i mention this only because it hints at the prospect that i might be getting a visitor. and that visitor would bring normalcy as a plus one. i haven't seen her in 7 months, 'cause once you start hitching a ride to the prednisone wagon, you never know when you will see aunt flow again. i'm chasing normal, with the myopic intensity of a zombie, arms outstretched, inflexible, eyes glazed with intent, just running in futility on the hamster wheel, craving that first drop of blood...
i am even more sick today. i spent all day in bed. arising now for my daily outpouring of cyber, verbal diarrhea...
[not be be confused with the real kind.]
my roommate hid the baby wipes this morning. there were so many gone when she arose, that she assumed someone was randomly nicking a few here and there.
[that should give you a pretty clear visual of what happened to me in the middle of the night...]
a lot of bizarre things unfold in rehab. it's one bitter pill i don't enjoy swallowing.
[that. and prednisone.]
on hallowe'en, the techs rented two scary movies as a treat for us to watch in the common area. "mandatory fun time! sit together, but not too close!". the techs bought all the fixings for a down home, good ol' fashioned, candied confectionery blow out with caramel apples and ice cream sundaes. because our apartment is the most accessable to the common area, it became ground zero for sugar fixes. but, when grand central emptied, it left behind, glinting like a true diamond under our kitchen light, a serrated knife. why we were as giddy as schoolgirls at a justin beiber concert to discover the contraband.
i grabbed it.
k. jumped with excitement, "quick. hide it"...
my head spun around searching faster than the devil personified.
there are no sharp knives in rehab.
[and i'm just tired of sad, crooked apple slices...]
rehab is a fascinating study of character. we all have items in our medicine cabinet that we just never returned to contraband: hand sanitizer, tweezers, a razor, nail clippers. others have managed to conceal IPHONES, or one allows her dog to roam at every group; sniffing, scratching, yawning and distracting; even though a new rule was recently laid down, "no dogs at group". others still, show up late to group, 1, 2, 4, 7, minutes late, shuffling in noisily, defiantly, casually, littering the end of their butt into the landscaping as they tilt their head back and blow toxic, rebellious fumes into the sky...
[fuck you, god...]
tell me it's not genetic, or a disease, when every single person here has generations of addiction clogging up their veins, and trailing back into the past as clearly as muddied footprints on a white carpet.
are we just cunning and baffling and powerful, like our disease?
always pushing the boundaries?
always wanting just a little bit more than what we have?
always bouncing on the rules like an overstuffed suitcase?
[not for the faint of heart.]
no. for this group of misfits, who hold up a gigantic, blinding mirror to myself, is also some of the kindest souls. they have complimented me. supported me. lent me items. given me books. shared food with me. bought me a birthday present. all within the span of 2 weeks.
we are a duality of extremes, indeed.
fabulous or fatalistic...
instantly magnetize and viciously repel...
go big or go home...
ah, but it's easy to be defiant inside a bubble. in the real world, it doesn't wash for very long and you end up a filthy, stinking mess...
so we are learning how to sit in our filth. stay still in our discomfort.
it is darkest before dawn....
there is a light at the end of the tunnel...
become worse before you get better...
[whatever. it still sucks to be sick.]
i don't want to sit in this feeling of flushed, phlegmy exhaustion. and could someone please take this cleaver out of my head? i don't want to sit in the feeling of knowing what drugs would take this pain away...fiorinol, lortab, norco, vicodin, tramadol, morphine, percocet, dilaudid, klonopin...xanax...
we all do it. we rush to the trough of comfort, gobbling away at our own personal jesus; whether it be cigarettes, coffee, eating, not eating, facebook, the computer, shopping, chocolate; addictions i haven't crossed over to...
[although i am this close to admitting to a rehab-brewed coffee habit and one misstep away from beginning to suck my life away on my virginal cancer stick...]
but i sat in the feeling, after taking a nausea pill and 2 excedrin (down from my regular fistful of 6), and indulged in my physical misery for a while. but soon, the strange trifecta of maggie's ears, a's homemade heating pad and my IPOD on low, cruised my discomfort around to the employee's entrance where i "bach"-ed my way into a cul de sac of comfort: familiar, contained, slightly boring, but utterly relieving.
then i downshifted into neutral.
[honor your body]
i have never driven standard, always been an automatic kind of girl.
maybe it's time to learn to switch gears. i hear you have to breathe a bit in between, but then become more powerful than ever.
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