one year in
For the past 10 years I've kept a journal. Some nights what I do is I go back and read where I was exactly 1 year ago. Sometimes I go back 2 years or maybe 5 depends on how I feel. It's a tool I've used to keep my memory vivid and track my progress through life.
So tonight I thumbed back to August 19, 2012 and was saddened, angered even. This was right around the time it was at it's worse. One of my many bottoms.
My Daughters were 4 years and 2 months old that night. Their Mother was back in her bottles on a daily basis while I sheepishly complained about it. The baby went to sleep early and I put our older daughter to bed while their mother drank wine on the porch with another woman who was our neighbor. Once I got our child to sleep I went out to the porch and found that mom and this neighbor were gone. I locked the doors then went to sleep on a makeshift bed of pillows on the floor of my daughters' room. Another night spent protecting them. I woke once at 2 and found mom and neighbor back on the porch smoking crack. Me, keeping peace asked them to go elsewhere and they did. I woke again at 5 and found my bathroom door locked. I knocked a couple times, smelled it, then snapped. Kicked the door off the hinge and found their mom busy with enough rock to last her 2 days. Despite breaking the door, I still wanted peace and told her to leave with her rock. She did, quietly and didn't come back until August 21. I let her sleep it off and then she went back to being Mom that night.
The typical cycle. As absurd as that situation is to read this was our life from 2010 through 2012, every week, rain, snow, sleet or hail it didn't matter. It happened. I wrote this that day as though it were normal. I reluctantly excused her behavior in order to keep the peace. This was the norm I allowed my children and me to endure for years.
So, reading this today pissed me off. Oh how I wish I could go back and smack myself upside the head. But taking the time to read through the following year brought me back to today and that's truly what matters.
The next week she went out again and I didn't let her back. The one thing that really drove me was the fact that I felt like sleeping in my own bed instead of on my child's floor. I simply had enough and let her go. Very hard to do but I did it. Called the police as she banged on the door. Ignored suicide threats while she lived on the street for a bit. Explained to her during a rehab visit that I took custody of the kids. 28 days later telling her on my doorstep to try the Y or her Aunt's house because she can't live with us anymore. It sucked but I did it.
She eventually settled with family and stuck with her program.
Right around Christmas it got odd again. Family gatherings, her clean and the kids happy caused us to reconcile. We had a week of romance and by New Years she was back under my roof. Looking back I reconciled with her in a bit of a fog. Mainly obligation. I felt obligated to give the Mother of my children an honest shot since she chose sobriety.
It worked for about a week. She was short with the children, not to mention the rent and once again I was taking care of an adult. Hints of infidelity and what not. I allowed this to continue until May of this year until I asked her to leave once again. One day in May we got into an argument about a plumbing issue in one of our bathrooms and the conversation debilitated into me asking her to move out. She agreed without hesitation, had an apartment by June and come July every last bit of her property was out.
We're done.
August 19 was much different this year. She has 2 days, and 1 over-night visitation with our daughters (the best I could do) but chose to forgo her time this week because she had errands to run. I spent my morning chasing the baby around the house and drawing in coloring books with my older one.
Aside from the few months where I relapsed, and allowed their mother into our home I've spent the past year only focused on my children and me.
We're healing.
No drugs. No drama. No more bullsh*t.