I Idolized Paul.
I hadn’t meant to break up with Paul.
Having Paul in my life meant that I was worthwhile, that I was lovable, that I deserved good things, that I was a good person. Paul represented the whole world and with Paul, I was somebody. I was smart, decent, funny, beautiful. With Paul, I had a solid place in the world.
Paul was the first nice guy I’d dated since before my alcoholism determined my waking moments. It never occurred to me that there would be other nice guys to love me – the real me, not the one who lived only for Paul.
I’d gotten sober, stayed sober, hung onto sobriety sometimes by a thread, because I wanted to stay with Paul. Paul taught me everything I’d ever learned about living sober since 1989. He’d taught me everything I needed to know to live in a world that had flat-out rejected me before I knew he existed.
And now Paul was gone.
And here I was, alone again, without any road map for my future.
Without Paul, I had nothing. I’d spent so long living for him, aching to be with him, trying to be like him – trying to be him – that without him, I had no identity of my own. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted or how I felt or what my future held. Paul was the reason I’d gotten up in the mornings. He was my soul mate, my best and only friend, my Higher Power, my reason for living.
This is how I discovered that I hadn’t done one single ounce of work on myself since leaving rehab. I’d only followed instructions from someone I worshipped.
I idolized Paul. He was my Everything. I spent a decade believing that my One True Destiny had been stolen, unfairly erased.
In 1992, I only knew one way to remedy the loss of a relationship: find another man.
So when Paul and I broke up, I went home and called Gary. And for the first time ever, Gary invited me over to his house. So within hours of the breakup, I was at Gary’s house, where Enya blasted on the stereo amongst two dozen lit candles. Minutes later I was having repulsive sex with a stranger, choking back my tears, knowing wholeheartedly that this was not, and never had been, the answer.
I just didn’t know what else to do.
An hour later I left Gary behind, ghosted him.
Finally, I grieved. I cried in my cereal in the mornings, choked down cold pasta in the evenings, tried to hug my eminently un-huggable cat in my spare time, cried myself to sleep every night.
One night Paul appeared on my doorstep. He walked inside and we embraced, both of us crying, sobbing, barely able to stand upright. We cried and held each other and cried.
“Isn’t it ironic,” he mumbled into my shoulder, “that the only person who understands this pain is the only person we can’t talk to about it?”
I nodded into his shoulder in agreement. He held my shoulders, looked into my eyes. As I leaned in to kiss him, he turned away.
“Stay,” I begged.
“No,” Paul said. “I just … I can’t … I just wanted … I’m sorry.” And then he walked out the door, and my whole life and all my hope went out the door with him. Again.
More agonizingly painful days passed.
I should have known I was in actual, definitive trouble when I spent my last $15 on a used Atari game set.
But I really didn’t know.