It’s difficult to explain how something as simple as a look could make me feel so hated...so small...like some slimy bug he would just as soon squash as look at. I can’t fathom looking at Andy like that, just as I can’t imagine slapping him in the face or whipping him with a belt for not falling asleep on time. Those are things you do to people you hate. Those are the kinds of things that vicious, evil people do to dogs. I’ve never asked him why he was like that. I’ve never asked my mother how she could stand by and watch. I don’t think I ever will. I don’t want to know.
I was still using and dealing meth after the car accident, which caused terrific tension between my parents and me even though they didn’t know what was going on. One night, I was using Mom’s computer and felt a presence behind me. When I turned, I saw The Thing That Lives Inside of Dad for the first time since he’d stopped drinking. It not only scared me, it infuriated me. I felt rage build inside me and I remember thinking, “He can’t do this. I’m an adult. He can’t do this to me.”
I didn’t say anything and neither did he. Maybe he was pissed off because I was in his office and he didn’t want me there. Maybe it was because I was using my mother’s computer. Maybe he was mad because I didn’t have a job. I don’t know. All I know is that I saw that Thing and I had to get away from it.
With limited options - I had no real job, so I couldn’t get an apartment and I didn’t want to stay with my well-meaning friends (who were usually only well-meaning if they thought they could get free drugs) - I packed my things in the middle of the night and moved into my VW van. I left Andy behind. It killed me to leave him, but it was February and the temperature at night was in the teens. I couldn’t make him live like that and I couldn’t disrupt his routine: school, developmental therapy and a home. A home without me.
I didn’t say anything to anyone. I packed my bags in the middle of the night while they were sleeping, and left a note for Andy.
Dear Andy,
Momma’s going away for a little while. You stay with Grandma and Pappa. I’m going to get a job and find us a place to live. I love you, bug. Be a good boy.
That was it.
I knew Dad would never show the Thing to Andy. I still don’t know what it is, or what I ever did to deserve it, but my parents were different with Andy then they’d ever been with me. Mom and Dad did the best they could with what they had when raising Chuck and me. Despite any flaws, I will tell you they are stellar grandparents. As shitty as I felt about leaving Andy, I never had a second thought about leaving him with them.
I thought about him every day and being away from him tore me apart. I had abandoned my son - the worst thing a mother can do - and I told myself I didn’t deserve him. I fell into a depression matched only by guilt in its depth. It carved a canyon through my soul and I filled it with self-loathing. Smoke it away. Smoke it away. I thought that with enough meth, I could make myself numb. With enough distractions - buying meth, selling meth, looking at it, cleaning the pipe, loading the pipe, lighting it, hitting it, cooling it off, finding a place to stash everything and starting all over again - I could avoid looking at the mess I was making of my life.
This wasn’t me. I wasn’t meant to be this person. But I’d gotten myself into the situation, and I was going to get myself out. My main priority was getting an apartment for Andy and me. And still, with all this going on, I didn’t think of meth as my problem. I never considered quitting. What I needed to do, I decided, was get my shit together, get back on my anti-depressants and everything would be all right. My depression was the cause of my problems, and meth was merely a means to an end. It helped with my illness and I loved the high. I needed the high. It didn’t occur to me to live without it.
I did actually find a job, but when I found out that not only did they drug test urine but also hair, I never showed up. I might have been able to fake a urine analysis, but I had no clue how to get around a hair test. Especially one scheduled for the following day. Hair can show drug use for up to ninety days prior to the date tested.
All I did was drive from place to place, park the van and sit inside with the curtains drawn, getting high and sobbing about the disgusting person I was. Aside from that and selling or buying drugs, I would curl up in a dirty down comforter Garnett had given me and sleep on the foldout bed in the van. Sleep offered me escape from the empty existence I had chosen. I tried to pretend it was a big adventure, living in my van. How lucky I was, I thought, that I had a van and not just a car. I told myself it wasn’t so bad, living the way I did, but I knew it was disgusting. I used a big insulated mug - the kind you can buy at convenience stores and refill with soda - to urinate in, discreetly emptying it into gutters when it became full. Since I ate very little, I rarely had bowel movements. When I needed to, I would find a Wal-Mart or Fred Myer and use the facilities. I used baby wipes for spit baths. I brushed my teeth using bottled water or occasionally accepted an offer to shower at a friend’s house. I lived that way for two months: cold, lonely, depressed and despising the person I had become. Without my son, I was nothing, but I felt I had no options. There was no way I was going back to my parents. I needed to find a place for Andy and me to live. I fantasized about killing myself. My meth soaked brain made rational thinking nearly impossible.
Most days I would sit in my van at some random park. In the early months of the year, Boise is nothing but gray days where the sun only shines high above the ever present inversion that covers the valley like a damp wool blanket. I would watch parents with their children, pushing them on swings and playing catch. I would think about Andy, my heart and guts twisted with the guilt. I would imagine it was us out there with me pushing him on the swing and him yelling, “Oh no! Oh no!” and laughing so hard his trachea would collapse and make that weird honking sound that was so familiar. (He still has low muscle tone - hypotomia - around the trachea and esophagus, and has always been a big hit with kids his age because of his mastery of the vulgar burping noises little boys love to make.) I took comfort in knowing he was safe, warm and well taken care of, but I felt like the worst mother in the world. I abandoned him and I wasn’t worthy of motherhood. Andy deserved so much more than me. He should have had a daddy who adored him as much as I did, and maybe a sister or brother to look out for him when he got older. He deserved a house with a swing set, and a puppy to grow up with and all the things the Beaver had, because that was what I thought a perfect life looked like: white picket fence, paper route, June in the kitchen making cookies for Wally and the Beav. Instead, all he had was me, and I was broken, shattered, living in a van, and while not quite down by the river, only a stone’s throw away.
I still sometimes wish for all these things for Andy, wish I could give him the picture perfect life that seems so ideal from the outside. I used to regret that he doesn’t have a father or siblings, but, “it is what it is,” as they say in recovery. And the thing is, Andy doesn’t know there’s something he’s supposed to be missing. He doesn’t understand the concept of “Dad.” Sort of like I, as a woman, don’t miss having a penis. Never had one. Fine without it. Don’t need it, and I don’t miss it. I wasn’t castrated, it was just never there. The same way there was never a father for Andy. I suppose you don’t miss what you’ve never had.
Now, you can long for something you’ve never had. You can covet. Although I’ve never had a penis, I’ve heard (and seen) good things. It might be interesting. I may discover that it’s something I’ve been searching for my whole life. (It would be such a relief if I could blame all my problems on penis envy.)
But it’s different with Andy. When we’re with his Uncle Chuck, and his cousins are calling him Dad, Andy will replace “Uncle Chuck” (and sometimes Mom) with Dad. Not a problem. To Andy, it’s just a word - a label - and nothing more.
I’m all he’s ever needed. He just needed me to be whole. I was well into my recovery when I had this epiphany, and I went from feeling guilty for not giving him what I thought I should have, to feeling guilty for a
lmost destroying the only thing he really ever needed: me. I felt guilty then, I felt guilty in early recovery and I still feel guilty sometimes. I would have made a great Catholic.
One Tuesday night, while getting high, I started looking through the phone book for people I used to know. I sat and smoked, looking up names of people I remembered from grade school, high school and some that I went to college with. I had no intention, really, of calling anyone. I remember simply wanting to feel some kind of connection with people when I was doing it. Like an affirmation that there were others out there who were probably leading normal lives.
I remembered a guy I knew from high school who I’d spent time with in my late 20’s, and found his name in the phone book as well. I had thought of him over the years and after a couple of days, decided to call the number listed for Allan in the phone book. When his wife answered, she told me they had been divorced for about a year and a half. She knew Allan and I had spent a lot of time together when we were in our twenties though, and thought he would want to hear from me.
I was nervous as I dialed, wondering if he’d even remember me, but there was a tiny spark inside me. A spark of hope, I suppose, that he would remember and I’d have someone to talk to.
“Hey, Allan. It’s Kim. Do you remember me?”
“Kim! Oh my God! Of course I remember you. How are you doing? It’s been a long time. How did you get my number?” Allan was possibly the most gregarious person I had ever known. He always seemed happy, even mischievous, with a boyish excitement about him that had always lifted my spirits if I was down and elated me when I wasn’t. Hearing his voice that night stirred my heart a little from its atrophied state and I smiled for the first time in weeks. His enthusiasm was contagious as it bubbled over the airwaves.
Allan and I first met in high school. We had a class together our senior year. We knew each other but he was a mullet-haired, partier-jock and I was high all the time, coming to school stoned almost every day.
The next time we met, we were in our late twenties. I was playing pool by myself at a bar and he was there with a friend playing darts. There wasn’t anything odd about it. People tend to stay in Boise after high school to attend B.S.U. or enter the work force. Even when people leave to go to school, work or just to find themselves, they often end up coming home. Boise is a wonderful place to raise a family. There’s a strong sense of community, relatively low crime rate, and we’re surrounded by mountains for skiing and lakes for fishing and boating. It’s also the cleanest city I’ve ever seen. If you see a gum wrapper on the sidewalk, chances are it won’t be there the next day.
It’s not unusual to run into people you grew up with or to maintain friendships with the people you went to first grade with. So when I ran into Allan and his friend, it was a nice surprise.
I bought them a pitcher of beer and spent the rest of the afternoon with him, drinking and playing pool. We were instantly attracted to each other. We could talk for hours about everything and nothing. He had a contagious laugh and a penchant for mischief that fit perfectly with my lifestyle. For the next year or so, Allan and I spent as much time together as we could, despite the fact that he was married with a child on the way. With his wife at home pregnant, he spent a lot of time out with his friends, so she was used to his absences in the evenings. I sometimes felt sorry for her, sitting alone night after night, waiting for their child to be born, but I never felt guilty because, after all, Allan and I were just friends. I rationalized our friendship because I felt so good when I was with him. The crush I had on him and my daydreams of what it might be like if he weren’t married were harmless, I thought. I had never been an adulteress and did not intend to get involved with a married man.
That’s what I told myself in order to shun any guilt I might have had about the situation. The truth is - and this became a pattern during my active addiction - I was disrespecting other women: driving a wedge between my sisters and myself.
I used to say that I didn’t get along with other women. I like men better, I’d say. For years, I had very little interaction with other females. There were a few I sold meth or pot to, but mostly I saw them as irritants on the periphery of my world. They were the wives and girlfriends of the men I spent time with. They were party-poopers. They wanted their men at home instead of out doing drugs and boozing with me (whether they were aware of me or not.) I was cheating with their men, and I knew that on a not so deep level. Not physically, but cheating doesn’t always involve sex.
I knew what I was doing, although I would never admit it to myself, but it wasn’t really about the women. It was about control, and men. If the cheating were sexual, I wasn’t interested. But there was something extremely satisfying about being constantly surrounded by men who chose me over the women in their lives. If there was sexual tension as well, all the better.
At the time, of course, nothing was this clear, but looking at the situation with sober eyes, it makes perfect sense:
Will you go with me?
Yes
No
Unlike grade school, though, I was in control.
I was into cocaine when Allan and I started spending so much time together, and I charmed him with my ability to write his name in the white powder instead of cutting the boring lines everyone else did. I threw midnight poker parties and he came as often as he could. When we were together, my heart beat faster. I was like a schoolgirl with her first crush. By then he had shed his high school mullet - thank God - and he was breathtaking. He looked like a rugged version of Woody Harrelson. Allan was a man’s man - muscular and strong with eyes that saw places inside me no one had ever seen.
One night, we were alone at my house watching a movie. It was around 10:30 when he asked me to massage his back. I had long ago learned that “massage” was a code word for foreplay. Although I told myself it was innocent, I was thrilled at the chance to touch him as I’d wanted to for so long. He lay on the floor and I straddled him. Shortly after I started, he reached back, moved my shorts aside, and touched the upper inside of my thigh. I froze. He rolled over, pushed me to the floor and started kissing me.
It was raw and powerful. He was the most sexually exciting man I had ever known. When he told me he had wanted me since he saw me in the bar that day, my base instincts kicked into overdrive, and I became a whirling, lusting dervish. I discovered a new use for every room in my house. He made me ravenous for sex.
The next day, we talked about what had happened. Our attraction was mutually animalistic, so we couldn’t go back to the way we were before. We wouldn’t be able to keep our hands off each other. But we also knew we couldn’t see each other again the way we had. He was the first to speak.
“Kim, I can’t do this.”
“I know.” I didn’t want to know, but I did.
“I’ve got a baby on the way and I’ve never cheated on my wife before.” He looked away from me. “I cheated on my first wife. Before and during our marriage. We both did. In fact, it happened so much, I don’t even remember who cheated first. But this time I wanted it to be different. And it has been. Until last night.” He looked back at me. “I didn’t think I’d feel guilty like this, but I do.”
We were both quiet for a few minutes. What could I say? As much as I wanted him - especially right then - what he was saying made me want him even more. Regardless of what happened the night before, I saw him as gallant.
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore, Kim.”
I agreed, wanting to seem adult about the situation, but when he left, only fifteen minutes after he’d arrived, I lay down on my bed and cried myself to sleep.
Vagueness lends itself to rationalization, but once a thing is tangible, there’s no denying its reality. There can be debate about various forms of infidelity: emotional, spiritual, intellectual, time spent in Internet chat rooms and on porn sites. But when it comes to sex, the line is salient. Sex = adultery.
Just as hitting = abuse. When the man I was briefly married to pu
nched me in the head, I refused to let it happen again. It only took one hit for me to throw him out and divorce him, because hitting is salient. Other types of abuse aren’t always as obvious. Emotional and mental abuse, as with infidelity, is more complicated because it’s so hard to define. It’s vague, and therefore, easy to rationalize. I’m not really an adulteress if we’re not having sex. If I’m not being smacked around, it’s not abuse. I have no problem with saliency; it’s in the gray that I struggle.
In recovery, there’s a lot of talk about boundaries or, in my case, the lack of them. Having boundaries is all about keeping yourself safe. You say, “No, I will not do this. No, I will not allow that to happen to me. Yes, this is okay, but no, that isn’t.”
It’s about knowing who you are and taking care of yourself. Boundaries are integrity. To be blunt, if you’re too chicken-shit to stand up for yourself, you’ll allow people to walk all over you. For a long time, I was a chicken-shit. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, even if it meant that mine were.
A lack of boundaries looks like this:
“Hey, Kim. Can you do me this favor?”
Shit. I’ve got fifty million things to do, I’m late for my appointment, the pot on the stove just boiled over and I haven’t brushed my teeth yet today.
“Absolutely!”
Having boundaries looks like this:
“Hey, Kim. Can you do me a favor?”
“Actually, no. I’m late for an appointment and I have to brush my teeth. By the way, can you clean up that mess on the stove?”
Crystal Clean Page 7