Weekend of Luff

It just occurred to me that I hadn’t written a proper update about how my weekend with Steven was. That is terrible of me. May I be the first to issue a heartfelt mea culpa.

So, in essence, it was…amazing.

Keep in mind, I had spent the week prior to his arrival wound tighter than an 8-day clock. There was so much to do: cleaning, menu planning, cleaning, loads of laundry and more cleaning…which is to say nothing of the personal grooming. I went to get my hooves polished, shaved my legs for the first time in eons, and spent at least one evening practicing the perfect smoky eye.

Going into it, what I dreaded was that the anticipation was going to prove to be entirely out of whack with the reality. And I was mostly correct about that. I mean, the build-up rarely matches the reality, right? But that’s okay.

I mean, here we were, having had one sweet kiss in the early hours of Easter morning, and then not seeing each other for almost a whole month. During that time, we decided to go ahead and try out this whole relationship thing, and told each other that we loved one another. But also in that time, we talked a lot about what it would be like to finally see each other again.

“I doubt you’ll make it out of the parking garage before I just maul you to death,” I’d told him. I mean, I didn’t think it was going to be some kind of 9 1/2 Weeks shit, but I thought it’d be intense.

And…it wasn’t. He called to tell me he was parked outside on the street, and I practically floated downstairs to let him in. Okay, I thought, so he parked on the street. In full view. So if we were going to embrace each other and kiss madly in the street, it was going to, at the very least, gross out every gay boy walking his dog in my neighborhood, giving them yet another reason to say under their breath, “Okay, breeders, we get it.” 

I toddled (in too-high gladiator wedges that made my feet look like two hams caught in a fishing net)

out to see him, and found him standing on the sidewalk, cigarette and plastic grocery bag full of clean clothes in one hand, his cell phone in the other. Like an asshole, I waved at him…as if he were standing 50 feet away instead of right there in front of me.  

His face acknowledged me, but he was on the phone with his daughter, who had called him to say goodnight. (Awwwww.) He smiled, leaned to very demurely (read: quietly) kiss me and finished up the convo with his kiddos.

Because I am nothing if not awkward, I stood by, rocking back and forth, wondering what in the hell I was supposed to do. Go back inside and give the man some privacy? No – possibly could seem dismissive. Go over to him and rest my head silently on his shoulder? Nah –  potentially smothering. Or stand there and pretend to scan the street for any and all interesting activity while he finished his conversation? (I went with the last option.)

My social awkwardness aside,

we still had a great weekend, because I think we were just happy to be together. That’s basically what it’s going to come down to: one weekend a month we get with each other. So we’ve got to make it count…and then communicate like crazy for the other 28 days.

I will interject here that my anxiety is still really, really not good at this point. When we went to the mall to pick out some presents for his kids, I had a full-blown anxiety attack. (Had it been a panic attack, which is much worse, I would have had to just turn around and leave. No question. A chocolate covered Alex Skarsgard could have awaited me, and I would have just had to pass.) 

+ 

My skin was flushed, my breathing shallow. I was sweaty and clammy and kept balling up my fists. It felt like I was being hunted; that somewhere in that crowd of thousands, there was a sniper and if he found me, I was a goner. That’s literally what it felt like. My adrenaline was pumping. I wanted very much to just cry my eyes out. And Steven noticed. 

Vodka was so good for my anxiety…it just wasn’t good for me.

If these attacks only happened once a month or so, I could deal with it. After all, some of that’s just life. You know, shit happens. But when they’re happening twice in one weekend (like they did when I was alone this last weekend) then it becomes a bit more unbearable. You want them to go away. And mostly, I don’t want them creeping up in my brand-new, beautiful relationship and fucking things all to hell.

Anyway: if you aren’t aware, spending a weekend with someone is a really good way to quickly discern what your differences are. As most of you know (or could guess), I sleep like Rip Van Winkle on the weekends; Steven does not. In fact, the Saturday morning he was here, I was awakened at 6 am. “Where’s the coffee?” he wanted to know. I grumbled at him.

(The grumbling? Is a thing of mine. I do it when I’m alone, too – and I do it until around 10 am. This includes workdays. It also includes grumbling at the cats who dare to meow at me for food. I issue this stream of continuous grumblings to let potential predators know not to fuck with me, lest I rip their faces off.)

So by 7:15 that early Saturday morning, I had been deliciously defiled already

and was standing over a stove cooking bacon & eggs for my beloved and me. I was literally so tired I could have cried. And not only does Steven awaken at ungodly hours, he also doesn’t believe in naps. Which is almost a sacrilege to me. I mean, I could lay down on the hood of a hot car in August and find a way to grab some zzzzzs. This bitch can sleep! (Unless someone is snoring next to me. Then all bets are off.)

Other things a weekend together taught me about Steven: he doesn’t like watching DVRd episodes of General Hospital. (Fair enough.) He *does* enjoy watching obscure Neilsen bombs on SpikeTV about how to renovate your 1974 Bronco. And surfing documentaries. And wilderness survivalist shows.

He also likes my cooking (but will not touch a salad, regardless of the delicious dressing I used on it, which can only be purchased at Central Market). He likes foot rubs. He walked down 3 flights of stairs almost every hour so he could take a smoke break. He drinks his coffee black. He thinks nothing of wearing a McLovin t-shirt out & about.

He’ll say “I love you” to me in front of my friends. He and said friend of mine got on like gangbusters when they met, which was a relief. “He’s adorable,” she later told me. (To contrast, she once told me about Paolo: “If you bring that motherfucker anywhere near me again, I will punch him in the throat.”)

I have my newfound sobriety to thank for the fact that I now worry over every little thing (which is still preferable to being too drunk to remember it or even care). But I’ve been positively neurotic when it comes to our differences. Are they dealbreakers? Am I going to drive him crazy? And the most definitive answer I can come up with is, “Eh. We’ll see.”

In that regard, I’m much more zen about shit now than I was 10+ years ago, but I attribute that to age and maturity, not so much sobriety. I certainly hope he doesn’t look over one day and think, “God, this bitch is about to drive me crazy.” Or hell, maybe he thought that when he was here but loves me anyway. There’s no real way to know.

I mean, we’re just so different.

• I’m a Libertarian; he claims to hate politics (but in the true fashion of those who claim to hate politics, spends an inordinate amount of time lambasting establishment Republicans).
• I’m a night owl; he’s a morning person.
• I have no discernable style or persona; he’s like the broken condom baby of a hipster and a lumberjack.

• I refuse to listen to Top 40 music; he probably knows the lyrics to the latest Ke$ha song.
• I’m melodramatic; he’s no-bullshit.
• I can’t even look at a cookie without gaining weight; he eats like a field hand.
• I’m self-conscious; he had no problem telling me I was out of toilet paper in the guest bathroom.
• My dream method of transportation: a Range Rover; his dream method of transportation: a European motorcycle.
• I need constant verbal reassurance; he doesn’t.
• I like snuggling; he gets bored after 15 minutes.
• I’m a nervous Nellie; he’s brazen.
• I could stare at a wall for hours; he needs constant activity.
• I’m terrified of water; he surfs.
• I have no earthly idea what to do with or around kids; he has 2 of them.
• I refuse to eat at McDonald’s; he ate 4 McDonald’s cheeseburgers in a 10 hour period…just this week.
• I am averse to anything involving sunlight; he loves being outside. 

But! Hallelujah, we have things in common.

• We’re both sober
• We both like the Dallas Cowboys
• We grew up in the same town
• Our parents are both still married to each other
• We both have good senses of humor
• We both like action movies
• We agree on Christina Hendricks

• We’re both verbally demonstrative about our feelings for the other person
• We both think cheating is bad
• Our favorite collective word is “fuck”
• We both like critters
• We’re both Southern (borderline redneck)
• We make the other one laugh
• We’re both Christians
• We’re both totally in favor of marriage equality

• We both like Big Head Todd and The Monsters
• We both talk about the future without freaking the other one out
• We’re both completely, disgustingly smitten with each other (I think. Well, I am, at least. I’m pretty sure he luffs me.) 

What I’m saying is, after Parker, I thought that any differences were sure signs of a certain, impending hell. But I’m not sure that’s the case.

Steven once told me, “I’ll keep you on your toes.” And I believe him. And want him to. So what I’m saying is, I think there’s a difference between “too different to work” and “different enough to keep it interesting.” Because I hope, after it’s all said and done, that we have a mutual respect for each other regarding our differences. And that we can figure out a way to incorporate each other’s preferences and in the end, we both win. That’s my hope anyway. 

Or if not, we can just solve everything with sex. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* I have no idea why this is in italics. I’ve tried fixing it and can’t. So it stays.

My life is rollicking along superbly. In that, it’s better than I’ve ever remembered it being. To use an unoriginal analogy, it’s like a light’s been flipped on and I can see again. It’s like I’ve been looking at life through those glass bricks that everyone had in their shitty 80s shower…and now all of a sudden, I have a clarity.

So far, a lot of things have come with my sobriety, and they’re mostly wonderful things. A new peace, not losing chunks of time because I’m loaded, making fewer regrettable errors, and this exquisite inner joy that lets me laugh and smile from a place that feels genuine. And that’s lovely. And I’m so thankful for it.

As most of you know, I’ve struggled mightily with anxiety and depression for the majority of my life. Drinking made my depression almost unbearable, which makes sense when you think about it. Throw a depressant on depression and what do you get? Ernest Hemingway, that’s what. (He blew his head off with a shotgun, if you don’t know.) And by the grace of God, my depression has lifted considerably since I got sober.

But the anxiety. Oh God, the anxiety. I had managed to quiet it for the better part of a decade with alcohol. Vodka does wonders for anxiety. (I don’t recommend it, but it is effective.) So since I’ve been sober, I’ve had one anxiety attack after another. I get positively cagey. I sigh constantly. I’m always practicing breathing in, holding it and exhaling. I do it all the time. To the point where people comment on it. Even my boss has said, “You sigh all the time.” Add to that constantly fidgeting and borderline manic cleaning jags I’ve been on.

 

So that’s where I am right now.

And in just a few days, this wonderful new man in my life, who I love so much in so many capacities, will be here this weekend. To stay with me for three days.

(For the sake of simplicity, let’s call him….Steven.)

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not sure I’ve ever been so excited to see someone in all my life. We had this amazing night almost a month ago, the night before Easter. We had a by-God moment. And the moment I dreaded – him seeing me, in person, for the first time in almost 18 years – the moment I thought was going to be a deal-killer, turned out to be, for him, the moment he said he knew he loved me.

 

What we have, our love and goodness and friendship, flies in the face of what I was expecting. It’s literally more than I even hoped for.

And yet, my feelings about seeing him are…mixed. God may have taken away my need to drink every day, but that shitty, destructive thinking is still there. And when you couple that with the natural eagerness that comes with being apart from someone you love for a month, it makes for quite the clusterfuck, emotionally speaking.

 

All we have to go on is our own experience, right? We go based on what we know. And here’s what I know: the last time someone I loved this much told me how they felt, it was glorious. “There will never be a day in my life that I’m not in love with you.” Except that a few short months after I heard this, my ass got dumped. Royally.

 

Now. Steven shouldn’t have to pay for the bullshit someone else threw at me. He’s never done anything to intentionally hurt me, and I don’t think he would. I have no reason not to believe him.

But my inner dialogue’s been this:

He has no idea what he’s getting himself into. Well maybe he thinks I’m cute but he only saw me that one night and it was a month ago. And maybe he’s misremembering me. Or my Spanx were doing really amazing things for me that night.

Or it was the moonlight. What’s going to happen when he rolls over and sees me in the morning. My hair looks like shit – seriously, it’s like I channel Mel Gibson circa ‘87. It’s fucking terrible.

And why does he think I wear cardigans all the time? Because my arms are hella flabby. My 83 year old diabetic grandmother’s arms had better tone. And a spider bit me right on my boob earlier this week, which, no matter. My boobs look like two loaves of uncooked bread anyway.

Either way, even if he’s okay with all that, what about my tummy…my most hated body part? I can’t even suck that bitch in. In fact, my body looks so shitty that Bob Harper and all the fucking plastic surgery in the world wouldn’t swing me into “hot” territory. Steven’s had beautiful girlfriends before, and I’m sure they were fucking incredible in bed. How am I supposed to tell him that I like sex, as long as it’s by osmosis? Or at the very least, with the lights out. Or perhaps I could just club him over the head and knock him unconscious for 15 minutes while I do my thing. And what the fuck after we drift off to sleep? I’m not a pretty sleeper. I drool. And I snore. And not like a cute, sleepy kitten snore. Like a, “Goddamn she’s keeping me awake” snore. I have also been known to sing in my sleep, act out violent dreams, fart, kick, and almost always steal the covers. And when I do get up? My hair’s totally fucked, in a Dudley Moore kind of way.

Oh, and guess what? He’s a morning person. Like he gets up before 6 am every day. I am going to kill that bitch if he tries to talk to me because no one is grumpier than my ass before 8 am. (Being honest? Before 10 am.)

Let me tell you what my instincts are. My instincts are to bail. I once ran off to Califuckingfornia to get away from a relationship I was freaking out about. (Yes, with the same person who said, “I’ll always be in love with you” and then suddenly wasn’t.) I go into absolute panic mode…and that’s when I had the wonderful aid that was vodka. I am about to twist the fuck off right about now. I don’t ever want to look up and see that shadow of disappointment cross his face. My ego, my heart, can’t handle it.

 

This. This is why they tell you not to get into a relationship in your first year of sobriety. And here I am doing it 90 days in. (Full disclosure: my sponsor, who has almost 33 years of sobriety, is totally, oddly, on board with Steven and me being together. So there’s that.) Not that the anxiety makes me want to drink. Surprisingly, I’ve only really, really wanted to drink once or twice since I got sober. Most days I don’t think about it too much. So there’s that.

Instead, I’m just left with practically zero recourse to deal with the resulting anxiety. I don’t want to drink it away…but I do want it to go away. I haven’t gotten great at channeling it yet. Rarely do I successfully turn it into something I can utilize, like energy. Mostly, I just sit around twisting, burning it off by worrying and hand-wringing.

 

So all of this is supposition at this point. I mean, Steven’s surprised me so far. He’s answered every question I’ve had. He’s been honest. He’s been romantic and forthcoming. He says to me that he knows who and what I am…and that’s who he wants. He’s demonstrated that in so many ways. The only thing that makes me not believe him is my own well-nurtured paranoia.

There’s…just so much pressure surrounding this situation. Because we live so far away from each other, we’re afforded small chunks of time to spend together. So everything seems…immediate. And the emotions are running really high. And it’s not like we’re going to play checkers this weekend, either, if you get my drift.

 

And it’s not that I’m not ready. I just don’t know how to quiet the voices in my head. I don’t know how to quiet the self-doubt, the positively nasty parts of me that tear me down every time. Because seriously? I’d like to chloroform that bitch. At least for about 72 hours anyway.

The thing is, I didn’t plant these seeds of not-good-enough, no-one-wants-you-that-way, you’re-damaged, you’re-too-much. They were planted deep in my psyche a long time ago. But the thing is, they’re my creations now. Because at some point, I took over the duties and responsibilities for watering them and feeding them enough bullshit to keep them growing high and strong.

Here’s what I don’t want to do: I don’t want to check out. I don’t want to emotionally (or worse, physically) bail. I don’t want to close my eyes and go somewhere else just to get through the churning anxiety. Because I love him so much – he’s my friend, after all – and that’s the point of sobriety: to not check out. To be present in the moment. Do not, as my sponsor reminded me, keep one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow. “Do that and you’ll piss all over today,” she wryly told me.

Yeah. I know all about that.

As I Am

To say that the last 87 days have been life-changing is the biggest understatement I’ve ever uttered.

Put simply, they’ve been the best of my life. I didn’t know I could be so peaceful, happy or that my breath could be taken away like this. I am blown away. Hell, I hardly have anything snarky to say – my sarcasm gene has almost been rendered completely inert. I barely know what to do with myself anymore.

Since my last blog, I’ve let my parents in on the fact that their only child is, as it turns out, an alcoholic, will always be an alcoholic, and sits around kvetching with other alcoholics in AA meetings. Considering my mother’s irrational reaction to me acquiring another cat, I was nervous about telling her about my latest revelation. The news of my alcoholism was, I was convinced, going to be yet another notch on my All The Ways In Which I’m Fucked belt. Seriously, if I just made a list of all the bullshit I’ve experienced, caused, been a part of or suffered from in my lifetime it’d make the most cynical person alive weep into their morning coffee.

And much to my absolute, utter surprise, she was calm…eerily so. Although I would have sworn to the contrary, it turns out that she and my father had both mentioned to each other that hey, their kid might have a drinking problem. Knowing my mother’s penchant for pointing out any/every thing I’m doing incorrectly, I was shocked at her lack of confrontation. But I get it: who wants to acknowledge that their kid has a substance abuse problem.

So when my parents didn’t whirl off over the news, and instead congratulated me for what basically amounted to handling something like an adult for the first time in my life, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. I knew it was one of those things that God had His hands all over. It sure wasn’t my doing: I fuck up virtually everything I’ve ever touched.

It was at this point that I began to be less resentful about having to give up a vice I purportedly “loved.” Most of you know I had lamented the idea of having to get sober – because it just wasn’t fair. I couldn’t have anything I wanted: booze, cigarettes, as many Marc Jacobs bags as I wanted, a whole fucking cake. My personality precluded me from using those things in the way I wanted.

I wondered what I’d do without it all, especially my beloved alcohol. I drank every day for almost 10 years. And I wasn’t picky. White wine, red wine, beer, hard liquor. I just wanted it – needed it – in my system. And I could drink just about anyone under the table. On a regular night, I drank the equivalent of about 12 shots of vodka. Any more than that and I was guaranteed a black out…which I did several times a week usually. The last year especially, I would stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning drinking, then sleep fitfully for a few hours until it was time to get up a few hours later and go to work.

I was a fucking zombie and I knew, without a doubt, that I had about 15 natural more years of doing this until I eventually killed myself. That’s to say nothing of my chances of being a stupid asshole one night and wrapping my car around a tree, killing myself, or worse, someone else. I felt like bottom-of-the-barrel shit, and I couldn’t function. There was no happiness to be found, anywhere or in anything. I spent so much time wishing I would die. I didn’t want to be here – I was just too much of a chickenshit to check out via my own hands. Which, looking back, is probably a good thing.

Drinking came very close to ruining my entire life, and that I somehow managed to stumble into an AA meeting and save myself is, again, not really my doing. God did that. I was incapable of doing shit that made sense.

It’s fucking profound how good my life has been these past 3 months. Not that days haven’t been hard, or that I haven’t white knuckled my way through not having a drink, or that I haven’t cried my eyes out. But still, through all of that, I’ll take the last 87 days over anything I felt or experienced in the 10 years leading up to it.

I’m simply amazed at not only how merciful God has been with my pitiful ass, but how generous. I cannot believe what I’ve been given. I never, ever, EVER thought I’d experience anything close to this. Perhaps sweetest of all, besides the fact that I don’t mind looking at myself in the mirror every morning, is that love has inexplicably, wonderfully, miraculously drifted into my life.

Someone I’ve known almost my entire life, who I reconnected with months and months ago, and who was there for me in the darkest of all my hours. Someone I felt a connection with, and could only love from afar, was put right in my path, against all odds. There he was, suddenly: front and center.

I knew there was a lesson in seeing this guy again. It was either going to be awkward and terrible and he’d be sorry he signed up to spend an evening catching up with me.

Or.

Or, everything I had wanted for months and months – the connection I knew I felt but didn’t dare dream about – was going to happen, even though I wasn’t at my personal best. Even though I was so early in my sobriety. Even though I had just recently emerged from hell.

I knew God would teach me a lesson. Either I needed to crash & burn, and be reminded that I had lots more work to do before I was suitable for someone, before I could ever be truly lovable.

Or.

Or that all I had to do was walk into an AA meeting and get sober. The rest God would take care of, and yes, I actually was worthy of love just the way I was, at the exact point I was in my life on that day.

That day, not coincidentally, was Easter.

I cannot believe I have this amazing person in my life. And that my feelings for him are totally reciprocated. And that we want a future with each other. And for the first time in years – it feels completely right. We’re both flawed, and wounded. We’ve both learned hard lessons. We’re not young, we’re not new, we’re not naïve. We both have baggage and hang-ups and fears. And yet.

I didn’t expect to find love…not this year, anyway. I’d renewed my celibacy card and pretty much given up. I thought I’d have to be farther along in my sobriety. And thinner. And less fucked-up. And yet…here’s this guy I’ve loved for a while now. And he loves me…(to quote Bridget Jones) just as I am.

 

It’s more than I deserve, and more than I ever hoped for.

Could we crash and burn? Sure. We have a lot working against us, logistically speaking. But I’m all in. I blew a shot I had at love a decade ago. Fuck if I’m doing it again. Wild horses couldn’t keep me from giving it a go at this point. And yes, the profundity of my first sober relationship in 10 years isn’t lost on me either. So far, it’s been a beautiful thing.

We’re not going public with it right now for a few reasons, but when we do it’ll make sense to people who personally know me. There might be a collective, “Ahhhhh,” and knowing nods from those who know us both. Because we have a lot of mutual friends, and my guess is that they’ll love the pairing. Because we kind of make a lot of sense.

Incidentally, they call this ethereal, crazed euphoria the Pink Cloud in AA. Most of us experience it at different times, and we’re cautioned by the old timers not to get too caught up in it. I couldn’t give a fuck. I love every second of it. I know it won’t last forever, that life will eventually catch up with me and shit will actually get hard. My plan is just to keep my nose to the grindstone and not get complacent, and say the prayer I’ve been saying since I got sober, which is: Thank you.

And counting

This post has been tumbling around my brain for a good long while now, and I was terribly conflicted about what to say. So as the gray matter and synapses started firing, my first instinct was just to let ‘em fire…and sit on it. So I did. And I suppose that brings me to where I am today.

I told you all a while ago that there was soon coming a day when you would wake up and for you, it would feel like any other day. But that for me, that day would be something different entirely. A true, life-or-death road split for me. And it was, and has been.

I’m tempted to sit here and say that 2011 was my worst year, followed shortly after by 2012. But that’s not really accurate. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had what’s qualified as a good year, but if I have, it sure as hell wasn’t anytime in the past decade. I’ve been a fucking rotten mess since, oh, sometime in 2003, and I never recovered. I started on a decade-long descent. It was riddled with the darkest depression, anxiety, self-hatred, doubt, poor decisions, giving precisely zero fucks, denial, arrogance, and breathtaking heartache.

But I guess if we’re looking for silver linings, then I can say this: that slide – the descent – has stopped (somewhat). I stopped it. The shit of it is, I’m now at the bottom of it all, and the only way to get back up that bitch is to start climbing. I don’t want to, I wish there were another way, I’m still exhausted as fuck, but I don’t see how else this can work. No one said it was going to be easy.

I knew – and have known – without a shadow of a doubt, that if I kept my pace as of late, I wouldn’t make it to 50. And the truth? I didn’t want to. Any number of things could have gotten me, but I knew that either my body – or more likely, my mind – would turn on me and that’d be it.

And in addition, I most certainly was, with my behavior, cementing my fate of being alone. I couldn’t stand to be around myself; how could anyone else have stood me, either? I wanted a ticket out of here, and I didn’t care what I had to do to get it: I could either die or get better. The first option seemed a helluva lot easier, albeit permanent in a crappy kind of way. So then what?

I was simply out of options.

I knew this, in its entirety, by early November last year. The truth had started to settle over me. And while this was ticking around in my head, and I was wondering whether I really had to take action or if I could simply, literally, give up and hope to die, I found myself sitting across from my Dad one day this past Thanksgiving.

Blessedly (or not), he’s never been one to comment on my life. He’s certainly made proclamations that I’m clearly supposed to learn from. But he’s never been an advice giver or a micromanager. Usually I just took this as a sign that he didn’t care. I was resentful because I felt like he checked out on really understanding me a long time ago. As someone who hates maladies, details, strife and unbridled emotion, he mostly just left me alone.

So when he told me, this past Thanksgiving, in the nicest way possible that I needed to get a life, it literally took every goddamned thing I had in me not to start sobbing right there at the kitchen table…which would have brought his soliloquy to a grinding halt.  I was trying to think of something – anything, baseball, what color socks I had on, the tenets of existentialism – to keep from breaking down, while still keeping my ears open enough to hear what he was saying.

He said it in his way. He was kinder than I thought he would be, and much more so than I deserved. For the first time, I sensed a fear in him that I hadn’t noticed before. He told me I had a lot to live for, and that I needed to get my shit in order. I kept my mouth shut, because I couldn’t have even uttered a response. Anything that came out of me would have sounded as freakish as those goddamned goats-crying-like-humans videos on YouTube.

His timing proved impeccable, as usual. I had already decided that I had to change something, but remained unenthusiastic about the idea, and could have possibly talked myself back into my old lifestyle after a while if left to my own advances. What my Dad said to me resonated. Looking back on it today, I can see it happened at the exact moment it needed to happen. Any earlier and it wouldn’t have registered. Any later, and it might have been too late.

So my only charge, really, was picking a start date. I did so carefully, after considering what would work best for me. I found myself tempted to do a big-run up to it, a “goodbye old me!” celebration, until I realized it wasn’t a celebration at all, and I could easily spend (waste) one more precious month bidding a fuck-you to my demons. They weren’t worth it; I’d given them enough.

My solitude, secrecy, inability to reach out, my charming ways – they had done me a disservice all this time. I was going into this more alone than I ever even realized. Still, alone or not, go I must.

The first days, I cried. A lot. There were clenched fists and white knuckles, and I considered giving up, because I do that very well. I sobbed and sobbed. I told virtually no one. Then I got sick, which cost me two days of work and a solid week of recuperating. I deserved it, but it wasn’t pretty. And still, at no time during any of this did I feel surprised. This was a natural trajectory for me. This was exactly where I was always meant to end up, for better or worse. In a way, I felt like I’d come home.

All of this? It’s new. I don’t like it all the time. In the beginning, my voice shook. I shook. I’ve side-eyed the fuck out of some of what’s been asked of me, and my attitude is still surly as shit. Some things are slow to change, of course. But for all of my genius, I still can’t figure out another way to do this. So I’m stuck with it. Or I can die. Those are my choices.

I wish the uptick in my life were instant. I wish that I were happy and lovable already, that I weren’t still a walking fuckstorm. I wish that my commitment to living better would have already netted me the love and adoration I’ve wanted since I was a kid, but that’s not the case either. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. I have to appreciate the small shit and have faith. God isn’t a huge magic genie/fairy in the sky, and He doesn’t grant wishes. I could turn my life around, do the hard work and still end up alone, because maybe that’s His will. I have hope that’s not the case, but it’s a small hope, and one that can – and has – been crushed almost entirely, even in the past few months. It’s delicate, that hope.

So this – full of trepidation and fear but armed with an overwhelming yet oddly calming idea that this is right – is where I am today: sober for 64 days. And counting.

* (My sincere but humble request if you know me is to keep this to yourself, and for the love of Christ don’t accost my family with anything you’ve read here or mention it on FB. I hate that I have to say it…but I have to say it. I’m just not there yet.)

Still Alive, BTW

Okay, so it’s been a while. Some of you might have legitimately wondered where I’ve been; some who know me personally knew that I was at least among the living all this time. And still others of you might have assumed that my body was found underneath a mound of cat carcasses on an episode of Hoarders because that’s so the direction my life was heading.

(Believe me, of all the pictures Google generated when I searched for “hoarders” and “cats” this was the most innocuous.)

I’ve been quiet because I’ve been busy. And not in the typical sense…but in a good sense. Like, a brain sense. You see, I’ve been planning. And I’ve never been much of a planner (my lack of Girl Scout merit badges would reflect this), so this is – ultimately –  a good thing. And I’ve been emotionally barfing all over my therapist and trying not to conflate spilling my innermosts to her and yakking about them here on my blog. At least, not until I’m ready. I still have a few miles to go with her before I sleep. And by sleep, I mean share it with you lovely people.

I guess it should be considered good news (to me, at least) that my hunches several months ago were mostly correct. I’m not trying to be overly cryptic, but I don’t want to make any hasty announcements and/or proclamations without first doing a little bit of hard work. That would be so like me. And I’m tired of being me. So I’m setting about to change.

You can go ahead and get in line behind my own ass before you yell out, “Oh, of course! January resolutions! Nice time of the year to change. Cliché much?” Because I know. It *is* a cliché. January is to Weight Watchers like April is to H& R fucking Block. Everyone’s stuffed their eating holes for the past 3 months and they get nervous because their size 10 skinny jeans don’t fit anymore. Boofuckinghoo. But for better or worse, January seems like the most logical time to purge bad habits. I mean, why wait until February?

I hope to avoid the bad January pitfall ju-ju by staying mindful of a few things that make me different. (I’m such a special little snowflake, I know.)

1. This isn’t a whim for me. This is a must-do. Like, do it now because a year could literally be too late. Or I could be too far gone, even more far gone than I already feel right now. I am not in denial anymore. For a long time, I was. Or, rather, I knew what I should *probably* do, but I wasn’t willing to do it. Now I am. Because now I know I have to.
2. Like I said earlier, I have a plan. One I have weighed carefully, and it’s a two-parter. First have to take step A, which will make taking step B that much easier and more rewarding.
3. I know this will suck sweaty, hairy dragon balls. This little upcoming journey will suck harder than anything I’ve ever had to do before. It will not be fun, it will not be easy, I will want to quit, revert, make excuses, take the easy way out. And I have virtually zero support system, meaning even extra suckage. In fact, there’s a good chance I will run into plenty of misunderstanding, enabling, denial and people willing to make excuses for me. Still, I cannot be deterred.
4. I’m prepared for the suckage. I expect the suckage. For once, I am not doing any of this for anyone other than myself. I can’t think of the last time I did anything for the betterment of myself. Sure, I’ve done things after being shamed, goaded, bribed, threatened, and coerced. And sometimes it even worked…but not for long.
5. Because I have nothing to lose right now. No social life, no husband, no lover, no kids. I am not doing anything in order to maintain what’s currently in my life. I’ll be doing this in order to have a life.
6. I know I will cry and be angry that I am having to sacrifice so much. I will bitch and moan – probably in this venue – that it’s not fair I can’t have a fucking vice. That I can’t have a package of cookies in my pantry like a normal person. That I can’t have a cigarette or have a drink like a normal person. But when have I ever been normal?
7. If I don’t do this for myself, I will disappear. Everything about me that makes me ME will vanish. I already feel like a shadow. If I continue, I’ll truly become one. And there’s no one in my life who’s close enough to me to pull me back from that. Right now, I am my own best hope.

Now, I know all of this happy Pollyanna feel-good horseshit sounds GREAT. It’s that rah-rah crap we’ve all gotten used to auto-clapping for. I feel like I should be on the stage with Sally Jesse Fucking Raphael or some such shit. Believe me, none of that is lost on me.

Just know that one day this January, you will wake up and it will feel like an ordinary day to you. But that somewhere, in another country or simply on the other side of town, it is THE day for me. It is THE day that my life, as I know it and as I’ve lived it, has caught up with me. My number has been called and I have a choice to make. I can either get my shit together or I can die. It’s that simple.

So, enough. It’s time to pull it together. Please stay tuned for future obligatory bitching and moaning. (I promise to make it funny. And use inappropriate pictures.)

 

 

 

 

I, Lindsay Lohan

I’ve been itching to write a new blog post for a while. But, as I lamented to my new shrink Sunny last week, I feel like I just say the same thing over and over. I don’t know how any of you put up with me! There are a select few bloggers I follow, and I always find myself amazed at how fresh they keep their posts, while still maintaining their own distinct voice and charm.

(If y’all aren’t reading Samantha Irby’s “Bitches Gotta Eat” you’re missing out. Shit is hysterical. HYSTERICAL.)

I sometimes get the feeling that for y’all, reading my blog must be a bit like watching Lindsay Lohan. You know: entertaining to some extent, and undeniable talent hidden somewhere underneath those jank-ass extentions, rogue freckles, and lip collagen. But watching her career arc (if we can legitimately call it that anymore; isn’t it really just a countdown to when she succumbs and does hard-core porn?) is frustrating, because she never changes. She pays lip service to change. She tries to Tweet shit that sounds coherent and Zen. She’ll show up to an event looking like she’s only 38 instead of 48 and you think, “Hey! She’s looking better!” But then she’s accused of stealing someone’s shit and we’re back to Square One with that bitch. I mean, we’ve heard it all before. How many times can you get in trouble?

(Fresh as a bouquet of daisies in a vase of powder-scented Massengill.)

So. I’m not your huckleberry, but I’m damn sure your Lindsay Lohan.

Unlike that ho, however, I am aware of my scenario. Painfully aware, actually. (And my mother’s not a pill-popping enabler who sasses Dr. Phil.)

(A great case for government-sanctioned sterilization.)

I’ve been thinking about it, and here lately, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not just the universe’s amalgam of karma, emptied all onto one bitch who really deserved it. I say that because, thanks to Facebook, I get to see all the people I’ve known in my lifetime. And I’m chagrined to say that all the losers – the kids who were high all through high school, the guy who dropped out of community college because he got a stripper pregnant, the girl who was forever getting fingered by a different guy at the movies in 8^th grade, the girl who cheated her way through college, the guy who got arrested for car theft, the chick who at 17 ran off with a 30-something year old ex-felon. The druggies, skanks, justice evaders, crooks, liars, nerds, bitches and insufferable asshole jocks all seem to have risen above their lot in life. And again, thanks to the advent of Facebook, I get to see that they’ve aged surprisingly well, have settled down, have reasonably good jobs, have kids, nice houses, and – most importantly – a grasp on what it’s like to be a grown-up.

I’m jealous because I don’t have any of that. I feel like I’ve been in a stasis for twenty years, and I – who had so many opportunities, who had it easy in so many ways, who had so much potential and at times was on the brink of something great and maybe even brilliant – blew it. And I have nothing to show for it. At this point, if you told me that I could either go to my 20 year class reunion in a few years to go hang out in a cave full of Al-Qeada operatives, I’d choose the latter, hands down. Less agonizing; more dignity.

Shade it any way you want, but I’m well on my way to becoming a childless, never-married spinster, and it’s no one’s fault but my own. Even if I started today to radically change my life, and met someone rather quickly, you’re still talking about getting married at 40 – and my chances of having a natural child being thusly diminished. And why? Because I did it to myself. That’s a big, horse-sized bitter pill to swallow. (But dip that shit in batter, fry it and serve it with a side of ranch, and I’ll choke it down in no time.)

(Texas State Fair, y’all.)

I have some sort of an off-shoot of the “paralysis by analysis” theory – in other words, you’re so consumed with overthinking a situation that you ultimately fail to act. I’m not so much paralyzed by over-analyzing something as I am by the sheer load of what I have to accomplish. I’m not just dealing with one incredibly problematic behavior: I’m dealing with several. On top of having a proclivity toward depression (and being stubbornly unmedicated for no apparent reason), I also can turn anything into an addiction. It’s why I never tried hard drugs: I knew I’d love them too much. I would have been one of those bitches on Intervention blowing 62 year old biker guys for a fiver to buy meth with. So I began a love affair with any and everything that would make me feel good, numb out, feel full, and get my mind off of what it felt like to be me.

Here’s where I struggle. The best chance I have of ever getting to my personal best is, in my opinion, adapting some extreme eating allowance (zero carbs, or strictly vegan), committing to working out at least 5 days a week, back on meds, intense therapy, and total abstinence from alcohol. And probably giving up my TV. Basically, becoming insufferable.

Looking at that makes me panicky, if I’m being honest. Because in that breakdown, I don’t see where my comfort is. There’s nowhere to hide in that list. While doing all of those things in total would come the closest to helping me escape the things I hate about myself the most (by turning me into a damn-near new person) those things are, individually, devoid of a sense of humor or whimsy, not to mention comfort. And if I am anything, I am addicted to self-soothing. Believe me, if left with that list, I’d be the type to figure out how to get high from exercise and eventually make that into something unhealthy.

Because that’s what I do. I take legal, normal, everyday things and turn them into something that I end up having a serious problem controlling. I wonder how much of a correlation there is between full-blown addicts and OCD. Because a long time ago, I had a doctor straight-up tell me I had OCD. Strangely, it’s not been mentioned since, and because I’ve had more shrinks than I can recall, details like that tend to get lost from transfer to transfer.

For as long as I remember, I’ve found that I’m the type of person who’s always on some kind of kick. And I’ve always had fixations. Serious, life-controlling fixations. Sometimes it’s a person. Or it could be a particular article of clothing, a color, a particular food, a TV show, a routine, an idea. And when I’m done with it, I’m usually very done – not wanting to revisit it for a very long time, if ever again. I’ll just wear myself out on something until it’s usually no longer very desirable. Which means that at some point, I will get tired of eating the delicious shrimp tacos for dinner every Friday night, but they will most definitely be replaced with something else that’s just as calorically frightening.

Aside: That said, why aren’t celery sticks addicting? (And for any of you health-nuts out there who are about to write a comment telling me how you find celery sticks addicting, please go gently fuck yourself. Because I don’t believe you.)  Why is it that only fattening shit tastes good to me? Now, that’s not to say that if I adapted a “clean” eating routine, I wouldn’t eventually crave the healthier shit and that the idea of a shrimp poboy smothered in roumalade would give me a case of the voms. I mean, that’d be great.

What I’m rebelling against here is that for my entire life, people have been encouraging me to eat healthy because I’ve always been a chunky monkey who had people around her who were overly focused on my body and my weight. And because I feel like being a little bastard most of the time, I’ve forever shunned the idea of eating healthy and, when the situation permitted, ate whatever the fuck I felt like. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past 7 years, because the situation indeed permitted.

Now, you all can Dr. Phil the shit out of me here and tell me in your deep, mustachioed Texan drawl to grow up. And I should. I should stop rebelling, stop trying to piss people off, stop being stubborn, stop making a point and stop being a control cretin and do what’s best for me because if I don’t, no one else is going to look out after me, and I’ll be wholly responsible for the failure that is my life.

I need to, in a very Al Pacino kind of way, say goodbye to my little friends. I need to admit that I can handle very little in my life, and can no longer handle tasty shit and the sweet nectar. (How awesome of a band name would that be, BTW? Introducing, “Tasty Shit and The Sweet Nectar!”) But I look on them lovingly. Food has brought me so much comfort, has literally lulled me into countless food comas and ushered me into deep sleeps. And I’m so much fun when I drink! No more wine for me, ever? EVER?

That’s why when I said I needed to be on a strict diet, I meant it. I don’t do well with diets that allow me an inch here or there, like Weight Watchers. I need a diet where I can have all of this shit that I want, and NONE of that shit over there. Very indicative of my personality. Abstinence is key for me (and millions of fundie Christian kids!) and yet the idea, while potentially life saving and life renewing, makes me so sad I could quite literally cry.

And then that turns to anger. Why is it I can’t have nice things? (And by nice things, I mean vodka and cake.) Why must my body chemistry dictate that I would be best off eliminating all flour, sugar, rice, potatoes, dairy and alcohol from my diet? What in the name of Natalie Portman “macarons at my wedding” hell does that turn me into? Can’t a bitch have a vice? Fuck! I quit smoking 13 years ago, and instead of getting praise for that shit, haters are all like, “Nice. But you’re still going to die soon, Fatty Fat Fat Fat.” So no cancer sticks, no alcohol, no goddamned chocolate or starch. Because if I do, I’ll have to have more and more and more. I do best when I don’t even have a little bite.

(You’re right; I can’t eat just one.)

I’ll sullenly kick a rock here and pout about how it’s just not fair. So many motherfuckers have had it so much easier than I have. I don’t want to have to fight so hard every day. Not that I even think I have it in me anyway. The energy and sheer determination and will-power this new lifestyle would take is daunting as FUCK. I truly, literally do not think I have it in me. I don’t know what to dip into – what well, what reservoir – to get the strength necessary to even get in the right mind-frame here. Because isn’t this all about getting right in your head first? In my head and heart, I’ll need to commit to this, and that’s no small feat: I rarely commit to shit.

Knowing what drastic (and they are drastic) measures I must change in order to even begin to have the kind of life I want turns me into what Alec Baldwin becomes when asked to stop playing Words With Friends on the airplane: a bitter, fuck-spewing anger monster. I am so angry that this is where I am, I am so angry that this is my reality, I am so angry that this seems to be the only way.

I was talking to a friend of mine last night who also struggles with depression, and she was in a bad place. Depression, especially when coupled with anxiety, is an insidious disease. And possibly the worst part is that there’s still such a stigma surrounding it. There’s still so much misunderstanding and ignorance surrounding the topic. I mean, you’ve got entire movements like Tom Cruise’s glib ass and all of CO$ telling you to drink barley water and go in for an audit instead of taking an antidepressant.

It’s crazy. Even well-educated people will take a glance at your life and say something well-meaning yet incredibly trite. Everyone seems to have a sound-bite about taking one day at a time, or just going for a walk, or just cleaning one room instead of tackling the whole house. And you just want to be all, “Trick, please. I congratulate myself when I pick up an ice cube I dropped on the floor, because normally I just leave it there to let it melt. Fuck you.” If you’ve never dealt first-hand with depression, you don’t know the bone-fucking fatigue that comes with it, along with a hearty dose of not giving a rat’s badonk. Combine those two and it’s not a good thing.

My need to overindulge and numb-out is probably directly correlated to needing to tamp down extreme anxiety. This is anxiety I had as a kid – and I had no earthly idea what it was, but I figured out in quick time how to keep it at bay. What was once a survival mechanism quickly turned into a crutch and half-addiction. So imagine my….well, anxiety at the thought of giving up everything I’ve ever depended on to calm me down when I’m feeling anxious. Crazy circle.

Unfortunately, I fear I’m one of those people who will have to hit some kind of low, and although I’ve been hovering at a pretty good goddamned low for almost a year now, I haven’t bottomed out yet. Scary, I know.

So to those of you who’ve noticed that I’ve been writing less, this is why: your own personal Lohan doesn’t want you to be bored, since I do tend to repeat myself, narratively speaking.

I was telling Sunny that in a way, I think a lot of you are rooting for me, either because you know me, or because you love a good comeback story. (Or both.) And back to the original Lohan, wouldn’t we love to see her have a comeback? America loves comebacks. Robert Downey, Jr. Drew Barrymore. Britney. We eat that shit up…except when they half-heartedly try and fail because they’re still a cracked-out thieving mess like Lohan. In order to extract a perfect comeback, you almost get one shot. In other words, you have to be serious.

I’m trying. I just don’t know what it’s going to take.

Protected: Childhood Revisited, Part 5

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