A House For One

The little house on Stafford Street, a clapboard two story with tiny, awkwardly designed spaces, sat on a small corner lot in a small New England town, a stone's throw from Main Street.  The halls were narrow, the staircase treacherously steep, and all the windows were painted shut.  It felt as if it had been built upward, squeezed from without like a tube of toothpaste so that moving from one corseted room to another required all your attention or you risked bruising an unsuspecting hip or elbow.  It was here in this house where I first began coming to terms with with my husband's addiction to alcohol as well as my part in it and it was no great surprise that it became, over time and struggle, a house for one.

Living through three rehabs and finally one long and painful separation gave me my first genuine taste of freedom and living alone.  After the initial shock and anger wore off and I'd overcome what I'd always seen as the impossible logistics of caring for multiple animals while working - it was just under 65 miles from Leicester to Framingham and even with the turnpike, an exhausting and tense drive to make twice a day - I discovered that single life wasn't the hell I'd imagined or feared.  The concept of coupling had been thoroughly driven into me by family and by society and I was an expert at keeping secrets so it took several years to decide to buck all the values I'd been taught.  I had, as it turned out, still several more years to go before I fully and honestly
comprehended what I was dealing with but here in this crooked little house, I took my first real steps - AlAnon three times a week, Aftercare at the hospital, counseling - all aimed at repairing my damaged mind and soul and learning to let my husband struggle on his own, without my well intentioned but sadly mistaken attempts to fix him.  I worked, I came home, I went to meetings, I read, I spoke out.  But most of all I discovered that a partner doesn't make you a person.  When push comes to shove, although we can surround ourselves with friends and sponsors and healthy people, we're still in it alone.  Someone may throw a lifeline, but we sink or swim by our own efforts.

The crooked little house became a metaphor for living with addiction - it was difficult to navigate, full of unexpected twists and turns, too small to be comfortable.  And I blamed it, conveniently choosing to forget that I had chosen it, not vice versa.  I would bump my head, trip on the stairs, or slam my knee and curse viciously when all I really had to do was watch where I was going and pay attention to the obstacles.  When the time came, it wasn't hard to leave behind but I missed the quiet, the solitary-ness, the hard won peace of mind.  I had no idea it would be another decade and two more states before I saved up the strength to try again.

Life is full of oddly built little houses, crooked journeys and peculiar people.  Take what you need and leave the rest.