Rescue Me

Tears are coming down her face and she's standing there and she has a bottle in her hand and she looks so fragile yet strong.

She spoke to her **** and ********.

We're laying down and I tell her about the abortion and the end of my marriage and the start and some of emotional brutality in between.

I tell her about the separation and the fights and the hurt and the toxicity.
We climb into bed and she puts her head on my chest. I listen to her breathe and I know not what the future holds, but in this moment, it's okay and I take from it and hold it and consider it, and appreciate it the best that I can.

I tell her she is safe with me and safe by my side. Inside, I ponder and consider the fact that I hope that is for a very long time indeed. I do not say it, but in her own precious ponderous way...I can tell she suspects that is what I mean. Things are rapidly becoming entwined between us and the willingness to hold back is quickly evaporating and breaking down and losing traction.

Her small hands rove over my chest and she feels safe in my arms, breathing and relaxing further into me.
I sleep deep and wake up to my favorite thing on earth: a petite dark-haired girl, peacefully sleeping pressed up next to me.
I look up at the ceiling and ponder this new life.
A year ago, I could never have imagined nor seen this life with any of my own powers of imagination, or is that just what the dark passenger tells me?

On some level, I've always known this is what I want, and if I can see that I want it, I can envision it, and if I can behold the dream, it can come to fruition, so long as I do the work.
I've wanted this morning, in a bed like this, bare walls, a waif of a girl with dark hair and deep brown eyes pressed up against me, sleeping fitfully and her stirring softly and curling up next to me making it hard for me to leave for work and the world of the gym and training and the like.
I've wanted this morning, on some level, I've always wanted this morning. I've gone about creating it so many times...created it and lost it more times than I care to count.

I have inexorably done the work and held onto the dream no matter how dark my life became at times.
I held onto some faint, tiny, however miniscule, glimmer of light even in the darkest part of the maelstrom that my life became at times.


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I haven't been to a meeting in over a week.
They say this is how a relapse begins.
I've met with my sponsor and talked with him but left out that I haven't been to any meetings.
I've also begun researching sobriety with and without 12 step programs and relapse with and without AA.

I also fundamentally recognize that I don't have to drink again if I don't want to.
Perhaps this is also the disease talking to me, convincing me to stay away from the program so that once I'm alone it can have it's way with me.

I'll go to a meeting again soon, that I do not doubt, but I also know that I can have a life without alcohol without living inside the confines of AA every waking moment outside of work or the gym.