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Health

Inside Out

Breakfast with the beautiful Dane.

We stepped out of the restaurant for a moment to smoke and a young woman approached me.

She said, “I saw you on the show.  You’re very brave.”

I felt like a total fraud.

I wanted to tell her that since the show I have broken every rule, every principal I had ever committed or adhered to.   These past few moths I have run roughshod over all the progress of the past 13 years.

I feel like I am at square one.

Sure I didn’t drug or drink.  Sure it was brave of me to reveal myself on TV…but look at the trouble it has caused.  I let myself succumb to the vagaries of love.  With a chimp.

The beautiful Dane wanted to know what she was talking about.  I told him.  I suppose now he’ll see everything.  I wonder how he’ll feel about it?   Time will tell.

I love talking with him.  We talk and talk, his stories are riveting and compelling.  This is more like it.  He’s only 33.  Suddenly we are surrounded by people we know.  Friends we know rather than he or I.

Feel comfortable, relaxed and happy.

So happy I begin to cry, my nose stings, my eyes fill with tears.  I think about what Jon said when I first got sober in SAA.  He asked me to imagine what a relationship ‘looks like’ I cried then too.  I just didn’t think it was possible.  A healthy relationship with a healthy, kind man.  Then, by way of alcoholic sabotage, I proved to myself and the whole world that I was incapable of making good choices.

Enter The Penguin.  Exit The Penguin.

I am so happy to be in the bosom of AA.  Surrounded by men and women whose language I respect, whose journey I relate to.  Listen, there could be an argument made that every relationship I have ever had (except Matt) has been with active alcoholics/addicts.

Last night, after the poetry reading, I walked the dog…wrote this blog and went to bed.  I woke at 6am to arrange the apartment for the return of the decorators.   After our rather wonderful breakfast I caught a cab to JFK and am now on a plane to an undisclosed location for a couple of weeks in the sun.

I may have been brave (I was brave) when I told you all the truth about my childhood suffering but the consequences of being on that show have been very severe.  I would never in a million years have met or absconded with, danced with, dillied or dallied with that terrible man.  I would have remained ignorant of his ugly face, his dishonest world.  I would never have worshiped his stinking hole or kissed his lying mouth.

I would certainly never have risked losing my sobriety.  I came THIS close!

I would rather be single than take those risks again.

What does a relationship look like?  I don’t know if it exists.   Not because I am unworthy but because the damage has been done.   If only you could see it on my face like a burns victim.  If only you could see the ravages of child abuse on my face.

A relationship?  The damage maybe too severe.  I have to look at it like that.  The war is over but I am limbless, traumatized, impotent, angry.  There is nothing I can do other than STAY AWAY from normal human beings who say they love me.

They just can’t see.

They think I am healthy, able bodied, sane.  Until they uncover the truth.

For the time being I will stick to my own kind.  I am never lonely with my own kind.  I never have to kid myself when I am with my own kind.   My own kind never try and kid me.  They treat me carefully.

What does a relationship look like?  Well, it’s me, myself and I.   That’s all I can hope for.

That’s all I will ever need or be able to depend upon.

Remember, if you meet me, that I am covered in the most terrible scars inside and out.   You should think twice about getting involved.  Alcoholics seem to see the scars and hold out their hands so I can walk proudly amongst you…but don’t be deceived.

I am not what I am.