The biggest thing to keep in mind when befallen by tough times is to remember that there is always more to come. It is you who decides what types of experiences lay ahead for you. The biggest difference between my younger years and the last few transformation-filled years life, is that I removed words that meant finality from my vocabulary. Do not ever think “this always happens to me” or “my life is ruined”. Life’s great illusion is when it tricks you into thinking you’re on a pre-ordained path. That happiness that eludes you is merely out of reach until you learn the tools with which to grab it.
I have wanted to grow into a family for a really long time, since becoming a parent. Traveling by myself so much and then wanting that sort of thing may seem like there should be a chasm between those two realities. There just is so much fulfillment in being a father and a husband when you have the love reciprocated. When I finally started looking myself in the mirror over the past few years and beginning to know that I needed to be better at both of those roles, that is when I understood the power of having a family around you.
A real family just wasn’t something that could have survived in my past relationships, as much as I wanted it. That being said, my mishaps and mistakes that I made have gone a long way in teaching me valuable lessons. I’m very thankful for where things are at right now in my life and the steps that continue to be tread towards a healthy family. I would never have been able to (nor deserved to) have a life with someone else of this high caliber, had I not finally changed how I was attempting to live my life. I am oh so proud to be with a person that has done the right things and treated other people the right way. I appreciate those qualities and I am relieved to have brought a person who possesses them into my child’s life. You can have a family with that sort of person with those sorts of moral fibers. One that will last an eternity. I am glad this family eluded me for all of these years, because had it came earlier, I’d have certainly lost it.
Getting to live with someone who makes you laugh, smile, and look forward to coming home is pretty damn cool.
Day 1,077: Normality
nor·mal·i·ty
nôr?mal?d?/
noun
the condition of being normal; the state of being usual, typical, or expected.
I think I have always wondered what it would be like to be “normal”. That is not saying it was something I have always desired. I used to have a very different outlook on what it was like to be considered normal. Living a normal life, having normal behaviors, a normal daily routine. I was really unhappy with a lot of things to the point where I allowed them to affect so much of my demeanor and view. I guess I didn’t think being “normal” would get me to where I wanted to go, so I embraced some extremes instead. Anger and alcohol were my route to self destruction and a path that got me nowhere.
Perhaps we equate normal as meaning “boring” or something that could never fill whatever void within ourselves. I think there is a big problem with people in my generation glamorizing being damaged. A combination of a depression, abrasive appearance, and a negative attitude has set the tone for being as far from “normal” as possible. I wasted so much time being angry about things instead of living my life worried about what was actually under my control. I am not getting that time back.
My sobriety has brought a lot of perspective on how I want to live the rest of my life and so far it has been fulfilling and worth every struggle it took to get here. I love being calm and stable in every situation I have found myself in, and that out of control feeling I used to embrace never appears. The first few instances that arose that in the past, could have caused me to exacerbate or make much worse, instead were handled rationally and were resolved. Leading me to say “I guess this is how a normal person handles things”.
I am working on being “normal”. And I am enjoying every day of it.
Day 1,075: Üheksa
My daughter turned 9 years old today. Yesterday, she played ukulele in her first music recital. I feel like we have stepped into a time travel, one year she was still my tiny baby, now she is her own tiny person. I am really proud of her. Her life as a whole could have turned out so much differently, and she just makes it seem like every day is a joy to be experienced. Its easy to forget that there were obstacles to overcome seemingly right from the start, that grew as the years progressed and her awareness increased. But I guess that is the thing that makes her so special to me. She makes it look easy without ever letting the outside storms dim her smiling demeanor. She is my hero.
I am glad I have found stable footing in my life so that I enjoy my time with her to the fullest. There are no more risks lurking around every corner or unstable situations putting things in jeopardy anymore. She can just be a kid, one that seemingly has never had a bad day in her entire life. I feel like the changes and resolutions I have come to the past year have allowed me to focus on her happiness and growth. I never want my daughter to ever worry about if I will be there for her if she needs me. Last year during my darkest days, I doubt I would have been able to complete my journey without the love and adoration of my child. If she faced each day with a smile, then that was enough of a reason for me to attempt to do the same, no matter what.
So there she was yesterday, on a stage in front of a lot of strangers, playing an instrument she had only gotten to practice every other weekend on for close to a year. With each note she strummed, it was like a reminder of how beautiful things can turn out if you really want them too.
I feel like the family I have always wanted to have around her is finally growing.
Day 1,047: The Depths
in your peripheral vision, a beast called truth has risen
I really believe most things happen when they are supposed to. The cards that get drawn are dealt when it was time to read them. That being said, things seem strange and coincidental, even though I know that they are not. I was riding home yesterday when my girlfriend brought up out of the blue, the question of if my ex wife still had my last name. Since my divorce went final, I have blocked all contact with her. Phone, email, social media, everything possible. So needless to say, there was no way for me to know that. Due to the volatile situations my ex wife often was involved in, I certainly hoped that she had went back to using her maiden name. This being the age of the internet, I had my answer in less than five minutes. Sure enough, she had changed her last name back and but apparently that hadn’t changed her self destructive behavior she exhibited while she shared my own surname. The most recent result showed that she had been arrested for multiple counts of felony drug possession…less than 24 hours ago.
I always knew this would happen. It was not a matter of “if”, it was “when”. There is no doubt that it would have (and should have) occurred while we were together. The risk of it happening in front of my daughter or dragging me down with her was always this menacing dark cloud hanging over our marriage, to the point where it was almost like a third being within the relationship. When it gets to that point is where the reality sets in: HOPELESS. Let me say something that, while being my opinion, I am going to say is truth by trial. When you are in a relationship with someone who is an addict, trying to help them all by yourself is HOPELESS. When you are in a relationship with someone who has a mental illness, trying to help them without any therapeutic knowledge and professional counseling is HOPELESS. The only way you can help whatsoever is letting go of any expectation and accepting that things will get close to rock bottom before they improve while you are merely a guiding aid, after they themselves are the ones that want to change utterly.
Seeing the mugshot was like seeing a ghost. I have seen her go through the stages of cancer, hooked up to chemotherapy and having her body ravaged by poison. I have seen her go through a miscarriage, opiate withdrawals, car accidents, every train wreck situation possible…but I have never seen anything like this. I have never seen anyone I know personally look this bad in present time. She has finally taken that step into a demons grip of hard drugs. Meth. Shooting up. You know those fucked up commercials and online advertisements warning people about doing hard drugs, and the effect it has on your physical appearance? I always wondered what parents and friends felt like when they saw the lifeless visages of someone they knew withering away.
Do I blame myself for cutting her from mine and Cali’s lives almost two years ago? No. It took confronting and dealing with my own codependancy issues to say that, but no. Because let me reiterate this, and anyone in a similar situation should at least stop to listen to this point: what happened this weekend was going to happen no matter what. Whether we stayed together or not. Whether she was in Florida or not. She DID all of these same things while we were married. With a brand new house over her head, jobs paying her, schools educating her, a little step daughter adoring her. You can choose to look at it through whatever opinionated view you have of addicts and those with mental personality disorders, but there simply is not a way to place the same values on things that someone without those kinds of issues will, compared to those that do. So before you puff out your chest and think you are going to “protect and to cherish” no matter what, please educate yourself on what is really at hand and how to help, while protecting yourself. I’m fortunate. I got out before there was no coming back.
Codependent relationships are a type of dysfunctional helping relationship where one person supports or enables another person’s addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement.
Obviously, this all churned up a lot inside my mind. I was almost mystified while contemplating how in the hell I arrived at the point I am at in life, compared to how things were back then. I often ask my girlfriend what planet she is from, because of how foreign and awe inspiring being in a healthy relationship seems to me at times. I never ever say this word, but the closest I can come to describing my circumstances in life the past 9 months is “blessed”. Fittingly, a package arrived for Whitney this weekend. A girl from Greece who read our story on Humans of New York did a drawing of her standing in the water that day way back in August. It had her quote at the top, “and Happiness was everywhere that day”. What I loved the most about it was what this girl had added to the drawing, at the bottom. One word.
HOPE.
Day 1,017: Ruins Recovered
Another day, another decision
One that eventually affects us both
Over the past year, I’ve learned a lot about how to move forward in a positive manner. Dealing with my problems in a healthy way definitely allowed some stability to come into my emotional well being, and I think that’s what brought me to where I’m at now. The process included coming face to face with an uncomfortable situation that I know a lot of people are faced with at some point in their lives: infidelity.
It’s a situation that is vilified as a life altering event, while at the same time seems to become more and more common due to social media. We invest so much of ourselves into our relationships that we can’t fathom how our partners could possibly be living a double life with someone else. So it usually blows up and is accompanied by a crumbling world sensation. Life’s over. The dream we had together is dead. Or at least that’s how it felt to me the first time it happened. Thankfully, I’m not as emotional as I used to be, and I feel like being patient and not wearing my emotions on my sleeve 24/7 was a benefit when this happened yet again.
I think an affair doesn’t necessarily have to be a death sentence for a relationship, and can actually be a way to mature and strengthen if handled the right way. It might not produce the same results for both people, and the relationship might not actually survive, but individually it could bring ones self to an enlightened and more aware path towards better relationships by being conscious of the other persons (and yours) needs. Reconnecting intimately is the challenge, and its up to the person that strayed to put a definitive end to their affair. Its hard enough with that elephant in the room, whispering insecurities…
I feel like my two experiences may have had similar roots, but produced far different results because of this path I was heading out on. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a death sensation. No true love could ever have a betrayal and not produce that ripped apart feeling. That being said, I learned from what happened, and remembered how I mishandled the same situation before. I was able to look at what caused it and why it was going on. Definitely taught me some lessons this time, whereas before things were just a mess.
Without an experience like this, I don’t know if I would have ended up now with a sense of self worth, as odd as that may sound. I finally was able to see myself in a way that wouldn’t allow me to be discarded like that again, and I was granted an eye opening vision towards the kind of person that wouldn’t do that to anyone in the first place. This time I recovered instead of ruined, when revisiting the despair brought on by an affair.
Day 962: At The Gates
What comes around follows and the truth becomes harder to swallow…
Today marks one full year of being sober. I have said that out loud a few times today. This past year has been a blur at times, with so many parts of it sectioned off and different from what came before and what came after. The decision to get sober paved the way for all of those rapid changes through all of the ups and downs. Being short sighted kept me from seeing what this stage in my life would look and feel like, although I think it was more about not getting ahead of myself. I had a lot on my plate, namely working on a lot of my flaws, accepting the mistakes I made, and showing remorse.
I made this video when I was 3 months sober. In it, you can hear me describing what I was going through to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I spoke about accepting what had happened up to that point, namely my fiancé leaving me, and how I understood that this was what had to happen in my life. Less than two hours after this, she contacted me after a month of total silence. At the time, I looked at what had just happened as a sign.
Of course, she ended up leaving again, which was a painful experience and caused a lot of questions and self doubt to arise. “What was the point of all of this” and endless thoughts about why she came back at all filled my head at the time. Now I look at what happened as being part of the biggest growth I made as a person this past year. A challenge in staying sober is coping with situations that would have caused you much angst prior to getting sober. Whereas before you would turn to drugs and alcohol for a coping mechanism, now you are left dealing with things head on, often while still struggling with the fact you are no longer chemically dependent. This “answer to my prayers” type of moment and the subsequent plunge back into disappointment ended up being the ultimate test to my sobriety and forced me to ask myself if I was serious about living this type of life and the changes that absolutely had to be made no matter what. Life just doesn’t flip a switch and become perfect just because you have made the choice to be sober. It does, however, become a challenge that you can handle in a way that will allow you to grow and learn from. Her coming back and then leaving was just the universe’s way of guiding me on my path. I had gotten sober for her. I stayed sober for me and the people I cared about that were still in my life, especially my daughter. From there it was a matter of staying in motion. Getting healthy again, both physically and mentally. I sought out counseling and went to rehab. Whenever I felt like I needed to give myself a reality check, I went to AA. Sometime along the way, after six months of sobriety had gone by, things had become different. I had put to rest a lot of demons, and after each one was slain, I felt a little better. I got rid of some toxic people and situations. I had changed enough to where I could start to appreciate little things in my life. I took up yoga. Started paddle boarding with my daughter. Woke up every day with a resolve that it was going to be a good day. Sure, I still had plenty of bumps along the way. The difference was that I could finally handle them then and there and not let them knock me down completely.
The lesson will always be wasted if you cannot learn from your mistakes. We’re all capable of making mistakes. Sometimes, these mistakes are enormous. Eventually, if your family, friends, or the law wont call you out on them, the universe will. I did a lot of damage, made a lot of mistakes, and they cost me dearly. I could sit here all day writing them out and saying how much regret that I had. If there are people you need to apologize to, do it. Even if things cannot be salvaged or rectified, don’t leave a situation smoldering or the people that cared about you believing they weren’t worthy of your true character. (I would like to actually write this out and apologize profusely for showing up at my ex’s parents house completely out of my mind wasted, having drove both of us across town to get there. That was one of the most embarrassing nights of my life looking back and I never said that I was sorry for it). You will need these humbling moments of humility going forward, and showing an ability to admit when you were wrong and apologize is something everyone needs. I’m still trying to get better at this. I am going to stop here and attempt to drive home one last thought. My life now, is better than I could have ever imagined it being. I cannot say this is how I always dreamed things could be like, because I couldn’t get out of my own way enough to even fathom any of this. I wake up every single day feeling fortunate and appreciative of an opportunity to live out a fulfilling day. I smile SO MUCH NOW!!!!!
A very important person is by my side now and I thank her so much for being a supportive and positive bastion of love and strength. I know with a certainty that I could never have been in a healthy relationship like I am now, if I had not made the ultimate choice to become who I was meant to be. This journey is in some ways just beginning and I am looking forward to going through these doors that have finally opened.