60 days sober

some self-reflection, diary entries

me not doing drugs, but my 100mg lamictal to keep me sane (& 40mg prozac… & 300 mg gabapentin… & 75mg seroquel…)

this weekend i turned 60 days sober and i didn’t even feel like celebrating. in truth the last few days have been tough; the weather is finally changing and with it my mood. the arms of depression are strange, a heavy wool sweater that itches and weighs down my shoulders but also smells faintly like the mildew of my childhood home. my long lost twin, i imagine her kicking big-eyed mania to the curb, catching her in one fist and crushing her to dust, like she never even existed. that’s how it feels. but after sleeping and reading (and eating!) all weekend i finally woke up from sunday’s second nap remembering what it means to be alive (i had been listing it out loud to myself all week). maybe my medications finally kicked in maybe my sun lamp worked maybe god finally took pity on me but all i know is i woke up this morning and things feel okay. i survived another bout of turbulence substance-free the plane was shaky my boat was rocky but through it all my cup runneth over. i’m 60 days sober.

here are some excerpts from my diaries these past couple weeks. along with swinging moods and reminiscences, i’ve been reacquainting myself with writing; i finished a big project a month ago and am back to square one. writing out my thoughts & memories is one way to paddle back into the stream. i thought i would share some of my swim. enjoy <3

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9.24

I’ve been afraid to pick up the pen, though my mind is full of racing ideas. I’m building, I’m creating, I’m molting; winter is coming. It’s been so warm and beautiful outside but I can feel it in my bones. It smells like apprehension.

Even holding the pen right now is hurting my hand. Gripping too tight or too loose; have I ever used this tool before? My neck hurts and there are rocks in my calves.

I feel low, depleted. But I don’t feel unhappy. More like consciously blank. Part of me is afraid I’ll never write well again. But that’s what I always think before my greatest piece grows. This isn’t interesting writing. My thoughts don’t always spin gold. I’ve been working on longevity, working to make sure I’m able to grow old. And that is enough and that is enough and that is enough and that is enough and that is enough

I close my eyes and see my name in lights. Strange song lyrics play in the depth of my ear, chords I can’t quite hear—will I ever love again? Forgive me so we can be in love again. That one makes me think of that one dive bar, in Bushwick. I made out with the part owner, I did it for fun and I did it for P. I know invisible string theory is real because I haven’t seen her once. That was a fun night. My future seemed so bright but impossible to reach; East Williamsburg skaters and dive bars and cute boys and cute girls and cigarettes and Greenpoint and living forever. I made M. go shot for shot with me that night and he threw up in the bushes. They wanted me to eat pizza but I wouldn’t. So what if I was slurring my words I was in control of my mind and that’s what I wanted to let go of. Jester hat on my head whole world in my hand.

I never realize people are in love with me until they aren’t. M. loved me even when he still had a girlfriend. He was a nerd and I was a blackout so obviously I couldn’t see it. I loved to get boys drunk, girls too. After margarita towers one time he kept holding my hand. We play fought as a joke. A month later I slapped him in bed. I wanted him to slap me back but he refused, he and the other boys. I guess I only attract cowboys.

I can’t remember if that girl C. slapped me all I know is she fucked me with a big black dildo. We matched on Hinge and got drinks at a rooftop bar she was surprised I actually wanted to hold a conversation. It was an early fuck we were done by midnight. Good because the next morning I sat in temple half-drunk my cousin’s kid was getting bat mitzvahed. I had so many bruises on my legs I wore my tall leather boots. One time on a Wednesday I made M. fuck me even though he didn’t want to. Finally he went is this what you want and thrust his dick into me while pinning my hands above my head hard. I woke up little bruises dotted my wrists I wondered if I was in love.

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9.29

Midday break today my eyes are heavy. This morning I woke up thinking about how I never kept track of everybody I’ve ever fucked and now I’m too old and it’s too late. I don’t even know my body count (though I can guess). I remember one of the first weekends of sophomore year one of my (new) friends gave me a rundown on everyone she’s ever kissed. Everyone I’ve ever kissed? At that point I probably could’ve listed everyone I’d ever fucked, could probably count on one hand, but I gave out kisses like candy, I kissed all my girl friends, boys I liked and boys I didn’t. I always thought it kind of odd when girls would keep lists of their fucks on their phone, tucked away in the Notes app. That made them permanent, that made them real. I preferred to live my life like a video game, leveling up and losing lives but always safe in digital fantasy. Names and dates and numbers made everything real, like seeing your one night stand in the morning light—I would never put in my contacts until they left.

I’ve been wanting to write but it’s been evading me recently, I have so many ideas swirling but when I take out my pen my ink runs dry. I guess it’s the permanence of it all, just like a fuck list, words leave stains even if you erase. Some fucks I don’t even think count. It’s like editing, snipping and cutting until it was never there (but the imprint of words lost haunt in the strangest of ways). I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore…maybe I’m sleep-writing.

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10.6

Writing myself to sleep; this afternoon I found myself pondering my plane of reality. Is this where I’m supposed to be? I decided to pull back the curtain, cut the fabric of time and assess my options.

Though this one is foggy, faded, I catch a glimpse: a student again, writing writing writing. Writing is my sole focus. Ballerina flats and cardigans, my professor takes a special interest in me; I’m too jaded to fall for it, but also too jaded to care. Somehow I’m whisked to Paris, Rome, Milan, LA…city names in lights, mine along with it. It’s an interesting plane paralleling my own, going on in God knows what planet, dimension…it’s not in grasp, nothing is, but it’s a quiet place to daydream.

I step back through the beaded curtain into a world similar to my current subconscious, yet slightly altered, everything tilted just 15 degrees so I moonwalk diagonally and nothing has consequences. I sit outside my local bar and get an espresso martini. I’m alone and it’s Friday eve. I sip and the syrup tastes delicious in my mouth, it tastes like untapped freedom and unforbidden desires, because I don’t limit myself, in fact I don’t have limits. But all the fancy prose in the world can’t cover the fact that fuck it I want a drink, and a cigarette, and I want to enjoy them myself, quiet, calm before the storm, and then like a tempest I want to fucking rage. And then I’ll go out and meet up with my friends, the alcoholic ones, though they function too, and it’s a Wednesday, the best night to go out, and with each tequila shot my brain gets more and more balanced until I’m normal, I’m sober. And my fuck buddy is there, one of my faves because he’s easy and he knows exactly what this is, no questions or answers need to be given, I’m his New York fuck and it’s perfect. Whenever he’s in town I ditch my roster to hang out with him because we have crazy sex, and drink and do drugs and fuck fuck fuck, every morning after too, sometimes during the sunrise because we don’t get home until then. God sometimes I want to re-experience that all so bad, obviously I focus on the good, on this parallel plane the bad doesn’t exist, I’m in nirvana with coke that can’t kill you and mania is just a melody. But now my Seroquel is kicking in, I’m writing this with one eye open because that’s what it does to you, blurry vision and jumpy bones until sleep takes you whether you want it or not. I’m rubbing my feet together, that’s the plane of reality I’ve landed in.

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10.9

When I was walking home from work today I almost entered God’s kingdom. Walking down W 15th past 8th Ave it was like I had never seen it before. A sign that said “Books” beckoned me; I descended into a strange little storefront. All the books were about God, or spirituality, or “bettering yourself,” but it all felt strange, like they were self-published. There was some paper they were giving away for free, but I was too afraid to touch it. I had my headphones on, but could hear the rustling of elderly words exchanged back and forth between the shopkeeper and her companion. I touched a few books but they didn’t feel right. I wondered if I was actually there. I left a few minutes later and continued walking down W 15th, I was going to the 6th Ave stop, I needed to clear my head before I could go underground. I passed by a statue of the Buddha behind brass gates. We looked at each other. A sign from God, I think. For as I was walking I had begun to sense that sinking in my stomach, that oh, God, I have to keep doing this, today tomorrow and forever, I have to keep living—when even just this morning I felt I had so much to look forward to. I know I’m not supposed to be here, not life, I just mean here, at this job, even in this city (for now), I think I need to be somewhere else, at least for a little bit. It was the first day with a bite in the air and I instantly was dreaming of Aruba, or some other far-off destination. But the problem (which I know) is that wherever you go, you come with…I just wish I could take out my brain and let it rest for a few days, give it a good wash and dry in the sun before popping back in, brand new. The artist’s call is always one of longing. But I do think God gave me a hint this afternoon, He gave me a sign, He’s still here and sometimes the world feels wavy but I’m going going going, and I’ll keep going and I’m look back on this time like all the others. I’m being so good I’m doing so good I’ll be rewarded. Maybe I’ll go to church this weekend though my therapist once noted she’ll know if I’m in a hypomanic episode if I step inside one. The last two times I went to church (over the last 5 years) I was uncontrollably crying God had forsaken me. The time a couple years ago I was in New York not at St. Patrick’s but another cathedral tourists took pictures in. And I just sat in one of the pews crying crying crying. I wonder if they took pictures of me. Modern day Madonna. The other main thing I remember from that visit was it was rainy and bleak I had gotten off at a random stop in midtown and stumbled in and outside the church there was this poor woman presumably homeless and on drugs wailing wailing wailing. And I remember thinking that could’ve been me. I went into the church and prayed for her.

the buddha i met last thursday