Poland is Fighting!

Yesterday was a rough one. From the moment I woke up, it felt like a ghost was punching me in the stomach every few seconds. I'm sure I was running a fever. I would vomit any second. My spine would suddenly splinter through my skin. Love sickness. They aren't lying.

I had to race out of the house to go to a counseling appointment. Two years ago, I would have ran to the bottle. I would have gotten very drunk and done outrageous things that would involve broken windows and broken people. Today, I do step work, call my sponsor, look for the good not the bad, and call therapists against my own will. I found an English-speaking shrink in Warsaw, just a ten minute walk from my house. I was desperate for an answer. Should I fly back to Akron and fight? Ignore this? Move on? Ok. I knew I'd probably hear move on. But how? Tell me, how, I'd beg? Maybe the Poles would have a special secret for how to get over a heartache, I thought. I wanted it. Whatever it was. I needed it.

It was hot and humid as I raced down the street, my little ghost enemy punching me the whole way. As I walked, I saw people in line, counting out change for ice cream cones. It was 10:30. Nothing else was open, except for ice cream parlors. It made me happy.

I got to my appointment and a very tall gentleman with a shaved head and green eyes shook my hand. This was my therapist. As we sat down, my mouth went dry. He had the most intense eye contact ever. I watched the clock. He said very little and so I started to talk. Only later did I realize he wasn't being a "good listener" but that he didn't understand a word I was saying. He looked like he was shitting his pants as he strained to understand me. He picked up his notebook and wrote down my name. "I will take notes," he said. He didn't take one.

As I talked, he looked confused. "So, what is wrong with this chaos?" he asked.

He kept referring to the Beat Happening tattoo on my right forearm. "And this, what does this mean?" he asked. "I think it means something."

I got embarrassed. "Yeah, yeah, I know," I said. "It's terribly phallic. It's a PUSSY cat riding a giant ROCKET SHIP. But there's nothing Freudian going on here. This has nothing to do with what I'm saying."

I kept talking. I talked about how much we'd loved each other. How hard it was. How he did this. How I was scared of the future without him. How my love for him was so great, I was worried I'd never love anyone the same way again. How I was sure we were meant for each other and having to unravel that fact was the hardest of all. And then I confessed that, yes, Patrick and I had grown apart. I got sober and my lifestyle changed. His didn't. And I was hard on him, because I didn't think he was being supportive. Also, I was sensing that Patrick felt like I was holding him back. For a long time, I think he liked how I grounded him, yearned for him, even if I did it the wrong way sometimes. But now, it was obvious that I was becoming a liability. I was ruining his fun. His success. His life? And no amount of changing myself seemed to fix it. The meds, the steps, the sponsors, the work -- nothing seemed to make it click.

"But I don't understand?" my therapist said. "What answer do you want?"

Good question. What answer did I want? I guess I wanted to process this. I guess I wanted to pay him to take the pain away. I wanted him to tell me exactly how to save my marriage or exactly how to get over it as soon as possible. I didn't know. I paid him and left.

My mother and I went to Hala and Jerzy for lunch. My grandmother had delivered the news to them because I was so embarrassed and didn't quite know what to say. They were extremely kind. Hala kissed my face all over and said in Polish: "You must scream! And you must cry! But you will be fine."

Jerzy just laughed. "This is the American way, no?" he asked.

I sort of smiled. Why did I even bother with the shrink?

We started talking about great-grandma and grandma. About how Jerzy's mother was honored by Yad Vashem for saving them and how if Erika hadn't done what she did, my mother and i wouldn't be alive today. He began to cry a little. It was very, very sweet. And his tears made me feel good.

Then we set out on foot toward the old Warsaw Ghetto, where my great-grandmother and great-grandfather lived. My grandmother would sneak in and out and only stay on weekends. She would bring her family food and news. She would take English lessons from an old Jewish couple. And she'd go to a cafe where people tried to hold onto even a single moment of joy in such horrible, horrible times. It was surreal -- there was really nothing left. The Nazis had destroyed everything. All the buildings were entirely new -- I mean, NEW new.

As we circled around the monuments and Jerzy told us stories of how he first met my grandmother and how he saw ten French Jews being killed as they tried to escape, my mind began to wander.

How can he do this to me?!? How can he leave me like this? Does he love her?

I fingered my cell phone in my bag and thought better of it. No, no, Denise, don't get shitty. It's not worth it. Just leave it alone. The fight is over, remember?

But I couldn't resist. I had to reach out. Make sure that he was still alive. That he wasn't a ghost yet. I had to see if he cared. Did he still really love me like he said he did? Somewhere, I still want him to call and say he doesn't really want this. He does want to work it out. I texted him that I was still hurting. He said he was sorry. But that wasn't good enough for me and so I launched into him.

As we stood there at the grave of the soldiers who fought in the Ghetto Uprising, I texted my husband very mean things.

Let me repeat that. Yes, I actually stood at a Holocaust Memorial and was so self-consummed that instead of reflecting on the immediacy of the moment, of the incredible history, of the human suffering, I chose to take really nasty jabs at the man who was leaving me via text message. I am officially an asshole, or possibly Larry David's long lost daughter.

After Patrick made it clear that I should leave him alone (this took a few pained "please don't text me anymores"), we moved back onto the tram and headed home, where I talked on the phone with a close girlfriend who recently went through a very similar ordeal. I stood at the window of my apartment, chain smoking, knowing that she knew best. And then I cried. And I wrote. And I laid in bed next to my mom. And it started to feel better.