Sixty Degrees and a Hot Cab

Finishing out a prescription bottle of pot and then not doing that anymore. It's still not for me, but I am better at it than I used to be. An attempt to sate that goddamn transcendence void that left with alcohol.

"Just work on the things you love!"

"Take a class!"

"Aw you don't need that!"

Sitting on my bed. Typing. No, I won't die without the feeling of transcendence, but it brings me small amounts of joy that I've yet to find elsewhere.

"Try meditation!"

"Get plenty of sleep!"

"No, really, try meditation!"

I do meditate, and since becoming medicated, I sleep much better. I drink large amounts of water and I get a good amount of fresh air.

I think about home a lot. Who I was there and what I had. How it had a short lifespan and if I was there now it would be over and I would have no hope.

I know that when I walk into a room you wish I hadn't.

I stay in this one.

Focus. Paint. Draw. Try to write, try to write music. Nothing really comes out and I think it is an after effect of the pot and an inability to focus rather than a side effect of the medication (even though that is what happened last time). Think about money. And think about how to sleep. Think about connection, and think about how to wake.

I really have no idea what tomorrow will be. I never know anymore. No sense of stability and no sense of safety. Constant state of anxiety. When I meditate I focus on the fear and try to expel it and maybe I have to some degree. I'd be in an awful state if I hadn't, maybe.

This tea tastes like hot cabernet.

An idea strikes me and I think it is a dangerous one so I type this sentence to let it out of my brain and I move on.

I try to move on.

Work in an hour.

At home it has snowed and people are shoveling and cold and slipping on ice and shivering and holding each other and eating dinner together and walking in it all, hand in hand. Watching a film. Hand in hand. Smiling. Hand in hand. Freezing. Hand in hand.

60 degrees here and I am sitting on my bed typing in the toxic yellow light of nicotine stained bulbs and I am thinking of so many of you.

Okay, It's the New Year

Okay, it's the New Year. 

Central timezone feels like the silver medal new year.

So, where am I? To look back later, where am I? Where do I think I am, anyway?

I am beginning my fifth month in Austin, Texas. I have met only a handful of people and I don't think I consider any of them friends. I am two weeks into my second job here (third if you count the one that I skipped out on the first day). Me, as per usual. 

I am 130 days sober (or somewhere in that area), and I have never had a drink in Texas, which, 'Land o' Cowboys' seems like a wasted moment, but it's one I am happy to sacrifice.

I am (we are) mending, or attempting to mend, a relationship that though we both abused it, I beat it to near death. Gasping and spitting blood and broken teeth and swollen blackened skin. Bottle in hand and mental illness completely unchecked, I tore through love and connection with complete galactic apathy. And now we cautiously thread needles and speak quietly and we sew the small patches together and we hope. I hope.

The mental illness, however, is now, officially, checked. Witnessed, assessed, diagnosed, checked. I am a few weeks into medication and the effects are noticeable. I am calm. I can breathe and brush away intrusive and destructive feelings. I can sleep. Well, I sleep better than normal. Occasionally panic sneaks up on me and I have a pill for those moments and they work, but they make me drowsy. Mute my libido. Didn't kill it, but told it to shut the fuck up for a few minutes once in a while. A welcome change. I do sometimes note that I can still feel the untamed ups and downs, but my brain refuses to acknowledge them and I end up in a bit of a haze when that happens.

I'm lonely. I'm uncertain about the future. That makes it difficult to plant roots. To reach out and start a life here. Uncertainty ignored leads to disaster. Leads to unpreparedness, but am I really all in if I even consider other options?

Am I really all in if I consider what I am going to do if none of this works out?

If I start to drink again?

If I can't keep a job again?

If I lose my connection with her?

If I can't afford my medication and therapy?

Oh, but the loneliness. I realize that may have sounded mopier than I wanted it to.

This year unfolded the way it did because I needed to fix myself or die. I have been to behavior units. Twice. Short term doesn't work for me. Nothing works for me unless I really, honestly, want it to. I hit bottom in March and I stepped out onto the road and I began a journey I am still on. I am lonely because it is necessary. I need to know myself first. I need to understand myself. I need to listen to myself. Away from distractions. Friends and bands (though I miss them both deeply), strangers, and people who think they knew me. I needed away from that and now I find myself hesitant to rekindle that spark here, in Austin. 

I am fearful of the person I was, and right now, in these first moments of 2019, I have no idea who I am. Not yet, anyway.

I'll find out.

Maybe not this year, but eventually, and that is my sunset. My draw to keep walking.

Someday, I will know exactly who I am, and I will be thankful.