Long Weekends and Nights Alone

Going to be a long weekend, can’t afford to spend money to be drunk for it, don’t know that that would do any good since it would only bring me down more and I haven’t slept more than 4 hours in a day for over a year so I know I won’t be able to just sleep through it.

A couple people told me to go out, have a few drinks, dance, etc but that won’t work.  I can’t dance, never could.  Can barely hear with my left ear, can’t hear when there’s alot of background noice unless people talk directly into my right ear and if there’s enough noise, yell into it.  The hearing problem is enough to leave me feeling alone an isolated in crowds and that would make me feel worse.  Drinking wouldn’t make me feel better, depression and alcohol would be a very bad combination especially if I was already feeling more alone than I do now.

Someone else said get laid.  No emotional connection = No physical connection.  Anything less would make me feel worse.  I don’t know that it would help anyway.  Wrapping my arms around a beautiful woman and falling asleep listening to her breath, or having her hold me so I can listen to her heartbeat as I fall asleep would probably help, but it would need to be someone who already held a piece of my heart if not the entire thing.  The sex wouldn’t need to happen at all, just the closeness with someone who cares and means something special to me, that woman would be someone I’d be willing to be with like that but I don’t see my phone ringing anytime soon.

Another person said find a good woman.  Those are hard to find and the good ones are either taken or aren’t interested in being with anyone.  Even if I did find one, my life is a mess and a big part of that mess is because of a woman.  Unless she was someone extremely special, she’d have to accept that for a while she couldn’t do more than hold my heart and care for it because it belongs to someone else.  Even if she was special enough to change that it would take time.  She’d have to care about me enough to be willing to be with me knowing that where my heart is concerned, she might never be more than a caretaker for someone else who’ll never ask for it.

If I had the money for a down payment I could try to get one of the foreclosed homes in my neighborhood and spend my time fixing it up.  It wouldn’t solve the problems, they can’t be solved, but at least it would keep me from thinking about the and hoping they resolve themselves.  That option is a long way off because fixing my car so it would pass inspection drained my bank account.

Adding to the rest of my troubles if the fact that unless he goes away with his girlfriend, I’ll have to deal with the person whose home I live in being a dick about the fact that I’m still here even though he knows exactly what has kept me from being able to get out including his own refusal to take responsibility for his animal and the injuries and financial losses it caused me. He gets to go live his life, not take care of his animals, not give the dog the attention it needs, not pay for animal care, and I just get a regular attitude about me being here even though it would cost him at least $1000/month to have someone tending to his animals for him and I’m doing it for just the use of a bedroom that he couldn’t rent out for more than $400/month.  Maybe I should get a lawyer over the losses his animal caused and give him reason to be a piss ass bastard.

So it looks like I’ll be spending a three day weekend at home with nothing to do but think.  Going to be three long days and three very long, lonely nights.

My Nanny

I owe her so much. I know we were poor but as a child i never knew it. She taught me to read with what she had so i did my literary teething on Wordsworth, Dickinson, and Coleridge while tossing coconut grenades at pirates and sailing the seas in search of the great white whale. On christmas morning the mountain of presents under the tree always spilled out from beneath its branches. There was never a day we didnt eat a healthy home cooked meal and the only clothing we had that was torn and patched was our play clothes.
She managed that by using the money shed saved for traveling after she retired. Everysay in a million little ways she made sure we knew we were loved and never knew we were living in poverty.
We were happy, we were healthy, we were proud of who we were, and most importantly no matter what else happened we had our grandmother standing by our side supporting us. She gave us everything we needed and more than we could have asked for.
I love you Nanny.

The show must go on.

I’ve been taking herbal stuff and other such for the last couple weeks to try to help deal with shit in my life and it seems to be working.  Co-workers have commented that I look better and being as I’ve only been at the job just over 2 months they only saw me looking like hell until now so I know it’s working.  It’s not doing anything for the actual problem, but i don’t look as exhausted as I feel, I can think clearer, and my mood isn’t as down as it was.  Fake energy, increased blood flow to capillaries and soft tissue, and mood stabilizing herbs are making it possible for me to put on a show of being OK, but that’s all it is.  I’m walking around wearing a mask to hide the reality of my life.

Inside I’m still exhausted, my brain is still spinning gears without engaging all the time, I’m still fighting to keep from breaking down randomly, I just don’t look it.  There’s disadvantages to it.  The extra energy, fake as it is, is still energy.  Panax Ginseng is great for that and it increases vitality (feeling more alive for those who don’t know).  Add DHEA, the A being androsterone which the body uses to produce testosterone, and I have energy, I feel more alive, and my stamina is up so I have the energy I need to keep fighting.  Being at a point in my life when T production drops off which contributes to mood issues that boost helps with that, but increased testosterone + energy + feeling more alive + stamina = sex drive I never had even when I was 18.  If I didn’t need the main effect of it I would drop it but I need those so I just have to ignore that.

So I’ve found a way to mask the symptoms of the shit i have to deal with.  I’ve never looked at women as objects but now instead of physical attributes being an after-after thought if they even became a thought at all they’re something I definitely notice.  I feel like a sleazeball because of it.  That’s not who I am.  The tired, depressed guy who couldn’t even order dinner wasn’t me either but at least that was understandable.

So now I’m a fake.  I look like I’m ok, I appear to have my head together, I don’t look like I’m about to break down at any minute, but inside nothing has changed.  I’m still in pain.  I’m still exhausted.  I’m still fighting for control.  My heart is still torn apart.  I’m just hiding it all behind a well well written play.

My life in under 10 minutes

Breathe in, knife in.  Breathe out, knife out.  For 3 1/2 years that’s been my life.  Every breath, every day.  I used to sleep to get away from it but early last year it started showing up in my dreams and by May it was in every dream every night.  For over a year I haven’t been able to get away from it for long.

I have a rabbit hole i can fall into, but at this point that only works for as long as I’m in my little Wonderland because I’ve lost my white rabbit, and when I come back to the present the pain is worse and the hole where she was tears me apart.  At jobs where I’m on a machine that could mangle me the need to focus on what I’m doing pushes the pain to the side but it’s still there.

Over a year of not being able to escape from pain.  Over a year of not being able to get a good nights sleep.  It’s been taking it’s toll on me.  Late last summer I started losing words.  Last Octobeer a waitress asked me what I want to drink, I’d drew a blank and after staring at her for 30 seconds I ordered “hot, black, in the silver thing” because even though I drink it everyday the words coffee and urn were gone and I had no idea what was in the silver thing, just that I always ordered it.  I’m too tired to think straight, body and mind are just too drained.  I can’t even come up with “physically and mentally exhausted” half the time because they’re gone too.

I look to the future and see more of the same.  The problem that causes the pain isn’t going to go away on it’s own so I’ll live with that till I die, the only alternative is it gets worse.  I see no possibility of a good nights sleep so I’ll keep being drained.  My brain will keep losing words.  I’ll continue to be unable to even order a cup of coffee right.  Not a future worth looking forward too.

I used to be able to put on a show of being OK, I could push the pain and everything else far enough away to get a forced smile on my face and keep from pulling my arm against my side, to ignore the additional stabs in my side, back, and chest. I paid for it later because the pain was worse when it came back, but for a little while I could look like there was nothing wrong and keep a friend from worrying abut me. Not anymore though. It’s been months since I could keep that mask on for more than an hour and even that is more than I can handle. Putting on the mask means when it falls off I fall apart. I end up curled up in a ball crying and can’t stop. I fight against that everyday and most of the time I win but not always and putting on the “I’m OK” show means I will lose everytime.

That’s my life.  Pain, exhaustion, depression, fighting for control, and looking to a future that has nothing else in it.  If it wasn’t for my Baby Kitties I’d just give up, find a hole and crawl in it.  Even they’ll leave me.  One left right after the pain started, the rest will leave one by one until they’re all gone.  Eventually I won’t even have them.  They’re all I have now, and when they’re gone I’ll have nothing worth having.

Happy Face?

I just spent a little over an hour pretending everything was OK.  I put on a happy face, tried not to wince everytime I was stabbed, and acted like I wasn’t fighting to keep from breaking down and crying to see if I still could.  Well I can, sort of, but now I’m sitting here with tears rolling down my cheeks because I just don’t have the energy to fight the pain.  Putting on a show for other’s benefit just isn’t worth the toll it’s taking on me now.  I just can’t do it, so I’m not going to.  If being with the people around me doesn’t take me away from the pain and exhaustion I live with every day then they’re just going to have to live with seeing it.

Who am I?

I suppose you want to know something about me.  Ok, here goes.

I’m in pain.  Every breath drives a knife into my left side.  It’s been like that for 3 1/2 years.  I used to be able to go to sleep to get away from it but early last year the pain started following me into some of my dreams.  By summer it was every dream, every night. 

So what causes that?  There’s a large, twisted mass of scar tissue on my left lung from a collapse in January of 2009.  A large weak spot tore open creating a ragged hole in my lung, air flowed out of it into my chest cavity compressing the lung to less than half it’s normal size.  It was over 50% collapsed and under a great deal of pressure when I went to the emergency room and I spent 6 days in the hospital with a tube in my chest.  I came home with lungs that not only have weak spots on them that can tear for no reason other than they felt like it, but with a mass of rigid, inflexible scar tissue that causes the healthy lung tissue next to it to tear creating more scar tissue when it heals which replaces what disolves because my body thinks it’s foreign tissue and tries to get rid of it.  Every breath I tear my lung a little bit and even if it doesn’t tear through it still feels like a knife being driven into my side.

So why don’t I get it fixed?  The risks of damaging the lung by trying to fix it are greater than the chance of successfully fixing it so there’s nothing that can be done to fix it.  I just have to live with it.  Even worse, something as commonplace as slipping on an icy sidewalk could send me to the ER for emergency surgery.  Any significant impact could.  Between the large mass of scar tissue, the smaller masses from other weak spots tearing, the air that’s constantly in my chest cavity instead of my lungs always putting pressure on the lung hittng the ground hard is all it will take to tear several weak spots open causing a rupture that will cost me at least 1/3 of the lung, possibly the entire thing.  Barring a miracle that prevents any new scar tissue from forming so what’s there can disolve that risk will always be there.

There’s good news though.  Assuming I’m very careful when I’m walking, don’t ever slip, trip, get knocked down, get into an accident, or anything else that would cause a significant impact my lung isn’t likely to rupture on its own and I’ll only have to deal with the sympton, the pain, for the rest of my life.  Isn’t that good news?  The best case scenario is that I get stabbed in the side everytime I take a breath, awake or asleep, for the rest of my life.  How lucky am I?

Constant pain while I’m awake, constant pain in my dreams while I’m asleep, living with that for the rest of my life being “lucky,” who wouldn’t want that?

So I live in pain.  I’m always tired because I haven’t had a good nights sleep in over a year.  I’m physically and mentally exhausted.  The future is anything but bright.  I’m in a fight with depression that I barely have the energy for.  It takes almost everything I have to hold myself together leaving nothing for “putting on a happy face” for the world anymore. 

So that’s me.  A man who lives in constant pain he can never escape from with nothing to look forward to except more pain and who can’t even manage to put on a show for those he cares about to keep them from worrying too much.