when the burning, itching, growing blisters on my palms were diagnosed as chronic pompholyx eczema, I lapsed into a funk. I wasn’t ready to accept all the lifestyle changes I had to make, and what’s more, I needed some time to metaphorically stomp my feet and shout “It’s not fair!”

A notorious gym rat with fixed routines that melded strength and cardio training, my two favorite workouts were Russian kettlebell drills and power yoga. However my ravaged hands could no longer handle the friction and metallic contact offered by kettlebells. Likewise, the pressure applied to the palms by balancing my body weight against the floor in yoga practice became too painful. There were some obvious alternatives to these cherished favorites that would allow me to maintain my physique while giving my hands a break (running, Pilates, etc.) but I didn’t care. I wanted things to go back to normal.

Entrenched in this frame of mind, I stopped going to the gym or stepping on the scale. I worked with my dermatologist to test a number of topical steroids and creams to mitigate outbreak symptoms, while adopting an intense drug regiment to try to combat the problem from the inside. To date, there is no cure for pompholyx eczema and these remedies have offered mixed results. But through a period of trial and error, I have learned to adjust to hands that alternate between blistering, cracking and peeling. I’ve become inured to people’s rude but generally benign questions and the consistently “off” appearance of my extremities even on good days. And most importantly, I am coming to understand that my life is not over or without pleasure just because it is different from what I knew. These revelations might sound patently obvious, and I was always able to grasp the words I heard from friends and loved ones. Believing them was an entirely different matter. I still have frustrating, uncomfortable days and know that will be a feature of battling a chronic condition henceforth, but for the most part, I’ve completed the move from mourning to acceptance.

About the same time that acceptance took hold, I looked down one morning as I readied for work and noticed a wine belly beginning to obstruct a view of my feet. It was time to get back in shape. For the last three weeks, I’ve exercised two or more hours per day, at least five times. When I started my new job back in July, an excellent fringe benefit was presented in the form of a gym membership on the second floor of the company’s office building. This 24-hour facility is stocked with cardio equipment of all varieties, as well as numerous hands-free weight machines that I’ve leveraged to try to rebuild my upper body strength. It is gratifying and liberating to witness the changes in my physique, empowering to be able to reclaim control of my physical fitness.

But of course, since I went from zero to 60 with warp speed, I am one sore mofo. And so the actual point of this post is to extol the therapeutic benefits of a product I once wrote off as a geriatric relic from another era – Epsom salts. It turns out that this timeless classic, originally discovered by an English farmer in 1618, has remained a medicine cabinet staple with good reason.

The ailments Epsom salts are purported to relieve are seemingly endless: they can be nebulised to treat asthma and pre-eclampsia, ingested to act as a laxative, prevent artery hardening and blood clots and make insulin more effective, and in my case, added to bath water to reduce inflammation to relieve pain and muscle cramps. This miracle product is also insanely affordable, available to all members of the proletariat for a couple bucks or less. Amazing.

As I said, when my beloved grandfather used to bust out the Epsom for his nightly bath, I scoffed. Poppa suffered from bursitis, arthritis and an unnamed rash in the armpits leftover from his time as a WWII POW. But he was after all, ancient and none of that would ever happen to me!

Ahem, so cut to 2013 and a grown 35 year-old woman afflicted with chronic migraines, a popping left hip and eczema-afflicted hands. While my partner JC originally picked up the Epsom as a bath additive to soothe my sore muscles, I have fallen in love with the soft, silky water effects it generates. Where I used to just wash, rinse and leave, I now linger in silken H2O until I prune. Epsom has also served as an unexpected salve for my palms at their most atrocious cracking and peeling stages. I emerge from the bath relaxed, supple and with skin soft as a baby’s bottom.

Poppa, you were right all along. Epsom salts are the TRUTH. And democratic – out of the reach of pharmaceutical “regulation” (profit reaping). It’s almost too good to be true. It’s a shame that snarky, ageist cynicism caused me to overlook this wonder treatment for so long.

A Holiday Wish for Closure (November 13, 2013)

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“It’s no longer that I bitterly wish them ill for all they’ve done (or not done). Time, distance and therapy have resolved those feelings. It’s more that the longer they exist and go about their daily lives in unrepentant silence, the more impossible it is for me to absolve them with ‘Well, they did the best they could.’ Or, ‘They would have made amends if only they’d had more time.’”

This is a self-quote from my latest Skype therapy session with Dr. T., the brilliant, patient and empathetic expert with whom I’ve been working on and off for five years. I was 30 years old and in the midst of a full-blown, third-life crisis the first time I darkened Dr. T’s doorway. Emotionally stunted by a traumatic childhood and a series of toxic relationships that I later came to recognize as replicas of the dysfunctional, yet familiar rapport I experienced with my parents, Dr. T has long provided a safe forum for working out patterns and reaching alternate conclusions. This professional has helped me access and leverage the internal resources I didn’t know I had to chase (and in some cases, even capture) career dreams, eliminate pernicious influences (people) without guilt and begin to build a life that feels healthier and instills me with a pride that lay dormant beneath decades of shame.

Dr. T has also metaphorically (and patiently) held my hand as I learned that it’s far better in the long run to articulate and own feelings that might scare me, rather than tamp them down in favor of a faux moral high road. An observed correlation between a long history of emotional siloing, and the autoimmune diseases that have ravaged my body in recent years (chronic migraines, alopecia, pompholyx eczema) cannot be easily dismissed.

And so with baby steps I’ve learned to cut the bullshit and armor against the judgment of society, in order to set myself free. I’ve reached the point in my rehabilitation, however, where it’s no longer enough to come clean with one person staring back at me through a computer monitor. The holidays are barreling down upon us and they bring accessories with them:family get togethers and celebrations, gift/wish lists and hoards of cheesy, yet delightful decorations. Yesterday, I shared my annual holiday desire with Dr. T. Now I’m ready to share it with the world.

I want to be free of my parents and their long run of disregard for the messes they made. I haven’t seen my mother in nearly 13 years. My father and I have been estranged for five, a decision self-imposed for a number of protective reasons. Yet physical distance from these two architects of misery, humiliation and pain has not been quite enough to allow for proper resolution and context. The number of medications I take to combat the perpetual fight or flight response my body doesn’t comprehend as contemporarily unnecessary, tells the story. As does the frequency with which I see them in my dreams, waking up in a cold sweat while I breathe deeply and remind myself that the threat has been neutralized. And the renewed sense of loss and sadness I experience upon recollecting that they don’t expend nearly the same energy and resources thinking about the children they brought into the world, as those grown kids do in attempting to heal from their mismanagement.

My mother fled from the two young adults she raised without ever a second’s glance backward, leaving in her wake a trail of stolen identity, police reports and a mountain of debt. Occasional online searches (the power and tyranny of Google) turn up that she is alive and well in another distant down, living off the proceeds of a legal settlement that reeks of the fraud she perpetuated throughout our acquaintance.

My father is a slightly different case, less sociopath than a truly mentally ill person, incapable of viewing situations as a normally functioning person might. And thus unable to stick to a treatment plan. Thereby unable to make solid decisions about marriage and parenthood, making his choice of mate the more unfortunate for the helpless babies left to go it alone. Underfed, underloved and raised in the most physically and psychologically dangerous conditions, those little girls deserved better. Yet by clinging to each other with a shared tunnel vision of escape, the frightened youngsters that my sister and I once were grew into responsible, successful adults determined to break the cycle.

I’m ready for that story to be over. But can the book really close while my mother and father still breathe, still avoid responsibility for themselves and the lives they created? And what does it say about me that my annual holiday wish is to bid them a final adieu, to exhale the breath I’ve been holding for three decades? To be able to say “Well, they did the best they could.” Or, “They would have made amends if only they’d had more time?”

Life and Death and Language (November 7, 2013)

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Issues of life and death have been at the forefront of many recent personal musings. As a writer and former aspiring singer/actress with a flair for the dramatic, I’ve become more cognizant of the ease with which I throw around mortality idioms:

“This pompholyx eczema is killing me!”

“Another roach in the apartment? I can’t live like this!”

“If the Seahawks take me out of my Pick-A-Winner football pool another year I’m going to murder Eddie Vedder! [Who is not, in fact, a Seattle native. But this is an easy way to get under the skin of my beloved, a dyed-in-the-wool Pearl Jam fan]”

Under more conventional circumstances, I accept my theatrical ways and allow myself a free pass to over emote in speech, well aware that my nearest and dearest understand when to parse actionable intelligence. But lately, people I love and respect have been grappling with way too much illness and death. I don’t wish to compound their anguish with careless expressions.

Within the last fortnight my boss has buried her father, my brother-in-law has lost a beloved uncle and my romantic partner is currently bereaved of his maternal grandmother, the last living elder on either side of his clan. No matter their respective beliefs on the afterlife, or the level of gratitude experienced by an end of suffering, the people I care about are hurting. The early stages of grief have little patience with rationality and big picture thinking. And as helpless as I feel at times to alleviate their collective distress, watching my mouth seems like an easy cherry to pick.

And that’s all I need to say about that.