This damn chair is freezing my ass.
I clutch a cup of watery coffee for dear life and wonder how many cups of this tepid brew will get me any caffeine whatsoever. I’m never gonna wake up.
“Hi, my name is Monica.”
“Hi, Monica.”
Eleven of us sit in these godawful frigid folding chairs in a cliched church basement. A waft of mildew, old paper, and wizened nuns bearing rosaries and discipline rulers hangs in the air. I can practically hear knuckles being rapped, a years-past favorite nun pastime that ruined many a piano career.
Let’s back up.
Desperate to discover why I keep messing up my life, I recall the AA meetings my pal had taken me to when I was still in the church and struggling with my marriage. The circle of recovering drinkers related tales of broken promises and concealed contraband, of where do I hide all these empties? and the twelve steps that paved the way out of their self destruction, and made me honest with myself for the first time about exactly what was going on in my marriage. I had difficulty relating to them, yet many of their personalities felt soo familiar, the worn old shoe of impossible to please older siblings, of pastors and people I worked for in the church, of the role men took in my life…
The final colored face of the cube rotates and clicks into place, and I finally have solid colors. RED stares its angry and obvious face at me, and I finally understand something about myself I should have figured out long ago.
Why did I keep giving myself up? In my mind’s eye, pins start connecting to strings, threading themselves around the metal and tightening into knots…Many, if not most of the men I have been dating have something in common. Most were heavy drinkers, possible outright alcoholics. Jackdude was only the latest.
Prepdude certainly had his drunken rants, laying into me about my latest perceived offense until the wee hours of the morning, me trying to appease, trying to defend myself from his vicious verbal attacks on games he imagined I was playing. They were awful conversations, and he would come at the same perceived offense a thousand different ways, looking for the chink in my armor into which he could thrust the fatal blow of his spear. It was always late at night, always when he had been drinking. And how much did he drink? I have no idea. I was pathetically subservient and wouldn’t think to challenge him.
I recall a work party of his and he is stumbling and slurring, yet insisting on driving me home. His friends are all staying in the hotel where the party is, but he doesn’t want to pay the $118.00 or so to stay in a room. I volunteer to pay the room fee. I threaten to take a cab. If this were today. I would have Ubered my ass out of there in a hot New York minute. We argue. I cry. I don’t want to ride with him. But of course, he gets his way and I sit in the passenger seat watching him waver between the lines on the ride home. I know, he could have hurt someone. And this is exactly the problem with the way I’ve been living. I’m living someone else’s values, someone else’s idea of what they want to do.
Somehow, when hearing the story a recovered alcoholic is telling about how they lived their previous life, I realized that I was on the other end of the equation. They would tell about how they lied, cheated, manipulated, abused, were extra nice to make up for the abuse, and suddenly there was a hard SMACK of realization to my face.
I’m the fucking enabler.
I always have been. In school, oh, you’ll be my friend? You’re a cheat/liar/thief/user? That’s okay, I need a friend. I’ll help you. I’ll make everything okay for you. I’ll fix your life. I’ll pay. I’ll provide all of the affection. I will sacrifice my own life to make sure your life works well. And I thought in some sort of karma-producing magical poof of smoke, that this would work. The problem? Life doesn’t work that way, and I keep pouring my life energy into someone else, only to have them waltz out the door with their greedy little fists on all the gold from my heart, the whole treasure chest of my life. It happens again and again.
In church: Oh, you need it done yesterday? You need extra resources/time/someone just called in sick and you need me to watch six babies? Sure, I can handle anything. I’ll be the tough one. I can take anything. I was the one people would come to if they needed something done, and I was proud of it. I went out of my way to be nice to everyone, regardless of how they treated me. I made things happen for people. I absorbed their pain, their anxiety, their responsibility. And then they would walk away with my soul.
And the men who are drawn to this compliant enabler? More similar to watching the nursery than one would hope. The men came in and I would smooth over, make their dinners, pay the tab, spend two hours making myself look like a princess only to have to help him tarp the swimming pool in the middle of a rainstorm, carefully waved hair be damned. They want me to look a certain way, but bitch, you’re taking too long to get ready. They pick me apart to make themselves feel good. And why shouldn’t they? I most definitely haven’t been working on me, on building my world. I don’t have a whole lot built into myself, since I spend all my time making someone else’s life work. They are selfish, and keep hauling bits of me away in their big wheelbarrows, come on, get in! What could possibly go wrong?
But after the last wheelbarrow, I had a revelation.
If I quit getting in wheelbarrows, they can’t haul me away any longer. I can never seem to properly identify this threat until they are already wheeling me off, as I gaze back and my dreams fade into the distance, bumping along in a vehicle I was never designed for and don’t need.
Oh, and I was primed for that damned wheelbarrow. I was primed by a childhood in which I had very little control over what happened to me. I was primed by the merciless daily bullying in school. I was primed by sexual abuse. I was primed for the church, which then primed me to play the oh my God am I stupid card with men. I was like a light for selfish man-moths, and they flocked hungrily to my beacon of self-sacrifice. I am throwing myself on the sword for these assholes.
My background made me the perfect foil to the selfish man.
But right now, I’m jumping up and down, Phoenix Monica doing the victory dance in the middle of what may be the final pile of ashes. I found the key, the common thread, a consistent motif. Almost every single one of the Dudes was selfish. Some more than others, but I found the thread, and I’m pulling it hard and all of the bullshit is tying together into a clear picture of what’s fucking me over. They complain, I comfort. They berate, I receive my L. They throw a tantrum, I’m wide-eyed, waiting to hear what adaptation I next need to make to be their Ideal Partner.
I lost so much of myself in Jackdude. If I stay on the same track I may lose myself entirely with the next Dude. Hell, I would have lost myself entirely had Jackdude not walked out! I would have stayed with him for life, wouldn’t have been a very long one for me given my low alcohol tolerance. Never knowing where he is, never knowing what is coming up, never pursuing any of my own dreams, giving up myself for a farce of a relationship.
But Jackdude did me the grand eternal favor of marching out the door, and now I am at Chapter One of a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and I’m opting out of the Dude chapters. I’m choosing the Monica chapter, and the strings that I have been observing, the strings that are tying up the common threads between all the Dudes, the final neat bow is hanging on a single call I need to make.
A client I have who was once married to an alcoholic. “Hi!…oh hey, you know that meeting you go to for families of alcoholics? Can you find me one?”
I’m not at A.A.
I’m at Al-Anon, the support group for the enablers. It takes two to tango, and I’m making a dramatic and final exit to the dance floor at last.
And that’s why I’m here in my cold metal chair getting ass frostbite listening to several strangers tell me story after story, a familiar song and dance to which I already know every step. Putting something special together to have them not show up. Cancelling at the last minute. The inability to make any plans. Our constant adaptation to their latest whatever. Not confronting what is obviously right in front of us. Being the “tolerant” one, the one who will put up with anything, yet still stay. Cleaning up their messes, a skill that for me was vastly sharpened in the church. Compensating and covering for their bad behaviour. Taking care of any “adulting” that needs to happen. And the biggie, Sacrificing My Hopes And Dreams To Make This Selfish Asshole’s Life Easier.
When I broke up with Prepdude, he had a very difficult time recovering. I don’t think for one second it was because he loved me. It was because I made his life easy. Need food? I’ll whip it up. Cuddles? Done. Don’t feel like talking? Okay, I’ll give you space. Need me right now? I’ll drop everything and come right over. I was the Joan of Arc of people-pleasing, and I would march into the gates of hell and fight the demons of Hades for a stupid Dude when I wouldn’t do it for myself. And as I sat there in that dank, chilly, magical, miraculous, heaven-sent epiphany room, I determined this would never happen again. Once again I am taking my body back. Now nobody gets me. The toy is taken away and put on a high shelf, out of reach of the grubby Dudehands that are smearing the wall trying to reach it.
I finally say NO.
I listen to the women talk, some of whom, in their seventies, were still with their horrible selfish alcoholic partner. Oh, hell no. They have been married to Dudes for years, sucking the life out of them daily, 250 pound mosquitos slowly killing their host. Oh no. I can see where this road ends, and I am NOT doing this.
I make a commitment.
I know what I want. I want myself back. I want to be Monica. I’m done thinking my hero is out there ready to save my day. I’m saving my own damn day. I will treat myself like I think the elusive prized knight I keep seeking should treat me. Because honestly, that’s the truth. All along I’ve been looking for someone who treats people like I do, who makes things fun like I do, who pushes life forward like I do. So what happens if I start treating myself this way, if I am on the receiving end of all of this sacrifice?
I’m going to marry myself.
I will make myself the top priority and treat myself the way I’ve been treating all these worthless assholes. I am done screwing around. If an actual amazing angel-man descends from the clouds and tries to sweep me off my feet (unlikely), this time it’s going to take a commitment. I have discovered that if I leave any other doors (or legs) open, bottom-feeder men can smell it a mile away and flock in like piranhas smelling blood to tear all of my flesh away, strip by painful strip. And guess what, guys?
I can buy my own fucking diamond ring.
Worship Leader Gone Wild 