Invidia et Mortem

Invidia et Mortem

I'm not as beautiful as you are.

I'm less intelligent than you are.

I don't work as hard as you do.

I don't have a place to live like you do.

I don't have as many kids as you do.

I'm not married like you are.

I don't have a job like you do.

I don't have as many friends as you do.

I don't go to places like you do.

I'm not as aware of current events as you are.

I don't eat the variety of foods that you eat.

I don't have the kind of sex that you have.

I don't have as much money as you do.

I'm not as talented as you are.

I don't take care of my parents like you do.

I didn't get a college degree like you did.

I didn't publish a book like you have.

I don't volunteer for charity like you do.

I don't go to church every Sunday like you do.

I don't sing in the choir like you do.

I don't come home to do chores like you do.

I don't take my kids to experience things like you do.

I don't have the savings that you have.

I'm in way more debt than you are.

I'm not loved by as many people as you are.

I don't pursue my passions like you do.

I don't see a dentist regularly like you do.

I don't have the zest for life that you do.

I don't plan for the future like you do.

I don't challenge myself like you do.

When I think of you, I'll never be good enough, and I feel I should simply give up.

Then I realize...

You are the illusion on the other side of envy.

And you're killing me.

Popcorn, Anyone?

I sometimes forget that, about a couple of years ago or so, I sent a link to my blog to all my female friends on Facebook and asked them to read it. I was so desperate to share my story, but then I was so immediately embarrassed when I did that I stopped posting for awhile, shut down my Facebook account, and made my blog private so no one could read it. Once I had bridged the gap between Adora Fallbrook and the real me, it was scary. People knew the truth. But then...is it the Truth?

I'm constantly trying to figure out how to tell my story. I've wanted to be a writer since I was five. I mean, I have been a writer since I was five. But I didn't begin to write about the morbidity of my own life until about age 9, when I was watching my mom get pummeled and bloodied by her dick psycho boyfriend (that's the official psychological diagnosis). He was pretty shitty to my brother and sister and me, too, and writing about it was my way of surviving it. But a lot of people don't want you to think about your shitty childhood. They think, "You're grown up now; it's time to move on. Think positive thoughts." Me - I think of all the women and children out there who are still getting beaten and who can relate to a story like mine.

Catharsis.

But even my sponsor in sobriety wants me to be careful when writing about my past. Our program involves taking an inventory of ourselves, and she told me to pretend like I'm in a grocery store throwing away moldy broccoli and putting new broccoli on display. Don't rub the moldy broccoli all over your face and smell it and throw up over and over, just notice it, toss it out, and replace it (and God is in charge of the new broccoli, by the way).

So, I get it. I'm shoving the moldy broccoli in your faces and not even showing you the beautiful, fresh, new broccoli that God has made out of me and continues to grow. Sure, I could tell my story in ways that would show you that I am a triumphant, intelligent, loving, strong woman overcoming all obstacles - but instead I tend to go with the victim-ish, woe-is-me, can't-do-anything-right, guess-I'll-go-eat-worms-in-a-cave-somewhere loathsome-human-being-type voice.

And so, with so many people expressing their concern over the years, I now realize, "Oh. I see. My character is completely one-dimensional."

Before I left my husband on October 10, 2011, I had sought the help of a therapist. I've seen a few more since, but I had hand-picked that first one very carefully about a month prior to that night. I googled "therapists near [zip-code] specializing in love addiction," and found Dr. Blaine Carman (http://blainecarman.com). I wanted to save my marriage even though I felt like I hated my husband and was obsessed with the delivery driver at the pizza restaurant where I was assistant manager. 

I only managed to see Dr. Carman twice before I gave up and left Ronnie. But he did give me some advice that I'll never forget (which means a lot; I have something called "dissociative amnesia" as a symptom of my borderline personality disorder). He told me that, in the beginning of a relationship, we tend to wear metaphorical rose-colored glasses that only pick up on the good things about the person with whom we're in love. Near the end of a relationship, it's the opposite; we have melancholy-blue-colored glasses (I made that color up; he didn't give those ones a color) that make us see only the bad things about the person. So, one of the keys to a successful relationship, all the way through, Blaine said, is for us to notice both the "good" and the "bad" in balance, not blinding ourselves to either one dimension.

On this blog, I certainly dramatize and stick to the blue dimension instead of giving you the full, 3D picture, when in real life, after four years of therapy and recovery, I'm much more balanced. 

At least, more than I used to be. But I tend to write when I'm feeling either extreme, especially the down-side. That's how I heal it. I always feel immense relief after I write that stuff, even if it's only true in my head for ten minutes.

But I don't know - maybe we should all wear the 3D glasses for awhile instead.

Angels and Demons

My sister Nagela (I actually meant to write "Angela," but the typo is strangely fitting) and her fiancé Chester today sat me down for a talking-to. They do this with the best of intentions, each of them with their third beer in hand with many more to follow. The line of questions and comments was as follows:

"So you've been supporting Bernard all this time?"

"And you're going to keep supporting him when he comes up here with no job?"

"So why is it that he has no job and no money?"

"So this is his second DUI?"

"Do you know what happens when he gets a third?"

"And you're okay with that?"

"You need to make better decisions for yourself and your son."

"You have an opportunity here with Lucas' dad's life insurance to really turn your life around and do something good for you and your son."

"How do you feel about Ron's death? You know your sister Angela is here to talk with you. I haven't seen you talk to her about how it makes you feel. How does it make you feel?"

"You should get a financial advisor."

"You should work hard and get a good job so you don't even have to touch that money."

"You could find a good man up here, who works hard, who would provide for you and Lucas, who doesn't get himself into this kind of trouble."

"A real man provides for his family."

"If Bernard works the way you say he does, you're hardly ever gonna see him anyway."

"What about your meetings and sponsors and stuff actually helps you?"

"Are you going to find a place by the time Bernard gets up here?"

"You've been with him what, five months? And you think that's love? Do you know how many times we've heard this before?"

"Do you see how fast it's moving?"

There was more, but my stomach hurts. I'm pretty sure I undercooked the chicken that I put into the enchiladas before I rushed off to the meeting to meet with my sponsor and this cool old timer named Rufus. Total book-thumper, guru-type. The first meeting I saw him at up here, he gave me my now-sponsor's number and made me text her and ask her to be my sponsor right in front of him. I'm glad I listened. I have hope this time around that I'll actually get through all 12 steps. I didn't before and didn't make it. Didn't stay sober. Smoked weed over my resentment against Bernard.

Now, I'm on the 4th step again, on day 13 sober. I've never gone through the steps so quickly. But I'm doing it with the desperation of a drowning woman grabbing onto a life-preserver.

As far as all this other stuff, I have faith that God will work it out as I draw close to Him and begin to perform His work. That's how it works.

The Answer to the Previous Post's Title Question: A Big, Fat, "NO"

It might have been a whole two weeks before I begged him to forgive me and come back.

I made the decision to forgive him for whatever he did or didn't do, and decided I wanted to just love him.

Meanwhile, I had relapsed with Bernard on weed in October.

There're a lot of meanwhiles....

1. My sponsor dropped me because she said I was fucking my life up, and my best friend decided to stop talking to me for the same reason.

2. Bernard quit at the restaurant because the restauranteur wasn't respecting him.

3. Bernard, my son, and I went to Northern California to my sister's for a vacation.

4. We decided to stay.

5. I quit the restaurant via text.

6. We realized we should at least go back to clear out the apartment.

7. I came back up to my sister's (what fake name did I give her? Until I go back and figure it out, we'll call her Angela) with my son Lucas (is that the fake name I gave him?) so he could start school when vacation was over.

8. Bernard stayed behind to finish packing up and selling the entire contents of my apartment for a total of $300.

9. Bernard went to court twice to try and transfer his DUI case to Nor-Cal but was unsuccessful.

10. I haven't seen Bernard in about a month; he's serving this weekend and next weekend in jail, and then he can come up, maybe.

11. Lucas' died dad a week ago today.

12. I don't have a job or a place of my own to live; I had gotten two jobs that turned out to be Craigslist scams, since apparently I didn't learn my lesson the first time I got screwed on Craigslist.

13. My sister and fiancé are annoyed with me because they think I'm fucking my life up.

14. I'm fucking my life up.

15. I'm now 13 days clean and sober again and have a new sponsor up here and have started over on the steps.

16. I'm applying to be a cook/dishwasher at an assisted living facility if I can get my depressed ass out of this trailer bed. 

Yeah. Here I go.

Done with the Executive Chef - So Can I REALLY Be Done with Men for Awhile?

A lot of people tell me they're worried about me. My sponsor in alcohol recovery doesn't; she doesn't buy into the drama. She's also a mindfulness practitioner, highly spiritual, and extremely intelligent, having almost completed a Master's degree in Psychology with an emphasis on Borderline Personality Disorder.

Other people though, they get scared I'll actually kill myself. I'll tell you right now; that's never gonna happen. I've had periods where I've legitimately wanted to cease to exist more than anything on Earth, but God didn't take me, presumably because I have a six year-old son left to half-raise. His dad is dying of congestive heart failure, so pretty soon that responsibility will fall fully on me.

But yeah, I need to stay away from guys. It's the common theme of the past over-four years since I left my husband of ten years (my son's dad). (We were together ten years and only married for the last three of those, but fuck technicalities.)

(And actually, we're still married. He does have life insurance, so I'm glad I never pushed the divorce through...)

Anyway, I just got out of yet another relationship, this time with my boss. Did I really fall in love wth him? I don't know. Am I capable of loving anyone, even myself? I don't know. Did I take his power away because he was a colossal dick at work and I had to neutralize him somehow? Damn right.

But did he try to cheat on me twice to my knowledge, stay a night in jail for a DUI, drink heavily every night, sneak around outside of work and not tell me where he was going or what he was doing, and make up stories and lies that he couldn't even keep straight? Yeah. Did he want to live in my apartment rent-and-bill-free so he could support his drinking and his smoking weed? Yeah. Did he offer my six year-old son a beer as well as provide a TERRIBLE human example to a kid who's like a sponge and started imitating him, cussing, while also telling me, "Mom, I don't like Bernard. Break up with him. I don't trust him"? Fuck, yes.

So I finally did it. I had tried a few times before; back in October when I found out about the cheating attempts through text messages on his phone between him and one of the waitresses at work, and he was pissed at me for going through his phone but he had all ready been lying to me (and it takes one to know one), I said, "You know, if you're gonna try to cheat on someone you should probably lock your phone." We had a big fight which culminated in our first "I love you"s and we didn't break up - in fact I thought it brought us closer.

But then recently he has been exhibiting the same behavior - lying about where he is outside of work (we work together but don't have the same schedule) - and I found out he had locked his phone, because one night when he was drunk he was trying to get into it, and couldn't remember his own damn password. That, and he and his buddies were talking about the other day that he hung out with them, "But don't tell Adora!" Bernard said. He didn't know I heard.

So I was just finally done.

Okay, lesson learned this time? Who fucking knows. I had been keeping the piercing fetish guy updated throughout my relationship, so when he found out about my breakup, he wanted to come over last night. I forget the fictitious name I gave him but you can check the column on the left. Vicente or something, I don't fucking know.

Before he came over, when he asked if he could, I said, "Sure, but I'm not fucking you, and no needles."

Goddamnit. We did fuck.

So what's next? Today I'm going to church, going to go see my son, and tomorrow I have to go back to work at the restaurant, although I don't have to work with Bernard until Tuesday. I informed the restauranteur of the break-up; he was worried I was going to quit and desperately texted me, "You can't quit! I choose you over Bernard! Please don't quit!" Because, again, Executive Chef Bernard is a colossal dick (even though he has a tiny one) and no one can actually stand him. I wanted to see through all of that into his precious human heart - and I did, briefly. Mostly I was swept away by his culinary skills - but you know what? 

I've lost my appetite.