Burning the Addiction

We burned the addiction today.

We burned the addiction on Independence Day! (Happy Independence Day, y'all!)

Credit

Yesterday, my dare was to get two pieces of paper. On one, I was to write all the positive things about Jack. On the other, I was to list all the negatives. Then, I was supposed to hide them in a safe place for later purposes in the Love Dare.

I didn't write the list of negatives. I didn't want to. I don't like dwelling on the negative, and I was afraid that making a real list of them would trigger me. Besides, I don't have many anyway. Other than the addiction, everything else is just human. They are small things that I know aren't important. Plus, I only dwell on the negative when I am depressed (and I don't really feel like being depressed). So I decided to skip that part and when it came back up in the Dare, I would see if I could somehow get around it.

The list of negatives came back up TODAY.

The chapter was about overcoming jealousy/envy and becoming my spouse's biggest fan. The dare: "To help you set your heart on your spouse and focus on their achievements, take yesterday's list of negative attributes and discreetly burn it."

I'll admit, I was tempted to dwell on the negative just so I could burn it. What fun that could be!

Then, a better idea hit. Why not just write something about the addiction on a piece of paper and burn the addiction together?

I was so happy about my idea that I felt like skipping. I rushed out to find Jack and said, "Let's burn the addiction!" I explained to him what was going on. He got matches while I wrote, "The addiction tears our marriage apart" on a sheet of paper.

We took it to our fire pit.

I wanted to be the one to burn it, so I struck the match, touched a corner of the paper, and put the match out. It burned for a second then quickly went out.

Jack said since it didn't work, it was his turn. So, I let him. After all, it's his addiction.

His match burned that paper to a crisp.

I pointed out the irony (only he can destroy the addiction, not me). Then we held each other tight and watched the smoke curl up into the sunlit sky. It was a perfect moment (that could only have been more perfect if we had done some kind of ceremonial dance around the fire. But, alas, I can only ask my husband to be so weird with me. There were people around.)

Happy Independence Day! Let freedom ring!

(someone sing a freedom-hallelujah-chorus!)