Apparently Klonopin was the right move, because my whole body has just said, “aaaaaahhhhhh…..” The title of the blog entry is taken from an Asher Roth song called “I Love College.” I do not drink my beer or smoke my weed, nor do I stay up until three and wake up at ten, go out to eat and do it again (Impressed that Hakeem Olajuwon is mentioned, though). The first time I heard it, I was watching Last Call with Carson Daly, and I was hooked (I hope they put the whole series on Netflix or Hulu). I downloaded the whole album, “Asleep in the Bread Aisle.” When I listen to it, I relax into putty. Now, I’m carrying that relaxed into putty feeling all the time. I am on a very small dose, .5 to one mg at night. I don’t necessarily feel like a new person, but I do feel like I can handle more emotionally, and that is the thing we were going for. As I said earlier, my psychiatrist is the bomb diggity, but I need to find another one butt quick, because she is known as what’s called a “safety net” doctor, someone who can refill my meds until I find someone permanent, given to me by the county. I’ve been pointed to an organization down the road from my house called Vesta. Interestingly enough, they also had a position for an IT generalist, so I applied for that as well. The position pays enough that I can afford Uber more often. That’s not a bad deal at all.
Right now the only reasons I use Uber is when I need to get somewhere quickly or I have several bags of groceries. Going into DC takes me an hour from Silver Spring, which is not a deal while I am unemployed. I just relax with my Kindle and therefore, I am one of the people on the Metro that is truly kind. I’m not in a rush. When we get there is when we get there. There is so much to hate about being unemployed, but if there is one positive, it’s that I have the ability to be kind and not step on everyone as I am not rushing to wherever I need to go. I continually ride on the right side of the escalator. I have time to stop and be interested in other people. I have the time to notice the beauty that is DC, because I feel that most of the people that live there forget.
That is one thing that I’ve never forgotten. When I lived here before, I had a cute little purple Saturn at one time and a little white Mercedes at another. I lived in Alexandria, in a townhouse complex on N. Van Dorn right behind Landmark Mall.
Whenever I took 395 into the city, tears would come to my eyes, because I passed the Pentagon, the Jefferson Monument, and the Washington Monument in the distance. It was breathtaking every single time, because I couldn’t even believe I lived here. My downfall, and I have said this before, is that I didn’t think I could make it here on my own. I did not have enough faith in my ability to bounce back from a disastrously abusive relationship. I was hurt, and I just wanted to go home. First it was back to Houston, and within months, I was headed to Portland with my family’s blessing and support. I counted on Diane and Susan to provide the comfort I needed to get by, and in small measure, they did. But after a while, that relationship disappeared and I didn’t know what I’d done to drive them away. It was like a wall had been built, and I can tell you the exact moment it was. I was working for Wells Fargo as a collection agent, and Diane called me on my lunch break. She said that I was the kind of woman that she wanted to get to know, and it breathed unsafe. Diane has a history of being close to her partner and having a side chick, like I treated Argo because I didn’t know any better. I thought that with Argo being straight, I could avoid the pitfalls that had been modeled for me since childhood. As it turns out, not so much. But anyway, her voice was a little seductive and I realized that I did not want to be that person. I reacted like a wet cat with claws extended, and she never really called me again… not with any regularity, at least. She found someone else to be that person with her, and it caused no small amount of damage. The closer she got to her best friend, I roiled with anger and pride. I was angry that I wasn’t the best friend, and I was proud of myself that I did not become caught in her triangulation. That shit was for other people, even though I was flattered that I was her next choice. It was a case of knowing deep within myself that she’d gotten dopamine from me long enough.
Kathleen had destroyed me, and I needed a distraction (a truly bad idea because the dopamine rush made me put off my grief for a long time). I became “friends with benefits” with a boy in my church that I’d known since he was 16 and I was 19. He was so beautiful, so perfect, and we were both so flawed that we were perfect for each other in that time and place. My lesbian friends wouldn’t have been more surprised if a spaceship landed in front of them and little burritos walked out, but it was worth it just to see their faces. He had an 8-bit Nintendo, and I am ashamed to talk about just how much we played with it. Oh my GOD was I addicted to both Super Mario Brothers 2 and 3. My favorite memory of us was our first date. We went to see 8 Mile, and listened to “The Eminem Show.” It was fun, flirty, and he was The AntiKathleen.
The relationship ended abruptly when I realized that even though I enjoyed him, I couldn’t envision a life with him. Plus, he really wasn’t ready for a full-time relationship, either. He had his own issues- his own story to tell. I was the one that initiated the breakup, but it was truly time for both of us. We remained friends after that, and I remember years later, when he’d been arrested as an accessory to murder, that I didn’t know if he would come back or not. I just wanted to lie down on his bed, smell his sheets and blankets to see if they still smelled like him. Luckily, he is back where he belongs, or will be soon. The judge was very lenient with him, and for that I am grateful. He trusted me to hear what he’d been through, and it changed me in the way that all stories do. We finally ran away from each other, because we were the same personality in two bodies, unable to stop wrestling with the abuse we dealt each other because it was too hard not to. We’d come to a place where we were no longer good for each other, and even though I hope that’s not the case in the future, it is right now. I needed to, in Argo’s beautiful words, “take the life raft of apart.”
I am very close to his sister, though. She’s one of the people that if money were no object, we’d visit each other all the time because we need each other. Our stories reflect each other in a major way, and talking to her is the ablution I need to make peace with myself.
I am already on my way. Taking life slower and really concentrating on the needs of the community around me is helping me to move on with grace, even though I am tending to kick and scream about it. God how I miss Dana. God how I miss Argo. Life without them is pretty fucking miserable. They’re the best people that have ever happened to me, and the guilt of how I behaved is eating me alive. I am grateful that I have a psychiatrist who is talking me through the chemical side of anxiety and sadness. The organization I talked about earlier, Vesta, will help me with that, too, and also examine the behavior patterns I’ve had since childhood that allowed me to make this mess in the first place. I don’t want to be that person. She was so angry.
But I’m nice right now, man. I hope it brings peace to not only myself, but the people around me. It can’t hurt.
Stories That Are All True 