It was now February of 2007. Lois and I were at my father's house in Devon, Fredericton. There was a barrier that had grown between us. At the beginning of the relationship I pretended to be a man's man, or at least what I thought that was. A laid back, super chill dude (super boring) who just rolled along without saying too much. I played into who Lois wanted me to be in order to win her over. Over time, glimpses of my real personality came to the surface. She didn't like the silly hyperactive self that I was some of the time. She'd often compare me to her ex's and utter demeaning comments to me when I'd act a little foolish. I just thought that was normal; I always rejected the silly, overly animated part of who I was, which made her complaints that much more valid.
She was my first love, what that meant was that I gave myself completely to her; utterly and recklessly, without caution or care. Then on a crisp, cool, broken February night we agreed to part ways. I knew she was drifting, but the finality of the breakup destroyed me. I cried the entire ride over to her house to drop her off. It wasn't your "tear down the cheek" Hollywood cry, this was full-on sobbing...I can't fucking breath sobs.
Other than alcohol she was my everything at the time. We talked about getting married and having a house together, these things were real for me and in an instant, it was shattered. I never understood the phrase "cry myself to sleep" before that incident. It was absolute devastation; my whole life came crumbling down over a girl who never liked the me underneath the invisibility cloak I chose to wear.
When the breakup was finalized, I took my first opportunity to mask grief and sorrow with partying and voluntary debauchery. I drank three to four nights a week. My entire paycheck would be gone two days after it was deposited, and I'd be left to bum money off friends and eat peanut butter sandwiches for sustenance.
I was still working at Pizza Delight, but eventually, I was fired for drinking with a minor in the dining room. I was self-sabotaging in a way; my attendance in classes eventually became nil and I failed to show up for a single final exam in the last semester of the 2006/2007 academic year.
Many days I'd lay faceup in bed, contemplating the point of it all, the point of such poignant and maleficent suffering. There was nothing to turn to but myself, so that's what I hated, that and an imaginary God I only accessed when my life turned to shit.
To accent my nihilistic viewpoint, I received a letter a few months later saying that I was no longer allowed to attend St. Thomas University. The letter stated that I needed to take a year off and re-evaluate my situation. I ended the year with straight F's.
The nights I spent mitigating grief with the bottle were often concluded with multiple calls to Lois's cell phone, begging her to come back to me. There were a couple times that I even went to her house via taxi-cab. The first incident her Mom seemed to still view me with kindness; when she came to greet me at the door, she escorted me inside to talk to her daughter. I made my way down the hall of their sparklingly clean bungalow and sat at the foot of Lois's bed; she was playing video games. Casually, I began rubbing her back as I always had, and because she didn't reject the affection, I conveniently took her compliance as an indicator that perhaps she would agree to get back together. As soon as I started to verbalize what was really going on in my mind she began yelling and crying. Her Mom responded in an instant, entering the room in a nanosecond, where she immediately told me to leave; I of course complied, shuffled my way to their front porch and stood with Lois's Mom, while waiting for the cab to arrive. The tears streamed down my face, my mind continued to balk at the permanence of Lois's decision, and even though her Mom offered words of solace and compassion, the flame of desperation still refused to be extinguished.
The next week I re-entered into the "healthy coping mechanism" known as "binge drinking". The final time I went to Lois's house I crept alongside the trailer to the back-end and peered in her half-open window; (creepy I know) I tried to manipulate her into coming back to me, but she would not. I whispered every available idea that came streaming into my head to alter her decision, and with each despairing syllable I uttered, came a sliver of hope, followed by a reluctant temporary acceptance that she was done.
I don't blame her at all, I was now making a fool out of myself. In response to her steadfast position, I started uncontrollably calling her multiple times a week, these calls were always fuelled with intoxication and an overflowing anguish that could not be settled. Just another example of the obsessiveness of an addicted mind.
Finally, on a Tuesday night her Mom called my house and gave me an ultimatum. Either I would stop calling Lois or she would get "someone else" to deal with me. That "someone else" could have been Clint Eastwood or Denzel Washington or Liam Neeson (I have a particular set of skills) or more than likely, the police, so I stopped. It actually scared the shit out of me and made me feel like an insane person. I guess in many ways I was, because when the drink flowed through me, my impulses went haywire, and my ability to objectively choose the best LONGTERM outcome was continually eradicated.
Lois and I were just not compatible. We both had our own subjective reality, and I have the platform to express my reality here, I'm sure her side of the story makes just as much sense. I have a lot of respect for Lois, her strength to cut things off and stick to it, which was the best course of action for both of us, and she knew it.
Relationships are complicated; so many ways to interpret the same situation. We were both young and impressionable. She is a wonderful woman today. All we can do is live and "try" to learn as best we can. When I look back on these incidences, I can't help but cringe, and say "really Ben?" but it is a part of my growth, and because I am sober today, I have the ability to choose growth while walking through pain, rather than opting to crumble in its wake.