Ad vitam paramus

I've had no time to blog lately. I still don't have time. Come to think of it-- I've never really had time. But it seems, right now, like there are not very many places to go with this. I'm a jumble of thoughts, a jumble of feelings, a jumble of jumble. Jumble.

Narc is in the hospital. Again. He was admitted five days ago. On Thursday we had plans to see a midnight showing of "Wall-E." He texted me at around 9:30 that he was having a very bad panic attack. He had a similar attack when I was in Texas-- the day after he was out partying himself into oblivion for CouchSleeper's birthday. Apparently he called LAGirl to help him out when I was away and she didn't get back to him for four days. He says he hates her now-- that she is just as duplicitous as all of the other women. Molded in the PopStar mold. It upsets me that it upsets him that much. He cares more than I'd like him to.

In any case, his friend Steve was with him at Cercle Rouge on Thursday when the "panic attack" began. They called 911, given the fact that he had life-threatening pulmonary embolisms a year and a half ago. When I got there, the EMTs had already arrived. Narc was hooked up to an oxygen mask. He said he couldn't feel anything in his arms or hands. Steve and I rode with him to the hospital.

Steve left at around midnight. Narc was set up in the ER and I stayed with him. There was a lot of drama there that night-- a few belligerent drunks making a scene, a couple who had been jumped on the F-train, a homeless guy who was demanding that a pair of shoes be returned to him, a girl who fell off a ladder... I stayed by his side, waiting while they ran all sorts of tests. At around 3:30 AM they came back with the results of his CT scan. He had clotting in his lungs again. The panic attacks were not panic attacks after all-- rather they were a response to a lack of oxygen passing through his lungs and an increased strain on his heart. They wanted to admit him.

Narc and I were both starving (as we were meeting for a dinner which had never been consumed) and now that he was being checked into the hospital, he wanted all sorts of things-- his laptop, a change of clothes, some books and DVDs. I dashed down to his place, picked everything up, got us some food at the deli and made it back to the ER by 4:00 AM. I stayed until around 5:00 when I finally sneaked in some sleep back at home. The next morning I brought him brunch. He was still in the ER. I spent most of the day there. I had to leave to go to LilSis' birthday party at Bartini. I wore a pink sequined shirt that reminds me of "Jem & the Hollograms."

By Saturday Narc had his own room. I brought him some food and spent a few hours there in the morning. Then I had to head out to Long Island. My stepbrother is now 21 and has graduated from all state-funded education. But, given the extent of the brain damage that he suffered and his physical disabilities, he still needs to be in some sort of program. My parents found one that does theater with disabled young adults-- people with all sorts of neurological disorders, etc. They performed "Guys and Dolls" this year and we all went to see the show. I have never seen anything more inspiring or life-affirming. I was in tears at many moments. I just don't have the words right now to really convey what it meant to me. But I was filled with a sense of "spirit" and the triumph of "life-force" over adversity.

Anyway, we all went out to eat at Benihana for a second round of birthday celebrations for LilSis before I headed back to the city. On the taxi line at Penn Station, I bumped into my stepsisters-- Jewel and Toots. I rarely ever see them anymore, as the bad blood is mounting between their mother and my mother and LilSis has even gotten involved in all that. It's bad... really bad. I try to stay out of it. (Although I once wrote about it here). They were excited to see me and happened to be going to a bar just a few blocks from where I live. I told them that I'd try to stop by. But when I called my mom on my way home and mentioned the plan to her, she made me feel guilty about it. My family has a sort of "mafioso loyalty," that might also be referred to as intense "enmeshment." I caved in to it and didn't meet my stepsisters, but it gave me a little resentment against my mom. I still have to sort all of that out.

On Sunday I went back to spend the afternoon with Narc. From his window at St. Vincent's we could see the hustle and bustle of the Gay Pride Parade in the West Village. I left there at around 4:00 to meet Cherubino at Union Square, but went back to the hospital at around 6:30 PM. When I got back, CouchSleeper and Narc's friend Monika were there-- the girl he bought a horse for back in February. I felt a little awkward with her, but totally comfortable with Couchy, so it was alright. Anyway, they both left by 8:00 and I stayed with him until around 9:00 PM.

This morning I went back to the hospital again, after making a pit stop at his apartment to pick up some more things for him. I brought him a sandwich from Subway as per his request. I have been running around for him like a chicken with her head cut off and I have very mixed feelings about doing it. On the one hand, I want to scream-- "You couldn't even invite me to your birthday party, yet I'm taking your food orders every day and going to your apartment on demand!" On the other hand, I love him and he's my friend and he's sick and I love being able to be there for him. There's a part of me that just delights in rising to the occasion when I'm asked to be a martyr. But I'm feeling a lot of strain and a lot of anxiety. I'm not sleeping very well. Even when I do sleep, I seem to wake still tired.

I'm worried about his drinking-- I'm worried that he won't stop and that he'll just get sick on the Coumadin if he drinks on it. Or that he'll stop taking the medication so that he can drink and then he'll suddenly die. Or I'm worried that he'll stop drinking and then our relationship will end because he'll change. I know that's a sick and crazy thought (and a selfish one!) but it's not a real "thought"-- it's more like a fear. I am sick and full of fear. The night that he was in the ER, he said that he might have a problem with alcohol. He even said: "Maybe I should read that book of yours one of these days." But in the morning, that seemed to have gone away. He insisted that a lifetime of Coumadin was probably just a scam for the doctors to earn money for the drug companies. I think he is scared too. His liver enzymes are up. I wonder what the numbers are. I wonder if they are as bad as mine were.

Tomorrow B is leaving town for about five weeks. I haven't seen or heard from Bezoukhoff in about a month either. I am so grateful to have my family, to have my sponsor and to have my sponsee. But so much is changing and so fast.

I went to yoga today with my friend Drew from AA. I haven't been in a while. It felt like those muscles were just breathing, just awakening for the first time. There was a burn of newness about the whole thing. In some ways I feel like that about my whole life-- that I'm just opening my eyes to the world-- that the oxygen is just now first hitting my lungs. The light is bright and I'm uncomfortable. I think I need to go to Al-anon but I don't want to find time for the meeting because I want to stay available to sit all day in the hospital with Narc. I haven't gotten any work done and I start teaching next week. I'm SO unprepared!! I was supposed to go camping this weekend but I don't want to go because I don't want to be out of reach.

"Of course you should go," he shrugs as if it doesn't matter-- as if he doesn't need me at all.

So many lies. There are so many lies in the way that I live my life.

I don't want to go because I desperately want things calm around here. I desperately crave routine. Only, I don't know how to carve one out for myself. I want to organize my apartment. I want to have quiet dinners. I want a stable boy. I want to enjoy my work.

I'm starting to feel very stressed out, just in the process of writing this post. I think that's why I've been blogging less. I need to walk away from the computer right now. I think I want to go watch some television.

Hope you are all well out there.

lots of love,
h

Oh-- by the way-- I got that job I interviewed for last week. Hooray for me.