remonstrance and reminiscence

i feel different today.  i don't know what precipitated this, but it is not a problem.  I got up and said my prayer.  i moved slow, but i had a decent breakfast, two fried eggs and toast, and coffee.  sugar was better, so i'm going to keep working with splitting my long acting insulin into two doses, but a dose of fifteen and then ten is what i'm trying today, not a problem.  i went to take the civil service test, and then i went to Niles to pick up coffee, as both my brother and myself are pretty much out.  before i left home i put money on Syd's phone so she won't be out of time come the 2nd, and as i was on my way back to Youngstown i began thinking about the things i've been learning lately.  like scripture and philosophy, things don't mean much if they are not applicable to one's daily life.  if i don't see where what i'm learning should affect change in  my life, then it's just self-flagellation.  if, however, i can make some changes and see what the results are, then it is merely discovery that adds import, gravity and weight, to the sacrifice.  in essence, what i believe now, and this is subject to change, is that as well as remembering that you have to readdress how the adult regards the inner child, it has to be ascertained whether the adult has become an abusive parent to themselves, because that is one of the things that keeps the inner child alive, it is the point of focus for many adults who find themselves unable to emotionally and mentally grow past a certain age.  they were abused, and they stopped growing because to survive they had to hide the child within them, which created a flawed adult far too soon, and one who would remain flawed and defective even once they reached actual chronological adulthood.  it's not gospel yet, but it is a working hypothesis.  for example:
i have been in communication with an old friend, B.C, over the past year or so.  spoke to him at him reaching out to me, asking for my information so he could come and visit.  he was one of my friends as a young man, one of the odder friendships i had.  he was a magnet for attention, was on the football team, was one of the cooler people in our school.  i was a misfit (to my recollection), and i was definitely a strange dude in high school (no argument from anyone there).  i'm not sure how we first became friends, though its likely it was on the basis of both of us smoking weed.  but we also found we each had a love of music that went far beyond the boundaries of Funkadelic, which was the music of our overlapping tribe.  we became friends.  he got to know my family and i got to know his grandmother, whom he was staying with.  i started drifting off into cocaine smoking, and he was retailing it.  i didn't know he was developing his own habit at that time.  when i went on a self-imposed wagon and 'just smoked weed and drank beer', i sort of moved to some different circles, as i was trying to cultivate a reputation of being cool myself at that time.  but when i fell off that wagon, he was the person i approached for some dope.  he made me see what the cocaine was doing to me, as i was begging him to front me some.  he told me to listen to myself, and i did and i was horrified, but only enough to stop being around him and my family.  cocaine has a mind of its own and is a consumer of the minds it encounters.  i didn't have a will, but he was able to set me on the track toward my recovery, though it was some months and many details before i finally arrived at that point.
i had tried to help him as well, when i found he needed a program of recovery, but he didn't choose to stay in the program.  i never really felt the disdain toward him as i did toward so many others who relapsed in my early sobriety.  i moved to columbus with Syd's mom as my hostage and a bunch of burning bridges behind me and i lost track of him at that point.  when i came back from Columbus, i learned that BC was in a federal lock, and i located him on the computer but never went to see him.  finally, i heard from him, he was out, and that's the backstory and the update.
so, i did see him, and i did him a cd as he asked me to.  but then we never encountered again, except once when i saw him at a restaurant with his child.  i had thought i'd lost his number, to be honest.  but i heard from him a few days ago, a piece of music he suggested that i listen to.  which was extraordinary, by the way.  i started thinking about some of my old friends, people whom i've re-met on facebook, people whom i may never see again.  in light of what i learned about myself talking to Lonnie the other day, i began to think, "what the fuck is wrong with me?"  it's not always easy to look at yourself.  sometimes its the hardest thing in the world to do.  because you see you reflected in someone else.  you who you thought you'd be, you who you are, who failed and allowed you to continue on.  it is a form of abuse, because i am what i am, and who i'm going to be depends completely on who i am today.  so i can't shortcut my way through this process.  i have to take the bull by the horns and just ride it out.  however, what i was getting at is the quality of parenting i've been doing.  not just with my inner child, but also with Syd and Deja.

thing about this line of reasoning, without proper follow-through it is extremely dangerous.  in the Big Book of AA is says that we 'must be careful not to drift into worry or morbid recollection', which is sort of paraphrasing.  meaning, it's easy, when you start to walk your own backtrail, to get lost in details you can't change.  you can only change in one direction, and that's going forward.  but most of us go back into the swamps and deserts of our past lives (all yesterdays constitute past lives, remember that) and we get stuck in the same mire that we were stuck in when the traumas initially took place.  my only solution, therefore, is to glance back and keep moving forward, and that's what this orbit is really about.  (it takes shape as i gain clarity.  next week it may be about something completely different.)
i didn't see my friend BC today, didn't see R and haven't spoken to her either.  I'm wrapping this up and doing some more work on Mechanical Jesus before i go to bed.  I'm going to the kingdom hall in the morning with my mom and then i'm going to my meeting after that.  tomorrow is daylights saving time.  i still find no point to that, other than to see just how many people can be confused by a flex of some power broker's metaphoric muscles.  imagine a world without time, without the boundaries of minutes and weeks and years, without months or decades.  if you just did what you could do and traded what you did for what you need from those who needed what you did.  if all your goods were just a means to take care of you and yours rather than to stave off the inevitability of your mortality, because without time you would not have more time than anyone else, nor less.  time was made into a commodity so it could be charged for.  remove time and most of the playing field gets instantly leveled.  like, kids go to school when the sun is up and they go home when it's just past the highest point in the sky.  then, you wouldn't have to have your life chiseled into granite by the inflexibility of your schedule, but you'd be governed, rather, by the rise of the sun and the moon.  and wouldn't that be a great thing?  maybe i'm just tired and rambling, i don't know.
had baked salmon, zucchini and sauteed potatoes and peppers for dinner.  had a small bag of chips and an apple for a snack.  i am yawning big, i'm weary from more things than i really want to think about, and i have to get a strong start to the day tomorrow.  so this is it for now.  more tomorrow, in the saving of the daylight...jesus...thank you, Father, for a beautiful day.

the rebellion is a thief

old man days...everyone will have them eventually...except women.  they will have old woman days.
well, maybe...

anyway, today was a nothing sort of day.  i was dragging ass early.  i had my brother take Syd to her bus.  i got breakfast eventually and came back and laid down.  feel a cold still just outside my sightline, waiting to pounce on me.  i watched some television, got ready for the civil service exam and got there to find out i had the wrong day.  it's tomorrow.  i knew, inwardly, that it was tomorrow.  it says the 31st on the admission paper.  the 31st is tomorrow.  so why did i tell my brain that it was today?  old man days.
i went to the store after i left the site where the test will be administered tomorrow.  got a can of soup, got some trash bags and i got a pack of biscuit mix for cheddar garlic biscuits.  i didn't hit the gum, didn't walk. i had not planned to not go.  it just didn't happen.  discipline is slipping.  i was asked if the truth will set me free.  the surface self is in a rebellious state.  it's almost time to lock it down again.  sabotage is a subtle enemy.  by its nature, it is a thief of thieves.  it robs robbers.  it has only two antidotes, which are absolute truth and consistent effort  this is a short entry, because the rest of what i experienced isn't as important to me at this moment than this.  elaboration tomorrow,

Dark Matter

...this is not an easy write.
the best writes usually are more difficult.  i wonder why that is?  why is it that the most profound pain causes the greatest poetry, the most loved songs, the most profound books?  of course, without pain, there would be no Blues.  there would be no kiss sweet enough to dispel heartbreak's burning grasp.
i had lunch with Lonnie today.  it was a moment of admission, and a nice good push from my impulse engine, to start me heading toward another black hole.
we spoke of how things are at this time with R, and believe me, I miss her a great deal, but that's just the deepening of my feelings for her.  we spoke of the things that i do with other people now, things that he remembers me vowing not wanting to do, almost swearing that i would never do them.  i had to admit, by way of amending what i could of years of damage, that i was...lying.
for years, for all the years i have been back in this city, and for several years before that,  apparently.  and again, what comes from pain, what loveliness is born in futures wrung dry of experience's blood?
Lonnie has been one of the best people in my life.  the condemnation that i have had to revise so recently, the condemnation of so many who were 'not there for me', has never included him, but he has been my best friend and therefore the brunt of most of my fears.  I have been in a struggle from the birth of Sydney until now.  I have been out of sorts with my own mind for a decade and a half, because of the factors which have come into play.  before Syd, i was a guardian to children, able to be objective and give lessons without true consequence to myself.  before Syd, i could close the world out for periods when the ridicules and the humiliations grew too heavy and too hot;  i could effect my retreat and return when i chose, to deal again with the terms of life that i had to live beneath.  but with a child of my own, a child born of my seed...there is an inherent responsibility that is born with that child.  and i could no longer run.  and i could no longer hide.  and all the anguish of my situation with Syd's mother had sickened me about myself and about people.  and all the women who came into my life after her were kept at a distance, so as to allow me to deal with Syd and to minimize the need to run.  and when distance couldn't be maintained, then i simply shut off my heart.  and one day, the switch to my heart began to mis-function. instead of being able to turn it on and off, it turned itself on and off at the worst possible times.  when i was at my low point, for instance, in columbus, with no decent job, with bills up to my neck, with a car that was constantly in a state of disrepair, i was on the verge of simply killing myself and sending the children away.  Lonnie and Mike, another friend who is now a casualty of my mental state, came to help me get back to youngstown with Syd, and De'ja went back with his mother, their mother.  i had failed De'ja, i had failed Sydney.  when i got back here, i  had to all but beg my father to allow Syd to stay with them, with all willingness to live in my car or find a shelter, just so long as i knew she was okay.  i had become nothing again in my parent's eyes.  i was a failure and here i was, needing a father who had placed in me that he had no intention of holding my hand forever.  i had tried to make that a non-issue, but i'd failed.  when i got work at West, i saw light in the tunnel.  it was a job, if not a great one.  it was money, wherein we could find a place of our own, we could build again, we could do things that we couldn't do in columbus.  and then the health began to fail, and the job fired me in a cowardly, underhanded way.  failed again.  and the anger and the hurt and the fear built something out of me that i didn't recognize.  i was ashamed, down to the seat of my pores, down to my soul.  i was ashamed of myself, and i couldn't deal with the shame, despite a wonderful counselor and being back with my sponsor.  so i started to numb with food.  always does the trick.  and i withdrew inside my head and heart, and i let no one any closer than they had to be.  i sought hostages, like R the first time around, but i think God was protecting people from me to a great extent, because denial to one used to living in it is like a gun in the hands of a trained assassin.  i was not kind to Lonnie, and he backed me off and i had to consider whether it was more important to be a self-righteous asshole and lose my friend, or to let go of that part of me and keep my friend.  again, i learned that i could change, but it wasn't enough for me to be honest about the pain and the fear.  so i would simply try to keep myself from feeling the feeling of being a failure.  i would decline when Lonnie would ask if i'd like to do certain activities, but i never told him, until today, that i declined because i had a feeling i'd never be able to 'balance the books' so to speak.  i would never be able to be for his family what he was for Syd and I.  i would send Syd to do things with them because i wanted her to do them and i didn't have the money.  and each time i went deeper into myself and ate a little more to numb a little deeper.  these are the results of silence, then.  this is the truth of when you hide inside yourself and pull everything you can down around you to camouflage yourself so that none can find you.  you find yourself buried in shit and alone.
i confessed this to Lonnie in a general way, and we spoke about it.  but i am still not right with it.  it's like finding i sleepwalked on the busy highway.  i don't feel better about being alive because i don't know if i will be next time and i don't know how i got so far out of control.  it is a dark matter, the same as the inside of a black hole.  it has a gravity that is greater than its mass and it can pull a lot of things in.  i hope that i have enough in me to break the gravitational pull and find some safety in distance.  we'll find out soon enough.  

memory banks

...it's the 28th of October...almost 1030 in the morning.  i'm thinking sad thoughts, because i've been commissioned to write a poem for a dying man.  i'm starting with this journal entry because i don't know where this will take me later, and I want to make sure i've got some things down right now.

commissioned poetry, regardless of pay, is more difficult.  because you are attempting to seduce the muse.  and the muse of a poet is called insanity.  statistics say that nine of ten poets have some form of mental disorder.  i've yet to meet the tenth poet.  that includes myself.  there is something about pressing against one's metaphoric eyeballs to bend reality to a certain skew that afflicts the brain beneath the eyes.  so, we court madness.  and when you woo madness for too long, you become infected.

i have had breakfast.  Syd and I got off to a strained start.  i have found nothing exciting until A called to ask me to write a piece for her friend.  i am more than capable of this, but i have to get to where the muse is going to give it up.  so i'm thinking about Rick Johnson.

Rick was a friend of mine who was killed some years ago.  I actually 'inherited' him from an old mentor, Sam Richardson, who was the director at Glenbeigh and has also gone on ahead.  I got him at the Rescue Mission.  I'll never forget Sam's call.  "You got any money?"  yeah, i did.  "Okay, pick up two packs of Newports and meet me at the Rescue Mission."  okay, Sam.  no questions.  this is how 12 step calls were began, and when you got a call you went unless you were absolutely incapacitated.
Rick was a short, light skinned brother who was as beat up as a human could be.  he was turned over to me by way of an introduction from Sam, who told Rick "This is Tim, your new sponsor".  i was in the middle of a whole lot of shit back then, but i was about my recovery.

we started on the book, i gave Rick some directions and he promptly began doing everything i told him not to do.  he moved in with a woman at Westlake projects, which have been torn down and rebuilt as nice apartments which will, in another twenty years, be projects again.  he would go to meetings sporadically.  I'd pick him up, take him when i could.  he reached out for no one without a vagina.  he was using again pretty quickly.  I called Sam one time to complain.  Sam told me "if you've done what you can, that's all you can do."  Rick was the first pigeon i ever fired.  i told him 'i'm not going to watch you die'.  he went on a binge, got himself into some things, and then, God's grace, he got clean.

he would tell people me firing him got him thinking it was time to stop fucking up.  "Tim was the first person who ever made me see what I was doing, who refused to put up with my shit", Rick would say when he lead at meetings.  he helped me a lot through my bad relationship/marriage.  he and Syd's mother and I would hang out, before the bad times came for she and i.  when i was going through the separation from my wife, Rick wouldn't just let me go, one of the few people who didn't turn on me.

I took Syd's mother (before there was a Syd) hostage to columbus, ohio as my mate.  we were actually fucking by then.  i invited Rick as well, but he declined.  i got so wrapped up in my pain in being with Syd's mother that i never reached back when i heard Rick was trying to get in touch with me.

I don't remember who told me about Rick's getting killed.  I just know it was like a kick in the gut.  He was killed in the parking lot of the fellowship hall, where most of our meetings are held.  apparently it was over a woman.  i didn't go to his services, as they were in Cleveland, where he was from.  i didn't make any peace with it until i came back to youngstown one day and broke down in the fellowship hall parking lot, and i 'felt' Rick tell me that it was okay to let go.  several men held me as i finally wept and grieved and let go of my friend.  I still miss him today.  he could sing his ass off.  when i hear the Isley Brothers 'Voyage To Atlantis', I always think of him, and i wish i had just one more week with him.

that's what i'm going to pull from for this poem, to be entitled 'in a moment'.  i'll be back when i finish it.

well, i did finish the piece.  in fact, i finished two of them, because it's best to give someone a choice, then you rarely have to hear someone fuss about what they've received.  i think they're both cool.  i will post the unchosen one as soon as one is chosen.

there was a speaker at the meeting today.  her lead was okay; not much on the application of the steps in her life, but a lot of pain, beneath her laughter, so it was an education to anyone with common sense.  it made me think about this journey i've been on, the journey that's intensified over the past two months.  i have left friends behind on this road.  i've walked away on the basis of the confusion that having certain people seemed to keep on the perimeter of my life.  i've seen so many die.  i've seen so many succumb to the addiction.  i've seen so few happy endings...

i would never change this for something else, but sometimes i hate the Fellowships.  not the steps.  i do believe the steps are universal and are applicable to anything.  but the Fellowships.  those gatherings of people who change in the same way the world changes.  one day there won't be an AA or an NA or a CA.  one day there will just be memories of the fact that these organizations existed once upon a time, just more faerie tales.  one day they will say AA lasted longer than the Oxford group, but gone is gone.  and the others will follow like dominoes.  and the sick and suffering will return to their hopeless state, despite all the seeming 'advancements' in treatment for addicts and alcoholics.  because if you can't own up to your own behavior, take the steps to change your actions and make better decisions so you don't have to go down those same bad road over and over, then there is no reason for a fellowship.  there is only chaos incubating, like the old days.  and as the world seeks to return to its sick like a dog to vomit, the fellowships always seek out the lowest common denominator, the path of greatest illness to follow like sheep after a narcotic dealing shepherd.  and i just don't know how much longer i want to deal with this.
i'm done.  i'm grateful, but i'm sleepy and i absolutely AM going to the gym in the morning.  good night, toti.  good night to you, whomever runs across this.  and thank you, Father, for perspective.

no title

...so today was pretty good.  everything sort of fell the way it was supposed to, and i have very little to say about it.  other than details, of course.
woke up early, like 230 or so, said my prayers, went into the kitchen and warmed up old coffee.  wrote some in Mechanical Jesus, and i ended up falling back to sleep briefly.  i got up again, made fresh coffee, got myself ready for the gym and waited for Syd to get up late again.  got her to her bus stop and went to the gym.  I paid the librarian for the books i got yesterday after i finished my workout.  I came home, checked my levels and took insulin and my meds, had oatmeal with a banana in it and scrambled eggs for breakfast.  I did some writing, but was still tired from interrupted and sectional sleep.  i got a quick nap in and then i went to the store to get things for dinner.  i decided on a fish chowder to get rid of some of the banquet cod that didn't do so well in the flavor department for my dad's banquet.  got myself some wings and some hot and sour soup for lunch, then i got down to prepping dinner.  I did talk to R this morning, as well as PF in columbus.  she's going through some things with her mom, and she called me while i was at the gym but i called her back as soon as i left.  I made the fish chowder and had a bowl with a turkey, tomato and spinach sandwich, though the chowder was hearty enough it could have been my entire meal.  i made tuna melt bagels for Syd and she made her own tomato soup.  we had a talk, and i tried, again and likely for the last time, to convince her to get her head out of her ass and get to moving in better directions than she's going in.  I know she's a teenager, and i know that her world is pretty fucked up.  I would not  want to be a child growing up in this world.  i think craziness is par for the course now, and it's just degrees of crazy as to how well you do in this society.  maybe it's always been that way, but as with most things, you don't really notice until its you.  she's gone bowling, and I am writing this blog.  i have no real insights today.  i have to get the school fees paid.  I have to make sure i put the certificates of appreciation in my bag so we can get one signed for the speaker at tomorrow's meeting.  i've got to get some good sleep tonight, may need a longer relaxation video.  but mostly, i've got to remember to be thankful to my God, because a day that is uneventful is a day in which nothing bad that i'm aware of happened, and that's a good thing.  so, that's all i got, no system check today, and we'll see what tomorrow is when it gets here.  

system check part what?

i'm really tired this morning.  i was up late, as R was finishing laundry.  i am cold, because it's bloody cold in this house.  34 degrees outside.  it's the kind of morning combination that makes me want to get a ride for Syd and go back to bed.  but i'm not going to do that, because it will get nothing done.  instead, i'm drinking a good cup of coffee and i'm going to go to the gym.  got a bag of trash that's to go to a dumpster and a certificate of appreciation to print out for wednesday's meeting.  so i have things to do.
R's visit was nice enough.  we didn't speak much, but we did watch a movie and that was cool.  she did her clothes, she sat snuggly against me while i laid on my bed.  it's one of those things, unspoken, that deepen my appreciation for her being a part of my life.  in whatever capacity that may be.
i told her, and it's true, that going to the Kingdom Hall let me know that the orbit i'm in is working, though i do need to tighten up on the discipline of logging my food and calories.  the suit jacket i wore fit well, and i've worn it to funerals in the past several months and it had a tendency to gap in front.  it's strange how perspective works.  you can get so big that any smaller doesn't really seem to register.  but that's why the discipline is necessary.  because when it's said and done, i have to lose the weight of my mind, which will make losing the weight on my body a reality.  besides, i'm almost done with my system check, from my recollections, and once that's done, we can begin this flight in earnest.
i was thinking about the fruit cellar in our basement when i was a kid.  it's funny, you have a cellar in a cellar.  i thought so as a kid too.  but it was a fruit cellar, or a cold cellar as some would have called it.  it was where you could find and mine treasures that no one else would think of, at least when i was a kid.  it was where the canned stuff went, and by canned i mean jarred and sealed as people used to do effortlessly.  we are forgetting so much as a group of humans, and while we're forgetting tons we need that knowledge more than ever, its right at our fingertips but we don't bother accessing it because it's not dramatic enough.  we had jars of tomatoes and other weird things that were almost too awesomely strange to even contemplate opening.  but we also had homemade jams that, once i discovered them, disappeared like a magic trick.  there would be a seal of wax on the top, and good, gooey homemade jams beneath.  i mention this because i had a lot of things like this, secret food places, where i would sort of anesthetize myself with whatever delectables i could find.  like my trick of burgers and fries when i wanted them, because i was denied food when it was concluded that i wouldn't work on losing the weight voluntarily.  i would be the one to bring in and put groceries away, because then i could see what was available for me.  if i wanted burgers and fries, the fries were easy, because no one was going to cut potatoes for me and no one was going to stop me from cutting them for myself. the burgers were a trick.  carefully unstick and pull back the cellophane.  take burger meat from the bottom of the pack and put the cellophane back over the diminished pack.  wrap the liberated hamburger meat until i was ready to fix my meal.  two huge cheeseburgers, usually, and home made french fries.  when i reflect on it now, my learning to cook served two purposes.  it was a way of trying to smooth out the quickly fraying fabric of our home in the war between my parents, but it was also a way to ensure i got the 'fixes' that i wanted and needed by getting what i wanted to eat.  it was, in reflection, incredibly self-centered and selfish, as i was depriving someone down the line of getting as much as they wanted or perhaps needed.  it was also indulgent in a great way, because though i would, at times, offer someone else some of what i made, it was isolated eating for the most part.  it is how bad rituals are born.
i honestly think back and can only say that the anguish of growing up with my parents at war with each other, both heated and cold wars, was the motivation for my pacifying eating habits.  because there were not a lot of bad things.  there was the ridicule, but you learn early on whether you could deal with that or not, and i found i could.  i had friends and associates who helped greatly.  you learn early on whether you can function in the social strata in which you have to exist in, like school, and i functioned there, even somewhat on my own terms as i was a clown early on, a creative spirit later.  it was only when i would have to go home and stay there that the bad thoughts would start.  i remember contemplating suicide early in life.  i honestly don't believe i ever tried.  i think that is a false memory i planted in my head, a point of relatability for someone i may have been speaking to as a recovering addict.  but i was not happy being alive, and would contemplate killing myself as a young boy.  and eating seemed to take the sharp edges off being at home, as weed and freebase and alcohol dulled the edges of the rest of the world when i was a teenager and a young adult.
i hit the gym this morning and i bought books, though i have to pay for them tomorrow.  i ate good, and i got over to see my mom and dad and my aunt.  i got some rest, i've been writing, i'm finishing this entry now.  caught up with the latest episodes of Dr. Who, which was cool, and i am just about ready to shut it down.  have to make sure Syd takes her shower, and try to stay on point for tomorrow, where i do it all again, except slightly differently and with some other things added in.  when i look at what i wrote earlier in the day, it makes me a little nostalgic and a little sad.  i really did want to make things better for my family, but i know now that was an absolutely futile plan.  it was self-serving, but things can be more than one thing at more than  one time.  i wanted to take care of things so my mother wouldn't have to be burdened with us.  i wanted my dad to have what he needed from his family so maybe he and my mom would stop fighting.  and i ate a lot of crap to numb my perceived failure and the ridicule and humiliation that i took, though it wasn't perhaps quite as bad as i remember it.  and i see that a part of me, not the inner child, but a part of me that has been conscious the entire time, has been super-reactionary to these things.  i guess, in looking at it from an analytical perspective (which i can do because it's my log), a child can't simply decide he's not going to speak to family anymore.  a child with a family usually has no choice in those things (personal experience).  but an adult who remains immature often makes decisions of that type.  a child will lie, oh lord do children lie, but it's to avoid punishment, and they rarely lie to themselves.  an adult will lie to themselves, rationalize and minimize in order to make an unacceptable thing perfectly acceptable and able to fit neatly in with the rest of their denial system.  so, perhaps a lot of what was wrong with the original focus on the inner child was simply how it made excuses for the adult to continue being the broken, fractured, unresponsive, reactionary, self-centered borderline sociopath that he'd become comfortable being, while blaming every questionable act on the 'inner child'.
well, i'll tell you what i've learned in a month and a half.  this is not the fault of the Tim on the inside.  this is the fault of the Tim that has continued holding on to defensiveness and isolation despite seeing how the help he needs is at a perimeter of his own creation.  now, what to do about that?  good question, eh?  Thanks, Father, for an insightful day, and good night.

time travel

there is a disquiet in my spirit this morning.  i felt it through the night, but elected to ignore it at that time.  when i awakened in the same mindset as i went to sleep in, i knew it needed addressing.  i'm going to do that now, and i'm going to get my day started as it should be, so that i can figure out the next two weeks, or at least plot a course and ask Jehovah's blessing.
i spoke of R's general mood yesterday.  i realize that there are things i believe that i've not put down here, mostly because i am trying to keep them in the shadows of my own mind.  but that's cheating the process, and if you start cheating small eventually you cheat big as long as you can get away with it.  choice is, either you surrender to the truth or get caught in a lie eventually.  i'm preferential to surrender at this time.  i am finding R to be inconsistent in what she says she's about.  i'm sure i've not been around her for long enough periods to know for a fact that i'm wrong or right, but i still have my feelings and a right to them.  when i met R she was working at a service station, which of course are now convenient stores that sell gas.  she was going through changes i knew nothing about at that time.  i only knew she was lovely and i wanted to get to know her if it was possible.  we casually saw each other, and then she took sick.  she was very, very sick and i'm learning now she was close to death.  on the other side of that, she became a recluse, which is understandable.  then she'd pop up in my life with a phone call, and we'd talk for a while and then she'd disappear again.  she was seeing someone at these times, and had been all along.  at a point, she was told she wasn't to speak to me again, at the dictates of her then-other.  i acquiesced, as i really had no choice in the matter and was not trying to create drama in someone else's life, nor bring drama to my own.  i had, by that point, been sick, hospitalized and close to death myself.  i've watched her then-other situation crumble, i've watched her go into great struggles trying to tend to her own situations, herself, her children.  i've seen her work and lose work.  i've seen her have to send her children away because of the compromises to her living situation.  i know she's been without much of what she needs, and i know she is hurting because of that.  i keep all of those things in my mind because they help me keep a perspective on her current way of being.
i hear her talking a great talk.  about how people are on her nerves.  about how she was going to say this but she held her tongue.  it's like there's a person that she wants to be, maybe even a person that she used to be.  i don't know, as i said.  i didn't know her in her marriage, or when she was a young mother, or when she was wild.  i only knew her from 29 up, and that is the woman that i love.  i deal with her biting tongue and her sarcastic mouth because i don't have to deal with it all the time.  i also realize i don't have to deal with it at all.  that's liberating for me.  i used to think i had no choice in things like this, that if i was with someone, or trying to be with someone, my job was to take their shit and just roll with it.  i know now that is the furthest thing from the truth.  but it still comes down to value.  what makes it worth it to deal with someone's shit?  what makes it not worth it?
R is hurting right now.  a lot of death, a lot of confusion in the family, a lot of financial burden, a lot of fear.  i cannot help her with any of it.  i can't do anything but be here for her.  but it's not enough.  and i know that.  again, honesty removes the pall of so-called necessary lies.  time given pays no bills, and good words don't erase drama and confusion.  but i see she may be gearing up for a self-destructive run.  so i've been mulling it over in my mind for the past 10 hours or so...how much do i need to distance myself from this situation?  how much do i need to back away, to let her run, to let her do her thing?  she is, literally and truthfully, one of the best women i've ever known.  i could love her deeper than i do, easily.  but i don't voluntarily put myself in a position to be lacerated by someone else's pain anymore.  that just doesn't do it for me.  and if that's the case, am i really here for her?  or am i here for her to the extent that a safe distance will allow me to be?

i am done writing in Mechanical Jesus for the day.  I have gone to the Kingdom hall, enjoyed the talk but left early before the watchtower lesson was done.  i came home after i went to the store to get soup and things for lunch.  i talked to R, she seemed a bit more centered, but i already went over that.  i told her i'd make spaghetti for her cousins and went to the store to get the stuff after i tried futilely to nap.  i had leftovers for dinner and i made the spaghetti.  i am now sitting here, listening to music, having finished my writing for the day and sort of peripherally checking out R who is sitting at my table, on her phone/internet.  i'm thinking that i intend to get serious this week.  it's time for me to start working harder than i have been as far as the gym is concerned.  The eating hasn't been too bad, but it hasn't been exactly disciplined either.  but i could definitely start putting in more work, and that is going to help me metabolize my glucose better.  I have things on my mind, but this isn't the time for that, so i'm going to thank my Heavenly Father for this day, and I'm going to wrap this up.  back to the system check tomorrow.

well, today was another one of those limbo days.  but i did manage some productivity.  i started slow, in a cold apartment.  i had breakfast and coffee and almost immediately got to writing, but i went back to bed soon enough.  i was feeling sleepy from the chill, i think.  i'd made plans to see my sponsor today, and had every intention of going to see him.  i went to my mom's house first to get some of the food from my dad's banquet.  from there i dropped off food to my brother and took mine home and then went across town to my sponsor's.  my car is really starting to go, but it will have to last a bit longer.  i visited my sponsor for about two hours then came back home.  on my way to his house i spoke to R, she seemed at that time a little more centered.  when i got back home i made myself some lunch and put together the dish i was going to experiment on yesterday.  it turned out good and i had that for dinner.  i talked to R again and she was back in angry, bitchy mode so i decided to just agree with her and back off, i wrote quite a lot today, and the story is still shaping up better than the first draft did.  i'm almost glad it got semi-deleted, because i would never have gone back and given it the attention it deserves.  i'm going to the Kingdom Hall tomorrow, so i guess i'm going to try to get some decent sleep.  i don't know.  i don't feel bad or good, and i know that this is part of how i feel every year, but i just wish R was here, regardless of her mode, as she would be a nice salve for my spirit.  but, life goes on, as John Cougar Mellencamp famously sang.  thank you for this day, Father, and i think that's about it for me for the day.

blahs, blaus and blous...

man, this was one of those weird, sort of limbo-existence days.  one of those days of not really coming or going, but just being, and sometimes even just being on the fringe of being.  that i got up and said my prayer and was able to back off the formulaic and get to talking to God was the best part of the day.  and it wasn't a bad day at all.
started with just chilling, because my body was sore from the gym yesterday.  thought about taking a walk but it went onto the back burner, nothing wrong with a day of rest.  took syd to her bus stop and came home and ate and took my meds and shots and just laid around til time for counseling.  had a good session and went to the stores to pick up a few things.  was still pondering when VF asked whether i thought the November/seasonal depression may be God's way of keeping me honest about my addiction, and I am so grateful to have a counselor who can move that far out of the box.  it makes so much of this easier to deal with. i came home and put things away and just laid back again, watched some television and ate lunch around noon and started moving toward some activity.  my dad asked me if i could give him a ride to his banquet this evening and i told him yes.  i put a load of clothes into the wash, got texts from syd about getting a ride home from school, then being at a restaurant and then asking if she could stay at a friend's house.  i don't even bother with trying to get her to prioritize things anymore.  pouring water over a wet stone won't make it wetter.
i did some writing in mechanical jesus, and was waiting for my dad to call to take him where he had to go before i started cooking.  i got my clothes from the dryer, took him to his thing, came home to start cooking.  i got a call earlier from R as she waited to be picked up from where she was.  i was just about to start cooking when i got a call from another friend asking if i wanted to go get something to eat.  i said yes, as i hadn't started cooking yet and we went for steak.  conversation was good and dinner was good.  R called and i told her i'd call back as soon as i got home, which i did but i think she's sleep, hope she is anyway.  i know she's exhausted.  i saw Tr and her daughter and mom as i was on my way back from dropping off my dad.  she looks beyond tired, she actually looks older now.  i wish she'd learned to let go of things, but you can't make someone not destroy themselves; you can only try to tell them they don't have to, and hope they eventually believe you.
i am now home, in bed.  on the side of the bed actually.  i'm trying to consider the lesson in the day.  i didn't really do anything, but i didn't really plan to do much anyway.  i guess, maybe if i have a lesson today, it's that its okay not to do anything sometimes.  some days are just like that.  but anyway, my eating was okay, despite the steakhouse.  breakfast and lunch were on point, my sugar's were good and my insulin intake was low enough.  i have no real plans for tomorrow either, but seeing R would be a good thing.  i'm going to get some sleep.  God willing that i should awaken, tomorrow will be today and we'll check the calendar again at that time.

storm clouds in the distance

i could not choose a better image for how i feel today.

clarity is funny.  when you begin change, and this is more speaking of myself, but i'm going to speak as i choose to speak here, you can't see anything in front of you except what was already there.  as in, beginning healthier eating, wanting to lose weight, wanting to get off medications, i couldn't see a smaller me any longer.  i couldn't see a bag with less meds than i'm taking now.  i could only see the fat that i've lived within all this time, my black sports bag filled with prescriptions, and a lifetime, however short or long it may be, of labored effort in the simplest of tasks.  now, almost a month and a half into it, there is a different clarity.  still on the same meds, but the insulin reduction is already happening.  still in a fat body, but i am stronger, i have more stamina and i have more energy.  these things present a picture, in fact, they present two pictures.  they present a picture of what may lie ahead, a little more clearly than they did in September when this orbit began.  they also present a picture of what lies behind me, and what i can return to if i don't keep moving forward.

clarity is funny that way.  it's both subjective and objective.

my depression is trying to move in.  like that storm that is pictured above.  i felt it today.  i actually felt it.  and i saw it beginning to coalesce.  all the things i've just mentioned play a part in this.  i am actually writing this just before two in the afternoon eastern time, because i don't want to write it at all.  i want to go back to my bed, masturbate and sigh while trying my best to go to sleep, or at least to shut the world out.  and i'm not going to do that.  i have decided to fight, and i'm going to fight.  but it's so damn hard, and i think, like a woman who just got done delivering a baby during the most horrifying labor known to humans, with a few months past the depression i will forget it and do the things that lead me right back to it again.  this suggests, of course, that this is a voluntary thing.  it suggests that it happens in my conscious mind and i choose to ignore it until it is all the way manifest.  i don't know that as a fact.  i only know one thing.  yesterday, i felt pretty damn good.  today, i feel as if i've been wrapped in wet flesh and am hovering over a piranha tank.  and it's scary to see it on the horizon.

but, there's a rainbow in the picture.

tell you about me and rainbows.  rainbows are a specific promise from God that he will not again destroy the world with a deluge of water.  that's biblical.  spiritually, many people take rainbows as being God showing his faithfulness in regard to anything he's given his word about.  but rainbows are also a long standing symbol of cultural and societal diversity.  and, more to the point in the last thirty years or so, rainbows have come to signify the gay rights movement and gay/lesbian culture, with a host of new gender and sexual identifiers put in as well.  i had an issue with rainbows when i lived in Columbus.  my child's mother was in the process of modifying herself to be a lesbian.  because she is a grown woman who happens to do many things in a childish way (as do many of us, myself included) she began in the same way that my child began:  with covering herself in the symbolism.  it is interesting to see.  there is the change in clothing, the shortening of hair, and the presence of rainbows.  it was something to see.  by contrast, my youngest brother is gay.  he is probably a decade younger than me, which makes him younger than my child's mother as well.  as he was acclimating to life in a city that is very gay-friendly, he did not adopt any particular coloration.  he did his life, he did his private things and he, though childish, did not upheave anything in the decisions that he made.  but my child's mother did.  and i lost a family, and i lost a lot of my tolerance, because there was a faction of lesbian individuals that did everything they could to turn my ex and either planned to destroy my home or gave little thought to it at all.  now, i know this is not new age thinking.  'everyone has the right to make whatever decisions they want for their own life'.  i can dig it.  i agree.  but as i was taught, being right don't always mean you're doing right.  so, too late to make a long story short, but i can make the ending less taxing on your eyeballs.  i developed a aversion toward the rainbow banners and flags.  i came to hate the Pride weekend.  i began to hate anything with a rainbow on it.  i had to do a lot of soul-searching, a lot of self-analysis and a lot of praying to come to the fact that A: all gay people had not hurt me.  a handful of bitches who would have been bitches of any sexuality or culture brought pain and upheaval into our lives.  B:  i had friends who were gay who were being treated unfairly by myself, and as they had done nothing to hurt me, i had no reason to take my resentments out on them.  my resentments, which would have to be dealt with for my sanity's sake, were about my ex, her crew, and that was it.  and C:  i had my baby to take care of at that time, i had two other children who were being twisted up by the bullshit that was going down, and if tomorrow was going to be better i had to do better today, meaning right at that time of discovery.  so i got my head out of my ass.  i made apologies, i forced myself to see things in a bigger picture than just poor me, and i even had a hand in starting a gay/lesbian 12 step meeting at Stonewall in Columbus.  and that's not me saying 'i've earned my P-FLAG status, it's saying that for a while the rainbow was like acid on my brain, and not the good, trippy, gratefuldead kind of acid either.  the 'OHMYGODITBURNS!!!!' kind of acid.  and now, i see it, my child and children of my friends have adopted it and the lifestyle that it has become part and parcel of, and though sometimes i still sigh, i am cool.  it is a promise, after all, of things being better, of things to come, at least a promise that the world won't drown again.

i just talked to a friend of mine, a guy i go to meetings with.  he's a brother, about my age (now, sometimes when i say brother, i mean he's black, other times, i mean kindred spirit, just so you know.  i'm not going to tell you which is which) and we talked about an anniversary meeting coming up.  he is, from all he says this is a conclusion that i draw, a food fiend as well.  we didn't start out talking about this, but thankfully Jehovah knows where conversations should lead and gets them there as they need to be.  we spoke, and i felt i couldn't really express why i didn't want him to just grill up a mess of chicken, why the people at the meeting had to be responsible for contributing because otherwise they were never going to see that everything in this program is a collective effort.  it takes a thousand recovering drunks to help one active drunk get sober, and the next active drunk needs one thousand and one recovering drunks, that's how this is designed to work.  it ain't brain surgery.  but that's not the way it is, because just like the society that houses the 12 step fellowships, we have diverted our focus from spirituality to materialistic selfishness.  sucks ass it does.  but that's the biz.  however, in the two meetings that i am still active in, i insist on practicing the program the way it is written, the way it was taught to me.  and i want to make sure there are some who know how it is supposed to be done, so that if something happens to me, there are still people who can keep things moving in the right direction.  that's not ego; i am no one.  i am a drop in a bucket.  but just like one drop in an empty bucket means the bucket ain't empty no more, one drop could spill the whole thing over.  so i am just a drop, but every drop counts.  anyway, we talked about how the pizza idea (since we've not gotten many anniversary donations) would only be for others because i don't eat pizza right now and wouldn't because the day after our anniversary is thanksgiving, and if i'm going to have a blowout day, that's going to be the one.  and then we started talking about our weight issues.  i didn't know he was about seven hundred pounds at one point.  i didn't know that he has been struggling as much as he has, despite having the gastric bypass surgery.  i did know that he is in a lot of pain over his separation from his wife, and that he is not going to let too many people see him vulnerable.  but that didn't matter.  i talked to him about where i'm at, about where i've been and about the principles of the program that sometimes we forget.  that sometimes, I forget.  it's one day at a time.  that is how you get from a day sober to years of sobriety, by daily increments.  and suddenly, the wet flesh wrap doesn't seen quite as tight as it was earlier.  i can't micromanage depression.  but i can try to keep moving, to stay out of God's way and do His will to the best of my ability.  i think that's pretty much all any of us can do.
counseling tomorrow.  should be interesting.

bending light

...i've got an issue.  i am having some trouble staying focused.  i'm thinking it's part of the struggle with the November depression that is lurking in my mind.  i've started entries here on several different occasions and have either had to go back and catch up late in the day or have not finished them at all.  as i have a goal for the completion of this year in orbit, i have to do better.  but it is something that should be further addressed, this November blues that i am trying to stave off now.  I am feeling strong, to be honest.  i feel capable.  i feel reasonable.  we went over Step 10 today, and it reminded me of something.  there should never be a day of self-appraisal that is done in all red ink.  i have been verging on that, and it shows me that i am accustomed to thinking only critically of myself.  that has to change.  and i can see the changes happening, so it behooves me to begin to not only begin this thing strong, but to maintain strength and to follow through.
today i had a decent breakfast, but due to some soreness decided to rest from the gym.  i got Syd to her bus stop.  i got to my meeting on time, got the rent paid for September for the meeting.  I got R from her appointment and got to see her briefly before my meeting.  i got dinner done already, for when we get home, as we have to go to my mom's house to see about some things she's panicking about.  I had lunch with Lonnie.  i took my insulin to the level my endocrinologist suggested and we'll see how that works.  i am going to write tonight.  i'm planning for the gym in the morning.  all things considered, i'm doing pretty well and maintaining, which is very important.
but i still have to log the shit that i'm eating so i can stay aware of what i'm putting into my mouth and why.  cut corners eventually mean you come up short, can't  be helped.  and i can't afford to keep coming up short like this.  so i have to do better.  that's the plan, and it is possible.  i just have to continue to move back toward the discipline that made September a success.  and I know that i can do that.
i think R and i are moving in a good direction.  we had a bit of a row, as detailed over the weekend, but we are still close.  i left her here to do whatever she wanted while i went to my meeting.  she was comfortable enough to heat up food and take a shower.  she didn't leave the door unlocked.  she is grieving, her cousin is likely not going to be in this dimension much longer.  she is not a person who does emotional expression well.  she is a woman who was raised by a woman raising all girls.  her mother had to make sure her children could survive in a sexist, brutal and punishing world.  i believe her mother succeeded, perhaps a bit too well.  but despite her walls, i like this woman a lot.  i love her.  i'm not in love.  i'm not sure what that even means anymore.  i know i want to see good things happen between us, and i want to know that she's okay, no matter what that means for she and i.  if that's not 'in love', it's a damn sight better than the examples i've had of 'in love'.  except one.
maybe that's the real deal now.  maybe after a time, you just want someone who is going to be as good to you as you try to be to yourself.  because we don't treat ourselves nearly as well as we should.  we don't take all the aches and pains seriously.  we don't take all the meds.  we don't do all the exercise we should.  we resist change,  we are set in our ways after a point.  but i tell you this, i shared it with a brother at the meeting and it means something to me now.  and then i'm done.
i look at my face, and it's the same face i've been looking at for at least the last forty-two years, or whenever i was old enough to recognize my face as belonging to me.  i look at my face and i see the grays in my chin hairs, and the receding of my hairline despite my shaved head (not why i shave my head, mind you, but just so its known that i know).  i see the deepness in the sink of my eyes, and the grim lines that have been etched now.  and yet, i can't remember any other face on me, and that's obviously bullshit.  because i wasn't born with a humorless bastard's face.  i was young once, and i was hopeful and i laughed and joked and i didn't think about diabetes and high blood pressure and gout and impotence and whether getting new phones for Syd and i can be budgeted for or not.  they can, by the way, but it's going to be tight.
but.  and there's the thing.  BUT, i have looked at this face every day for at least forty-two years,and the change has been so gradual, so minute, that this is the only face i remember.  it looks the same.  the eyes look the same.  there's no smile, but there really never was.  and with that, i realized something.  a new revelation of conceit.  we are not resistant to change:  we ARE change.  we are the change of the world around us.  we are the change that happens without permission or contract.  we change, and the world around us changes, and that has always been the case.  and we pretend like we don't know because maybe we've forgotten that change has brought us to better things.  some are abused, but we change and become large enough to face our abusers, if we dare.  some are ridiculed, but we change  and become clever enough to turn the tables on those who would humiliate us, if we are so inclined.  and the biggest thing is, in enough time, we change enough to not give a fuck what anyone thinks about us anymore.  best change of all.
a mirror works by bending light, and in the bending of light in its reflective surface, it allows us to see a backward image of ourselves.  life works, pretty much, the same way.  if you can dig that.
thank you, Father.  it's been a pretty good day so far.

autumnal blues

i'm late  getting started on this today.  i guess it's one of those days.  i have to start with this, because it's important to me, and to bring awareness to the need for this sacrificial journey that i'm on:  I can feel November encroaching on me.  just this morning, i became aware of a heaviness in my spirit.  it comes like that, like a fucking thief.  what IT is, i have to explain.

next month i'll be 27 years sober.  that means that in November of 1988 i used drug and alcohol abusively for the last time (thus far, God's grace).  now, that november was a very bad time.  it culminated in me standing in a garage on Gilbert St. in columbus, ohio, with an orange extension cord wrapped around my neck, standing on a joint compound bucket, praying for the strength to step off and die.  i had my shirt off, it was cold in that garage, though it was mild for a november.  i had spent months before that being hungry, being cold, being afraid and being constantly in need of more cocaine (crack) to smoke.  i had lost my car, traded it for dope and left it when it got impounded.  i had moved from my uncle's basement to the greenbriar projects by the airport in columbus because my uncle gave me the money to get my car from the impound and i spent it on coke, and i knew i was only going to  do worse things if i got the chance.  i wasn't washing.  i wasn't brushing my teeth.  i wasn't combing my hair or shaving.  i was a filthy, stinking, unwashed bum, a skid row carbon copy in a raggedy coat too big for me, a rope holding up my filthy pants, holes in my tennis shoes and voices in my head 24/7.  i was the reason there has to be a Step 2 in the 12 step program.  and it all ended with a cord around my neck.  the insanity was deep.  when, after four hours or so, i sat down on the bucket disgusted because i couldn't even die right, i looked up at the noose and saw my body hanging there, tongue lolled out, black with flies, eyes staring at the rafters in the garage, feet shredded to the visible bones from the dogs of the dude whose garage i was in, i broke down and wailed a storm of emotions i'd not been able to feel, that i'd finally become the monster they had made me feel like in grade school, in primary school.  i lost it.  and i walked across columbus to another friend's house, who wasn't at home, and i called my uncle and asked him if he could come get me, that i was done and needed help.

now, every year since then, especially in the beginning, the boundaries have sort of softened inside me.  i feel the walls that separate my yesterday and my today go malleable and porous and i start to feel the depression and despair that i felt in 1988.  i used to go under deep, to where i'd have to shut down, stay in bed, just try not to hurt myself.  but now, in light of the recent learnings, i wonder...
what's the real deal here?  why am i continuing, after 27 years almost, to get these phantom emotions?  i quit smoking cigarettes almost four years or so ago.  i no longer go through the nostalgic cravings for a cigarette.  i've not craved a hit of coke or weed since i was practically brand new in recovery.  i haven't craved a drink in almost as long, though admittedly alcohol is so prevalent that it is much easier to find myself thinking about drinking than any of my other addictions.  but, i feel the depression of november encroaching on me.  and i don't want it to.
i think it's another things manufactured by my adult consciousness, blamed on my inner child, or toti.  but, i wasn't a child when i went through my cocaine addiction.  not a small child, anyway.  i was a teenager when i started.  seventeen to twenty, those were my years of smoking coke.  not a child.  not ridiculed.  not made fun of.  just lost in the poisonous miasma of cocaine fantasies and rotting souls.  so, what can i do to change the framework on this time of the year?  i'm going to ponder that when i get back from my walk this afternoon, i suppose.

pulse

the week begins.  i slept a solid sleep and woke about four-thirty, alert and refreshed.  after fucking around a bit online, a bad habit that must be broken, i said my prayer and got dressed for the gym.  i saw R had been up again last night and may have still been up so i sent a good morning.  got back a good morning and a notice that she'd been having a rough day emotionally.  i sent love and support as best i could and went to the gym after catching a bit of Richard Pryor's 'live on the sunset strip', still one of the finest comedy performances ever done.  mostly because, a lot of people don't realize how much emotional pain Pryor revealed in that bit.  if you've never been addicted to freebasing (or smoking crack) then you may not be able to relate.  but i was and am, and i could definitely feel his recollection on a visceral level.  anyway, i went on to the gym, got a mile in on the treadmill (thanks, toti) and did some reps on some weight machines.  i got home to the coffee pot just finishing brewing for the morning and i had a cup of coffee and a big glass of lemon water.  my blood sugar was 169, a bit high, not high enough for me to change my strategy of insulin intake though.  i am going to call my endocrinologist as R suggested, make sure i'm doing right things.  as well, i am going to put in an application for the 911 dispatcher again.  i may not get it.  i know what went wrong last time.  i know i had things on my record that shouldn't have been there, things i knew nothing about.  i am hoping, i am PRAYING, that everything is clear now, but if its not then at least i'm putting in effort.  i found a corruption in Open Office, so i can officially apologize to toti about the loss of Mechanical Jesus, and i can actually thank him because this re-write is so much better.  i feel good.  shoulder is sore, and i can still feel this cold laying in wait on my ass, but that's just life on life's terms stuff.  you can't do anything about five minutes from now, because in five minutes it will have retreated back five minutes.  existentialism...

return to the food/calorie log:
breakfast -
2 boiled eggs - 144
1 wheat toast - 69
1/2 cup grapes - 60
total calories -273

not a bad way to start the day.

...and then...

well, the food log is shot to hell.  i went to lunch with my homie, and there went calorie counting and all that shit.  i am really having to look at what my adult mind is trying to do.  i got good results last month, but i'm riding on two wheels now, and the vehicle is four wheel drive, and that's a problem.  i had bunless burgers and some eggplant spaghetti for dinner, but the point is i have to monitor it all.  i can't relax, or i can't get lax, rather.  because if i do, the result is out of control eating, food fiending, and back to the insanity.  i think part of the problem, as it would be if i were observing such behavior in a drug addict or alcoholic supposedly involved in the working of the program, would be a lack of willingness to change.  I have a chance to make a big difference in my own life.  i know the sacrifice must be made if the next level is to be reached.  but i keep losing momentum.  the next thing will be just gorging on chips, or not writing except as an afterthought.  approaching that already.  discipline isn't something you get and have, like a nickname or a social disease.  discipline is something that must be reinforced every day, or one becomes undisciplined, such as it were.
i went to lunch with Lonnie.  had a decent lunch, good conversation. i came home, did some writing.  i saw Syd in from school and then out the house with a friend.  i ate early just to get it out of the way.  i didn't check my level, just took my fast acting and had dinner.  i did some more writing.  i did the things i needed to do today, and that's good, and i give toti the credit for that.  but i have to get back on point.  not because i have to be anally rigid but because the more rope you give me, the more elaborately i'm going to set out to hang myself.  that won't always be true, but it's true right now.  and right now is what matters the most.
i hope i can allow myself more clarity tomorrow.  thank you, Jehovah, for a day of learning.  

mind-fields

this is a lazy day, all the way around.  i was going to go to the Kingdom Hall, but i didn't feel it once i was up and into the day.  i had breakfast and i wrote in the book and i filled out more of an application to turn in tomorrow and i said my good mornings, and i guess in an hour or so i'll get ready for my meeting.  i feel a bit wistful today, a little nostalgic.  i'd been thinking about my ex-wife.  we split up because we were going to end up killing each other, though that's not the reasons i thought at the time.  she was, and likely is, very wounded, but she didn't know how to deal with her wounds and i, in my 'know-it-all' way, wasn't much help.  i left her after 3 years of a relationship and after 3 months of marriage.  but that's not what i was thinking.  honesty is everything, after all.  i was thinking about how she had gotten with someone i sponsored, because his woman and i went to columbus on my vacation.  fact is, his woman ended up being Syd's mom, but that wasn't the intention.  i don't know what i wanted, to be honest.  i wanted to stop fighting, but that's not the same as wanting things to work out.  i wanted her to learn how to be herself, to let go of her pain, but hell, i didn't even know how to let go of my own.  i spent a lot of time as a younger man just going through the motions.  and when i saw how she was with the guy i sponsored and the people in the meetings had turned on me, i stopped giving a damn about program people.  maybe i still don't give enough of a damn.  after my ex-wife and Syd's mom, everything sort of changed in me.  it was practically the same relationship, except one had a lesbian focus.  and ended in a child.  but i no longer felt that i wanted to have groups of people in my life.  groups of people have more than their share of bullshitters.  i don't know.
anyway.  today has been sedate.  i did get to my meeting.  i ate, i napped, i fucked around on the computer.  i had a sugar of 199 this evening, after a pumpkin roll that R left over, and so i took a higher shot of my fast acting, but not the long acting.  tomorrow i go back to logging food and calories.  tomorrow.
i talked to R about some things i had theorized earlier.  thinking about the evening yesterday.  i realize that the 'hurt people hurt people' cliche, clever though it is, has its power through the subscription that people give it.  hurt people who recognize their hurt are capable of bringing something different to the table, if they are capable of acknowledging the fact of being hurt.  if their desire for something substantial and healthy is greater than their fear of being hurt again.  every single person who has lived longer than a year, i think, has a mind-field, very like a mine field.  life gives us the mines, and we bury them in our minds, from the surface of conscious thought and recollection to the depths of sub- and unconscious autonomic action and memory.  we get hurt, and we set it in our memory banks.  we experience trauma, and we set it in our memory banks.  we grieve, and we set it in our memory banks, and if it is painful enough, it has triggers and is laced with explosives and we do it to protect ourselves from a future that seems determined to kill us, or at the very least make us bleed emotionally and maybe even physically, a bit.  and when we encounter people, new people, we try our best to allow them the newness they deserve, but the mind-field has already been laid, and they have to run a gauntlet, blind and without the benefit of the map that we ourselves have forgotten most of the details of.  they have to come through the dangerous field of our hurts, pains and fears, and they have to risk being destroyed, that part of them that wants our friendship, our love or even just our respect and association.  and the question becomes...is that person worth it?  is the person we're trying to get closer to worth the pain that may come from running that gauntlet?  Hurt people protect themselves.  hurt people don't want to be hurt again.  some people who have been abused become abusers.  but many, many people who have been abused go so far in the other direction that they become overly permissive with their own children, for fear of becoming the abusive parent that they had.  so, is R worth the chance of being blown to smithereens?  is R worth the likelihood that she will leave me a twisted mass of mental anguish?  that's a damn good question.  for now, the answer is yes.  but change is the only constant in the universe.
tomorrow.  thank you, Father, for this very thoughtful day.

recalibrations

saturday morning.  sugar was great waking up, 128.  nice nice.  i woke slow, but not rough, and got up late, which was cool.  spent most of the night talking to R.  so waking after 7 wasn't too surprising.  had breakfast with my brother, talked about family things and upcoming holiday things, and am getting ready to clean and write.  i am feeling pretty good, not sluggish, alert, aware, and ready to do the things that i know have to be done today.  i guess that's about as good as you can ask for on a cold autumn saturday morning.  

i have to do some re-calibrations.  i plan to start digging again on monday, but that's the first recalibration.  i'm not going to dig for a cure, but i'm going to excavate for knowledge, which will lead to the facts about the past, which will allow me to rechart my future.  does that make sense?  i feel, at this time, i have been sort of on a guided rocket, but i've never understood until yesterday that i was just as responsible for the launching of that rocket as anyone else in my life.  i set parameters for the course that i'd been on.  i went along with the mission outlined in the dossier, and i actually made changes that made it more arduous.  i was the one the pushed the button, though others vied for the privilege.  easier way to put it is, thank you VF for helping me see how i have worked to program MYSELF for a lot of the pain that i have experienced.  it makes some of this 'inner child' work hard as fuck, because IT MAY NOT BE MY INNER CHILD WHO HAS BEEN THE SABOTEUR, BUT THE ADULT THAT I HAVE BECOME IN MY NEGLIGENCE OF MY OWN BEST INTEREST.  a child can't make decisions to not finish his education, but an adult can make a childish decision to do so.  a child can't just refuse to learn things that assertive adults seek to teach, but a passive/aggressive reactionary adult can 'forget' or 'un-learn' things that they know for the sake of being a victim, a martyr or abandoned along the way.  and if this is true of me (IF) then it could be true of so many others.  i'm not stating this as a fact; i'm stating it as a hypothesis.  i can test it, and i will, but first i have to change the parameters of the control.  i have to have a different criteria, and i'm not sure what that is just yet.  i'm so used to feeling a certain way, and i was certain that i was being sabotaged by toti, but more than likely i was sabotaging his efforts to move us forward.  (i know this is starting to sound like a personality rift, but i don't think of toti as separate, aside from the presence of the wall in my spirit.  i think of that part of myself as in need of an identity at this time so that i can hear the different messages that i've both integrated and am trying to integrate, and so i can tell what is coming from my intellect and what is coming from my emotional center.  that's the core of the toti references, to anyone who may read this and think 'this mothefucker's losing his goddamned mind!'  that's already happened.  i'm working on restoration now.)
unexpected evening.  got my cleaning done, R made arrangements to come by, though i picked her up.  my black beans and rice were pretty damn tasty.  it was a learning day.  it was a learning visit.
first static:  car on at gas pump.  me:  don't care.  R:  problem
second static:  black beans, vegetarian.  me:  that's how its done.  R:  problem
we had some words over the gas pump thing, and i'm pretty sure that's what my lack of real approachability was this evening.  but, the whole 'car can't run or start if you're pumping gas' is just mythology.  i can't really get how a person seemingly so nonchalant and confident can be afraid of so many different things.  but, we got through two movies.  oh, right.
third static: applications.  me: let's get these filled out so i can drop them off monday.  R: didn't do it.
i think toti is just letting me figure this one out myself.  i guess that's cool enough.  it was still good having someone to watch some movies with.  BROKEN, with Tim Roth.  great movie, i'd advise it.
okay, busy day tomorrow, got to hit it and get my ass in gear in the a.m.  thank you, Father, for a good, good day.  

refracting pool

so...beginning a new month.  beginning a new day.  both are significant.  but this is about moving forward, so i want to make sure i draw the distinction between the two.  it's not a restart of a month, so much as i continue on this journey.  my projected orbit time is a year, so i am only one/twelfth completed.  but at the same time, each new day brings with it a new focus, a new perspective, and therefore the need to journal continues.  i believe tomorrow, during my cleaning time, i am going to continue my systems check so that i can get back to the work at hand, but for now...
i think i mentioned yesterday that i've lost nearly fifteen pounds.  that is a good job, and i thank my inner self for allowing me to see the wisdom at our disposal.  but that's not the entire picture.
see, a year ago, i was shooting between sixty and eighty units of Levamir, a long-acting insulin, into my body in two installments.  i now do one shot of 20 units of long acting.  i was shooting about twenty to twenty-two units of Novolog, a fast acting insulin, about three times a day, and now i do between 8 and ten units, twice a day.  my sugars had been as high as the high 200's, now they're about 140 on waking.  what i mean to imply is it's movement in the right direction.  and i didn't convey that yesterday.  and i don't know why.
today i had two scrambled eggs with a small amount of cheese and a piece of toast for breakfast.  breakfast is still a good eating time for me.  i don't mind the egg reduction, and it gives me what i need to start my day.  when i still feel the hunger, i can now clearly see that it's not toti that is craving.  it's the grown, self-centered, self-indulgent, spoiled and scared adult that i have become.  it's such a chore, trying to figure out who's actually behind that damned wall.  but, it's one month in.  in a year, the picture will be much clearer.  i need revelation and not precognition.
for lunch i had a hamburger, yay!  i found the bread the ladies at the diabetic education class were talking about, the light bread wherein two slices are 90 calories and constitute one serving.  it was good to have what i wanted.  wish i'd gotten some soup to go with it, but we enjoyed what we ate.  for dinner, i made an eggplant spaghetti with orange, yellow and red pepper slices, onion and mushrooms in a red sauce.  i have to work on my eggplant for the consistency of the eggplant itself, but the dish was very tasty.  made a nice side salad to go with it.  i ate my last muffin and had some sugar-free jello.
i had counseling today.  VF was sad because of things in her life.  i always feel a bit more sedate when she lets her armor crack just a bit.  i also feel bad to an extent, as if it were me that evoked this sadness.  i know that's not the case, but even though i am a self-saboteur, i am a care-taker by nature.  i am blessed to have her in my life though, because she is intuitive and very accurate in her assessments.  it helps to have a counselor who actually pays attention and feeds back with authority.  weak counselors are useless to just about everyone, my opinion, which means nothing at all.
i washed clothes.  thats all i managed to do today.  my landlord came by and tried to get me to buy into some kind of pyramid scheme thing, Primerica.  that may not be fair; it may not be a pyramid scheme.  i do remember, though, in Columbus while i was in my job drought, i applied to them and they wanted me to buy licenses to begin to learn their thing, which was sort of sucky since i didn't have money and if i did, i wouldn't have been at primerica in the first place.  but there's a lot of people who do that kind of stuff.  i don't feel compelled to venture into that because one thing is for sure.  when you know people are seeking out the poor and the struggling to sell their party favors to, you know some kind of bad things are going to follow.  but that's neither here nor there.
after counseling i came home.  i got the Awake and the Watchtower from two brothers who came to call on the next door neighbor.  i will probably go to the kingdom hall on sunday.  early meeting, at nine thirty, so i can do that and my CA group.  i had wanted to start cleaning but that didn't happen.  so tomorrow.  cleaning, a walk, writing.  and i have black beans in the crock pot for black beans and rice for tomorrow.  that is happiness right there.
what i have to remember is this:  patience, progress and perseverance.  i am not in a hurry.  and i am doing much better than i sometimes believe, and much MORE than i sometimes acknowledge.  i have some good things happening.  but i tend to look through the refracting pool, where close up things seem far away and things across the waters seem close enough to touch.  it's important to be able to just say, 'enough is enough!'  sometimes, that's all the situation requires.  sometimes not, though.
i guess that's it for today. above all else, i am blessed.  Jehovah, thank you.

new day

well, we're going to get back to the good stuff, action wise anyway.  it is cold this morning, and i had to turn the heat back on.  i love sleeping in a chill, but waking up with a flu is not fun and i have no wish to repeat that.  i woke rough, which is another side-effect of sleeping in a chill, and i haven't gotten to the gym today.  gonna have to take a walk later, do a mile, get the time in.  i took five extra units of long acting insulin this morning, not because i'm doing bad, but because at the class they reiterated the long acting i'm using should last 24 hours, i am going to see what better coverage i can get with enough long acting to keep me on point, with proper diet and exercise of course.  so i have to get ready for the last diabetic education class, and i'd like to grab a cup of coffee before i go in.
i got a shower when i got up, after my prayer.  i had two poached eggs, a piece of toast and three pieces of cheddar cheeses for breakfast.  i am thinking about going to the Playhouse with R this weekend, see a production i saw in the Metro.  gotta take a dvd back to the library today.  it seems, at times when i read this stuff, that my life is really, really...BORING, and ordinary.  but then again, i have to get back to working on my books, i have to gather information as to why customers in their particular demographics enjoy reading my books so that i can pass that on to the person who's helping me to promote my stuff, and i have to see what i can do about a cover for the book of old lazarus.  so its not really completely pedestrian.  i just do things, everyone does.  i worry about money still.  i'm waiting to hear back from the lady from the Clinic about the recovery coach position.  i am moving in the right direction, so even if i don't get the whore position at the Clinic, i will still be working again soon.  that's one of the side projects of this trip.

i'm having a problem.  i am glad tomorrow is counseling.  i did get a weigh in, and i've lost 14 pounds so far.  my insulin is down, way down.  why do i feel like i want to run the other way?  i have to figure out why i'm slipping and get back on track.  nothing much to write tonight.

One Month In Orbit

...well.  this has been interesting.  I didn't realize until this morning that it's been a month since i began this journey.  i think this is going to be a review type day.  it is an awesome and scary feeling.  i know that when i started this i had big year-long plans, but they quickly simmered down, as a boiling pot does when you turn down the heat, into one day at a time.  and in that respect, it has been pretty good.  the ups and downs have been kind of amazing.  what has transpired in the course of a month?  what does it indicate for the future?  but enough marination...

quick today update:  i woke up, prayed, had breakfast.  sugar is okay, took my meds and insulin.  i'm taking Syd to bus stop and myself to the gym.  another day of diabetes education.  another day, maybe, with R.  still feeling out of sorts from yesterday, but i believe this has turned from a dance to a boxing match, albeit one of those long, drawn out defense oriented boxing matches.  i think maybe therein lies the problem.  more on that later probably.

september 12 was when i began journaling but it was on the 14th i began eating more responsibly.  in fact, i was rigid, and i was logging all my food intake.  that is a habit i am going to resume tomorrow, as i have been pinching more between meals and my meals haven't been as structured as they were in the beginning.  i don't have the discipline yet to just eat completely healthy because i should, therefore i have to keep being the guardian of my own best interest, as really everyone should.  counting calories and watching carb intake is not a punishment.  being sick and incapable of simple activities is not a punishment either.  both will feel like a punishment but it takes a mind of reason and increasing discipline to understand that there are privileges we abuse and consequences we bring upon ourselves.  this is the reality of 'doing what i want to do, all the damn time'.

i started the journey in proximity to R.  i am still in proximity to her, and i have no regrets about that.  i am seeing the fading away of some of my female friends, and i know that is giving me a tendency to try to place more gravity around R, but the truth is, she is what she has been for the last couple of years:  a good friend, a woman who loves me, an auxiliary mind, a kindred spirit, an outlet for my lustful inclinations and the woman i most enjoy spending 'extraordinary' time with.  in some ways, she has given my so much more than i ever thought she would, and in some ways, she has given me so much less than she is capable of.  but...the same is true of what she's given herself, i'm sure.  the same is true of what i've given myself, i know for a fact.  so there is no blueprint.  there is just a day added to another day.  we'll be spending the morning with each other anyway, and like Talking Heads said, "nothing is better than this...or is it?"

i've seen family issues come and go.  before i began this, Syd had run away from home.  she was doing things that were very counterproductive in her own life.  she is still doing things that are counterproductive in her own life, but she is also acting a bit more responsively.  i don't want to take credit away from her, but i know she doesn't, at this time, have the skills to lead her own expedition in her life.  she is too busy trying to find where she fits in to actually make decisions for herself.   it is harmful to her, but in the long run, she will have to own the results of the choices she makes, as we all will.  but i am trying to be more hands on, as with the realization that a child, even a teen-age child, cannot always make the decisions they need to make, and they need help.  whether the can admit that to themsevles or not.  the time to take hands completely off will make itself known, i am sure.

time to start motion.  more later.

quarter after 8 in the morning.  i've dropped off Syd.  i've done my workout.  only walked a third of a mile, but i did strength work today and i'm satisfied that my elbow is holding up well enough.  i am going to get ready for diabetic class, and i'm pondering a good lunch for the day.

i'm still thinking back over the month.  i've had times of so much inconsistency it has been ridiculous, which is prone to ridicule.  but ridicule is bad for toti.  i have to remember that a part of me translates with a child's ears, and therefore messages can't just be left floating for the inner me to try to understand through a haze of pain.  i have to consciously translate for him, and that increases his understanding and his maturity.  toti is coming along as well.  i don't mind getting up for the gym.  i don't mind the walking, or the attempt to walk,as this morning.  i don't stay in my bubble, apart from everyone else.  i speak, i laugh, i've made an amend to a woman whom i took for granted her comfort at my constant remarking on her height, when i would feel like shit at a constant, even if playful, remarking on my size.  translations are dangerous without proper interpreters standing by.

I'm drinking lemon water.  i don't know about all that 'it sweetens the water' crap the woman was saying yesterday.  it tastes like a lemon immersed in cold water.  fortunately, i've grown to like that taste.  i look at the day now, with anticipation of events rather than dread at having to do something.  i believe i'm making progress, which is a big part of making progress.  and i want to go back to the 'defense oriented boxing match', so i don't forget.

people say Floyd Mayweather is a boring boxer, though he is undefeated in his championship career and will likely retire as such, if he doesn't get stupid at the end.  the reason he seems so boring to most people?  his defense is impeccable.  he almost cannot be seriously hit.  his father, uncle and trainers have instilled in him an understanding of the ART of boxing.  its not just punching the shit out of the other guy, its not getting hit as well.  so in his riches fight of all times against Manny Pacqiauo, or however you spell his last name, he made a bazillion dollars for not getting hit,not hitting very much and retaining his title.  that's the deal, and like lottery tickets and unprotected sex, win or lose, you get what you get.

R and i have a history of friendship, intimacy and distance.  she has faded from my life for years, because she's gone into pits of depression and not been willing to be reached.  she has been as intimate with me as any woman ever has.  she has said she doesn't want a relationship as she is still discovering who she is.  but she has said she 'loves me to death'.  she's comfortable in my space, but she has yet to really invite me into hers.  she is contrary as a habit, but we get along despite our many differences of opinions.  she thinks emotional content in men is 'weak', which may or may not be her playing, because when talking to her about the lack of actual emotional support in my efforts to grow and set a foundation, when i began crying she was up and holding me without hesitation.  there are huge discrepancies in her dealings with me, and i'm fairly sure there are huge discrepancies in her dealings with herself.
but.
i dont' push, though i say i do.  i don't because i don't want her to run, but if she does i've become able to deal with it.  i am afraid of being vulnerable, but my heart is compromised because i do love her.  i have times where her sarcasm irritates the shit out of me, but i am a sarcastic motherfucker.  i have about two steps on her in case i need to cut and run, but i won't take them, despite all the red lights and klaxon horns sounding in the distance.  we are both full of discrepancies.  we are both on defense.  we both feign, parry, dodge, back away, fake punches, shuffle our feet, it looks pretty, it's kind of exciting, the anticipation, that is.  and then...

so, that's what i mean.  i don't have a conclusion to draw yet, as i have to get ready to roll.  but i am going to get back to that when i get back to this.  time to get dressed.

the diabetic education class was sort of irritating to me.  i guess it was just the information that didn't seem to be taken seriously by most of the class.  but i think that's more my problem, and an issue that i need to work on.  like, people are always childish when it comes to stuff that scares them.  diabetes is a very scary thing.  i remember when i first contracted it.  i was afraid i was going to die.  i'd been weeks and week exhausted, dry mouthed, super-thirsty.  i was undiagnosed and getting worse.  i actually put together the symptoms and put it together for my doctor, at which time i began treatment.  but when i was in for the class, i was afraid.  i didn't know what to eat, or if i should eat.  i didn't eat that morning, and i took insulin and it was the first time i had bottomed out.  i thought i was going to die again.  diabetes is as scary as anything else i've had to deal with.  and though i tried my best to absorb every scrap of information the dieticians gave us, not everyone did and at that time, it was okay.  now it is irritating, because i've got a better handle on it.  but it's important to remember that everyone has a beginning, everything has a timeline.
so we're here, R and i, and we've had salad and cranberry ginger ale, diet of course, and i've not touched her or kissed her or spoken of anything serious yet.  i'm still contemplative.  i guess it's just the month, it makes everything seem more necessary to analyze for some reason.

evening now.  i took R home.  i went and had coffee with my friend T.  i went to see my mother, to discern the matter of some payments that apparently hadn't been made to some accounts she has.  i could only find that nothing had been paid out from her bank, but i couldn't do anything about it.  she was in a not-good space when i got there, and a worse-seeming space when i left.  i'm not ever happy when i leave someone feeling worse than when i came, though i do it deliberately at times.  this wasn't one of them, though.
syd is gone, i've had my dinner, a concoction of several scraps of things thrown together and seasoned with some heat added, and it was tasty and filling.  i am feeling a bit of a cold creeping on me again, but i'm doing pre-emptive strikes at this time.  i'm going to try to write for a bit, put some things down on paper, get back to a story because i need to work on one, and i'm going to try to make it an early night.  i've got things to do tomorrow, a good deal of running, and it would be nice to be refreshed and ready for it for a change.  a new month begins in the morning.  i thank Jehovah my heavenly Father for the good month passed.

...by any other name

well, i finally missed a day, completely.  i don't know why.  i had it in mind to do this several times yesterday, but i didn't.  i don't believe it's any kind of issue, i don't think it's indicative of any particular thing.  i just don't remember being distracted by anything, i don't recall any particularly bad things occurring.  i guess it was just the sequence of things that happened yesterday.  i am on my way to a diabetes education class with R.  i will continue this when i'm done.
so, i started yesterday at the gym.  got up at five and hit the gym by five thirty.  got in a good forty-five minute workout and then got Syd off to school on time.  i ended up at my mom's house early because i had to get some things for the dish she asked me to make.  had a conversation with my mom about her and my dad and the issues they've been having lately, the same issues they've had for all my life.  it was very sad, because it brought about some realizations that i hadn't had before, and left me wondering if i am actually able to be any kind of catalyst for change.
after i left, i went to the store, got some other things and went home.  i worked on three different dishes because i had to fix what my mom asked for, as well as dinner for syd and myself.  i was tired but my mind kept running over things that my mom had spoke about.  her having my oldest brother and the tumultuous relationship between herself and her mother.  her relationship with my dad and how she didn't get with him because of love but just to escape her mother's home.  the early years of my dad's alcoholism.  there was a lot of stuff that was leading me toward what i wanted to know, which was about my brother's birth and the possible emotional scar that may be keeping her from moving in any other direction.  but i didn't want to push too hard, as sometimes what you seek to pry can break, and if you don't have the tools to repair something you shouldn't fuck it up.  sort of a street level Hippocratic oath.
so i finished the day with talking to R, eating my meat loaf, finishing the cover for Mechanical Jesus and posting a preemptive flyer on Facebook.  i put on some relaxation sounds and crashed out hard.  i woke this morning rough, didn't make it to the gym, i got breakfast, took a bath and got ready for the diabetes education class with R.  we had a discussion on latent sexuality which was interesting.  we seem to be able to range across a great deal of topics without reservation.  i enjoy that in a person.
we met at the hospital and sat through the first day of diabetic education.  there were things that i learned, things that i feel i could modify in my insulin intake to get better coverage and results.  we left and got lunch and came back here.  we ate and went through some job stuff to put in applications for R and get her resume together.  i am enjoying the time we get to spend.
there should be a 'but' here, but i don't want to put one there.  i still don't have the entirety of R in my life.  we are both going through things, and it's not the most conducive situation to be romantic in, but for both of us, this is the life that we have, the time we have to share, and the things we choose to do.  i don't force emotions upon her, and she hasn't forced them upon me.  i just want to be able to know she goes as deep down into this thing as i do.  and yet, if i get too intrusive and ask, i'm afraid she'll run.  and one thing i do know about love:  you should not have to spend so much time worrying about the validity of it when you're trying to invest in it.
i am finding myself snacking more often.  i am approaching my time for a weigh-in, and i don't believe i've lost any significant weight.  but i'm feeling better, and my mind is sharper.  i just need to re-calibrate and move forward.  gym tomorrow.  R tomorrow, diabetes class.  it's going to be what it's going to be, and my only real choice is to go through it to see how it turns out on the other side.  i'll let you know.