So the decision I was about to make that fateful night? I didn't.
I know how the popular rhetoric goes. All you need is yourself. You don't need a romantic partner. Be strong and independent.
Perhaps this is true, or at least mostly true. But for me? In that moment? I had failed in every way that I possibly could in being strong and independent. I wasn't someone I could rely on. And as far as needing a romantic partner? Well...that wasn't exactly the point.
What was the point, however, was that someone had managed to come into my life and for whatever reason, choose to stay. To this day, he would tell you...he saw the mess that I was, the state I was in. It was as unlovely as unlovely gets. But he also saw through that, somehow. He saw everything within me that was beautiful and capable and worthy, parts of myself I hadn't seen in so long I had deemed them imaginary, if I'd ever seen them at all.
One of the most poignant parts in my first book is how Paulina finds a way to survive one of the darkest, scariest moments of her life. Her daddy was killed in a mining accident, and her mother has gone insane with grief, so much so that she neglects Paulina to the point that she is near to freezing and starving. Her only escape is in lucid dreams, where she discovers a friendly black bear (who is really the boy in disguise) who does two important things for her: he believes in her until she believes in herself. And he teaches her what becomes an affirmation that will steel her resolve through every challenge life brings her:
You're not helpless.
This relationship was very much created as a metaphor for the relationship I had with the person who'd come into my life around the time I came very close to doing something final and permanent. Just as Bear never rushes in to save Paulina, to come between her and any challenges, so my person never set out to save me from myself. Bear's love for Paulina became a catalyst for her own empowerment, as my person's love did for me.
The right kind of love is one which inspires you to dig more deeply within yourself than you thought you ever could to find a greater reserve of strength than you ever knew you had.
Even though I had no faith that things could ever get better, I knew I didn't want them to get worse. Even though I was certain that nothing I could ever do could make anything better, because he believed that I was worth one more try, I decided to believe in his belief in me.
On January 10th, 2016, I went back to AA. And this proved to be the first step on a thousand mile journey. It has been six years, and I haven't touched a drink or taken a drug since.
This was when I began my ascent into the life I have today, a life that's imperfect but also the sum total of everything my heart has ever desired...and yes, I did get my children back.
Bear came into Paulina's life at precisely the right time in precisely the right way; without his belief in her until she believed in herself, she might have perished. And as I wrote this, I was in truth writing the story of how my person came into my life at the right time in precisely the right way; without his belief in me until I believed in myself, I might have perished, too.
I'm not helpless, Paulina will continue to affirm and use as the foundation upon which she will base her entire life. So it was for me.
And my person? He came into my life in the Fall of 2015. In the Summer of 2019, he became my husband. To this day, he continues to be to me what Bear was to Paulina: not my savior, but the catalyst to find within myself whatever it is that I need to become to savior of myself.
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