Evolution Series: You’re Right, I Am the One Who Changed

It’s true. I have changed, and I do remember how much fun it was.

I remember college, flooding the doorway of Bullfeathers with friends, my fake ID and phony confidence persuading the bouncer that my blue eyes really are brown, just for tonight.

We’d dance, laugh, maybe kiss a boy and then head home – well, those of us not going back with a boy. There’d be late-night pizza and late-morning snoozing before loading up the backpack to hit the stacks and study ourselves silly.

I remember the nights with you in Paul’s Club, the tree in that bar, the antique velvet couches and moody lighting. We’d share a pitcher seated criminally close, constantly in conversation with locked eyes and wandering hands that eventually led us back to my apartment. The drinks only added an element of magic, a surreal film over the evening. I loved those nights and those mornings.

I didn’t want anything to change.

We graduated and started our jobs. After our wedding, we continued to toast others’ nuptials. I remember Andrea and Michael’s wedding. The dance floor was filled all night. I didn’t recognize something was off until you tried to drive home. I argued the keys away from you, and when we got home, the wine you consumed ended up all over the couch. I remember Googling, “How to clean stains off velvet.” I thought nothing of it, other than you had a good time and just had too much. Years later my Google searches would be much different.

You would continue to clock a nearly perfect record on the “had-too-much” meter throughout the years at weddings, parties, couples dinners, holidays and even at home on a mundane Monday night. Something in my core noticed a problem, but my head and heart didn’t believe it.

We had kids and your habit of drinking nightly continued. I poured myself into the activities and needs of toddlers. What I wanted more than a drink those days was a good night’s sleep and a clear head for the little kids’ adventures and surprises.

As the kids hit the tween and teen years, I became the steady force, the rock in the home. I started to question (in my mind) why I was always driving the kids? Why was I the only parent awake after 7:30pm for homework questions and bedtime rituals? It became the status quo I never agreed to.

You wouldn’t let go of that college ambiance – the tipsy, flirty fun that defined our twenties. But you are 50 now. I visited your new apartment in Minneapolis last month and cannot explain the feelings of sadness and rage that built as I looked at two large photos of me in your new space. These are pictures from more than 20 years ago. It’s like that version of me is frozen in time for you, the one who didn’t recognize the elephant sitting on us, the one who kept the peace and happiness around us like a bubble that eventually suffocated me.

And the worst part is that I had no choice. I had to change for the kids and for myself. We could not survive as we were. Had you decided to make some serious changes, the story could have been different. But you didn’t. So I kiss the kids goodbye, go down the elevator, walk to my car and drive away from your 5th floor rental with a view, contemplating this new normal and new life ahead of me because I refused to accept the status quo.

Because I changed.

If you have grown and evolved, and are accused of change – like it is a bad thing – please consider joining us in Echoes of Recovery.

Echoes of Recovery