Trauma Bonds: The Pull Is Real

They say leaving is the hard part. That once you are away, once you are a safe distance from it, the fog will clear, and you will finally see things for what they were.

I even wrote about it.

But when the pull comes, and you are fifty-eight days out, all of the reasons you left have faded. Softened. Rearranged themselves into memories of a rocky time.

Maybe I chose forgiveness too soon. Maybe the life I have now, the one I am trying to rebuild, is just not as comfortable as the home I already built.

If I closed my eyes, I was there.

Because I have done this before. I rebuilt after a twenty-five-year marriage ended. I rebuilt after filing for bankruptcy. I rebuilt again after being laid off for the third time in three years. Everything in that house is my rebuild. Every piece of it is proof that I can come back from things.

So why, when I move into my sister’s house, a house filled with love and laughter and adventure and family, do I feel so lost and alone?

I reached out to him about the bills. Last month he told me not to worry, that he would handle it. Four days went by. No response. Not enough in the account to cover what was due.

So I sent an email.

Email is my formal method, the thing I do after enough attempts by text. He responded to that one. Fast. He knows what my emails mean. An email from me is never good news. I mean, how many people send an email to deliver good news?

Then came the phone call.

What shocked me was the comfort. The sound of his voice, the way he said my name. His personal taglines like “good deal”. Or maybe it was not his voice at all. Maybe the comfort came from the sounds of my former life underneath it. My body ached for it. The dogs barking. The annoying neighbor whose car alarm goes off at nearly the same time every day. The refrigerator when he filled his glass with ice. The hum of the television in the background.

If I closed my eyes, I was there. I felt normal again.

And all at once, the reasons I left seemed trivial.

I know they were not. I know deep down they were serious. That is why I left for the fourth time, determined that this was it. The final straw.

But he has my house. He has all of my things. And I am still living out of the single laundry basket I secretly packed in my car and snuck out, because one more second inside that beautiful, wonderful home I built felt more like sitting in toxic waste.

None of it mattered. The material things are replaceable. All of it.

Except my dogs.

He has been on medication for the past several weeks, and I do hear a difference in him.

But is it real?

Or is it manufactured in the moment, to elicit the desired response? That is the part nobody prepares you for. Your ability to evaluate objectively is clouded, and the person you most need to survive is the one handing you the comfort you are desperate to feel.

What would happen if I said, one more chance?

And now the floodgates are open, and I cannot turn off the waterworks. The tears come no matter how hard I fight them. The lump in my throat when I try to speak, and no amount of water will help me swallow that. The salt I taste on my lips.

Those are all real things.

I don’t know if I am desperate to feel something other than sadness and loss, if I am searching for anything that will make the pain stop. I don’t know if I really believe he is the solution, that the one who caused the pain is the only one who can end it and put me out of this misery.

But at what cost?

Misery of another kind, back home with all my comforts, only to be duped again.

What price would I have to pay?