May 18, 2021:
Life with her was like immersion in a psychotic cauldron of crazily boiling stress:
an unholy baptism of violence and insanity,
where it was impossible to know from one moment to the next if there'd be sweetness,
or tears, or punches, or a raging monster smashing dishes, pulling down bookcases,
and tackling me over the backs of couches.
One moment we're laughing at Monty Python, the next I'm fighting for my life.
Like wartime in the trenches, you never know when the next shells will arrive.
This is part of the toll the disease of addiction takes on those in its orbit.
It not only warps the relationships,
it shortens the lifespans of not just the addict but of everyone she embraces.
Through violence, stress, poor nutrition and lack of sleep and anxiety
and terrible life choices and a million other sources of irremediable mayhem.
Through nonstop worry.