A confession
I f***ed up. Again. I knew I shouldn't do it but I did it anyways. Sort of like AA, if you've had a fair amount of exposure to AA and you decide to try drinking again, it will ruin your drinking career because deep down you know you're f***ing up.
Despite all her protestations and that email she sent me in June about "quitting drinking" and going to AA" I knew nothing had changed. She showed up on my doorstep, drunk again about two weeks after a Wednesday night race, and I just went along. Funny, I guess she figured if it worked once, why not again.
So the last two months, been waiting for the inevitable to happen, and it did. About a month ago we had a nasty little row, and I stated for the umpteenth time-far too many times-what behaviors on her part would constitute deal breakers. Being stood up was the thing we discussed, something she's done on many occasions.
Sunday night rolls around, leaving her Dad's house, and I'm not feeling real happy because I know she's planning her night of 'fun'. She asks me what's wrong, I tell her a lie. Tells me she'll be over after her shift ends, around 2am. She shows up at 6am, looking lie a deer caught in the headlights because I am up and she wasn't expecting that. Why didn't you come over when you said you would? Her 'girlfriends' Mom had a heart attack and I had to babysit her daughter! They took her to ******Hospital. I know this is bs, I tell her to leave. Immediately.
For my own gratification or whatever, I called the hospital, the nice lady at reception was more than happy to go through the registry, no person in the hospital under that name, anywhere including the ER. I send her the text message, and start to let myself get sucked into the drama, oh, she was never a patient, she died! Quack, quack, quack.
At some point I remember the real boundary issue, she stood me up, then made an excuse, something she'd done many times in the past. I was letting myself get drawn into the extraneous bs, and forgetting the real issue, the boundary.
So I finally called her Tuesday evening, after numerous text messages from her indicated that she wanted to get into the "who did what to whom" nonsense and ignore the boundary thing. So without actually accusing her of anything, I talked about the boundary thing, she tried to make excuses "I didn't want to wake you up" and me patiently explaining that I never put an exception on this particular boundary, and the only excuse I would have accepted, but she never offered, is that she was physically unable to call me.
I feel good about not getting drawn too deeply into this particular made-up drama, the last thing I wrote her via an email was that I felt she was either unwilling or unable to change her behavior and that it was something I would not tolerate, now or ever. And I feel fairly confident that if she shows up drunk on my stoop in the future I can tell her to leave. We all have different bottoms, I believe I've finally found mine.