Sitting in this room that I have known for years, yet now looks nothing like the one in which I put you to bed those nights. Kissing you on the cheek. Then I wanted to go to sleep, as I did just after the sky fell and I started my medication. Those nights when slumber came so easy knowing that you were still there, in there, waiting for me. We would awake in the morning, and like the night before go out on the porch, and it would be cold, and we would smoke cigarettes and the cold would work up through our feet to our head and it would be like drinking a milkshake too quickly before we became mutually lactose intolerant. I haven’t figured out the pill for that. Or were we just intolerant, and irritable, and the pharmaceutical companies haven’t yet made a cure for those things.
Blog
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Cosmos
I guess this is the way it is. Funny thing memory. Funny how it works. Or the cosmos. Oh them? Are they conspiring again? A man’s book across from me upon closer examination is Marathon: You Can Do It by Jeff Galloway. A word on the crossword was “a city in Wyoming.” You can only guess. All of this within an hour. And the news from New Orleans. Another crossword, another clue: “Relative of the cello” – guess you can figure the answer there as well. I am not making this up, folks. It is written out like the stars may spell your name if you squint and tilt your head appropriately. We live in an intricate trap. Everywhere there’s something to totally floor you, or lift your spirits to the sky.
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Rainy Night in Georgia
It’s nights like this, the ink black ones, that keep me in too long. Like a heavy black cloth has been dropped over the house and you can’t see out, no moon, or stars or circling satellites. I sit here until the walls start to move toward me, the eyes in the photo on the mantle start to move as I do – jittery, shaking. The TV might as well be blue screen. Some guy trying repeatedly to sell you something you don’t want, that you can never want, that you decided a long time ago you didn’t want. He still keeps on knocking.
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Pieces: Intro
Tuesday was one month since G and I broke up. Yesterday was her birthday. In the month after the breakup I worked on a long series of short pieces about G and what she means to me, why I love her and such. So much had become confused in me and in her and between us in the last few months and I needed to start sorting it out in my head. All of the pieces were attached to a memory of her, and involved me remembering small details and talking about what those details taught me about her. The aspects of G that were brought to light ranged from the very cerebral to the somewhat goofy. All of it was heartfelt, and I spent many tearful hours sitting over the keyboard to work out all of the stuff. I gave it to her for her birthday yesterday and I hope it means, and will continue to mean, a lot to her.
Yesterday in my therapy session, I was discussing these writings with my therapist and he made the suggestion that I might think of doing the same for myself. He said that part of the process that I was going through right now was learning to like and value myself more, and that he thought going through this process would maybe help me identify some things that would move me in that direction. -
‘s B-Day
Today is G’s birthday. She turns 28. I think she is still plenty young enough to give away her age. Those of you that know her may want to drop a line and wish her a happy one. You can post the wishes here or send her an email if you have her address.
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Medication: Day 22
I realize that the hardest to get through time of day that I have is the hour or so after I arrive home every afternoon. When G lived here with me I always seemed to be in a bad mood when I arrived home from work. Looking back, I really do not know why. It seems foolish now. Why wasn’t I happy having the life I had? Now I get home and I am not in a bad mood, just a sad mood. I think every afternoon I start partially daydreaming as I am driving home, and when I get here I expect to find G watching Oprah or taking a nap. It never turns out that way. Walking into the house feels lonely and empty. I think that is why I have started writing this at this time of the day. It gives me something to do until I start feeling better.
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Medication: Day 21
I know I usually write these things later in the evening but I have had some things on my mind since having lunch with T earlier today. While at Manuel’s I told him of starting to wonder whether or not the way I feel, and have tended to handle things is all that radically different that the norm. In other words, am I possibly over-pathologized, or at least do I feel that I am a lot worse off and abnormal than I really am?
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Medication: Day 20
Today began late. I any of you noticed the timestamp on last night’s post, you will see that I was up late. I awoke this morning around 11, immediately got a Diet Coke and popped my Wellbutrin. Last night was somewhat of a blur. Too many stimuli, felt like nights that I have been nostalgic for many times over recent years. Interesting conversation with interesting people about things that most of the time would seem so un-ininteresting, but that due to the circumstances are just perfect.
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Medication: Day 19
Okay, I guess this is the way it should be. I finally have reached the point that I have stayed up with my friends until way in the morning. Colleen has kissed me on the cheek in front of her other to tell me good night; to thank me for being a good club soda patron. It is too late. I am too old to do this kind of reconnaissance and I want to make everyone happy.
I spent some time time talking to K tonight who probably gave me the best advice – spliced into the middle of tales of anal sex exploits. He told me that I needed to figure out who I was, a scary proposition. Who am I? -
Medication: Day 18
Today was a departure from the norm lately. I awoke again to no Diet Coke (things I seemed to always take care of when G was in the house have become, apparently, less urgent now), no cereal today either. I had to go to my therapist earlier today than usual, an 11 AM appointment. Afterwards, I had lunch with T and then came back home to work. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a day, too much time spent again on technical issues.
Later in the late afternoon/early evening G called and we talked and I broke down a bit. I try so hard not to. I want to be strong and good and something worthy of her, or anyone else’s for that matter, affection. I think I have been walking through this week trying to steer a middle path between the peaks and valleys that I have been experiencing lately, and today it all just came to a head, I had to let out the missing and sadness that was still inside. I had even broken down during my session a little earlier in the day. I think it was the first time I had allowed myself to really think about the situation in a few days. I had managed to distract myself for much of the week with various technical issues and projects.