"We Need to Talk"

She's on her way back.
She's been in (O*$(#*$ and been dealing with her ex.
Everything is fine. Or so it seems.

An hour before she arrives, I call to see if she's landed and her voice sounds different.
She says she'll be at my place by *pm. She says that she wants us to talk.
I respond the way I always do when girls say this: "that sounds promising," with the resigned acceptance of a man who knows that it never is and never has been and never will be and is not.

My emotions spin and spiral and I stop, take a deep breath and let go.
I have a feeling of trepidation and I know that what's coming is a test.
This is scarcity.
This is neediness.
This is insecurity.
In fact, I'll be better off being cut off now before this attachment grows any deeper or more profound and I actually begin to love this woman who for many reasons I've ignored I cannot have in all likelihood and I wonder what's prompted this but I don't know and I just......let go.
It is also an opportunity. I know that I will have to maintain frame and walk expertly a tightrope of razor wire.

I feel the old me take the fucking wheel and for the first time in nearly a year, I feel like actually drinking. I forget that it will only make things worse. I forget for a moment that it will only delay the onset of real pain.
I forget the pain of my old life or perhaps I want more pain.
I feel the old radical excessive self-destructive self-debasing me grab the fucking wheel and his grip is so fucking strong it chokes the breath out of me.

I stop and pause as I've trained myself to do and I'm thankful I can do this. I'm supposed to head to her place soon but now I don't want to and I see tears and broken things and I see my anger and my rage and I see all of this flash before my eyes and I see that she and I haven't really fought yet but I feel it boiling inside of me I feel the anger somehow that I fucked this other chick I feel the old me smiling because this is what he wants and I feel how subtly he poured that glass of **** after she asked if I wanted one and I remember *($*#($*(#* telling me if I went back out it would be a woman that handed me the glass. And like they say I remember watching myself get up, get the ******, pour it long and thick and deep and dark and part of me said yes, bring the motherfucking pain and I sighed and wondered how deep and dark the hole would swallow me up this time and if I would even come back out again from the maelstrom.
I see and remember that drinking at this point in my life causes anxiety for even a couple days afterward and I'm on edge and my body feels ragged and my nerves seem exposed and I could drive off a cliff or just fucking sleep for days and hide....and I know the monster is fucking back and I let him out. I unlocked the door.

I see now that I am not whole, that all of that old me is still there, right beneath the surface he just got better at hiding and went deeper while I was sober and I pray for the strength to fight him and his presence and that the peace of my life for the past * months might as well be a million miles away but if I did it once I can do it again it's just a matter of reinstating that into my life but I don't know if I want to because peace is not my default state.....being normal is not normal for me...pain and anger are that which I understand or at least feel most comfortable with as my base reaction....my default.

The rollercoaster is back and I've built it myself by my own hand.....I guess I missed it on some level.
Or I grew complacent....and it was always there, subtle and pernicious...and cunning and eternal.

Good luck and happy hunting,
    - Yrs. in Christ