Triggered

Sometimes there are moments that trigger residual emotions. I think of all the work I have done for the last seventeen years and how smug I have become believing that I am “healed” from the effects of alcoholism. The reality is I will never be healed. This weekend I was reminded of the wounds that still exist.

Brian went golfing late Saturday afternoon. I love that he is actively pursuing something he loves and hanging out with friends. Before he left, I let him know that the pizza I ordered, would be in the oven for him when he got home. A little after 9, he walked in telling me about his golf game and his dinner afterwards. There was my trigger. I don’t care that he went to dinner, but he ghosted me. A simple text would have been thoughtful. I was instantly reeled back to those nights when he was deep in his disease. When he didn’t come home. When I would call the friend he was supposed to be with or the bar he said he was going to, and they would tell me he had left. I would stand at the kitchen window for hours thinking that if I stood there long enough, he would come home. Whoa. I haven’t been in this place in years.

What is different today, is I was able to vocalize my feelings without yelling. But, I am still marinating in it. And just let me say, it feels uncomfortable. This isn’t my spouse’s problem. I mean, he does have a part, but the residual crap is all mine. Apparently, I have some work to do.

Here is my win. I am willing to address it. I am willing to work on healing from it because I will tell you friends, living with an active alcoholic is a lonely existence. And while recovery now resides in our home, there are still the behaviors that creep in unexpectedly and throw me off balance.

I am not broken. The past doesn’t define me. In fact, if anything I am grateful for all the ugliness because it got me to this point. I have learned a lot, but yet, I know less today than I did when I decided I need to do something different. This discomfort will pass. It always does as long as I acknowledge it.