To the Guillotine

Damn, it seems like forever since I've posted! I guess I'm just not the blogger I used to be...

So much is going on, but at the same time, nothing at all. I had the week off from teaching which was pretty nice. I'm trying to remember everything that I did, but it's all a blur and I'm feeling lazy. I spent a lot of time with new AA friends this week. Too many new "blog names" to come up with! On Tuesday after the meeting I went out to California Pizza Kitchen with a bunch of people and then up to Pinkberry for frozen yogurt. My friend Lana qualified, and she is obsessed with Pinkberry. Yum...

I saw Dan a few times this week-- once for our trip to MoMA (which I mentioned in a previous post) and then again for dinner at Veselka on Thursday and to see The Host at the movies and then again on Saturday night, hanging out at NDN's place.

But before I get to Saturday, there's Friday, right? I went to Long Island on Friday to stay over at my parents and spend some time with my stepbrother. My grandpa was there too. We all ate Chinese food for dinner and I played some '50's tunes and some Motown on piano and my stepbrother sang-- a new favorite activity of his. Later, I wanted to show off to my mom some of my new vocal techniques, so I sang her a little "Pace mio dio" a capella. My stepfather said that the other side of the house was shaking when I hit the B-flat!

On Saturday, my mom drove me back into the city, as we had tickets to see Andrea Chenier (with Ben Heppner in the title role). My mom and I used to always argue at the opera-- she would comment about how foolish the heroines behaved and I would roll my eyes, believing that she just didn't understand the purity of their love-- a love that would bring them to die for their lover! This time, she articulated her usual argument. The story takes place during the French Revolution. At the end of the opera, the poet, Andre Chenier, is sentenced to die. A noblewoman, Maddalena is in love with him and is trying to save him. Meanwhile, a good hearted revolutionary-- Gerard is in love with Maddalena. Gerard helps her switch places with a woman on death row so that she can go to her death alongside Chenier.

"This is ridiculous," my mom said, as the performers took their bows. "When she couldn't get Chenier out of prison, why didn't she just marry Gerard, have a baby and name him Andre? What's with this getting guillotined by choice?"

For once, I agreed with her. The first major sign of psychological change that I've seen in myself for quite some time.

Anyway, that evening I had plans to meet B and Drippy (whose blog name I am considering changing if B is going to be visiting this site!) at church for the annual Easter vigil. I had invited Lana to come, but she had too much schoolwork. Another girl from AA joined me instead--LashGirl.

It was really important for me to go to Easter services this year. Last year, on Good Friday the priest gave an incredibly moving sermon on "Holy Discomfort." I was bottoming out and didn't know it. I also wrote about the Saturday night Easter Vigil service. It's kind of creepy to look back on those posts now, seeing myself so desperate and so lost, so unaware of the enormous turn-around that was just about to come... Anyway, I wasn't thrilled about hanging out with Drippy, but it was really important for me to be there...

I got there first. B and Drippy were running late and when they arrived she was incredibly stand-offish and vacant. LashGirl arrived shortly thereafter. I don't think Drippy said a single word to her, although B tried to make some chit chat.

When we went to sit down, the long pews were divided halfway through with an arm-rest. The four of us tried to squeeze on one side of the bench. Suddenly, Drippy announced that she was moving to a different row.

"What's wrong?" someone asked.

"Ugh! I can't breathe!" she muttered with a disgustingly soured look on her face.

"Just ask us to move down, then," I said.

LashGirl got up and moved to the other side of the arm-rest.

Anyway, it's not worth going into every detail of the rest of the service. As beautiful as it was, there was a cloud of negativity floating above our pew. At least LashGirl was probably oblivious to most of it.

Afterwards, Drippy rushed out of the pew and out of the church, not pausing to wait for me, as I got stuck behind a crowd filing out of other rows. When I finally caught up with her and B outside, B had a smile on his face.

"I'm starving!" he said. "Where to?"

"I don't know, wherever," I answered. "I don't know if I'm hungry enough for a whole meal, but I'll go anywhere."

"I don't have any money," Drippy said passively, starting vacantly into space.

"It's okay, I can spot you," said B, growing slightly more uncomfortable.

"No. I mean, I don't want to spend money going out," she said.

It was so fucking awkward and so fucking weird and so fucking passive aggressive. I wanted to punch her, but bit my lip not to be tempted.

"So.... are you saying you want to go home?" I asked. "We'll all just go home?"

"Um... yeah," she said, still with that passive tone in her voice.

I couldn't believe how rude she was.

We all headed down the church steps. She was still a step or two ahead of me, tripping over herself to get away. She tried to cut through the 48th street tunnel to Grand Central, but it was closed. B hung back and talked to me. I can only imagine that he was embarrassed about her anti-social behavior. I tried to soften it with small talk.

"So...are you on Spring Break now too?" I asked her.

"No." she said. "I had that last week."

"Was it fun?" I asked.

"No. It was depressing."

She said that in a way that just shot me down, as if to shut me up.

"Oh, that's too bad," I said. "Why?"

"There was nothing to do," came her response.

"At least you could probably catch up on work... or get ahead on work, right?" I smiled.

"No." she said flatly.

Finally, when we got to my street, I had to turn off. She didn't even pause for a second to let me say goodbye to them. I'm not used to such anti-social behavior. I didn't even know how to react. It made me feel horrible-- that someone would want so badly to get away from me when I've been doing my best to put my feelings aside and befriend her.

"Happy Easter!" I called after them as they shuffled away.

Back at my place, I went downstairs to hang out with NDN and his friend who was visiting from Argentina. (The same friend whose house we were at on New Year's Eve '05-'06). I invited Dan to come over as well and StarGazer. We ordered in Chinese food and watched part of a repeat of Saturday Night Live and even played a pretty lame round of "truth or dare."

Anyway, on Sunday I headed back to Long Island for Easter at Bro-in-Law's parents' house. It was a pretty standard holiday. The kids, D&D were running around being adorable. Bro-in-Laws cousins were there, as were my mom's sister and her husband and my grandpa. I had a good time until around 5:30 when I started to feel like shit.

I've been struggling with suicidal feelings a lot ever since I started to accept the end of things with Narc... feelings that are too hard to talk about. Don't worry... it's not anything too serious-- I mean-- they're just thoughts, but I have no impulse for suicidal action. But anyway, I started to get hit with a wave of that later in the evening. I told my mom I wanted to head back to the city and that I needed someone to drive me to the train. She said that it was too early to leave and that there was no one to drive me.

"Okay," I said.

And I went back to leaning against the kitchen counter, trying to make small talk with my Aunt. But I felt like I was going to vomit. And I felt such a mounting discomfort that I couldn't tolerate it. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to die. I wanted to get out of there. I don't know why or where the feeling came from. I just HAD to be back in my own element.

"Mom, I need to go NOW," I said.

I guess there must have been something in my eye that made her take me seriously because not two minutes later, we were in the car and on our way to the train station. And I burst into tears. I couldn't help it. I really just want to die. I feel like I am bottoming in sobriety and I simply don't know what to do about it.

Anyway, I don't want to get into all that.

The rest of the evening started to turn up. I had plans for Cherubino to come over and spend the night, and we couldn't have picked a more perfect night, given my state of mind.

She came by at around 9:00 with StarGazer and we all just hung out and talked and watched Rocky on DVD-- apparently one of my sponsor's favorite movies. At one point, NDN came up to meet my sponsor and he wanted me to meet BumbleBee, a new girl he's dating. He brought me a rose, just to win my sponsor's approval. Ha ha...

StarGazer left at around midnight, but Cherubino and I stayed up until around 2:00 just talking. It was really cool because I got to hear a lot more of her story and I got to open up to her about some of the things that are more difficult for me to talk about. I feel like we both got to know each other a lot better that night.

The next morning she came grocery shopping with me-- something that may seem simple to most of you, but I have a really hard time with it. We made a list together and went through each of the aisles and looked at labels and prices and made a plan. It was so nice of her to give me that time. I felt pretty good about it afterwards.

I didn't do much for the rest of Monday, except be pretty depressed. I'm glad I dragged myself out to my meditation meeting though... I got to see LashGirl there and Civyl, a newcomer I'm becoming friends with, and Leseco and some others, and it helped a little. I really couldn't focus though. I couldn't follow the speaker and I really couldn't meditate. It was alarming to me.

It wasn't until later that I realized I hadn't taken my antidepressants in three days because I was lazy about refilling the prescription. I'm hoping that some of the hopelessness I'm feeling will go away now that I'm back on them...

In any case, today was another pretty miserable (but strangely not miserable and sort of OK) day. I had lunch with B at Blockheads. He brought up the whole subject of Drippy and I was glad because I got to point out to him the way she behaved on Saturday (which he was already well aware of).

"I'm not saying she's a bad person," I said. "I know you love her. But I don't want to be treated like that by anybody. She says she wants to be my friend, but I'm not going to spend time with someone who can't be cordial to me."

B completely understands, but feels caught in the middle. I told him that this is really Drippy's problem and if she wants to bring her problem to me, BRING IT ON. I would have no issue sitting down with her one on one and letting her say everything to my face instead of burdening B with her irrational feelings and then having him come to me to try to fix the whole thing...

Ugh!

In any case, I went out this afternoon to do a little shopping. I had to buy a pair of black pants so that I have something to wear to my conference next weekend and then again in May for my anniversary night. I hate shopping. And I especially hate shopping now that I've put on so much weight. A year of eating chocolate may have kept me sober, but it did nothing for my waistline. I wish I hadn't gone shopping at all. I took a cab home and again found myself plotting my own death. Why does my mind keep wandering off in that direction! It's a little maddening. I don't want to think like that, but I can't help it...

Tonight I headed over to my meeting, the milk in tow. Again, I couldn't really focus much and definitely didn't want to be there, but I'm glad I went because I am committed to my meetings and I didn't let my negative feelings dictate my actions.

Now I'm home and here and trying to write something quickly before bed.

Tomorrow it's back to teaching for the first time in over a week. I'm getting observed. Yuck! I won't yet be acclimated to my 6:00 am wake-up time and I have to be evaluated!

Anyway, I also have a voice lesson tomorrow. That's one thing that has been going really well. I love it and I'm happy when I sing. A few other odds and ends-- my psychiatrist is talking to me about the possibility of hypnosis. He asked me to do some eye-rolling test and said that I am highly suggestible for hypnosis. Also, I made an appointment this week to see a diabetes specialist at Columbia Presbyterian. My insulin problems are kind of out of control. I feel like I am completely powerless over my body and everything is a mess. I've only gotten one period since January, and before that I was always very regular with that kind of thing. Add that to the rapid weight gain, the out of control mood swings and suicidal feelings... I feel trapped and like no one can figure out this whole biological chemical mess. But, I have to try to find help and at least get myself to the right people to help me...

On the Narc front, I've heard from him sporadically-- most recently today. But today I prompted it. I sent him a text (don't ask me why) and he wrote back. I just don't want to go into it right now, but it was a shit thing to do to myself. It left me feeling absolutely awful-- rejected, sick, horrible, nauseated, pining, helpless... Why did I do that to myself?

It's really fucking hard not to drink.

It's really fucking hard not to kill myself.

Tomorrow it's back to the grindstone.

love,
h