11.11.2014

Fucking inexcusable

There was that time yesterday when I cried. I had steeled myself to visit with my Mom (all the way upstairs in her room!) It was her first day of radiation, and I knew she'd be emotional. I knew she needed me, and I am just so very...needed. So I reminded myself that the diagnosis is terminal - what a fucked up sort of motivating that is, how ugly. How very fucking ugly. And I steeled myself, and I visited her. She had a list of favors, and she had written 'hugs' on it. Three times. But mostly she was wondering if we could rig up something with some rubber tubing out her window so that she can smoke in her room. And I came downstairs with her laundry, and her cooler, and some pills she needed cut, and I collapsed at the bottom of the stairs and cried very quietly for ten minutes or so. No one heard me. No one checked on me. No one really wants to stand too close to a bottomless pity spiral. A supernova black-hole of needed and needy. Lest they get sucked in.

But the crying felt good, I'd done relatively little of it. So I tried it again on the drive home tonight. I called a few friends for an audience, someone to share the sound with, but no one picked up. So I just talked to myself out loud between sobs, which probably allowed for a little more honesty anyway. When they call back I won't answer. Timing.

I am drowning.

I am avoiding everyone - my friends, my fiance, my children, most of all my mother. I am killing everything with constant distraction. No one has had a conversation with me where I'm not simultaneously staring into the inviting glow of my phone screen. Facebook. HuffPo. CNN. Give me all these stories, all these far far away stories. I can feel about them - I can feel sad or funny or outraged or heart-warmed. Because they are so far away.

I don't want to engage in anyone, in anything. My children appear to exist solely so that I don't get drunk before 8:00PM (on Mama weeks. 5:00 otherwise. Every. Fucking. Night.) I am incapable of enjoying them. I'm barely capable of feeding them. The house is falling apart - I'd rather use the restroom at Sheetz, it's cleaner. And I have finally said "Nothing" enough times that my fiance has all but checked out. No doubt feeling helpless. Because helpless is what I make people feel like when I'm like this. Helpless and frustrated and guilty. I wouldn't want to feel that way either.

I can tell you how I feel around me - utterly disgusted. Weak, and disgusted by the weakness. Dirty and disgusted by the dirt. Fat and disgusted by the fat! Ha. I keep waiting to prove myself wrong. To wake up one day, hangover-free, clean my house, fucking organize some shit and work out. Go to bed sober and feeling good about how I spent my day. Waiting to leave this cycle of escape-rumination-escape-rumination behind. Waiting for some fucking boot straps. Jesus.

There are, of course, lists. Get a therapist. Forget the crazy high intensity workout and just walk a mile at lunch. We know the drill. Aim small. Baby steps. etc. etc. Maybe some meds. Cause when the going gets tough, the tough get Zoloft.

I can't do all these things I'm supposed to do. The appointments, and keeping all the meds filled, and making sure there's Diet Pepsi and cigarettes because Jesus Christ, Jeanine, she's dying, and she shouldn't have to do it without Diet Pepsi and cigarettes. But apparently she has to do without me, as I have completely left the building, and that is fucking inexcusable.