TheBanyanTree: My #OnwardIGo Musings

[tobie at shpilchas.net]

Ah Monique!

	Brilliant and sensitive as usual. Too bad we can’t step outside ourselves and take an objective look. But that has something to do with the laws of physics (which I try to forget since the X husband, the large headed physicist walked out on us lo those many years ago).  On the other hand, even if we could step outside ourselves, that doesn’t mean we’d be able to take an objective look. Objectivity may be close to impossible except on paper — and as I said I try not to concentrate on those equations.  Life ain’t an equation.  That was embedded somewhere in your post on a variety of levels.

	Forgive my disjointedness. I’m writing this while addicted to Zithromax which I’m taking for pneumonia. Came down with that quite by surprise because as opposed to reality I still harbor fantasies that I’m immune to age and overwork, of which I have an abundance.

	I was going to write in to ask everyone for a joke or two, just to keep my head above water (in my case, phlegm) while lying here unable to do much more than lie here, but I learned by reading your offering that depth works well too.  Inertia is the most energy I can manage about now.  I’m doing inertia superbly. 

And now my mind is wandering (not far; not enough momentum for that),

Love,

Tobie


> On Jan 8, 2019, at 2:17 PM, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I am writing from the hotbed of banality, just outside of Portland, where
> the really cool things happen.
> 
> Addiction is easy when the illusion has worn away and only falling is left.
> Falling is easier when there's a cushion to land on.
> 
> I started this a long time ago, so I'm not sure where I was going with it.
> 
> But addiction I understand. I am addicted only to chocolate at the moment,
> and sleep. But drug addiction? There's something I can get behind. I mean,
> I don't, but I can understand it. My mother was an alcoholic, and I know
> for her it helped sharpen all those edges she hated. The points of things
> that she'd rather pretend didn't exist, the things that made her think she
> wasn't a good mother. The alcohol would remove those things to a distance
> where they didn't hurt so much.
> 
> She was not a terribly great mother, and I hope the alcohol made that
> easier on her. It didn't do much for me, but I'm a grown up, and no matter
> my upbringing I wouldn't have wanted her to have those doubts because they
> don't change anything. Guilt by itself is useless, just another thing
> people try to forget to save themselves.
> 
> She was using drugs when she was pregnant with me, and drinking, and I've
> wondered if that's why my brain isn't quite right. It never has been. I'm
> brilliant in some respects and dull as a doorknob in others. My brother,
> who came after me, was brilliant in math, and I was not. By that time she
> was married to our dad and laying off the drugs. Maybe not the alcohol. My
> brother though is an angry man. Don't cross him and he's fine. His youngest
> daughter and I joke about how uptight he is, the kind of guy who obsesses
> about the perfection of the lawn. Not just his lawn, but everyone's. I am
> lucky he has never come to my house because steam would roll out of his
> ears in big waves.
> 
> My younger sister has some emotional issues and will, I think, sink into
> depression and disappear. I think, because she disappears during those
> times. A week after messaging me that we have to stay in touch, at least
> monthly, maybe weekly, she will not respond to me again for six months or
> so. She learned how to drink from my mother, who, as per expectation,
> abandoned her as well.
> 
> My mother left all three of us. First my brother and I, at some age I can't
> even remember, and later my sister, when she didn't like that marriage
> either. She always liked to think she left us behind for our own benefit.
> It made it easier.
> 
> And we know what a mess I am. There is something fundamentally off about
> me, but there's no telling why.
> 
> I flirted with alcoholism when I was 18, 19. Then I became a social
> drinker, and then for years I really didn't care if I drank or not The
> drinking became less and less often, and I only drink now if I think it's
> going to be an interesting drink, something fruity. Otherwise, never mind.
> I'm not alcoholic apparently. My brother doesn't drink, though I have seen
> him have the very occasional Dos Equis.
> 
> My knowledge of drugs is limited to what I read and see on TV. I had/have
> two cousins who were/are addicts. One died of an overdose a couple of years
> ago and her brother is whereabouts unknown. He could be in prison again, or
> he could be roaming around, or he could be dead too. We really don't know.
> Their father was a terrible person who drank constantly and always wanted
> to fight with me.
> 
> I don't know why people take drugs, but I do understand wanting things to
> not hurt so much. I understand looking for comfort in something that will
> blur the edges and make life bearable again. I almost even understand
> wanting to go back to it when one has gone back to living in real life.
> Real life is full of despair, even though we're conditioned to believe that
> we should be happy to just be alive, that the very act of breathing should
> imbue within us a joy to experience everything that happens to us. But it's
> not like that for a great many people. Life is full of despair and pain,
> which is why the suicide rate is going up and police carry Naloxone. We
> help with that by calling people losers, by telling them they should be
> able to live like the rest of us do, by discounting their experiences and
> by failing to understand that they have just as many reasons for taking
> drugs as we do not to take drugs. We do not take their pain seriously
> because we'd rather believe it's willpower, and if they were just not the
> emotional wrecks they let themselves be they'd be fine.
> 
> Productive rational people who work hard and look on the bright side.
> 
> I look at my little bottle of mild opiates and I think, "If that were only
> stronger," but I take them only when the pain gets bad. The physical pain.
> I know the mental pain will not be eased with a momentary fix. This week
> it's my hip, but I don't even take them then, not until my entire body is
> encased in a trap of pain. I know I could go overboard, but I don't. I take
> one, maybe two, or with a lorazapam, and eventually the pain fades away and
> I can see again. I could see before, but I mean clearly.
> 
> Only once could I not see at all and that was apparently an embolism.
> 
> When the depression comes and puts a chokehold on me I know that pain
> relievers won't help because in those moments I am convinced of my
> worthlessness, and that I should feel that way because it's what I deserve.
> 
> I take a lot of meds these days. Meds to keep the Parkinson's under
> control, meds to help cognition, meds to avoid strokes, meds to keep me
> upright and happy.
> 
> I am happy, mostly, though I do have my moments. Life is hard sometimes.
> It's a challenge. But I'm privileged and have a fairly easy life, except
> for money. I worry about money more than my health, because without money
> what good is health? I know that's backwards but I've been poor, and that's
> when I had strokes because I was stressed about being poor. Money would
> have helped. People who say that health is more important than money have
> never wondered where their next meal was coming from. Of course, even I was
> never that poor. I always had a place to live and food to eat. And I own a
> house. It's a cushy life, as long as I can keep the money dripping in. I'm
> avoiding my health concerns because of money. I need a vascular test of
> some sort, but I know it's going to be expensive and I already owe for my
> last MRI. I'd met my deductible, but it was still spendy.
> 
> I drifted off from addiction apparently. I haven't been writing much, I've
> been working and sleeping and seeing friends when possible, so when I start
> writing it doesn't stop. I miss words more than I used to, as in I'll write
> something and not realize I've skipped over words entirely, but that's not
> a big deal. It's not as if I'm writing for pay or anything.
> 
> But addiction. I understand it. I could go there. Don't think I will
> because I haven't yet, but I could see it.
> 
> Monique
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 

"In this country, we make old age so awful, it's no wonder people die of it."  THS



Tobie Shapiro
mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>