TheBanyanTree: My #OnwardIGo Musings

[Monique Colver]

I am drowning in work right now but I really want a nap. I nap a lot but
I'm always ready for another one.

Monique

On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 3:27 PM <tobie at shpilchas.net> wrote:

> 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
>
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>
> "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 <tobie at shpilchas.net>
>
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