Terrible news today. Daren, Rachelle’s brother, was found today. He hadn’t showed up to work, wouldn’t answer the phone or the door. So today Betty and Rick went and broke into the apartment. They found him…..but it was too late. I can’t seem to really place how I feel on this. Chelly called me hysterical. Laura and I were on our way home from work when she called. She asked if I could take David home (she left him at our house while she was at work) and then told me that Daren was dead. I became my normal comforting self, and just wanted to help her. I hate hearing anyone that upset. I know that they were close and it is the only brother she has that she gets along with. Rick and her don’t really mesh well and Daren has always been Rachelle’s friend. He was doing amazing too…..he just graduated his program and had been completely sober from alcohol for over 300 days. That’s amazing to an alcoholic. They just spent the weekend together in Idaho when her grandpa died a few weeks ago. I didn’t even know how to comfort her.
So I dropped Laura off at home, picked David up and took him home. When I was in the car alone that is when I started to think. I started to cry. I never really made my amends to him. We dated while I was pregnant and when Gage was first born. He was amazing to me. I know that I was in a bad situation and I was lonely. I thought that I was doomed to be alone and he payed attention to me. He made me feel like I was alright. Like I could eventually be happty. He was there trying to win me over (an impossible feat unfortunately) while I was starting to do drugs. I started to do them more and more. I started to do them while we were out on dates. I was high when I was with him. I did drugs in his bathroom. I was high when I slept with him. I was miserable and faking that I was all there.
Then when I got kicked out of my house and my parents took my son I blew him off like he didn’t even matter. He did matter! I cared a lot about him, but in the middle of my addiction I shoved him off.
The worst part about all this is that because of my stupid guilt that I run on, I have avoided him like the plague. He never even knew what went wrong or why I acted like such an ass. Well I am sure that Rachelle and Betty have talked to him and I know that Rachelle says that he was fine with me……hell, I saw him at Rachelle’s wedding to Danny, when I first got out of jail. I couldn’t even look him in the eye. I have seen him several times……we took him to an AA meeting with us a couple of months ago. I saw him at Christmas. God has given me so many opportunities to make aments to him and I never did it. I hide inside myself and avoid the uncomfortable. I haven’t even made any of my real amends and I have been sober for 4 years. How pathetic is that.
I have mended the relationships that I wanted to mend. I have made partial amends along the way…..as long as I got what I wanted right. That self centered, self seeking addict is all I feel like I am. Why haven’t I truly made my steps a priority? How have I stayed sober and not made my recovery my number one. I don’t deserve any better than I have right now because I haven’t truly made all the necessary steps towards making the lives of the people I harmed better.
I know that everything happens for a reason…..sometimes I just can’t see it. He was too young to just die. They don’t even know why he died yet or what he died of. I never got to say how sorry I was and how great of a person I thought he was. It was uncomfortable for me to face him. I don’t like the person that I was back then and it is hard for me to face it. I am starting to realize now how weak I am……..I need to face all of it~!!!! I need to make my amends and say the things that I know that I should before its too late. I only have today!!! I can only count on right now!!! I can only blame me, and I am the only one who can do anything about it.
For the record…..Thank you Daren, for being such a great guy at a time when I had no one I could talk to. Thank you for seeing good in me when I had lost touch of who I was. Thank you for treating me like a lady and wanting me, even if I didn’t feel the same. I am sorry that I wasn’t fair to you, that I wasn’t honest or trustworthy. I am sorry for all the drugs that I was doing that you didn’t know about. I sorry for bringing them into your home. I am sorry for walking away without giving you any reason, for never telling you what I was really all about. I am ashamed of allot of my actions, and I regret putting you in the middle of my troubles at the time. I know that we did have fun together and I wish I could have understood that we could have been great friends. I know that it is my fault that things went the way they did, and if I could have been honest with myself and you……that we could have been friends to this day. We had so much to talk about and you were always so respectful. So I guess what it comes down to is…….Thank you, and I’m sorry.
