My Hometown

I came home to Chicago to visit my family for the week. . . and my dog, a big fluffy Rottweiler/Lab mix.  I love that dog.  She's a bitch, but I love her. 

Taking her for a walk around the neighborhood was so surreal.  That town was my childhood.  We played Ghost in the Graveyard on cool summer nights and smoked pot at the small park down the street.  Our names are still carved in the gazebo.  It never ceases to amaze me how the nostalgia of youth can be both painful and glorious at the same time.  How different my hometown can look as a child, as a teenager, and as an adult.  Same world, same homes; different people.  As a little girl, I loved this neighborhood; I loved the familiarity and safeness of it all.  I knew the grown-ups around me and felt, with that knowledge, I would always be protected.  As a teenager I hated this neighborhood; the bourgeois, middle class life seemed to threaten the veiled idealism I carried around with me.  But, as an adult, jaded by disappointment and self-doubt, I cherish this neighborhood.  The summer shadows that cast themselves upon the faded pavement, the way the leaves move like velvet through the trees every time the wind picks up.  The quietness of it all.  I used to climb a tree out side our house and stare out at the empty intersection, the way the street lamp cast a warm glow upon it.  I used to get lost in the mere peacefulness of it all.

I wonder if we are forever meant to want what we can't have and to persecute all that's in our grasp; to escape from simplicity out of fear that our lives aren't worth living without the heavy, uneven breadth of complication endlessly aggravating every gift of solidity that rises in it's absence.  I don't know if it is better to yearn and to dream, chasing visions of hope like a feather in the wind or to rest easy and peacefully and to take in what comes without anticipating anything but the warm embrace of consistency; the familiar faces and sunsets that you learn to depend on and know you love. 

I want to be passionate and safe; wild and familiar; to live in a world that is ever-changing but beautifully reliable.  I want to have my cake and eat it too.  But I guess even Utopia wears a poker face.

Procrastination

I wanted to die today.  The feelings of hopelessness were unbearable.  My mother and Hunter always joke about how I have 2 emotions-ecstatic and pissed off.  But depression, that, among them all, consumes me.  So, so regularly.  It swallows me, suffocates me.  I miss being manic.  Those feelings like you could take on the world with just one, tiny, crooked little finger.

I know it's not just me that's struggling.  I spoke to Hunter, my little sister, my grandma and my uncle today.  All of them talked about hopelessness and frustration and fear.  We are living in a time where nobody can depend on much of anything.  The stagnant but powerful feeling of unrest that characterizes America has left us disillusioned, discouraged. . . .unhappy.  Perhaps the knowledge that I'm not alone might just be enough to keep me alive today.  But I'm not sure what will do it for me tomorrow.  So I guess I'll save my dull razors for a rainy day, considering it hardly rains in Southern California, I'm hoping that when it does start to fall, my thoughts will be dwelling on sunnier circumstances.

Finding A Balance

I got into a car accident yesterday.  I might have been hurt.  The doctor says I have whiplash.  I am just desperately trying to give a dam.  Maybe it's the economy; maybe it's California; maybe it's me.  It's amazing how quickly my head takes over.  There is nothing like a big, fat, stereotypical downward spiral to complete an already shitty day.  By the time I was ready for bed last night I had decided that I was going to relinquish all my dreams and just start having babies (I hate children).  I began to wonder if maybe the reason some women choose to give up their career ambitions to have kids and be stay-at-home moms is because it gives them a sense of purpose.  Suddenly you no longer have to worry about who you are, your self-worth, your competence.  You're a stay-at-home mom, you raise children, no questions ask, no judgement placed.  It's the one way ticket out of a land that constantly has you faced with the possiblity of failure and rejection.  In some ways I imagine it's refreshing. 

I've spent the past 30 years chasing my dreams, and all it's done is landed me broke, in a foreign, hostile land, with little to show for myself but a few home made songs and a flea-infested apartment by the water.  I feel as if I've spent the past 2 years in survival mode, every time I finish picking up the pieces from one disaster, another one begins.  Aside from Hunter, all the people I love, who truly love me, are back home.  I'm beginning to wonder what really defines us-the people we love, or the places we go?  I would go crazy, living in one small town for the rest of my life.  But, being so far away from my people, after a life spent longing to feel a part of, the sheer loneliness of it all isn't necessarily keeping me sane.  There has got to be a balance.

Humanity

I have a boyfriend, Hunter.  We moved in together shortly after we started dating.  We met through a mutual friend about a year and a half ago.  Well, actually, it was longer than that.  I guess we met about 2 years ago and sat together at a few AA meetings here and there.  He said he went out of his way to sit by me and that we talked the whole time.  I don't remember.  He said he gave up after he came into a meeting one time and came towards me to say hi and I looked right past him as if we never met.  He then labeled me as just another pretentious, Orange County snob and decided not to bother. 

I lost my ability to recognize faces when I was a little girl.  From what I understand it was a direct result of a series of events that took place, following my brother's accident.  Most of the time I have to meet someone 5 or 6 times before I finally recognize who they are.  It was always a bit of a drag on first dates or those first times I got together with a new friend.  I relied solely on their expression when we made eye contact.  On more than one occasion, when I was feeling confident, I have walked up to someone, positive we had talked a few days ago, called them by what I though was their rightful name and started asking them questions about our last conversation.  Of course the confusion on their face and the fact that they were looking at me like I had a third nostril usually gave it away.  Luckily, since a lot of this happens at AA meetings they just figure I'm high and give me a hug.   I guess the beginning of every relationship and friendship I have ever embarked on was characterized by a series of blind dates.  Perhaps the next time I'm getting together with someone for the first time I will have them wear a carnation in their front pocket.

Nowadays, Hunter stands by my side and reminds me of who people are when they come over to say hi.  I imagine it's what the president feels like at a big event; every few minutes his secretary leans over and whispers names and descriptions in his ear.  Perhaps if I could wipe the confused look off my face and replace it with a far more self-important one, people will have no idea I have an early case of Alzheimer's.

Anyways, by the fourth time I met Hunter I finally remembered him.  We started hanging out regularly because a friend of ours had just been broken up with by her boyfriend of a year.  Our primary goal was to stay near her and keep her from shooting dope or, for that matter, getting back together with the dirt bag that broke her heart.  So we developed our friendship based on a mutual desire to keep a fellow addict from relapsing.  He became my best friend over night.  Being a newcomer in sobriety and 5 years younger than me, I figured it was safe to befriend him since I could not imagine us getting romantically involved.  But we spent every waking moment together; talking until 3 in the morning about everything, laughing, exploring the aspects of Southern California that still have a shred of natural beauty, sharing our experiences, fears, doubts and frustrations.  He was my companion and I was so grateful.  Falling in love with him was so easy.

Now we live together.  We just celebrated our 1 year anniversary.  I have to say, although falling in love with him was easy-it's maintaining that love that feels difficult.  Not because of anything he has ever done or not done, but because I am fueled by my emotions and, on top of that, I struggle constantly with the ability to honor the humanity in the people around me, as they, so eloquently, honor it in me.  If Hunter were perfect, I would be irritated by his excessive perfection.  He accepts everything about me, well I sit there staring at him, pissed off.  I know I am not an easy person to love, but I will keep trying, because what other option is there really?

A Barometer for Normalcy

I wonder what my life would be like if I believed that I was my own barometer for normalcy.  That every choice I made and every action I took was, in my conscience, the perfect action and decision for me.  If the invisible woman whose terms I stand by and whose shoes I walk in, all this time was me.  How do I invite self-improvement and self-acceptance into my life?  Can the two even exist?  It seems so contradictory.  There has to be a balance.  In the mean time, I'm focusing on self acceptance-that will be my self-improvement.

My First Time

I stare at the computer screen, fondling my thoughts and this new phenomena that characterizes American culture.  Are we lonely?  Desperate for a sense of connection?  Perhaps it's my own sense of desperation.  I suppose living in a place like Orange County can do that to a person.  I moved to Long Beach 2 years ago after spending most of my life in Chicago.  I longed to smell the ocean and be at liberty to walk along the beach whenever I pleased.  As a bi-polar alcoholic with, at the time, 4 years of sobriety, I wanted to side swipe my own limitations and prove to myself that, like any hot blooded American, I could chase whatever American dream captured my fancy.  I have no regrets.  After years of going in and out of mental institutions, rehab, battling an eating disorder and alienating myself from friends and loved ones, I felt I owed it to myself to chase whatever ambitions came my way until I found that sense of belonging I spent my life yearning for.  I pride myself on little.  I don't claim to know anything but the knowledge of how much I long to know.  All I have to share is my own experience and tid bits of understanding I have gained as a result of them.  This is my first blog.