I wake up with an overwhelming sense of love for my life. I feel positive and hopeful and full of potential. I have no idea where these days come from or how these feelings manage to peek out from behind the dark cloud of life with someone else’s alcoholism. It’s the ebb and flow of life, I guess.

A sign that I’m not totally dead inside yet.

Have you ever (sadly) noticed that often there will be a “last time” for things but in retrospect you never realized it was the last time. I think this happens especially as our children grow up. One day you no longer hold their hand as they walk through a parking lot. Or help them in the bathroom. Or read books together at bedtime. One day it seems as if “suddenly” you don’t race them to the front door or zip up their coats. The last time just happens. With no fan fare or recognition. No celebration or even somber acknowledgement.

Saturday night we all went somewhere together as a family. All of us! This rarely happens these days due in part to kids’ schedules but also due in part to how miserable it is to go anywhere with my husband. There is an undercurrent of tension as we all get ready, all try to get out of the house, all pile into the car. This is before we even GET where we are going!

The drive, or more specifically my husband’s driving, is a whole other issue!

Saturday night as my husband barked at the kids for one thing or another and drove like a madman, I told myself,

“Remember this because this is the last time you ever go anywhere with him all together.”

I know there is much written about dream analysis and the way I see it is some dreams may have a meaning that is deep and hidden; some dreams may be nothing more than a random composite of the day’s thoughts and happenings and other dreams…

Other dreams are so obvious in their meaning that it hardly takes any “analysis” to decode the meaning.

Last night’s dream was just that sort.

I dreamed I was on a beach and it wasn’t storming but neither was it bright and sunny. There were dark clouds in the sky and the ocean had a great hue to it. I was running along the beach, trying to get to move forward though my dream did not make my “destination” known but I couldn’t get anywhere! I kept running and running and running but stayed in the same place!!

As I said, no deep, probing “analysis” needed.

I am just so tired and I can’t get anything accomplished in my life and everyday feels like a study in futality.

My house is a wreck.

The yard is a wreck.

The laundry is never done, the clothes are never put away and the kitchen is never clean.

There feels like there is a layer of dirt that blankets my entire home.

And, as I am sure I have stated before, my husband does nothing.

And when I say nothing, I mean N-O-T-H-I-N-G!!

And maybe I need to let the laundry go and the dishes go and even the ever-present layer of dirt go but most of all, I wish I could let the anger and the resentment and the constant sense of drudgery go.

I don’t know how my marriage got this dead.

Even for an ALCOHOLIC marriage, it seems particularly pathalogical.

I think my husband and I probably exchanged ten words between us tonight.

Ten.

At best.

The kids and I have gone on vacation this summer, to an outdoor concert, to friends’, to the pool, etc. etc. etc. and he has not come with us once.

Not once.

Sometimes there is an excuse – like for the vacation but other times he doesn’t even try to pretend there is a legtimate excuse.

“No,” comes the reply if the kids or I ask him if he wants to go.

The kids ask him? Ha! Who am I trying to kid? They don’t ask him. They accepted his absense long ago.

I don’t even know if I am mad any more.

Maybe mostly just dead (to it.)