It Doesn't Hurt, It's Just A Numbness

I'm making blog posts about the journey right now, because I may some day put a book together.

Writing is my first love and I completely enjoy it, not to mention its great therapy.

Today Antoine, that his name but everyone calls him Murphy, his last name, had a funeral to go to.  Nosheba's mother passed away Tuesday, someone who was good to him.  When he was in the streets she would feed him, let him cut her grass, fuss at him for messing up like mothers do and love on him.

He didn't go to the wake last night because he's been so sick since relapsing.

They picked him up earlier today to go to the funeral and black folks funerals are not like white folks funerals.  There will be a service at the church, people will get up and speak about the deceased, as many as would like to, another service at the burial site and then everyone goes back to the church and sits down to have dinner together.  After that, the family goes back to the house together and spends the rest of the day in each other's presence.  I'd never experienced such a thing until the first funeral I attended early in our marriage.

I told mama to have him ring me when he got in and I would call him back.

No call.

I already know.

I've been doing this for many many years now.

I'm not upset or twisted up like I have been in the past, I just know what's up.

It's always his choice.

Some people think they know their spouses, but me I know my husband well.  I know him so well I could get in the truck right now and drive two and half hours to Georgia and find him within being off the exit five minutes.  I've done it dozens of times.  I've done it so often he hallucinates seeing me all the time.  LOL.  If you don't really know me or what I look like, I have naturally curly hair and that curly hair is the stuff his nightmares are made of.  He thinks he sees me all the time.

One time, he ran out of gas trying to get home, one exit from the house.  The story I was told later by the police, was he had tracked through the woods and busted up in these people's house, no shoes, no shirt or pants, in his boxers, middle of the night, demanding to know where his wife was.  I'm so glad that man didn't shoot him and understood something was wrong with him.  He didn't even press charges, told the police he had enough problems and he didn't hurt anyone, he just wanted to know where his wife was.  Douglas county still pressed charges and sent him away.

I've gotten the craziest phone calls asking me what I was doing, when I was always some place else and no where near where he was.  Sometimes it's funny, others its not.

He's still gotta do what he's gotta do if he wants our life together back, so I'm not worried, I'm not mad, I'm just over here living my life like I always do and leaving him to his personal hell.

I never make excuses for him, ever.  He's a grown ass man, he can do what he wants and I can't make him do anything.

I knew what I was getting into when I chose to love him, I knew what I was, I knew what he was, I just didn't know we would still be going through this seventeen years later.  I had hoped for happily ever after just like anyone else would.

There was a time when it used to break my heart to pieces, because I don't want him down there.  I can't tell you how many times I've been down there trying to get him to come home, how many times I've seen him take off running because he's ashamed and trying to get away from me, how many times the dope boys have put me back in the car and told me not to come back down there.  It's a wonder I haven't given him a heart attack popping up to ask him if he's ready to come home.  He's only let me take him home once and we weren't living together at the time.

I've been gone since 2004 and they are still there, dope boys I used to buy dope from, girls I used to be in the streets with.  There's a bunch I don't know anymore, but there's still plenty that used to be my folks.

It's a shame but such is life.

I'm not mad, I'm not broken hearted, it is what it is and I can't fix him.

When we talk again, I'll be kind, I'll crack jokes, I'll ask him if he's okay and there won't be any harsh exchanges whatsoever.  I've learned to show him great grace over the years.  I've learned to be that father, happy to see his son, arms open, smiling, falling on his neck to cry from the sheer joy that he has come home.  I have learned to treat him the way I would want him to treat me if the situation were reversed.

I am his only safe place.

I am home to him.

No one wants to be strung out, it's a miserable existence.  I've been there, I know first hand.  I didn't have the courage to kill myself and I didn't have the strength to leave, until I met him.

I'm headed to bed, my husband is in the streets getting high and God doesn't seem worried about it, so I'm not going to worry about it either.