After hours of battling with my two year old, who has now mastered climbing out of his crib, I finally get him to sleep. I stand for a moment looking at my boys. God they can be so difficult! Hunters’ mouth is beyond crazy and Nick is learning everything he knows from his big brother and then some. I wonder what my life would have been like if I had never met their father.
I was doing so well for myself in so many ways. Not so good in others. After the loss of my daughter I worked all the time. When I wasn’t working I was drinking. Between the three jobs I hardly ever slept, but sleep has never been a big issue for me. Somehow my body has grown accustomed to two to four hours of sleep a night. Before I met Eric, my kids’ father, I was getting caught up on everything that had been dragging me down financially. I worked hard and liked it. It kept me busy, kept me from thinking. Such a simple process, to think… and at times a devastating one.
If I had been a smart girl I would have seen all the signs. How he had a drink every time he came to Judy’s, which was where I worked at the time. I could have saved myself so much, the screaming, the threats… the violence, the ever increasing mental anguish that became my life for three years. I found myself so full of hate all the time that I was unbearable to even myself. What if I hadn’t met him? Could I have been any happier? I think not.
As horrible as it was with him, I believe I would have ended up a lot more like my mother. I like to drink, and I did… a lot. Without the responsibilities of my family would I have taken that path? Yes… I would have needed the distraction. Distractions are necessary when the mind whirls around at hundreds of miles per hour.
I would have continued to work as much as I could because, let’s face it; we all like to have spending money. I partied with Jill from time to time. We always got in trouble… I would like to think I’m smart enough not to fall into the drugs like she did, but would I have? Would the never ending want for some kind of human interaction outside of work lead me to it? Too many what ifs!
Undoubtedly, if I had not had my children, I would not have made it back to school. I would be stuck in some dead end, unsatisfying job. That in its self could lead to more drinking. I could think of a million good things that could have happened, lucky breaks and such, but in reality, I think if I had not met the asshole and gotten “tied down”, so to speak, things would be worse in too many ways. I was disappearing into my own black hole; the hell of Eric brought me out of it.
Nice piece--very much the kind of thing I would hope for for this week, starting with what is or was and going on from there to guess in a reasonable way what might have been. You have this very clearly in your mind, I can see, and it was just a matter of getting it down on paper.
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