Photo by Jay Wennington on Unsplash
July 4, 2019
Well I took enough Klonipin to put down an elephant yesterday. It wasn’t the anxiety, it was the depression.
So ya, lots of rumination of how my life has been stolen from under my feet, in an instant, in a 20 second phone call from my brother on May 2nd. Lots of retrospection about how I knew, even at the time the call came, that when I left Louisville, it would be for the last time. Walking out of the apartment, forcing myself not to think it. Going down in the elevator, looking up at the ceiling lights, trying not to think of kissing Jeff there, how all that was history. But it was history before. I wasn’t unkind enough to let that truth form fully in my brain on the elevator, but I’m not stupid.
I’ve made arrangements to ship what remains in my Louisville studio back here. I still have a return ticket to Louisville. I might change it to next April, spend my birthday with my Louisville friends.
The big take away here is that I’ve accepted it. This is it now. For now. I was whining to my niece, Paisley, last night and she said I was being silly. I am of course. I’m free to live my life anyway I choose, anywhere I live. Just right now, I have certain responsibilities, which is a good thing.
Yet I have to lie to my mother, who is the only person I can masterfully lie to without a single regret. I’ve perfected this skill for 56 years. I am a lousy liar. The worst. I hate to lie. But with mom, it was always a necessity. For as long as I’ve been having sex. Since then it’s been a constant stream of lies. About sex, drinking, gambling. After she finds out, as she inevitably does at times, she says she knew I was lying. But she didn’t. She doesn’t. How else do you explain I’ve managed two liaisons since I arrived here less than two months ago?
AND THANK GOD FOR THAT. Maybe it’s sexual acting out, well yes, of course it’s sexually acting out. And it’s simple passive aggressive bullshit. But it’s also life affirming and fucking fun as hell. But for right now, just like I’m going to eat as much chocolate as I want, and secretly drink martinis (not driving, promise, and remember, I don’t lie to anyone but Mom), I’m going to hookup when I feel safe and when I damn well want to. (Which is not nearly as often as I’m making it sound here…)
You can make the woman move back to Centralia, but you can’t take the self-sabotage out of the woman with low self-esteem. Nearly four decades of therapy haven’t managed that one. But I have lots and lots of condoms!
May I begin to live fully ME again. Happy Fourth of July! Queue the goddamn fireworks!