Unraveling the Fairy Tale

It’s pretty amazing what you learn as you walk through life. Well, when you run through it because you haven’t taught yourself to walk yet. I remember being so young and having my life completely mapped out. I was going to be married by 21 and have at least one kid by 23. What I got at 23, instead, was a divorce.

Rewinding back to fall of 2009…

Shortly after telling Travis that my heart was his for the taking, he decided there was something that he should tell me before things got “too serious.” As if they weren’t already? He told me that once upon a time, he had been addicted to painkillers. It was all good now, though. He had been off them for 4 years; he’s now 24. It was just a part of his past that he thought I should know about just in case I heard anything in the tiny little town that I’d eventually move to 6 months later. And like the naïve 20 year old that I was, I believed that it would have zero impact on my future. What an ignorant little girl. A sheltered, uneducated, oblivious little girl who knew nothing about the depths of addiction.

Fast-forward now. May 2011. Living in engaged bliss in a cute 3 bedroom house out in the country where our closest neighbor was at least a mile down the road. Being the planner that I was, I had a job lined up before I actually graduated college with my Bachelors in Social Work. My first “big girl” job in the real world; working as a manager for a non-for-profit organization that assisted individuals living with developmental disabilities. I started smiling instead of frowning when I checked my bank account. For the first time in my life, I felt the financial chains being lifted. Growing up we had all our basic needs met and my parents worked their asses off trying to provide us with our “wants.” Needless to say, we were told no. A lot. So when my “big girl” checks started rolling in, damn, I felt rich.

The wedding planning was already in process; venue was secured, caterer was prepared, just ironing out the small details. We got closer and closer to the best day of our lives and the wedding of my actual dreams.

It was such a slow and fast-paced day all at the same time. A whirlwind. I was given unsolicited advice before this day came; try to pay attention to the small details because before you realize it, the day will be over. So I think when he reappeared wearing his baseball shorts and t-shirt, I noticed that he looked skinnier than I’d noticed before. It’s funny when you see someone every day, you don’t notice the small changes that occur over time. He typically wore a dusty baseball cap (St. Louis Cardinals) on a daily basis and to look handsome for the wedding, he had shaved his whole head (as he was balding just slightly). Maybe it was subtle shave of his head that drew myself to notice the darker circles under his eyes. Like I stated before, he reappeared happier after the wardrobe change.

-Pause- Best of Intentions by Travis Tritt just started playing on my phone which is sitting beside me on the table while I recall the past. I remember Travis singing this one night during karaoke. He didn’t say he was singing it for me, but he didn’t have to. The lyrics gave it away. Travis–I know you had the best of intentions. But actions turn out to mean more than intentions ever will.

So we had almost $2500 given to us from family and friends for the Honeymoon. We decided to wait until September to go on our road trip through Colorado with a stop in Dodge City, KS. We were having an amazing time and he caught me off-guard when about halfway through our trip, he tells me that we were running low on money. Travis had held onto the cash money we received after the wedding until the honeymoon. I responded, “What?! Where did we spend it all?” I knew there was no way we had blown through even half of it. For some reason, when he began to break it down, between hotels and tickets for events and gas and admits that he used a little bit for rent, I started to understand where it all had gone. It made sense. Sure, it did. Right? So, we cut our honeymoon just a little short and headed home. Oh yeah, and there was that one time that he insisted to go out before me to go put the luggage in the car before we headed out for the next Colorado destination. I was almost ready to go so I said we could just take it when we both left the hotel room. But he seemed adamant. He also wanted to smoke a cigarette before we left, he said. So I finished getting ready and laid on the hotel bed until he came back.

One more thing, we didn’t have as much Honeymoon sex as I anticipated and hoped for. He was tired.

A few weeks later, I remember staring at the balance in my bank account and asked him, “Should we be this broke? Where is all of our money going?” I didn’t pay that close of attention to my account. I guess I really didn’t see why I would have to monitor it so closely; I made more than enough. Or so I thought.

It was probably 11PM when we arrived home from the bar one drunken night. Travis plopped himself down on our couch and suddenly started bawling his eyes out. It was so difficult for me to figure out what was wrong. He was crying hysterically, burying his face in his hands. Finally, his big beautiful blue eyes, which were set above some dark circles, look up at me as he admits, “I’m an addict, babe. I’ve been taking pills again. I’m so sorry.”

Present Day–

I check my bank account Every. Single. Day.