I thought I was being a nice person.
I knew that I was eventually going to have to say something to a particular person, and I didn’t want to because I thought that they would figure it out themselves. Well, they didn’t, so I had to say something, and I hate conflict.
On the other side of the hour of angry tears that followed, I realized that I have one hell of a resentment. It’s the kind of resentment that makes me hate being sober. I want to stay pissed. I love, love, LOVE this particular resentment, and want to hold on to it forever. But I can’t–and it sucks.
Men are fucking assholes. I have a goddamned resentment about men, especially men with substance abuse issues. I hate almost all of them. They have no idea how cruel the world can be, because no matter how far they fall there will always be someone to give them another chance.
Women don’t get those chances.
Last night, I received a message from someone who I thought was a friend that made me realize that they are DEEP in the shit right now. They are actively demolishing their life, and I’ve been feeling bad, and listening, and sending fun pictures of the Andes. I’ve been hanging on their messages to see if they’re okay. But I realized that, in all likelihood, they’re completely disassociated from reality right now.
Because they have a penis, they keep getting away with it. I don’t know how much is substance abuse and how much is a midlife crisis, but they’re in it deep and they still have a place to live, a job, and people who care about them deeply. No matter how many people tell them off, they’re probably going to have an inexhaustible supply of people who will prop them up and tell them that everything is going to be okay and invest their light in them.
Women do not have it this easy.
When I got sober–oh so many days ago–and I told my ex that I was going to go to meetings, he asked me if I had to go every day. He wondered out loud how long I would stick with it. I sat quietly with him at the kitchen table as he told me that he’d heard stories of people joining the group I joined and coming to their house and pouring all of the liquor down the sink. He started getting drunk in the basement three times a week: I would hear it, my hands shaking, as I put our kids to bed.
My ex was more concerned about the liquor than the mother of his children.
I was full of fucking rage this morning, that this guy I used to know still has a family and a job and gets to look like the cool guy. He had talked to me about getting sober, and I not only told him how I did it, I debated it with him. He seemed to come to some sort of resolution.
But nothing seems to have changed.
That was well over a year ago. How was he still winning? How did he get to keep floating by on the fact that he’s a fucking white man?
Men have everything in the goddamned world—the option to choose not to get sober, to choose not to do the right thing. Those bastards are allowed to be bastards, just because they want to be. And I had to schedule my meetings around the binges of the man who’d sworn in front of God that he loved me more than anything in the entire world.
This poor guy was lucky I didn’t get on a plane, drive up to his house, and kick down the door to give him a piece of my mind. He was lucky he was on another continent.
But here is where he becomes the lesson. And let me say, I hate this fucking part.
It’s the option that pisses me off. It’s that he has the option. I’m not mad at this guy in particular, or all white men everywhere, I’m mad that I myself never had the option. It was only one of the world’s white men who spent a decade and a half narrowing my life to one bad option, and it wasn’t this guy. And I’m not really mad at that one white man. I’m mad at me, for not leaving before the bad option he chose for me was the only one left.
And being mad at me is what makes me drink. So I took a walk, and got a Ritter Sport, and came home and ate a peanut butter and honey sandwich for dinner. I breathed, and opened my computer, and the wave of grace that washed over me prepared me for what I’m about to say.
To the man to whom I sent a somewhat crispy message this morning: if you’re reading this, you know who you are. This, and all of the days I’m leaving you alone that follow, are my amends. I still don’t want you to contact me until you figure your shit out. But I want you to see how it works, imperfect as it is. It’s the classic “it’s not you, it’s me.”
I tried to tell you this with love, but I believe I might have failed. We’re all just awkwardly fumbling our way toward being better people, no matter how many days we’ve strung together. We’re doing the best with what we have, and we’re trying to be kind without getting our asses kicked. That’s grace in motion.
But seriously, you’re lucky beyond your wildest dreams. Please don’t waste it.
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