2016 is OVER! It was a horrible year, towards the end lots of deaths of famous people like Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, and George Michael among other. Some guy was on the TV news the other night saying that he was willing to stand vigil in front of Betty White’s door until the new year started just so she would have 24 hours of an immediate responder should something happen and laughingly Charlie Sheen tweeted “Trump next! Trump next! Trump next!...” I love that. Although people like him have to keep in mind that the alternative to Trump would be Pence and that would be much worse. I would rather deal with this ego-maniac as our leader over a theological nutcase. In addition to these celebrities I loft my beloved German Shepherd too.
Today I’m a bit nervous because it is the first day of staying sober for the next four months. Today is going to be tough because I'm off tomorrow. I don’t go back to work until Tuesday. It’s not like I have never gone on day without drinking but usually the odds are 99% on those days I am off I would be drinking before the evening started. So now I’m facing and anticipating months without a drink. It’s going to be even more difficult now that I'm having anxiety attacks again. I woke up this morning very anxious and probably going to take a Xanax to get me through and I don't have enough Xanax to get me through the whole month at this point as the doctor didn't intend for me to be taking them everyday. He meant for them to be a crutch when I felt my blood pressure skyrocketing but now this is reaching a point now where this is becoming a daily event. These awful anxiety attacks that I thought I put behind me a decade ago are now back and almost back in full force, they don’t seem that extreme yet, I feel like they were much worse when I was younger but they’ve been so long I can’t really remember. I'm just so terrified of what they are going to become and I don't know whether they are escalating because of my having a bad few months dealing a lot with my husband and his health problems while anticipating not drinking. Alcohol is a beautiful and wonderful crutch when these attacks occur, that is until you start sobering in the middle of the night and a bad dream turns into a panic attack that wakes you up in the middle of the night.
I’m looking forward to feeling good again. Last year when I went on my alcohol hiatus I was working out last everyday after coming home from work. I had energy and was taking pride in my body, seeing the difference my daily workouts were making on my physically. Then we went camping and I started drinking again. Almost immediately I was back to the point that I was getting drunk again every weekend.
I know that I’m not alone in this because almost everyone out there can say the same thing but I generally have no life, especially on work nights and then through alcohol I make up for it on the weekends and off nights that in some small way breaks the monotony, the boredom we all face each and every day. Throw into the mix sadness and then anxiety attacks to boot and I'm usually spending my off time drunk.
Last night was not a good night in my house. My husband is either reading my blog or losing his mind or something. If he’s bothering to read my blog it would be a huge surprise because I feel like he doesn’t care about anything anymore. But out of nowhere he seems to be punishing me or treating me with disdain or something. If the “not talking” to me was bad before it is much worse now. Earlier without saying a word he got up got from his Archie Bunker chair, went to our bedroom and came out dress, he had been sitting in the same underwear and shirt for days. He started cleaning things up, moving things around, sorting laundry and just doing things that were very out of the ordinary. Noticing his weirdness or sudden odd behavior I didn’t say anything at first but then to try to make conversation I said that I thought it cold enough to make a fire and he immediately said “Should I go down and make one” and I said “No, that there was no need to go to the trouble, that if I wanted a fire I would build one.” He responded “Well I offered”. Its like he is patronizing me now. He is gone from the massive lump of nothing sitting in his chair waiting to die to super husband and there is a reason. A person doesn’t just change that much in a matter of hours. The work he’s doing and the offer to help me with stuff is all insincere anyway, he’s acting as if he is offering out of obligation or something.
Then the real shocker. He showered! Why? He never showers unless there is a special reason for him to wash up like going to the doctor or something otherwise he sits in his own funk for weeks on end. What makes it worse is that as if I hadn’t noticed him coming out of the bathroom freshly washed and it a robe he went out of his way to make a point of pointing out of telling me he had taken a shower. Ahhhhh yes, the man is reading my blog. There is no other reason for him to suddenly do the exact opposite of all the things I can been whining about unless he read it. I don’t care that the read it, but I do care that he is punishing me in this silent passive aggressive manner. I have told him over the last month or so that he needs to start doing things but he has just ignored me, everything I say to him falls on deaf ears so I put my thoughts into my blog and when he knows now that others “may” have read this and even though anonymous (I don’t think any of you know who I am) he starts becoming productive again, not just sitting and waiting for that final firing of his defibrillator that will not longer trigger his heart back into its proper pumping actions.
I mentioned before that I keep a Wordpress blog and I'm trying to be a little more anonymous with Saudade I just can't imagine him even bothering to read this stuff, but I guess when you sit in one chair for 10-20 hours a day you begin to get bored just playing on your phone and watching TV. When I was younger I kept a diary that was typewritten and after he read that, despite it being marked personal, he accused me of all sorts of things. I was punished for my every hope and dream that he didn’t happen or would never happen. He interpreted my writings as being accusations against him, as if I had been blaming him for the miserable life I was living. Nothing could be farther from the truth, yes, I felt like I was not with the man that I had dreamed about as a youth, and yes I felt like everyone does at times that I could turn back the clock and change time and do things differently. When you sleep next to a man that when he’s drunk will hit you, bang your head against concrete, threaten to stab you and attempt to run you over with a car, yes… then you compound this all with a financial burdensome life, a life that was exactly the opposite of my youthful dreams then I do not think that sharing my thoughts in diary format is a criminal offense. I know that with every word I type. With every personal thought I immortalize it put myself in danger. Not just from him. But every time I am critical of Trump could some redneck fanatic be crazy enough to drive up from South Carolina like that one guy did at the pizza parlor, or every time I mention the idiocy of religion or of the existence of a god I have to worry that some religious fanatic will come (in the name of their good loving god and peace) burn down my house in the middle of the night with me and my family in it. Yes I have to worry that whenever I speak of a friend or family member it will hurt that person or they may hate me forever but I’m not giving names so it would be their own paranoia that would bring them to such actions. So yes, sometimes I fear even the man I live with. Not even a month ago I became frightened that he could and would kill me in my sleep, but that was more drunken paranoia on my part, not that he was actually being threatening. It is dangerous to share your thoughts, to be truly open.
So back, all those years ago he was reading my journal, my thoughts all neatly typed and put into a binder. As a result of his reading and interpretation of my thoughts he became quite physical. He wasn’t like the guy that would just simply lose his temper and hit you, he was generally drunk and truth be told, so was I, inebriated to the point that neither of us were thinking with level heads. Finally there came that day in the family room of our old house when he hit me. It was a huge dramatic mess and we had a “friend” (I put that in quotes to indicate sarcasm there) that was living with us and also played a part in this final upset. But on this night I told my then boyfriend of about 15 or so years that I was done with him, that I was leaving. I wanted to start a new life somewhere else and I was willing to walk away from the house, he could have it all. I was going to live in Florida. (It was all a drunken dream, a fantasy that never happened). He ended up hitting me and I for the first time hit him back, I mean really hit him back, stood before him with my fists in the air and said “That’s enough” I told him “I’ve been working out, I’m not that skinny little 17 year old you used to hit!” Knowing in my heart that I wasn’t really leaving him, that the Florida talk had all been rum inspired with my fists still in the air I told him “If you ever hit me again I will leave you and I mean it this time.” I don’t know why but that night was turning point, whether it was because I stood up for myself instead of running or because he took my threat to leave serious he never hit me again, not to this day some 20 odd years since that fight has he gotten physical with me. Plenty of mental abuse, that part has never stopped and I don’t think ever will, he is quite adept at making me feel personally like a worthless worm at times but at the same time I am the one to blame for remaining. For staying with him and dealing with all the crap the two of us have gone through for 35 years.
I remember my mother many times during my youth looking at my father, either drunk and talking too much or sober and lying on his couch with his crossword puzzle book for hours on end and she would say “I hate him!” Regarding my husband and life what’s sad is that even though often he makes me sick and I can look at him and think “I hate you!” I really do love him. I have said over and over again. You can’t live with someone all these years and not have that connection. I want only the best for him. I just think he loves me too much and that’s sad to say. I wish he could hate me, I mean hate me with a passion to the point where he would end this relationship and take the burden out of my hands, but that would never happen. I have tried many times over the years to end this relationship, sometime escalating the fights myself or crossing that line that I knew would make it so things would never be the same, feelings would be hurt. But it never worked, he never left me. Never walked out that door while I was at work leaving a note on the table telling me to go fuck myself. He loved, no loves, me so much that he put up with a lot a crap too. I am a monster, I am a snake. I am all those evil things I have been called. I am no good. I don’t deserve the love he gives me and he certainly does not deserve me.
As I said we never did have a physical altercation again but we have had many verbal fights. I don’t mean to give the wrong impression of him, our fights, when they turned physical generally involved alcohol and it takes two to tango. It wasn't as if I were one of those stereotypical abused housewives cowering in the corner waiting for the abusive husband to pummel me. We even learned which alcohol it was that made him mean. It was vodka. Whenever he drank vodka you could be sure before the night was over we would be fighting so he switched to rum and that seemed to work. He could still get drunk but things were mostly peaceful after that. But I want to make it clear. I am a bastard. I am a nasty man. I deserve the life I’m living and even though I don’t believe in god, this hell that I’m living is punishment.
These days the anger generally comes from me, not so much from him anymore. He’s more like a saddened old man that just sits and waits for the grim reaper. But since he started reading my blog he has been starting to show signs of that old vigor that I have become so familiar with over the decades but I am not afraid. Let me say again the days of the fighting are done. There is no more physical abuse in this relationship and there hasn’t been in some 20 years. He is no longer strong enough to hurt me unless he takes me by surprise and I truly believe that part of him is gone. While every now and then if I’ve had to much to drink that old paranoia comes back thoughts like “Is he going to kill me in my sleep” and such but they are generally unfounded thoughts that are rum inspired. I do not fear him. I am physically stronger, younger and don’t have the health problems he has so even if he were to raise a fist to me I could quickly put him back into his chair. But that’s not an issue, it's not going to happen.
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