Letting Go

I sent the letter tonight letting go of my husband.  It was painful and it was the right thing to do.  I sobbed throughout writing the letter, because I told him all the gifts he gave me, which were many.  He is not a jerk and no one did anything wrong.  I'm not sure if this makes it harder but it certainly makes it raw painful, because there's no bad guy to point to.

Because I know he reads this blog and some of you know him, I'm not going to say much more than that except to say it's very hard.  However, dragging it out would not have been any better.

My cat is fortunately being very affectionate and I was able to get to a meeting of friends of my friend BW, which was necessary, and also talk to some good friends before and after that.

I've never done this before.  I've never let go of someone and taken responsibility for that decision in the way I just did now.  It's because it's so painful and you don't get to place the blame on anyone.

Before that I had some good conversations with my students who are doing oral presentations next week, and some of the subjects include (chosen by them): Occupy Wall Street, discrimination against women (by a straight guy!), unfairness of taxation system, gentrification, high-school drop out rates, why gangs exist, the obesity epidemic, the Wounded Warrior Project, the Dream Act...among others.  This is a very politicized group of young people I am proud to say.

There is another story I cannot tell the details of right now because it involves a current situation, but I can say this: alcoholism kills people, for real and in many nasty, horrendous ways - ways that would be hard to imagine if you didn't know about them and leaves victims like children in its wake.   There are people in hospitals now in comas, with burns, kidney failure, brain damage, liver malfunctions, all with families, all about to die and no one can stop it from happening.  These people may have reeked havoc in their lives but no one deserves these grizzly deaths or to be on the receiving end of these peoples' chaos.  It is a whirlwind with no conscience whose major food group is self-hatred, which it generates and spreads like a fucking metastasizing cancer, clinging to every surface it can find, internal and external.

I am very lucky to be alive as are a lot of people I know.  I pray for those who are not as fortunate and kind of beg you all to do the same.  You cannot imagine, unless you have seen it, the horror wrought by the disease of alcoholism.   And even then sometimes you can forget if you haven't been caught in the cyclone recently.

Gratitude tonight for being alive, being present, my lovely cat, amazing friends and those with whom I meet to stay present and accounted for in this life.  Food, shelter, clothing, a meaningful occupation and Inwood Park. Thank you.