Every Once in a While

Every once in a while, maybe once in a whole lifetime, you come upon an un-livable relationship. It may be a friend, a family member, a spouse, a child… often it is a family member and you feel you cannot slam the door completely for the sake of others. So you let it go on year after year.

 

Looking back you realize you have poured massive amounts of your life’s blood into the relationship. It has been your choice. It is always your choice. You worked years, decades, and eons to make it workable. You do it because you believe in truth and honesty. Your mistake is in believing that everyone is looking for truth and honesty.

 

 Over time you found yourself standing on your head, turning summersaults, dancing in circles all in the name of this relationship. You soldiered on brave, courageous and incredibly stupid letting things fly on by. Things you knew you should not but in the name of relationship (yet, again) you did. You longed to believed the lies because you wanted this person to turn it around, get a brain, make a step in the right direction… Over and over again you put up with the garbage rather than take it to the dump because maybe, just maybe, this time…  what?

 

It got old, it ran its course, things cooled off and you found yourself thinking, okay, give it one more go. Maybe this time… Then there you are in the flick of a butterfly’s wing back in the destructive game and you are not winning. You are never going to win this game that has no end.

 

The relationship is sinister and evil. It is an addiction: alcohol, drugs, disease, mental illness, all of these rolled into one sweet package. It does not care about you or all your years of trying. Not one teeny tiny bit. Zip. Nada. Nunca. Nothing. The addiction will always win if you continue on.

 

You are fighting for the righteous, for the best in people. The dragon is out there to be slain so you get up every morning of every day. You know that you can be the absolute best person possible if you just leap up and do heroic acts every single day, after day, after day. And so you do.

 

If this essay seems overly repeated, boring and a little uncomfortable you are right. Couldn’t be more right… almost funny, huh? Not really.

 

Will you ever give it up? Do it for your sanity. Give it up. It will never work. Let her go gently into that good night. And, may she rest in peace.

Jesse