Darkness Chronicles

The darkness continues......here:

http://www.drinking-diaries.blogspot.com/

The circle goes something like this....a man, let's call him oh....Boyfriend AntiChrist.....shows up in my life. Says all the right things - either flattery or guilt inducing or sometimes just so fucking vicious that the words leave slices across my flesh and I relent....Anyway - he shows up - he does his thing.......and I, believing what he says (whether it's good or bad).....open the door and let him back in.

Do I regret it?............Always. Everytime.

Welcome to Hell

So....the circle spins relentlessly.....Boyfriend AntiChrist is in my life - out of my life - in my life - out of my life.....I cry, I heal.....it starts all over again.......it's degrading and discouraging to have so little power in your own life....

So - I wait for the bullshit to start all over again.......because it always starts all over again....then while waiting in limbo, very unexpectedly I met someone new....someone sort of wonderful. I wasn't looking - because I wasn't ready. I tried really hard not to like him....but I do like him. A lot. Which sort of scares me. He's actually very sweet. He keeps surprising me every time I turn around....He kind of gives me hope that there is life beyond Boyfriend AntiChrist...

But, of course like clock work - Boyfriend AntiChrist has shown up again.....and the vicious circle starts spinning.

Only diffference....is this time - I want nothing to do with it.....or him!

I have fucked up royally in the past couple of days. My life will be forever changed.  How can I even think about being thankful?

It's simple really.

I will get through this. My life will go on. I will continue to write & take pictures & even breath.

Because I have friends. Wonderful wonderful friends. Who look at me without judgment, who take me out for coffee, or walk through the park with me, or just call to say they are thinking about me. It's those moments that give me the grace to carry on in the face of tumultuous problems.

For you....

I am thankful.

The opposite of love is not hate.

                   The opposite of love is indifference...

...Ciao

I sort of like that you think you know how crazy I am. It’s sweet. It makes me like you more.

I sort of like being a little crazy. I sort of like being a little left of center. I sort of like not fitting in

Crazy? Maybe.

anywhere. I sort of like being promiscuous. I sort of like being prudish. I sort of like all the saints that keep me in line. I sort of like all the sinners that inhabit my day to day life.

I sort of like being me

I remember my mother telling me when I was very young that I was like a cat. If there was trouble to be had I was always in the middle of it, yet somehow I always landed on my feet. This was usually the speach that preceeded the sentence of 2 weeks grounding. I heard that so much growing up it soaked into my psyche and I've always sort of just leapt without looking and never really thought about the consequences.

I leapt all over the place and with only a few bruises to show for my bravada. But, then I started taking bigger leaps. I leapt to New Orleans - it kicked my ass and I llimped into Seattle licking my wounds. I leapt into love - it kicked my ass and now I'm terrified to leap. I used to be fearless but I think I've forgotten how to land on my feet.

Falling

So now I go to therapy on a regular basis. Mostly I go so I can talk about the same shit I’ve been talking about for 3 years and not drive all my friends completely away. I see their faces when they hear his name or catch the tone of my voice when I start talking about my creative lull – They are wonderful, my friends – but they are sick of it.

Then there are moments – in between therapy appointments when my world implodes. So when the panic, angst, loneliness and anger that live just below the surface overflow my tenuous lockdown and spills all over my friends, family & co-workers or when I lament uncontrollably and those subject to the spillage have no choice but to roll their eyes, pat my back and tell it will be okay. I'm sure they'd like to yell "He's a douche bag - move the fuck on." or "Just write something for Christ Sake." But they don't, because they are wise and wonderful.

Sarah:  “An addict will give you the shirt of his back, but he’ll never have your back.”

Lori: “You need a guy who GETS you. Or who at least WANTS to get you.”

Amy:  “What you think you want and what you really need are two different things.”

Their wisdom makes me brave. I mean, I'm standing on the edge anyway.....why not leap?

I had terrible, horrible no good dreams last night and woke up with a crushing feeling of dread.

I took a deep breath and made my way to the kitchen where the promise of coffee offered to cut through some of this fog of angst. I fed the kitties, curled up in my reading chair with my coffee and just kept taking deep calming breaths hoping the feeling would subside. It felt like something was wrong or missing, like I'd forgotten something. Like I should phone home to see if anyone has died.

And then it dawned on me. I am missing something. Something solid and substantial. A deep connection with another human being. I used to have that with my daughter when she was growing up, but now she's married and living away and has reappointed her deep connection to her husband.

I tried, in vain, over the past 2 years to build this type of connection with the man I was with - but it didn't matter how hard I tried it ultimately ended up being superficial and empty. He honestly is barely capable of connecting let alone one with any depth. I kept pushing in for more only to come up empty handed at every level. It bummed me out and wore me out.

I'm not a hermit. My social calendar is pretty full. I have hobbies and interests. I have friends who are great. I have friends with benefits who are great. I have family who is mostly great. I have a lot of really great stuff in my life but lately this growing sense of unease has been tapping against my brain and this morning I finally put my finger on it. Where is my deep connection to another living soul? Who is going to care enough about me to take care of me when I'm old and ugly and full of cancer?

Me & Chuck

Okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic - but this morning waking up with this heavy dread I remembered what I had forgotten. No one has died. I didn't do anything that I regret. I'm not heartbroken about my breakup. I'm just not deeply connected to anyone, and I need it. I crave it. The dread feeds and grows fat on my pessimism of knowing that I will probably never have it.

Henry Rollins said "My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud." Well Henry, I wear chucks and don't get loud unless I'm drunk....so.....now what?

I'm not feeling very fresh these days.....that is to say I feel sick and dirty. I've showered a million times in scalding water and this feeling just won't go away.

I have a sickness - it might as well be cancer because it's wrecking havoc with my life, but it's not cancer. I'm love sick. It's gotten so out of control that it's affected every part of my life. The anger and disillusionment that goes along with love sickness will go away and I'll emerge from this angry shell I'm wrapped in right now, but what I'm worried about more than being an angry shrew with too many cats is that I'm stuck in an uncreative void. What used to flow so freely onto canvas, paper, and film is now a noisy chaotic, water logged space inside my brain.

There is no magic pill or powder to make me feel springtime fresh. As a matter of fact, I will never be springtime fresh again, but if I can scrap away the dirt and debris that I've collected from being drug through the mud for the last two years, I will at least be fresher.

I'm here for my "Forget That Asshole" booster shot.

Removing toxins doesn't come through sex or drugs or booze. It comes through stillness. I have to place duct tape over the mouth of my inner critic (who has been greatly influenced by a particularly negative outer critic). I have to sit still and listen to the noise in my head. If I can't find a way to be still I'll never figure out what I've forgotten and it will continue to be a noise that interferes with my creative life. I'll forever be stuck in the perpetual loop of love sickness.

So. If you need me, I'll be quietly sitting with my muse learning how to be an artist again.

Change is coming. I can feel it. I'm like Jim Nightshade at the carnival and Something Wicked This Way....is coming.

Almost 3 years ago my life turned upside down and I felt detached completely from my body and life. I bought a house and moved after being in the same apartment for 10 years (the apartment that I raised my daughter in). Both of my cats died within  5 months of each other and my daughter got married and moved to another state. I was left alone sitting in a house that didn't feel like mine with 2 new kitties that didn't feel like mine. I cried myself to sleep every night for months. None of the change was bad really, but it was too much at once and I was shouldering it alone.

When I stopped crying. I started renovating. I started dating. I stopped calling the kitties "replacements" and started living my life. Which no longer felt like it was in upheaval mode. It was mine and it was new and exciting and promising.

Change

Fast forward 3 years....radical change has come to roost outside my door again. The mistrusting winds have started blowing and there are times when I don't recognize my life. I loved - and lost. I renovated - and overextended myself financially. I lost weight and gained a sneaky little food issue - now my body is responding by growing a soft covering of downy fur and plunging full steam ahead into chronedom.

I remember this panicky feeling where what I want and what is available to me are two very different things. I know it will pass and that change must happen or we stop growing, but there is very little solice in that right now. There is, however two constants brought over from the last round of radical change. The kitties who have shredded their way into both my couch and my life.... and the girl who looks back at me in the mirror every morning. I swear I know her from somewhere...but I just can't put my finger on it.

It will come to me.....eventually.