Re-grouping

I'm feeling a lot better than yesterday. I think that I've just bumped up against some kind of wall and so I really need to turn my life around. I didn't go to the AA meeting today, and I know that seems bad, but I had therapy this morning and just couldn't handle doing them both. Sometimes I think I spend too much time inside my own head, and I had had enough of it by the time my hour was up this morning.

After that, I lolled around for a few hours in the late morning/early afternoon and started to feel malaise from my lack of productivity. I obsessively read Narc's email a few more times. I was saved, however, by the fact that I had promised my mom to have dinner with her on Long Island. I had agreed to meet her at her office in the late afternoon.

So I got myself up and ready and dragged myself to Penn Station. I found an old cassette of myself singing and popped it in to listen to on the train ride over. It made me feel sentimental and a little stronger-- like I'm not some out of control crazy love struck alcoholic idiot (or as I used to like to say, a "drug addled whore"), but rather, the same girl who made that tape and sang passionately and loves music and can be productive.

When I got to my mom's office she was still at court, so I made myself at home and did some work on my job search. I faxed a bunch of forms over to the temp agency and sent out a few resumes for teaching positions. We left the office at around 6:30 and headed over to a nearby Belgian restaurant--much fancier fare than I was expecting. My mom and I shared a crabmeat and avocado salad and then had huge steaming pots of bouillabaisse. Mmmmm! It was so good! (I'm stuffed now though.)

We had a long talk about a lot of things. I haven't fully processed it, so I'd rather not go into all of it here, but my mom had a lot of "advice" for me. She really doesn't know the half of what's going on in my life, so for her to have noticed that something is slightly wrong means that I'm definitely leaking through the cracks. It only made me realize, even more, though, that I have to take responsibility for the way that I'm choosing to live.

On the train ride back, I did some more of that editing work for IronChef. Now I'm home and exhausted. I started writing this post when it was not even 11:00 and I made myself put on my pajamas. Normally, I'd brush off my exhaustion, head to Cheers and catch a second wind after about three glasses of whiskey. But I didn't do that. And that will be two days sober, which is a start... As the saying goes, "I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired." So I'm going to try to hold out a little longer and do something about it....

I was interrupted from writing this by a visit from NDN. He and I are planning a trip to Argentina to take place right after Christmas and we've been trying to figure out how to transfer American Express points to American Airlines miles all week. In the end, our solution was for my mom to give his mom American Express points, so that his mom could use her miles to buy my ticket. The problem is that American Express doesn't usually allow such transfers of points. However, do not despair! NDN is a genius in this department and tonight I got to see him in action-- his art in all of its glory. For about an hour, he sat in my apartment impersonating my mother on the phone to various sales reps, demanding to speak to supervisors with all the indignation in the world. (And no, NDN and I are not perpetrating fraud against my mother. All of this was done with her full permission.) Anyway, it was too funny to fully communicate here.

So now it's after midnight and I want to get to bed soon so that I'll have a decent day tomorrow. I FINALLY called to schedule a voice lesson for tomorrow afternoon. It will be my first lesson since May 18th. Scheisse! It's been a crazy long time, and I have no idea what explanation to offer my teacher. ("Um... I'm sorry teacher, but I just got too wrapped up in the rise and fall of my emotionally abusive relationship to care about my training. Instead, I spent all of my time and money over the past two months being drunk off my ass..." I don't think that's gonna do it.) I also made an appointment to see my endocrinologist for next Tuesday. I haven't been there since April (I think) and my glucose levels are probably fucked up beyond belief at this point. I feel better having made those appointments. AND I took my cat to the vet this week. AND I returned my library books. AND I finally registered for fall classes. AND I'm getting that editing work done.

So slowly but surely I'm re-grouping. I hope I can stick with it.

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SHIT! It's about a half an hour later, (nearly 1:00 am) and I have to add something to this post. Narc FINALLY posted something on his blog after over a month of absence. It's a super long post, but part of it just breaks my heart again. I shouldn't read his blog anymore. I HAVE to stop loving him. But here's what he said:


...Dig a few layers deeper, and you start getting to questions which, when you answer them (and here you'll find that you actually can), usually provide you with A) answers that you don't like and, wonderfully, terribly B) answers that you know you need to change, and can, but haven't. Purely through a lack of your own volition.

"Why am I surrounded by the people that I am? And why do I feel like I don't have an authentic relationship with any of them? And never have? And never will?"

"Why am I doing what I am doing right now, in life? Why do I keep at it with all the passion and fervor I can muster, all the while knowing that, as happy as I am with the result, I hate the process and feel like it kills me just a little bit every time I go through it?"

"Why have I never truly known the experience of love?"

These are all questions that HAVE ANSWERS. They are easy answers as well, because it's not really so much about the specifics of any of the above given situations, as to what, instead, they all have in common...

Me.
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Poor Narc! So, now what? Do you think I'll ever get to sleep tonight after that? Damn it!

-Hyde