I have been trying to write this entry since yesterday.  I have tried a couple times, but it just doesn’t come out right.

A painting fell off my wall last night.  I think my cat was able to swat it off the wall, by standing on a book shelf.  The little slut…

So, obviously, that’s not the tough stuff, and I am stalling.  These are things I do well:  bullshitting, and procrastination. 

But, the longer I’m off heroin, the more I question myself, about every f@cking thing in my life.  I have good friends.  I’ll have a great place, once I finish undoing the clutter of the last three years we’ve spent here, getting high, not opening mail, letting laundry pile up, and otherwise letting the place go to complete shit.  I would take pains to keep the places where we spent most of our time from staying dirty (messy, but not dirty), but the place eventually became an accurate reflection of what was going on inside.  In a way, it still is.  It’s a work in progress – it looks a lot better than it did, and if you stick to the front room, there are times when it seems totally together, but if you wander further into the apartment, you can see there’s still a lot of work to be done.  A lot to sort through, a lot of unnecessary stuff that needs to be cast out…  there’s just too much here.  So much, the task of dealing with it becomes overwhelming, at times.  And, sorting through it all, I find reminders of my past – things I am not always ready to look at.

I confided in a friend, yesterday.  (My friend Maria, who re-emerged at outpatient, yesterday.  Yay!)  Talked about some serious sh*t.  It was really very necessary.  I have been burying too much, telling myself that it was just too personal to talk about.  But, that’s horse sh*t.  I figured out, early on, with Ace, that people are only as helpful to me, as I am honest with them.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be wise about who we confide in, or what kind of details we break into.  And, having Maria back was huge.  I had been so worried about her.  I told her of my uncertainty, with regard to my personal life, and my future. 

She said that she did not know what she would do.  She loves me, and she loves Charlie and she has always loved us together – everyone does.  We’re a good couple.  We look good together, and we jive well on just about every level, when things are right.  Once upon a time, we even had mad sexual chemistry.  Before he lost all interest in sex…  it was like heroin was his real lover, and I couldn’t compete. 

Of course, I was getting high, too, but I didn’t stop wanting him.  I didn’t stop needing him.  I found myself getting cold and bitter from a lack of affection and validation.  I hated being that person.  And, I hated where it ultimately went, even more.  If I could cut the affair with Quinn from the spectrum of past events with a f@cking razor blade, I would excise it like a f@cking surgeon.  And, not just because it wasn’t right.  I can make my arguments about how Charlie had f@cked me over too, and loneliness, and all that jazz, but I know I would not have acted on those impulses if I hadn’t been manic as hell. 

The whole two months, and a little while after, I was flying as high and fast as I ever had with that manic sh*t – I would knock myself out of the sky every night, and turn it off for a while, by sticking a syringe in my hand, or my arm.  (I shot into my hands, a lot – pretty scary when you think about it.  On a long enough timeline, you can lose your hands doing that.  Barring that, you can certainly wreck nerves, and fine motor control of the fingers by poking around in there.  I mean, I know my insides decently well, but my most ideal veins were already shot.  My median cubital veins weren’t having anymore of that shit.  My hands were just the easiest place to hit.  I still have scars, but most people would not think that they were track marks.  At least, I don’t think so.)  Looking back, I know I had gotten as nuts as I had ever been.  I was in serious denial about it, but I think the people closest to me had to see it.  I know Charlie did.  And, Quinn probably did, too.

I guess, he didn’t care.  He’d wanted me for a long time, and he had a shot, so he took it.  I tend to think the best of the people I care about.  Maria pointed out yesterday that I am not easily tricked by people, and that I can usually spot a rat (in human form) at fifty paces.  This is true.  But, I have been fooled.  Usually, I can tell the person is something of a punk, but I think I see something more than that.  I knew my first boyfriend was a cold, hard person is some ways, but I thought he had the soul of a poet (I was 13 – bad boys seem deep and fascinating, at that age).  I thought Doug (who I hooked up with in college – we were the top two writers in the dept at one time) was a good person, deep down.  I thought he had a decency that most people didn’t get close enough to see.  Now, I know a little better.  Most people are predictable.  One of my exes tried to teach me that. 

He would tell me: "You can’t trust people.  But, you can trust people to be who they are, and that’s a pattern you can put money on.  People are like all animals – they develop tendencies.  Learned behaviors…  and those behaviors make them predictable."  He said, that women usually want to believe there’s some well of deep feeling, longing, or pain, under every sh*tty facade, but he argued, most of the time, if you scratch the surface, you just find more surface.  I could not accept the simplicity of this.  Life isn’t chess.  You can’t always expect someone to make the most advantageous move for him or herself – people do some wild ass sh*t.  He responded, "it’s not about the best move.  If it were me, you’d analyze it that way, because that’s how I think, but most people don’t govern their lives that way."  (He shook his head, disdainfully.)  "According to what’s best for them…  most people are too stupid and sentimental for that.  But, if you watch them…  and note what they care about…  what they tend to do, and what their motives are, you can probably chart their course through any given situation, with a pretty slim margin of error."  This disturbed me.  Was I that predictable?  Did he think he had me figured out that way?

It disturbs me when people portray themselves as being able to see through me in some way.  It really bothers me.  Maybe, it makes me feel insulted, like I am uncomplicated and transparent.  Maybe, it’s because I don’t understand myself most of the time, so it makes me feel foolish to think that someone else could be reading me like a book when I don’t have a f@cking clue.  

I think what he said had some ugly truth to it, but I don’t think people were quite as predictable as he made out.  People can surprise you.  In good and bad ways…

It means a lot that Charlie told me, this week, not to get down on myself about anything in the past.  He told me not to think about it.  That I had long since paid for any wrongs I’d done, a thousand times over.  Tears welled up in my eyes, I was so touched.  But, I can’t shake this feeling, this week, that I deserve every bad thing I am feeling.  I am not moving forward at the pace that I should – I got very little done these past few days.  And, I know that it’s because I am sick, but that’s totally my fault and I deserve it.  I try to take care of myself.  But, sometimes, I get so depressed, I can’t will myself to walk to the fridge and wash off some fruit.  I know that sounds nuts, but it happens.  and, my body is so screwed up, I know I don’t feel hunger the way I should.  My appetite is shot.  I usually don’t eat much of anything until late in the day.  I get a smoothie in the morning, sometimes, but that usually is all I consume for most of the day, food wise.  I want to do more, but I feel so weak, and weak-willed.  I’ve really started to wonder if I don’t deserve all this pain.  I brought every bit of it on myself, the same way this head cold is hanging on because I can’t get myself to do more to take care of me.  Yeah, I’m pretty sure I deserve to hurt. 

I probably haven’t actually paid up for all my misdeeds.  This could all be my karmic burn, for being a piece of sh*t, when I should have amounted to something years ago.  I really could have done so many things, by now.  Good things…  instead, I get to wake up sick every morning as a reminder of what a sh*t I’ve been, for so long.  I know, I know…  I am off smack, but I don’t feel particularly NEW or reinvented at the moment.  In the words of Elliott Smith, "I’m damaged bad, at best."

For a while, everything started to seem possible, again.  But, now, I am not so sure.  

The thing I am most sure about…  doesn’t really fit.  

But, nothing really does…  not clearly.

Or, maybe, it doesn’t matter what fits.  Maybe, I am painting a whole new picture.  I don’t know.  I don’t know what anything means, where it’s going, or what I am supposed to do.

Someone I am close to told me not to worry about what’s possible.  To just let sh*t unfold…  and, that was my philosophy.  But, I can’t help but worry.  Holding onto too much…  everything can slip through your fingers…  

I try to hold onto the love, and happiness in my life.  I try to move forward with what’s constructive, and creative.  I try to build things that matter to me.  But, I am still such a mess, and I am afraid of screwing my life more than I already have.  I fear important decisions – I never used to be like that.  I could make snap judgments without fear or regret.  But, not now.  I am paralyzed, and cannot move in any particular direction.  It’s pretty daunting.

But, since don’t have it figured out, and what I do know, and feel, is holding me firmly in place, for the moment, I have to try to rock with it.  I just have to breathe, and try to relax, and tell myself that no matter how screwy or out of sorts things seem, it’s sh*t tons better than where I have been.  Whatever I am moving towards has to be infintely better than where I came from.  It has to be…  because, I have the worst of everything behind me, at this point.  What people have done to me, and what I’ve done to myself…  so many lost hopes and opportunities…  so much time that just seemed to wash away with the tide, while I wasn’t looking…  

There is happiness in my life, right now.  Happiness that I don’t want to let go of.  The tricky part is that I might have decisions to make that I thought had been made for me.  Charlie feels the distance getting closer, so he reaches out, and holds on, just enough, to keep me from letting go altogether.  Maybe, he wants me, and he’s just making his stand as best he can, right now.  Maybe, he doesn’t know, but knows he isn’t ready to let go.  I don’t know, either.  I don’t know anything, right now. 

That’s not true.  I know some things.  I know what I feel I need to hold onto.  Anytime I’ve loosened my grip,  my whole reality flashes before my eyes, and I realize that I wouldn’t have any of it, if it weren’t for…

I’m rambling like the headcase I am.  Time to stop, for now.  Maybe, I’ll be able to get this out more clearly, later.  More concisely…

Jordan’s here.  It’s good to have a friend to focus on.      

My moods jump to such highs and lows.  Dangerous lows…  fleeting thoughts of suicide, and at times, lingering thoughts of heroin…  I don’t want to talk to my shrink because if I get locked up in a hospital, I will really lose it.  I can’t handle being hospitalized unless I am FULL ON crazy sick.  Once I am stable, I start having panic attacks, wanting to get out.  I think it goes back to when I was attacked – I remember laying in my hospital bed, afraid to sleep, because I thought my ex was going to come find me, and kill me.  He said he would wait until I felt safe, and had forgotten him, but he was an impatient guy.  I was afraid he’d cut my throat as soon as I closed my eyes.  I know he can’t hurt me, now.  But, I am still afraid of the dark, and I still can’t stand to find myself laying in a hospital bed.

Ace has really been getting me through this dark stretch.  He’s one of the most amazing people I have ever met.  His kindness, and depth never cease to astonish me.  I know I would never have made it this far without his friendship.  My relationship with him has been oe of the most important of my life.  I hope he realizes all that he has done, and that he continues to do, for me.  There was a lot of emptiness in my life when we met, and now…  there’s much more beauty and happiness in my life. 

Ace, if you’re reading this, please rememeber (even when I am struggling) that you made everything good in my life possible for me.  Never forget that.