Neighbors...

Walking home from my appointment at dusk.  Walking down my street, in my neighborhood, on my block.  Group of kids in front of me, walking slowly, taking up the sidewalk.  I walk around them, between the parking meters and the parked cars.  Passing the tiny girl up front, she yells at me, "You best say 'escuse me!'  I got kids here!  An' you don't say 'escuse me??'"  I hadn't bumped into her.  Hadn't touched her at all.  Her kids, a boy and girl about five or six years old, were on the other side of her from me; I was nowhere near them.  She hadn't had to so much as move an inch to avoid me at all.  I had simply walked around her.  And now she's angrily demanding an apology from me, as if I had done something inexcusably rude.  Never in my life has anyone ever said "excuse me" for simply walking past me.  For bumping into me, or getting in my way, certainly.  But not for simply walking by.  Nor has anyone in my entire life ever expected me to excuse myself or apologize simply for walking around them.  She's deliberately provoking me.  And I don't understand why.  I haven't done anything wrong.  But I'm suddenly very aware that each of these kids is black, and I am white.  And this confrontation we're having is our neighborhood, to the core.  This is our home.

I've lived in my neighborhood for over fifteen years now.  This girl staring me down with angry eyes looks to only be about twenty, give or take five years.  It's possible that I was living here before she was even born.  I went to school in this neighborhood when I was a child.  I feel like this is as much my home as hers.  But she has no way of knowing this.  This has been a traditionally black neighborhood for over a hundred and fifty years.  Back then, it was the Freemen's quarter; the first people to settle on this particular piece of ground were freed slaves.  This has been a black neighborhood from the very first brick.  But a few years ago, it started to get very, very gentrified.  Rich, white developers came in and swooped up cheap properties, fixed them up with marble counter-tops and hardwood floors and halogen track lights.  Sold them to rich, white hipsters who wanted to live close to the burgeoning downtown bar scene.  Back then, I was the only white person living in my apartment complex.  Developers bought it and turned it into a condo.  We all got letters saying we needed to buy our apartments or find someplace else to live.  I bought mine.  Everyone else left.  And since then the neighborhood has been this uneasy mix of poor black living side-by-side with rich white.  And I've seen it.  Seen exactly this happening before.  But this is the first time I've experienced it myself.  She doesn't know me anymore than I know her.  We're both making assumptions about each other.  She has no way of knowing that I went to school around the corner, or that I've lived on this block my entire adult life.  All she sees is another doughy white, nerdy-looking hipster who had the fucking nerve to walk too close to her without showing her proper respect.

Things escalate very quickly.  "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be rude.  I just walked around you."  "You best watch who you talkin' to 'for I smack yo' fat ass!"  There's no good way to respond here.  What am I supposed to do?  Fight these kids?  Let them beat me up?  Why?  So they can feel better about themselves?  So I can feel better about feeling better than them?  And there's clearly no reasoning with someone who, within a matter of seconds, is willing to resort to threats of physical violence with someone twice her size for something as minor as stepping around them.  Talking about it any further is clearly pointless.  There's no reasoning with a bully.  I learned that lesson the hard way, long ago.  No choice but to simply end this as quickly and quietly as possible.  I turn and walk away.  To more taunts and threats thrown at my back.  Victory cheers for having driven out the interloper, the outsider.  For having proved her strength and dominance to the rest of the tribe.  For having earned back the respect I somehow stripped her of by walking past her.  I'm instantly ten years old again.  On the playground again.  Having my dignity stolen by a pack of fifth grade delinquents again.  Being called "fat ass" again.  Feeling like an outcast again.  Feeling scared again.  For the first time in fifteen years, I feel scared in my own neighborhood.  For the first time ever, I feel like this isn't my home, and never will be.  I will never be welcome here.  I let them make me feel like an outsider in my own neighborhood.  I let these kids make me feel scared in my own home.  I don't feel like I had any choice.  And there's some part of me that feels I deserve it.

Lost In Recvoery...

Ok, so, in hindsight, clearly not the most righteous stance I've ever taken.  But I still don't think I did anything wrong.  And I just can't help but bristle at the idea that my attempt to view an explicit media with clear artistic merit has caused me to get lumped into the same group as the guy who spends his lunch hour spanking it in his office.  And it really bothers me that, because of this, I now have to fear for my job.  That just seems wrong to me, but I'll drop the subject now, I swear.

In other news, I think I'm going to go back to a SMART meeting tonight, if I can get home in time.  (Yesterday's Inauguration has snarled traffic all through the surrounding area.)  I haven't been to a SMART meeting in months.  It got to the point where they became more of a hassle then they were worth.  I never got very much out of the meetings, and I often felt worse afterwards, which struck me as rather counter-productive.  And having to give up every Tuesday night (and Tuesday morning for that matter, as I had to get to work early to make sure I could leave early so that I could get to the meetings on time) became rather tiresome.  I wanted to make sure I attended enough meetings on a regular basis to establish myself in the group, and to be sure to give them a fair chance (and not make any decisions based on first impressions), and get a sense of what I could expect from SMART in general, and from this group in particular.  And I accomplished that.  And if I'd felt as if I was having trouble maintaining my sobriety, or that attending these meetings would help me maintain my sobriety in any way, then I would've continued to attend.  But, as neither of those were the case, I decided to take my Tuesday nights back, knowing that this group was always there, should I ever need help again.

And now, I think I do.  I had always assumed that, in regards to my sobriety, the only person's reaction I needed to be concerned about, was my own.  It never occurred to me that other people that I care about might have as difficult a time dealing with my sobriety as I did.  I've known that my wife has been missing her "drinking buddy" since I sobered up; we established that early on, in just the first couple of months.  But, honestly, I didn't really think much of it; it just didn't seem that important.  She didn't seem all that upset about it, and my focus, frankly, especially in those early months, had to be on maintaining my sobriety, and not on whether or not She had someone to get drunk with on Friday nights.  I don't think either of us realized just how important it really was to Her, or that it was actually about much more than just missing Her "drinking buddy" - it was about my entire personality changing, again, and for the first time, changing in respect to the ways that I treat Her.  And as the months have dragged on and on, and the situation has remained unchanged, Her feelings about it have apparently grown worse and worse, until we are at the point now where it has become a painful and difficult problem in our marriage.

And I don't know what to do about it.  I thought things had unarguably changed for the better.  I'm much more even-keeled now than I ever have been before.  Yes, I still have my ups and downs, but everyone does.  But whereas before every emotion was turned up to eleven, now I never get much higher than a four or five.  I used to be full volume every minute of every day.  Every high was the highest high possible, and every low was the lowest I could get.  And in terms of how I treated Her, that meant that when I was happy with Her, she was the Sun, Moon, and Stars to me, and I loved her more than Romeo ever loved Juliet; my entire world revolved around her.  (Which sounds beautifully romantic at first, but try living up to such ridiculous and fantastical standards for ten years.  It can't be done.  And I did a lot of damage to our relationship trying to keep her up on that pedestal for so many years.)  But it also means that when I wasn't happy with her, I hated her, because she was completely ruining my entire fucking life.

Now, my feelings never get that ridiculously, over-the-top intense.  I still love her, and I still sometimes get angry with her, but I don't treat her like the be-all-end-all of my existence, nor do I treat her like the worst thing that ever happened to me.  All of my feelings for her, both good and bad, are much softer and quieter, much more reasonable and responsible, much more practical; and so completely fucking boring.  Because while both of us are clearly glad that I no longer feel such intense anger at her every time she makes me feel anything bad, from her point of view, my world used to revolve around Her.  And now it doesn't.  And that hurts her.  It hurts in a way she has a very difficult time understanding, or articulating.  And it's very confusing.  Because while she's certainly glad that I don't yell at her anymore, and while she is definitely very proud of me for all that I've accomplished these past eight months, she's also really hurt and upset; she feels rejected, because, from her point of view, I don't seem to love her as much as I used to.  Which isn't true at all; I still love her just as much as I used to, I just don't express it as intensely.  But how can she be expected to know what I'm really feeling, if I've completely changed the way that I express those feelings?

And then, on top of all of the hurt and rejection she's already feeling, she ends up feeling very guilty, too.  She feels guilty because she understands that my sobriety is clearly a good thing for me, and she wants to be able to support me in that and feel proud of me.  And by feeling hurt and upset in response to my sobriety, regardless of how else she feels about it, she feels like she is doing something wrong, and hurting me, and undermining my sobriety.  Which, unfortunately, I have to agree with, in a sense.  It definitely hurts me to know that I'm hurting her.  And it definitely makes me want to drink, because I feel like that would make her happy (and I'm kind of hard-wired to want to make her happy).  But I don't think she's doing anything wrong; on that point we disagree.  I can't blame her for how she feels, at all.  I would almost certainly feel the same thing in her place.  And I think it can be said that, almost certainly, she has been the one the most hurt, she has been the one who has lost the most, she has been the one who has sacrificed the most, for my sobriety.  And I could never expect her to just be a hundred percent happy about that.  I feel horribly naive for not anticipating it ahead of time.

But now, what do I do?  How am I supposed to respond to this?  How should we deal with it?  What can we do about it?  In the addiction/recovery cycle, most people end up feeling like they lost their loved ones to the addiction side of things, when the addict reaches the point where the only thing they are capable of caring about anymore is using.  We're really fortunate that we've never had to face that problem.  But I've never heard of anyone feeling like they lost their loved one to sobriety.  In all of my experience with addiction and recovery, I've never heard anyone say, "Now that you're sober, you don't love me the way that you used to."  And now that we're unfortunate enough to be faced with that problem, I have no idea how to deal with it.  I have no experience to draw on.

And, so, back to SMART.  I'm hoping someone there has some experience with this, or has at least heard of it before.  At the very least, I'm hoping to come away with some perspective.

Will me luck.

As Above, So Below...

spiderweb cracks
of bare black branch
against slab of slate gray sky

blue sun glow
blurry and lost
shrouds the world with ice

bite of cold
winter wind cuts
through flesh naked and scarred

bone white flecks
of fractals fall
to dust the red and raw

crystal'd waters
with gentlest touch
melt into seeping wounds

frost fingers roam
through veins gone cold
seeking the vaults of doom

old heart in hand
black carbon char
powdered ash blown high and free

corpse crow caw
shattering shriek
endless echoes mocking me

night at noon
and no one saw
there's nothing left to be

I'll Stand Before The Lord Of Song...

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not someone who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a lonely Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
Remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

          -"Hallelujah"
            Leonard Cohen, Various Positions

The Junkie And The Monk...

This is one of my absolute favorite Moth stories ever, and I'm so glad they finally posted it to their YouTube channel.


The Junkie And The Monk by Mike DeStefano

Keep Ridin' 'Til The Cycle Is Broke...

Heard this today, and it touched me; deep.  Again.  Had to share.  Hope it touches you, too.
(Suggestion:  read it aloud.)


                                 Million dollar baby girl in the lower middle class
                                 With a maglight right beneath her pillow
                                 And though she's never been a boxer by choice
                                 She's known to act oak [OK], you'll never catch her a willow
                                 Nuh-uh
                                 She's the calm type
                                 You see the small scars
                                 Creepin' down her arms
                                 peeking from them long sleeves, right?
                                 She keeps him weak in the knees
                                 but she stay out of sight
                                 And when that school bell rings
                                 it's goodnight
                                 Or might as well be
                                 He never sees her around
                                 But he looks
                                 For weeks now he's been "Maybe tomorrow"
                                 But he's shook
                                 He sees those bruises and he needs to please her
                                 Plus he don't wanna go home either

                                 Gives her a look as they pass
                                 Copies down a poem from a schoolbook
                                 Gives it to her after hesitation whoops his ass
                                 She took it fast
                                 Lost, like, all sensation in her hands
                                 then braces herself gracefully
                                 sturdy where she stands
                                 humble mumbling
                                 past the words, fumbling
                                 Nothing discouraging
                                 just nerves
                                 just drumming up the courage
                                 Something 'bout skylines
                                 or bike rides
                                 or riverbeds
                                 Somethin'
                                 Somethin' that he read
                                 it caught her right beneath the armor
                                 cauterized thought of any blunt force trauma
                                 Ain't no way that he could harm her
                                 Nuh-uh
                                 No way

                                 When that curse leaves a shell like a snake with fresh scales
                                 Some people seem to call that home
                                 But some souls roam
                                 Keep riding 'til the cycle is broke
                                 We don't gotta go through nothin' alone

                                 She's in the weather
                                 the whole storm
                                 Huggin' on her prince
                                 his hands to skin warm
                                 Quick out the door
                                 no note
                                 no forlorn
                                 'Cause all they heard was "Papa
                                 don't hit me no more"
                                 But they couldn't seem to keep the swelling down
                                 How they regretted ever lettin' out this 3rd child born
                                 But things are getting better now
                                 Yeah, cozy sweater now
                                 with her thumbs through the holes
                                 in her sleeves worn down
                                 And a boy similar
                                 Noise minimal
                                 toy criminal
                                 Joy's simple when someone's found it in you
                                 Somehow it boosts the individual
                                 That bluish hue is mutual
                                 They make love gently
                                 so aware of each others' bruises
                                 And sorta scared they could lose this
                                 trust
                                 Bury the blues
                                 somewhere it won't bear roots
                                 But is this boy where the truth is?
                                 She's spooked, see
                                 Fruit never seems to fall far
                                 from the useless branch that it's attached to
                                 And quacks say if he's beat up he's bound to smack you
                                 She's down to step back now
                                 If he ever gets loud
                                 She couldn't be proud
                                 of whatever she might do
                                 But this is the first time
                                 she ever felt touched
                                 that didn't bring her to hush
                                 like something was being done to her
                                 That unscrews her
                                 She loosens with the booze
                                 Her hinge can stay bent
                                 addressing her dude's wounds
                                 Regressing to bedrooms
                                 where fools ignored "don't"
                                 He's not one of them tools
                                 that screws, nuts and bolts
                                 And she know that
                                 And she know that but she holds back
                                 And she hope that
                                 he see the way she flinch
                                 'cuz it's kneejerk to brace for the attack
                                 Even if he's only rubbing her back
                                 I mean
                                 And even if it's like the deck has been stacked
                                 It's not an act
                                 He's really loving her back

                                 Hold your heart up

                                 "Never raise your hand"
                                 She says that with her grown-up voice
                                 "I'm your's now" just like a child
                                 "Please don't be scared now"
                                 It clicks
                                 a piece finally fits
                                 "I love you"
                                 They say that with their lips

                                 "Never raise your hand"
                                 He says that with a grown-up voice
                                 "I'm your's now" just like a child
                                 "Please don't be scared now"
                                 It clicks
                                 a piece finally fits
                                 "I love you"

                                 When that curse leaves a shell like a snake with fresh scales
                                 Some people seem to call that home
                                 But some souls roam
                                 Keep riding 'til the cycle is broke
                                 We don't gotta go through nothin' alone

                                                                  -"Been Afraid"
                                                                    P.O.S.

Confessions #3...

"Is it really mine??"

She was curled up in the fetal position on her bed, a mattress on the floor, hiding her head under her pillow.  This tiny, terrified little girl, trying to hide from me the way a child might.

"Is it MINE?!" I screamed, again, as though the volume of my voice could somehow force her to answer me.

We'd been together for four years, since my sophomore year of high school; an eternity at that age.  She had recently moved out of her parents' house and into this tiny, barely furnished basement apartment across the street from our old high school.  Her roommate, a mutual male friend of ours, had just told me they'd been "screwing for the past month."

"Fucking TELL ME, goddammit!"  She curled up tighter and pulled the pillow closer around her head.  I could hear her muffled sobbing.  I have to admit, it made me feel a little better.

She'd told me she was pregnant a couple of weeks earlier, as we'd sat parked in her car, waiting out a rainstorm.  Even though we'd only had sex once in the month leading up to that, I still just naturally assumed it was mine.  After all, she wasn't having sex with anyone else.  And why else would she bother telling me if it wasn't mine?

She told me she was going to "get rid of it."  I could feel a part of me break when she said that.  At the same time, we weren't married, weren't ready to marry, weren't living together, didn't have jobs, and I had just failed my freshman year of college; we were hardly ready to be parents.  And I didn't really feel like I had much say in the matter, either.

"How are you going to do it?" I asked, as the rain beat down on the car all around us.  "Do you need my help?"

"No, I know what to do.  I looked it up in my book of remedies.  There's an herb, and I have to make a tea out of it and drink a bunch of it, and that'll make me bleed it out."

That sounded horrific to me.  "Wouldn't you rather just go to a doctor?"

"I can't afford a doctor.  And I don't want my parents to find out.  Plus, this method is supposed to be safer, and less painful."

"TELL ME, YOU FUCKING BITCH!!  IS THAT MY BABY YOU'RE KILLING OR NOT?!!"

The next day she bought a vial of Oil of Pennyroyal from our local Wiccan shop.  The concentrated oil was incredibly pungent.  As she infused a dropper full into a cup of hot water, the sickly-sweet aroma filled every corner of the tiny apartment.  It smelled like mildew and peppermint.  It was enough to make you gag, and there was nowhere to go to get away from it.

She drank two cups of the "tea" every day for the next two weeks.  Within a day, the smell began to ooze from her pores, mixing with the smell of her sweat.  If anything, that smell was even worse, like moldy garlic, with an astringent note mixed in, something halfway between nail-polish remover and hairspray.  It was nauseating.  I couldn't even stand to be in the same room with her.

Even if it hadn't smelled so strong, and so horribly, I don't know if I'd have been able to stand it.  Because that smell was the smell of my first child being murdered.  It was the bloody death of my son or daughter violently assaulting my senses.  And I guess in that way, it was almost fitting.  It would've seemed wrong somehow if it had smelled pleasant.  No, of course it had to smell like boiled death.

For the record, I was, and am, pro-choice.  I believe everyone has a right to make up their own mind on this issue, and I do not judge anyone for the choice they make.  If a woman has an abortion, at any point, and for any reason, I do not consider it the murder of a baby.  But I found it was easy to accept these things in the abstract, when they were about other people, and other babies.  I soon discovered I felt very differently when it was suddenly about my baby.

The tincture of pennyroyal made her horribly sick.  She bled constantly, and was bent double with vicious cramps for days.  She had trouble keeping food down.  She would get sudden fevers.  She couldn't sleep.  Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she would hallucinate.

I felt just as sorry for her as I did for myself, and for our unborn child.  It just seemed to go on and on and on.  I felt like this had to be worse than just going to a doctor and getting it over with.  But now it was too late for that.  I alternately tried to comfort her, and ignore her.  I stayed away from the apartment for days at a time, going out to get high with my friends, trying to forget what was going on in that tiny, damp little basement room.  I couldn't even begin to figure out how to deal with what I was feeling.  And while part of me wanted to take care of her and try to help her, another part of me hated her for what she was doing.

But then, after she'd been drinking the pennyroyal tea for almost two weeks, the oil almost gone, her roommate had casually confessed their affair to me, and all the nebulous, sickening things I was feeling crystallized into a razor-edged rage.  First, there was the sense of betrayal - they'd both been lying to me for at least a month now.  They'd been fucking behind my back.  And how could I be so stupid as to not see it!  But then came the realization:  we'd only had sex the one time over a month ago (her recent and sudden lack of sexual interest in me suddenly making sense).  But she'd been having sex with him repeatedly during that same month.  So how could she possibly think the baby was mine??  But, of course, she didn't think it was mine.  She knew it was his; they both knew it was his.  They just let me believe it was mine.  They just let me suffer through all of that, for nothing.

Because it was easier to just let me believe she was killing my child, than it was to admit that they were fucking behind my back.

I kicked open the door to her bedroom and screamed at her, "You've been fucking HIM?!"

"Oh, God, no!" she screamed, and curled up fetal, hiding her head under her pillow.  I continued to scream at her, getting louder and more angry, demanding to know if it was my child.  She wouldn't even acknowledge me, which only infuriated me more.  She just kept hiding in that ridiculously childish way, as if she could make me disappear simply by hiding her head long enough.

Finally, I'd had enough, and I grabbed her pillow and blanket and flung them across the room.  She covered her head with her hands, but I grabbed her arms and pinned them down on her bed.  Straddling her, holding her down, I screamed into her face, "IS IT FUCKING MINE?!!"

"NO!  IT'S NOT FUCKING YOURS!!  OK?!!"

...

I don't know what I expected her to say.  I guess it was more about forcing her to tell me the truth.  But, the thing is, to this day, I still don't know if she really was telling me the truth or not.  I don't know if she even knew the truth.  She'd lied to me about so many things by that point; she'd been lying to me for almost our entire relationship.  I can do the math, and I know that, statistically speaking, it almost certainly wasn't mine.  But, she said they'd used condoms.

And we hadn't.

So I still can't help but wonder.

And I know that I'll never know the answer - no one will ever know the answer - and that the numbers are on his side, so there's really no point in speculating.

But, if that's true, then why am I still thinking about it, all these years later?

Hurt...

I faced a big test today.  And I failed it.

I started a fight with Her.  I had a pretty good idea how she'd respond, and I had a pretty good idea that I wouldn't like it, but I set her up, anyways.  I served her the line, and she hit it back to me in the exact way I knew she would, and then I got mad at her for it.  Her response was hurtful, true, but I shouldn't have gotten angry with her for it.  And I definitely shouldn't have yelled at her for it.  Especially since I saw it coming from a mile away.  I knew it was coming, so I had every opportunity to prepare myself to respond appropriately.  But I didn't.

Instead, I yelled at her, and hurt her back.  I failed.  I failed Her, and I failed myself.

When someone I care about hurts me (which is redundant - I can't be hurt by someone I don't already care about first), I don't actually feel hurt.  Because feeling hurt is a vulnerable feeling; a weak feeling.  Instead, I skip straight over "hurt" and go right to "angry."  Because "angry" is a strong feeling - a powerful feeling.  When someone hurts me, I feel attacked by them.  And so I respond by attacking them right back.  I stand up for myself.  I defend myself.  The last thing I'm going to do in that situation is roll over and expose my belly and take it, suck it up, allow them to continue hurting me.  This behavior was ingrained in me by years of childhood abuse, at the hands of people I cared about - my mother, especially, but also the childhood bullies, who were invariably the "cool kids" that I wanted so much to like me.  But that's an explanation, not an excuse.  Knowing why I do it doesn't make it okay.

Because this behavior hurts the people I care about.  And there's just no reason for it.  I'm hurt and I'm scared.  I'm hurt by what you did, and I'm scared that you can hurt me.  What's wrong with that?  Why can't I just say that?  Why can't I just feel that?  Why do I have to jump straight to this macho "You can't hurt me!" place, like you're some asshole bully trying to make me feel like I'm nothing - like I'm completely powerless - as though you weren't, in reality, someone I care very deeply for, who means a great deal to me, and who simply made a mistake?

I'm trying.  That's all I can do.  I'm trying.  I really am.

I didn't recognize what I was doing in the moment, and in that I failed.  I allowed myself to fall back into old, destructive habits, and in that I failed.  I hurt Her, and in that I failed.  But as soon as it was over - as soon as we walked away - I looked back at everything I had said and done, and it all became clear to me.  And I immediately apologized for it.  Before now, I would've held onto that anger, allowed it to fuel my sense of self-righteousness.  But today, almost the instant it began to wane, I let it all go.  And I allowed myself to feel, simply, hurt.  It's far from perfect, but it's still an undeniable improvement.

I'm not giving myself any credit for this here.  I still failed, and I still have a lot of work to do.  I'm just trying to take an honest assessment of myself.  Nothing is entirely good, and nothing is entirely bad.  Everything is both good and bad.  I failed, but I learned.  I hurt her, but I quickly realized my mistake and stopped doing it.  And next time, I will try to do better.

That's all I can do.