Two years in the rearview mirror

On February 28th, 2019, my son turned six. I was living in a rural coastal town in Oregon, and it was raining off and on. That day should have been a celebration, but instead, it was a nightmare. I spent most of the day filled with such a deep disgust of myself and a never-ending pit within me that I felt as though I needed to leave my child and never come back. It was not one of my finer moments. To admit that I believed at the time that I did not deserve to be a mother and that my children were both better off if I were out of their life permanently is one of the greatest moments of shame I have ever felt in my life.

I was struggling with addiction and depression at the time. I had stepped back into my son's life due to circumstances that were complicated, to say the least. I was not ready to become a full-time mom again. I certainly was not ready to even be a full-time person again. But I knew that no one was going to raise my son the way I felt he ought to be raised. No one could love him the way that *I* his mother loved him. So March 1st, 2019 I woke up and decided that no matter how much it hurt, I was going to make a change.

The love of my life was serving a prison sentence for a knife that he wasn't allowed to have. My daughter lived in Washington. I had been through some serious traumas that I wasn't sure I was going to be able to overcome and I had just come off the streets from being homeless in the camps of Tacoma. I could barely function in society. My heart was shattered. I don't think I'm even able to fully articulate the pain and struggles that I have faced these past two years.

I got clean because I believed that my son deserved a better life than the one I have given him. But I also got clean because I wanted that life with the man sitting behind bars. I knew that unless I straightened up my act and got it right, we would never be able to have a family. I knew that he would come right back out and relapse again. So I moved my son and me to my best friend's house, back to the town I grew up in. I put myself in outpatient and began self-work that was excruciatingly painful. I cried myself to sleep every night wondering if I could move on from the past, wondering if I was doing the right thing. I cried because I missed my daughter. I cried because I missed Neil. I didn't see an end in sight. I couldn't see the light of day.

Then, before I knew it, a year had passed. I moved into my own (studio) apartment with my son. I had a car, a good job, and I was even making some new friends. Covid-19 hit the whole world, and suddenly I wasn't alone in my brokenness. The whole world was drowning. We weren't all in the same boat, but we were all in the same lake, and it mattered.

I finally got to see my daughter after a year and a half. I went a year and a half without seeing my little girl. It instilled hope in me. It lit a fire under my butt to keep on moving forward. I knew things would keep getting better, even if I couldn't feel them doing so. But something weighed heavy on my mind. I didn't have a home for Neil to come home to, and I knew that if he went back to the county he was going to parole in, he would get loaded.

Things happen in Recovery as they happen in the world of addiction. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes they are just things that happen that we have no control over. Neil was released almost a full year early, with two days' notice. They told him to report to Northern California from Southern California and didn't give him gate money or a bus ticket. I was financially in a place that I was able to fly down and get him. But I didn't have anywhere to bring him. The living situation I had secured for myself was not somewhere I could have him. Due to our past decisions, I couldn't get a traditional apartment. He went right back to the place that he was when he got arrested.

I wish that I could say he stayed strong and went to Oxford, recovery housing...anything. He did not. I went back to my life 2 hours away, and he went back to what he knew best: hustling and drugs. For a while, I was driving down to see him every weekend, until a month after he got home he broke down and told me he relapsed and that he and I could no longer be together. He told me that he knew he would bring me back into that life and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

My heart is broken. It has been 6 months now, and things have only gotten worse for him. They continue to get better for me, but I am still not ok. The hopes and dreams I had about our happily ever after, our little family, have been shattered. I know so many people that told me I should have left when he went to prison- but I believed so strongly in my heart and soul that he wanted sobriety. I met him in recovery before we relapsed. It suited him well. He was the most amazing man I had ever met. Even now part of me believes that someday he will figure it out. But for my son's sake and mine, I just continue to put one foot in front of the other. No matter how much my heart hurts, or how badly I feel I can't breathe, I still keep trudging onwards.

I have lost too many friends to this disease- cunning, baffling, and powerful. Some of them wanted more than anything to be clean and could never find it. Some found recovery, only to slip backward and lose their life anyways. Many of them deserved it far more than I do. But they all lost their lives just the same. Every day that I wake up and my feet hit the floor, I am grateful for another chance at life. I am grateful to fill my lungs with air. I am grateful that it hurts to breathe. Because it means I am alive.

The pain in my chest at watching the man I love most suffering means I still have a heart. So does the hole where my daughter belongs. Life didn't get perfect because I made a choice to change my life. I didn't get perfect. I have fallen, I have stumbled. I have made egregious mistakes. But I am here, and I am alive. I have my son and I get to see my daughter (not often enough) every 3-4 months which is a miracle considering I did not see her for a year and a half and she is just about to turn 5. I got to spend Christmas with BOTH of my children TOGETHER.

If you're reading this and you're struggling with addiction, or someone you love is, know this: Recovery IS POSSIBLE. It isn't for those who need it though. It is for those who WANT it. It is for those who are willing to confront the darkest parts of themselves, to banish the brokenness, hurt, despair, and anger from their hearts, and are willing to let the light and love in. Let the love in. The pain that comes with it is a small price to pay for the beauty that life has to offer. <3