Wednesday, September 10, 2014

You Never Understood

I watched you poison your body with medication.

I watched you tear your marriage apart.

I watched your children look on with tears of worry and anxiety as we tried to bring you out of panic attacks and various levels of withdrawl from not having your medication.

I watched you lie to everyone you love.

I kept your secrets in my heart and they eventually started to eat away at me, all the while never bothering you. At least if they did, I didn't know it.

I sat in church and cried in the back row because I felt guilty as though I was helping you deceive.

I begged the people with the power to commit you to do it. I begged them to see how out of hand your addiction was. I begged them to take their heads out of the sand and see what you were doing to your life.

You hated me for it. I knew you would. I prepared myself for it because I loved you too much to let this drug steal you from us. I saw what you couldn't. I felt what you didn't.

The position you put me in was horrible. How could you confide all of these deeds to me and then get mad at me when he finally started catching on? How could you expect me to look your destroyed husband in the eye and tell him what he had been told wasn't true? How could you not see how wrong this all was? How could you not understand that him showing up and catching me off guard was not my choice? How could you both do this to me when I cared about both of you so much?

How can you see me at school or around the community and look at me with such malice? How can the end of our friendship not hurt you as much as it hurts me? How does it not kill you to need your best friend and know that she's not there anymore? How can you not see that there was no way out for me? No matter what I did, someone was going to be hurt. How was it fair to have that burden placed on me? Do you know how many times something good has happened and I've wanted to tell you. I've even picked up my phone to text you several times in the last 4 months, but I know how your mind works. In your world, I caused this. I hurt you. I'm the reason things are the way they are. I'm sorry that what happened hurt you. The only way we could ever find our way to being friends again would be if you could find it in your heart to be sorry for what your actions did to me.

I'm not free of sin. I've made mistakes and I've owned them and made amends when I have needed to. I've apologized when I've owed an apology. I've forgiven when the burden of the anger and hurt has become too heavy to continue to carry.

Is this how you wanted it to end up? All the times I was there for you forgotten because of the one time that I couldn't do what you wanted me to do?

It all remains to be seen. I still pray for you. I still hope that you find your way to living a healthier life. I pray that you find happiness. I pray that your pain, physical and otherwise, goes away. I don't know what else I can do for you. Your absence in my life is very noticeable. Sometimes it's a relief, honestly. Most of the time, it's a sore ache because who you were before an opiate stole you is who I want to laugh with; who I want to cry with. I wish she would re-appear.