Sometimes I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why I’m triggered. Why I wake up in the morning and there’s an invisible force pressing me back into the pillows, shouting STAY DOWN and making it impossible to extract myself from the bed. Yesterday the pull was incredible, I finally dragged myself out of bed by 9 am, only to return in the afternoon for a lengthy nap. I reluctantly eyed the Rx bottles of THC, I’ve been enjoying a break from it and don’t want to take any, but yesterday it felt like the only choice.
I pop a tiny tablet into my mouth, letting it dissolve as I marvel at the memory of actions that used to be so illicit: toking up, getting high, packing a bowl, passing a j, all reduced to a dissolvable tab that, 10 mins after I’ve swallowed it I can’t remember if I took anything or not. I putz around the house in my pajamas, and like clockwork an hour later: a general sense of goodness and wellbeing washes over me. I’m reminded the only reason I feel ok most days is the drugs.
By 4:00 I finally have the energy start doing the things I meant to get to all morning and couldn’t. I take a shower. I make the phone calls. I organize the piles on my desk. I call the insurance people and take the garbage out.
Sometimes the weight of everything is too much. The house is a mess and the basement is a nightmare and the dog has a rash again and there’s a pile of bills on my desk that I’m afraid to open. Father’s Day came and went and all I could think about was how tired I am of doing all of the things. How tired I get of being me. Of living this life. I question if any of it was real, my marriage, the record store, the beginning, middle, and end. I wonder if the things that happened actually happened. I wonder if it was all a delusion. I wonder who I am, who I have to be, what I’m supposed to be doing. The THC takes hold and I gain the ability to make the phone calls and clean the kitchen, remembering these obligations are mine, that I’m lucky to have them.
I search my memory, trying to locate the source of the unhappiness, as if locating the reason that I can’t function will somehow magically make it stop. Did something happen? Or did nothing happen? I feel sad. I feel sorry for myself. I went on a date that should have been all green flags: he’s nice. He’s attractive. He’s interesting and funny and smart and sober to boot, all the things I’ve been looking for, but the date was hard. When he looked at me across the table at the ice creamery we went to after the thai place for dinner and asked me how long I was married, I took a deep breath and tried to keep the tears at bay while I recounted the shortest version of my Life Story. 18 years married. 20 together. I met him when I was 20 years old. My marriage was a nightmare. I’m still recovering.
I feel sorry while I’m telling it, though I know there’s no reason to. Sad that I have to have this conversation, sad that part of dating is explaining how you got here. I listen while he tells me about his own failed marriage, about his own struggles with addiction. I should like everything about him but I resent that I’m in this bright red booth, my hands sticky from the cookies and cream. I wonder how many more times, how many more dates, how many more men I will do this with. How many times I have to explain what happened.
For what it’s worth, I believe it’s okay if you choose not to share… and that it’s also okay if you choose to share…
It’s okay to be whoever (whomever?) we are at any particular moment. Compassionate people give one another lots of space, and why would we choose to surround ourselves with people who don’t have an abundance of compassion?
If there is a “handbook” somewhere, I sure haven’t seen it. Thanks for sharing your journey with us… 🫂
I'm sorry that you have to keep reliving this Groundhog Day from Hell. I wish there was a way to make it go away. You know I always flirt with you and poke at you, but I really am just trying to make you smile. You need it.