I am wishing all of my friends and family a Merry Christmas and hope the New Year brings them all success, health and happiness.
I hope that this Christmas season will bring healing to the families in Connecticut who have lost so much this December.
I also have some simple wishes and hopes for this Christmas season.
First, I wish that Lauren Elizabeth Kelley, the beautiful, smart, funny, tough, feisty, and stubborn woman I love realizes she has a problem with drugs and alcohol and asks for the help she needs to get better. I hope that Lauren Elizabeth Kelley knows that I am here for her–because she is the amazing woman that loves me–that I love. I hope she knows that while I won’t enable her illness–I will support her, love her and care for her as no one else can.
I pray that Lauren Elizabeth Kelley asks for my help in getting better–to walk along side her on her road to recovery–so we can start sharing the life together as we had started to discuss last summer. As I have promised Lauren Elizabeth Kelley, her mother Sue and her sister Bridget—if Lauren Elizabeth Kelley asks me to, I will be there to wipe her tears when she cries; protect her when she feels threatened or scared; guide her when she feels lost or confused; and love her always–more each and every day.
I wish Lauren Elizabeth Kelley would return to my life, where I believe she belongs. I am willing to help her on her road to recovery. Lauren Elizabeth Kelley does not have to face the difficulties of healing herself alone. We are stronger and better together than we ever could be apart. I hope Lauren Elizabeth Kelley realizes our relationship is worth fighting for. But, I can’t be the only one fighting–I need her help. When I asked Lauren Elizabeth Kelley to marry me, I was asking to be her partner in all things, including this.
I hope Lauren Elizabeth Kelley doesn’t allow her fears, insecurities and self-doubts to beat her. I don’t think she realizes how beautiful, smart and strong she really is yet–not deep in her heart and mind where it matters.I think if she could see herself the way I do, it would help her realize what an amazing woman she truly is and why I love her so much. Her fears, insecurities and self-doubts are what give her addictions the powerful hold they have over her. If she were honest enough, brave enough and smart enough to face her fears, she would see how baseless they truly are.
I hope Lauren Elizabeth Kelley doesn’t let her addictions continue much longer. Her addictions make her act in ways that are unnatural for her and make her less than she can be, and will ruin her future and destroy her dreams.
I have spent much of the last eighteen months fighting for Lauren Elizabeth Kelley, trying to get her the help I believe she has needed, to no avail. I can’t fight any longer, not without her help. Until my beautiful Lauren Elizabeth Kelley finally realizes that she has a problem with drugs and alcohol and decides that she deserves better no one can help her. Until Lauren Elizabeth Kelley asks me for my help I can do nothing but watch her slowly destroy herself and her future.
So I have decided to walk away from Lauren Elizabeth Kelley in January. It isn’t that I don’t love Lauren Elizabeth Kelley. I have loved Lauren Elizabeth Kelley all of her life and always will—that is why I have to walk away. I can not stay and watch her addictions destroy her and remain the person that Lauren Elizabeth Kelley loves. I can not keep my promise to help her on her long road to recovery if I stay. I have realized that her addictions are affecting me and making me become something that I do not want to be—so I am leaving before I become someone I would loathe and despise as much as Lauren Elizabeth Kelley would loathe and despise the wretched, dishonest, weak, cowardly drug-addled alcoholic that she has become if she were healthy.
Addiction is a disease that lives in the dark. Addictions can not stand the light of truth. Addictions are not a disease of a single person, but a family disease since the addiction affects the addict and everyone she loves and cares about. Lauren Elizabeth Kelley’s addictions are affecting me. I thought my love for Lauren Elizabeth Kelley was strong enough to protect me from her addictions, but that is clearly not the case—not without Lauren Elizabeth Kelley’s love protecting me, so I must leave.
I have chosen January—the New Year—to walk away because Lauren Elizabeth Kelley was once a devout Catholic and she and I both believed that Christmas was a time of love, family, and most of all, miracles. I am still praying for a miracle to bring my beautiful Lauren Elizabeth Kelley back to me so that we can start on the future we once talked about.
I never thought I would think of the smart and beautiful woman I love as stupid, but anyone who knows the truth about who we are to each other as is clearly evident in all the photos of us together, yet can still tell the lies she has been telling for eighteen months, must be stupid. Knowing the truth, seeing the truth, but believing the lies requires someone to be stupid. But, I guess it really isn’t my beautiful, smart, strong, brave, gracious beloved Lauren Elizabeth Kelley that is stupid, but the drug-addicted alcoholic wretch that is all that remains of her.
I hope that Lauren Elizabeth Kelley learns to love herself enough to want be more than an alcoholic and a drug addict. Until she does love herself, she will not be able to love anyone in any real way or accept anyone’s love–even mine. Until Lauren Elizabeth Kelley learns to trust herself and believe in herself, she will never find happiness. If Lauren Elizabeth Kelley were going to find happiness in the drugs and alcohol I believe she would have found it by now. By numbing herself with the drugs and alcohol, Lauren Elizabeth Kelley is ignoring the truth of the real problems that have caused her to seek oblivion.
We have been friends for a long time, we have cared about each other for years. I have loved Lauren Elizabeth Kelley all of her life in some way, and I know she loves me. So, why won’t she fight to save herself? Why won’t she fight to save what we have together? I think it is because she doesn’t yet realize how beautiful, smart, strong, or courageous a person she is.
Finally, I hope that Lauren Elizabeth Kelley finally realizes that she is strong enough, brave enough, smart enough and stubborn enough to beat her addictions–especially with me by her side. If by some miracle, all these hopes and wishes come to pass, I promise Lauren Elizabeth Kelley that I will be her devoted and loving partner, as I have been her devoted and loving friend for most of her life. I have believed in her all of her life. I have been her greatest supporter and always tried to help her accomplish her goals and fulfill her dreams. I have always tried to protect her and advise her, because I have always loved her.
If not, I will be walking away in a week’s time. If Lauren Elizabeth Kelley finally finds the strength, courage and will to fight her addictions; if Lauren Elizabeth Kelley finds the wisdom to see the truth about who she and I are to each other and how much we love each other; if she finds the grace to love herself, trust herself and believe in herself again enough to follow her heart and make her amends—I hope that Lauren Elizabeth Kelley will seek me out and ask to be a part of my life again—ask to start on the future we once talked about.
I am not burning the bridges I am crossing because I still hope and pray that Lauren Elizabeth Kelley will find her way home to me. I have left it up to her though. I will no longer seek her out. I will no longer subject myself to the abuse, the horrors and the lies her addictions have caused her to do and say. The drug-addicted alcoholic that seems to be all that is left of my beloved Lauren Elizabeth Kelley is not worth my time, my effort, or my love. If that is all that remains of my sweet, beautiful much missed Irish rose, then I have no reason to stay.
God Bless you Lauren Elizabeth.
May God watch over you and protect you from all harm—even that you cause yourself.
I hope God gives you the strength to fight your addictions and the wisdom to see the truth about what the alcohol and drugs are doing to you.
I pray that God grants you the serenity and peace you will need to love yourself once again and to forgive yourself for the things your addictions have made you do.
I ask that God helps you find your way back to being the amazing, beautiful, intelligent, feisty, stubborn, strong, and devout woman He wants you to be.
Finally, may He grant you the ability to see yourself as I do and let you remember who we are to each other; let you remember the years of friendship, love and devotion we once shared; and give you the strength to make amends so we can start the future together we talked about last June.
All this in Jesus’s name I pray.
Amen.