A Love, A Loss and Peace V

The weeks rolled by as she and I jumped from the Jersey Shore to Queens to Manhattan. She loved the beach and the city, perfect distractions for a four year old but not me...I was living in my head wondering what we were going to do because I couldn't stay in New York forever.

Dan had been to visit us and I couldn't get enough of him, I wanted to keep him, to run away...to just go back to our bubble. I cried with him after she would fall asleep wondering how our new dynamic would hold and scared of what lay ahead. Dan had said that their house was different now, cold without the life that used to pour out with the laughter if the kids, the dogs and a happy family that BBQ'S even when it's minus forty...I miss those people. He doesn't think she lives there anymore, he thinks she took the children and herself out of the house...I would bet on that. Kaila won't mess around when it comes to her sobriety and definitely not when it comes to her children. I can barely believe how much has changed since we were all in Disney eight months ago.

Time was winding quickly, and it was almost time to go home...she has school and we have to get on with life. We hugged him tightly the morning he left us...we'd follow in just two weeks.

A Love, A Loss and Peace IV

We walked to our place on the Upper West Side while I collected my thoughts, swallowed my lunch for the second time and waited for Dan to call me. Seems over the top I'm sure for those who are on the outside looking in but being in the glass house is completely different. It's not just the addiction, it's the erratic behaviours, the anger and unknown. I don't deal well with addiction, it terrifies me and I can build walls just to keep the toxic out. My daughter wouldn't be allowed to go next door anymore and I couldn't form a thought to tell her our new reality...so it's n adventure.

Addiction is a different animal and I knew they both struggled with it over a decade ago but I hoped that sleeping dogs would stay asleep. Kaila's not using, she never had the desire to use again she wanted more and she went for it. I can support her from afar but I can't go home if he's using and I'm pretty sure she is on her way out of the marriage. Addiction, divorce and devastation were floating around my neighbourhood and I was not going back to spend the summer as a hostage in my own home to escape the trauma that awaits my just outside my  front door.

A Love, A Loss and Peace III

I was in overdrive in the anxiety department. Trust was gone and friendship was sliding away at a rapid pace. I was sick to my stomach and wondering how I would live next door to these people who don't look the same anymore. It wasn't just that one had relapsed into addiction; I've worked with people of all ages who have struggled wth addiction...my problem was that they were going off of the rails and I didn't trust them anymore. I arranged to be in NY for three months bouncing between Jospeh's place in Queens and the beach house on the weeks he wouldn't be using it or the upstairs apartment was free to rent. I was terrified to go home, to expose my daughter to that house she once loved and felt safe in and now I have to tell her that she can't go over there anymore. 

I felt stuck, it didn't matter that I would have NY at my fingertips for months...it felt like prison where I had to be and not where I wanted to be. My freedom was sucked away and NY started to lose it's beauty, becoming grey and concrete...my vision was becoming jaded. I held back the tears in my eyes while I tried to look excited telling my four year old about our new awesome summer adventure...that just came up.