So it’s true, then.
Time really does accelerate as you enter the latter decades of your life. Standing here, on the other side of grief and trauma, I’m sucked deeper and faster into the mundane: a relentless flush down a very slick s-bend.
Break, break, break. Time accelerates then brakes against the shore of my leave. An office dalliance rises and winks away into nothing, like a fish leaping then plunging back into the ocean.
source: freehdw.com
Walking downhill, on my way back from work. It’s 7pm and the night has already crept up around me. A leaf lies curled on the pavement, one of many littering the walkway. A thought drifts down, sparked by an earlier encounter: me at the corner shop this morning, waiting to buy a packet of mints, standing behind an alcoholic who fumbles for his money and mishears the shopkeeper when he quotes the price for whatever it is the man is buying. Continue reading
source: http://www.thebridge.uk.net/
Back to back in the kitchen, where the floorspace is the width of my outspread arms. I am washing pots. He is stirring a pot of soup. Our eyes are fixed on our respective tasks. “More washing up,” I say. “It’s endless.” He sighs in agreement.
A few days ago I had my last session with my therapist. She’s moving to another clinic, and I’m not the same person I was just over a year ago, so my need for therapy has come to a natural end. Back then, I was suffering from a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. I was anxious, depressed, distraught, desperate. That gave way to anger and more anger, followed by months of flashbacks and panic attacks. Continue reading
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The summer holidays are drifting off like sand into little dunes of achievement, joy and confusion. Today, another day out – this time to the south of the island. Continue reading
A lonely and desolate place, Dartmoor. (c)Married to an Alcoholic
The truth can be a wild and desolate place. Thick with bracken, obscure and wet, it’s a place we flee from as much as we seek it out.
We returned from our family holiday earlier this week. It was our first since Ben has been clean. (Our previous holiday was some years ago – an ill-conceived trip to Morocco. Then, I took us to the old city of Fes, where I’d thought alcohol was prohibited. Turned out it was available – at a price – at our riad. Ben had been so desperate to keep how much he was drinking a secret that he left money in the public fridge for each can of beer he drank – money that vanished, of course, before it made it to the proprietor. The poor man looked incredulous when Ben admitted he’d left payment in the fridge. I was fuming, but that’s a story for another post.) Continue reading
The Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, India – a giant sundial. source: flicker.com
Dear Ben
Today is your anniversary. On this day last year, I was on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, caught in a sweltering summer, finally exhaling as I read the email from the detox centre confirming that you had been admitted. This was after you relapsed so dramatically the day after Rosie and I left for Canada. After you had ignored my calls and refused to speak to me, forcing me to ring my friend in London daily to ask her to drive down to our place simply to check that you were still alive. In the end, she did more than that. She drove you to the detox centre. Continue reading
So, Ben has moved closer to us. He’s about 10 minutes away by bike. This has meant more frequent visits from him, although he rarely stays over. He’s still in sheltered accommodation, still on benefits, still in recovery. It hasn’t even been a year, so early days yet.
He comes round to spend time with Rosie (and me, he says, though we say very little to each other) and do a bit of maintenance work on the garden and flat. It’s his way of contributing to the upkeep of our property. And he does something he never did before – he makes time to spend with us as a family. Continue reading
It’s been one year since I started this blog. Despair compelled me to write that first post. Ben was on the couch – as he is right now – except today the detritus at its foot is a mug of hot chocolate. And a bowl of chocolate digestives. The digestives are the one thing that hasn’t changed. Continue reading
married to an alcoholic 