Cold Weather Blues

Life is so complex and moves so quickly- people make choices, get married, have kids, buy property. Something about the permanency of all that scares me. I can't do it. Its way too much commitment. I keep thinking that maybe someday my attitude will change- the right condo will come along or the right person but so far- nothing. I don't know if its perfectionism or fear or just the way I'm built but it seems so odd in comparison to the rest of our society.

Lately, I'm not so happy with my work life. It's 8:30 in the morning and I log onto the computer, start working. Next thing I know, its 1 in the afternoon and I'm going out to get lunch then a blur until I stop around 4:30. It feels like "where did my whole day just go?" I don't think this is how I was designed to live.

Lately too, my energy is zapped. I feel blah, flat. It's a cold weather thing, I think. I have little energy to be around people. It takes a lot of energy to interact, mostly because I'm introverted by nature. I hate making plans. There have been people who I've never made plans with and still spent a lot of time with. We had a lot of last minute dinners and movies and art events. It was good for me that way.

The good 'ole days

It was thanksgiving sometime in the 90's', 1994 perhaps. My parents had just gone through a 5 year all out war of a divorce and money was scarce. The house sold and I made an unsuccessful attempt to move to Florida with my then boyfriend. I was there less than a week before he kicked me out for my outlandish behavior when i drank. All I remember from that time are a few scenes- him cooking breakfast with a motorcycle helmet on, me drinking Bloody Mary's by the pool in the too bright morning light and taking a cab to his place drunk really late one night. I had no money for the cab fare and he turned me away because of my drunkenness. The cops came and I was arrested. When I claimed to be suicidal, they put me in a mental hospital for observation for 3 days. I came back from that one big Tampa debacle sometime in the spring and moved into a motel with my mother. She had $8000 left which she carried in her pocketbook in large bills. The $100, 000 that we had taken out of the bank 3 years prior one sunny afternoon had gone to lawyers and living expenses. We squandered through most of the $8000 just trying to live. I tried to work, but depression had me in its strangling grip and I couldn't contribute much of anything financially or otherwise. Spring turned to summer, to autumn and the holidays- my least favorite time of year. This year, instead of being in a 4000 square foot home, we were in a motel with hard floors and bright lights. I don't know how it happened, but we had no money. I scrapped together my mothers change, separating the silver coins out of the many pennies and managed to get together $1.60. I went down to the vending machine, my bare feet against the cold tile floor. I got pretzels and something else, I'm not sure what. I never felt so desolate in all my life; even at the mental institution in Tampa, I had more hope. Id like to say this is as worse as it got for me, but it wasn't. There was more to come and thank God I didn't know that then. Shorty after that, I lost another old flame due to my behavior when I drank- he came to pick me up one afternoon and I was bottomless in the outdoor pool. I fell one night on the way home from a bar in a black out and woke up bloodied with no idea what had happened. I later pieced some of it together. I spent a year in bed in a depression. I showered once a week and it took me nearly an hour to get the almost dreadlocks out of my long hair. I rarely went out and when I did it was to drink. My mom and I ate one meal a day- all we could afford on the alimony check my dad sent weekly. We didn't have a car so we got subs delivered from a shop nearby. Usually we split a large egg and cheese. We fought a lot, mostly because I couldn't get out of bed an my mother wanted me to get help. It was awful. I hated her but I had no where to go. Some nights I slept in the bathtub just to get some space from her. Looking back, I don't know how I survived all of this, but I did. Sometimes I couldn't sleep at night and there was nothing to do in the dark room while my mother snored gently in the next bed. These times were excruciating. I was alone in my miserable head and had no drink to comfort me. Sometimes I slept the day through even while my mother watched talk shows and complained of her plight to distant relatives on the phone. One time I remember the maids came in and they were all chatting. My mother wanted me to join the conversation and when I said "I don't feel like talking today", they all thought it was funny and laughed.