Marin

I am writing today from the Marin County Library located in the Civic Center building off San Pedro Road in San Rafael, California. Mike and I are here on business, Mike’s business. We have been here for five days now and he still hasn’t conducted any business. Marin County is not the place to boondock. We have spent two nights in the Sausalito dock parking lot, two nights in Marinwood, and one night in a Travelodge in Novato. Tonight we most likely park outside the Loch Lomond Yacht Club where our RV won’t look so out of place among some other RVs parked there. This is a tiring life. I am tired. I want to settle somewhere for just a little while, or perhaps a long while.

Patty Smith sings that “love just ain't enough,” and she is right. Love doesn’t keep you warm and fuzzy at night. Not when the love is lost in a haze of drink or drugs. Mike is an addict. Damn, how I hate that word. There is a one liner that says “I’m not an alcoholic, I’m a drunk, alcoholics go to meetings.” Does that hold true for addicts? Does an addict go to meetings and the rest are tweakers, cransters, rock hounds? I spent many years as an alcohol and drug counselor and am the last one that can help Mike now. So, I stand outside looking in. Or trying to because anyone who has lived with an alcoholic or an addict knows that no matter that Alanon tells you to stand back with love and don’t let the other person’s drinking and drugging control you it does affect you. Deeply. Darkly. How do you stand back with love while the one you love is committing slow suicide physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially? I know that I have a choice to stay or to leave. I also know that this is easier said than done. I know that this is a decision I must soon make, the decision to leave. Hoping that he will miraculously decide to stop using is just that-hoping. Wishing him to be the man I met and fell in love with is wishful thinking and deluded thinking because the man that he was is still inside him, he is just hidden behind this wall of drink and drug. So, my bags are packed waiting for me to at last pick them up and travel on alone.