r x hsu

I.

Volatility.

It’s the only way to describe life with an addict.

He gets angry about things long past just for something to be angry about, for something to feed the addicted, hungry mind. I’ve always thought that T was the sort who needed constant stimulation. He can’t be alone with himself. It becomes unbearable and he flails in search of distraction, even if his choice of distraction is ultimately harmful or hurtful.

Then again, I suppose we’re all like this. What separates him from the rest of us? We’re just addicted to different things. But there I go again, excusing people for bad behaviour. It’s how I ended up here to begin with.

I’m still too hurt from our argument that I can’t yet bring myself to record it as it was.

I also think, “Well, what’s the point?” All this score-keeping to ensure that everyone knows you’re right. All the weaponry we hoist up to defend ourselves against... what? Hurt feelings? Spoiled dignity? And all this effort to preserve what? This love, that is all but over?

I tossed out his blankets, the floor mattress he prefers over the bed, his pillows, his clothes. I told him not to come back when he leaves in two weeks for his trip. Rehab, you might call it.

He’s said nothing in defense of himself since his outburst. Nothing after I tossed his things out. Nothing since I holed myself up in this room. Nothing since last night. Nothing since this morning. Nothing is the only way he knows how to do gentle.

This annoys me. For some reason I think that he is the one who ought to come in to apologize, to fight for us. I am a hypocrite - I am utterly exhausted and unwilling to pick up the pieces all the same. Who goes first? Who ‘started it’? We are children, still.

Last time we nearly broke up he was the one who kept saying that he wanted to work at it. That I was important to him. That he wanted friendship, if nothing else. I am so easy with emotions. Tell me you’re here for my company and I give you my entire life. Tell me I am dear to you. Tell me we’ll work it out. Too easy. I come back again and again.

Maybe it’s a good thing you’ve said nothing since.

I honestly do not know what is more detestable: His addictions or his attempts at getting out of them. Either way, I throw myself into that hurricane and get mad when everything gets torn up.

I’m hurt. There is pain, here. There is a secret wish I warm up in my palms each night like a rosary that things will turn around as they always did and we’ll start again and we’ll start again. Isn’t that what these things are about? A commitment to start again?

This is one part of me. I am good at compartmentalizing my suffering. Rarely do acute events like this one consume all of me. There is a separate part of me amidst this mess that is excited, though nervous, about the possibilities of being single again.

Boys - the prospect of new boys - don’t interest me this time around. But travel, new experiences, growth, learning, exploring, writing, meeting myself again in different contexts - exhilarating thoughts.

It’s odd to be this strange mix of pain and possibility. There’s a fighting spirit in me yet. I’ve always had an understanding of give and take. I know beyond doubt that when life takes it also gives and when it gives it remembers to take. It’s impossible of course to keep inventory of such things. You can only make peace with the fact that you will miss out and there will always be what-ifs and that whichever path you take you’ll be sure to wonder about all the paths you might have taken instead. There are no perfect decisions. Only decisions.

II.

I get these pangs of ... normalcy. It’s a lukewarm bubbling up of a plan for tonight, a plan for next month, a plan for next year. It’s neither giddy nor urgent. More like a pail of warm water over your hair, neck, shoulders. Slow, certain, unremarkably comforting.

They come on when the anger drifts away. It’s a good thing, of course, for anger to leave, but it makes for some confusion: Like we’ll have dinner plans. Like we’ll live in SCity next year when we have enough money. Like we’ll cook the haddock in the freezer, breaded, with a side of...? The pleasurable mundanity of couple-planning.

And then I snap out of it and remember that I’m supposed to be... what again? Mad?

Anger leaves as suddenly as it comes, no warning, no greeting, no goodbye.

We stay mad on principle.