I wish I could forget it.
It started like a normal day, a normal Monday. I had lots of work to do, a busy schedule, not much time to think.
Each day, I have to see and write the date several times. As a teacher, I see the date on each attendance sheet, on my computer as I lesson plan, on today’s assignment, when my students ask me the date to keep track of what they need to turn in when. I wasn’t really paying much attention to it, but I was somehow sad all day, depressed, it felt wrong. Then it hit me.
Today is my (ex)husband’s birthday. I celebrated 19 birthdays with this man, and pardon me, but I probably won’t ever forget this date. It stings and pulls me down, and I can’t forget that today is his day, even though he is not in my life anymore.
For the most part I am over him. It’s been almost three years since I left him. Mostly now, I wonder if he is okay. I know he’s not. Last I heard, he had thwarted all efforts to care for himself. He had quit his job, stopped buying food, and doing nothing but smoking pot. He’s renting a room somehwere with roommates. Mutual friends see him sometimes. They say he has stopped speaking, gone completely mute. He just smokes pot. He doesn’t have his prescription glasses, so I know he can’t see very well. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have my glasses, seeing is a basic need.
I don’t think he is on his mental health medication. I contacted his family years ago, and asked them if they would help him out. They didn’t seem to understand how dire his situation is, and expected me to take care of him. “I’m done” I explained. He threw my stuff out, he called my work, and tried to get me fired. He was hell bent on not only throwing his life away, but taking mine down with him. I had to leave. Stay with him and slowly die as he is, or cut him lose and move on. I had to leave, but it wasn’t easy.
Sometimes when I hear all about Britney Spear’s conservatorship, I wonder: Why was she placed on conservatorship, but not him? My husband is clearly not okay, and needs help. He refuses help, and lives sick, hungry, unable to see and off his psychiatric meds. Yet psychiatrists, nurses, police officers all tell me that’s his choice. He was a right to refuse treatment, to be sick, hungry, high, and psychotic. Where is his conservatorship? Why was it when I tried to look out for his well being that was never an option offered to me? I was just told I was a stupid, battered wife who needed to leave him, so I did.
I hope my husband has a happy birthday. I hope things get better for him. Sometimes I think about unblocking him from my phone, and I’m tempted to ring him up and wish him happy birthday. I want to tell him I love him. I want to tell him I still care about him. I want to buy him new glasses, groceries, and yell at him to get his meds, get his life together, and get some help. But I can’t. Time after time I am told that I would just be enabling him. Contacting him would give him hope that I would get back to him, and take care of him, so that he doesn’t have to take care of himself. I’m suppose to let my husband hit bottom, so that he realizes he has a problem and he needs help. Will his bottom be death?
I have to remind myself that he chose this. He chose this life. This is his life, and I need to respect his choices. But it hurts. It hurts knowing that someone I love deeply is suffering, and I can’t do anything about it. It hurts that I can’t wish him a happy birthday. It hurts that I can’t help him. It hurts that I can’t forget his birthday.
So, I will say it to the world right here, and hope somehow it’s okay.
Dear Miguel, Happy Birthday. I love you. I always will. I hope you are well.
Love, your former wife,
Sarah
