One month in

One month into recovery.

Who am I?

I am a split man, a multifaceted man. I am a man who is not happy, is divided, is conflicting. I am a man whose best friend is murdering him from within. I am a man with a secret part of himself. Change is slow.

I am a man who hides away in a double life. I am a man who believes he needs to hold on to a small bit of freedom, a small bit of secrecy and distance. A man who is not really ready to commit everything or every part of himself to someone else. A man not ready to forgo all others.

I need to let go of my seven year marriage, but there is an even bigger and dearer part of me to let go of; I need to let go of the fear. The man that was in that bar was a real man, a real part of me, a part of me that I have known for 20 years or more, a part of me that I have saved and protected even as I have periodically hated that man. That part of me that sneaks around in the night, that hides his real desires even from himself, that man that needs anonymity and shadows, not light and intimacy. That man that fights and resists love. 

That man has been with me since I remember having independent wishes, and that man thinks he knows how to make me happy. But he is wrong. That man who sees only immediate gratification and selfish distance is robbing me of love, preventing me from being truly happy, and in the end hurting me. Letting that man go is the only way to heal, to change, to grow, but letting that man go will be even harder than letting Athena go. The dependency I have had on that man goes deeper than even the love I have for Athena. That man was trying to help, honestly believing that he was loving me. Honestly believing that he was saving me. Saving me from boredom, from denial, from entrapment. But that man had it all wrong. That man was mistaken, but not evil. And I am ready to let that man go.