Junkie

A close friend called last night and took me to task -- gently, a little bit -- for leaving my blog readers dangling for a month. I'm sorry. I've been on a bender of pain and finding ways to dodge the pain.

I start my days wondering whether it's a Klonopin day (if my heart is beating fast and my stomach is fluttering at the thought of leaving the house, leaving bed), or a codeine day (if my heart is in my throat and I've got to try to show up. Some days I use those drugs, other days I get back in bed as soon as possible, or I zone out on computer games or, of course, at night, sugar.

The other day I realized I was really and truly poisoning myself with sugar. I was dashing to the toilet a half dozen times a day, shaking like a leaf and so, so tired. I have a very fragile few days' reprieve and my energy is a bit better as are my visits to the bathroom.

But each of the last three mornings would have been a codeine morning had I chosen to swig some back. Let me explain that my reaction to codeine is a muffling of bad feelings and a slight heightening of good ones. It's also dangerous if not taken with a lot of water, on a full stomach. And one of the reasons I'm making an effort to reign in my food is that my new shrink commented on Saturday that it's no wonder I'm so tired: I'm hanging onto the cliff above all the grief, fear, anger and love that I need to go through that it's exhausting. He's right. So I'm trying to get rid of the sugar/flour & let myself fall off the cliff, as frightening as that is.

My poor friend who prodded this entry: she got to hear a shard of the abandonment by my family and my fright over Christmas alone with my father. There are other things gnawing my insides as well. I don't have a good feeling about the fate of this book. I know of an adoption going on and my birthday is soon -- I want to write a letter to that baby to tell it how special it is. I've started work on a new book proposal and, wouldn't you know, despite it not being particularly about me, I hit a spot where I'd have to talk about how apart I've always been from my family: dead halt. Nor am I sure I want to write that book. There is a boy on the far, far periphery of my life that I try hard to keep behind my dinky fake Christmas tree on a high shelf who has fallen off the shelf a few times. My favorite aunt died a month after my mother did.

I don't even know where to start letting myself feel this stuff although I'm weepy as I write this.

There have been wondrous things as well, of course. I've discovered a branch of my family who care unjudgmentally about me, who are hilarious, literate, interesting. I spoke with the cousin my age about my aunt's brief illness and that little contact with a cousin I've always looked up to was marvelous. Hero's dad took Daisy and me pheasant hunting. Daisy put up a flight of crows, found a dead pheasant and played nicely with a pheasant from the freezer, her repugnance to feathers a one-off before she caught on. I watched how much fun she had following Hero's lead into the brush, how well she took my commands to go with Uncle S., and her concern when I lagged too far behind. I saw about 95% of what a Lab is all about that day.

I've spent masses of money creating a wardrobe for my hoped-for publicity, mostly in browns (a bright color will really add pounds; black is what is expected of authors, fat women and New Yorkers) & I've assembled a couple of calendars for gifts and a raffle item that were absorbing, amusing projects. I want to start my last calendar, for the Labs, today.

And, after two months of being unable to concentrate on much, I'm sick of chick lit and can, with certainty, say that the only writers in the genre truly worth reading are Helen Fielding and Marian Keyes.

But I've been in heroin zombie mode except for those times I had to get it together, and exhausted from the effort afterward. I keep thinking of first lines of this blog but fall into pointlessness almost as quickly as I think of them.

Fingers crossed that I stay clean. I've got Christmas to do, dogs coming out of my ears, and vegetables to chop.

All Bent out of Shape

I poisoned myself on sugar earlier this week. This is Day 4 without it so that must have been Monday night. So Monday night I poisoned myself with sugar.

Take two rather innocuous sugar items & combine them with a sugary Grapenuts sort of cereal & the next day was pretty dreadful. I felt like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Woman for about 24 hours after & it's only to day that I didn't feel ill at the thought of raw vegetables.

So, after a pretty good run of things, did I poison myself? I've got my knickers in a twist over too many things on my calendar & too many things not yet real.

I've had 7 a.m. walks with the 16-year-old Zeke, as well as 3.30 p.m. & 9 p.m. walks. I can't really take Daisy with me because, at 16, Zeke needs to go his own pace (which is mind-blowingly slow & boring) & he's too frail to fight interference on whatever pee-mail must be smelled first. This means I either get Daisy out before or after the morning & night walks. She's getting the short end of the stick & I'm getting the shortest yet.

It's tough when one's day doesn't really end. There's less sense of relaxation &, of course, NO relaxation in the morning. I finished the second-to-the-last chapter this week but until I did, my guts were gurgling over that as well. I haven't started the last chapter yet. I want to. I want to at least take some notes. But 21 Zeke walks as well as my other dogs & the mountain of things that went to hell while I was hell-bent on finishing the chapter have left me in another kind of panic.

Panic & resentment: the order of my days. I'll be paid for Zeke &, although I swear I wrote down the dates to include this weekend, Zeke little human brother informed me Mom is home. So maybe I won't be doing any more walks until Monday.

Little down time -- little time, that is, that I could really sink into -- was the "destructor" that led me from resentment to poison, the destructor I chose.

I am tired of the cold. My hands are especially sensitive to it & yet I have to manipulate leashes so I end up taking my gloves off. My skin is rough that even cotton catches on it.

I am tired of this book that never seems to be done. I'm tired of the prison I'm in with dogs all day & on weekends, the obligation to be writing even when I'm not (especially when I'm not), a profound desire to take everything out of my kitchen & restore it all. I'm tired of being a good girl. So I poisoned myself.

Resentment & rebellion are two states of mind that I absolutely cannot afford. They are, to begin with, helpless by nature. Resentment of dogs & a book to finish is ridiculous. Resenting the cold will get me where? It's not like I can call up the North Wind & say, "We've got to talk. I've been harboring a resentment toward you." Rebelliousness over walks & writing I've committed to & been paid for is rebelling against...me. If I'm going to rebel against myself, why not do it destructively (you spend too much money! Your abstinence sucks!) or constructively: don't spend money, stick to my food plan & cheat the diseased portion of my brain.

& rebelling against the weather falls again into the category of absurd.

These have been Serenity Prayer days. Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance. Get the resentment out of my brain.

The weird thing, though, is that I'm also bent of shape because the book IS almost done. There are so many things I've put on hold for that moment -- going back to the Rooms, cleaning, working on my novel, going to the movies, reading books that don't mention the phrase "BMI," dating, seeing friends, getting my hair colored & eyebrows waxed, going to the Botanical Gardens in High Spring, going on the academic job market, returning letters & emails, taking stuff to donate to Housing Works.

& that's just a start. There is ironing to do. There is John LeCarre I want to read. There are 2 years of New Yorkers in a dusty pile. There is, slowly but happeningly, a trip to Ireland to plan...

All of that has me just as panicked & resentful & scared as the book. I've gotten comfortable out here in the Heights, putting the rest of life on hold. Zeke walked me one block across & up Montague Street last night & I realized that even one block has become foreign territory to me. I'm scared to go out in the world. I'm scared & I don't know where to start first. I'm scared & I haven't started that last chapter that will be the gate to the freedom I crave but no longer know how to use.

My head is spinning. I have inadequate words for individual people. I'm going in all kinds of directions. I wouldn't mind sample part of the poison again even though I feel good eating chicken & broccoli & kidney beans & yogurt on a daily basis.

But here it comes: one more dog to walk. Maybe.