I awoke on day 2 much better than the day before. No scarey dreams or anything of that nature. A little of the hit in the gut feeling, still forgetting while sleeping the changes that have occurred. I immediately recovered fairly well though. I had another bowl of cold cereal and took another 150 mg of Wellbutrin XL. I felt calmer and more energized, some of which had to do with the phone call that came out-of-the-blue from G the night before. My primary emotional problem on a day-to-day basis is how much I am missing her, and it was nice that she called. Work went along okay and I left at 3 PM to go home and then on to my therapy appointment, where we discussed my dream from the other night, and how all of this emotion I am having are probably amplified by my not drinking. My therapist also thinks I need to think of the current situation differently. That I am trying to break emotional dependence not a relationship, love, desire or anything like that. I felt better having a different paradigm to work with. After Tuesday’s zombie routine, I was in a bad state and I needed to have better tools to deal with such feelings. Tom and I, once again made plans for dinner. I texted G and asked her what she was doing for the evening, to which I received a phone call response. We talked for about an hour, and I let her talk some this time. It was good overall. I learned some things about the situation that I did...
Yesterday was my first day on Wellbutrin. I awoke in the morning, turned on the morning news shows on TV, and ate a bowl of cold cereal. Then I went to the kitchen and with a bit of adrenalin running through me I popped my first 150 milligrams. The day went along okay, but through too much playing Sudoku and to much letting my mind go silly, I entered into a very dark mood in the late afternoon. Given that the drug takes at least two weeks to start really taking an effect, I am sure that it was not the medication. I fell into a pit of despair, considering several times checking myself into the psych ward at the hospital. Later I realized that this more of an impulse to have someone take care of me, to have constant therapy, to not have to think about the ordinary things. I got over it. When i got home from work, I called my mother and she gave me a pep talk about all of the good stuff I have been doing lately. About handling my drinking and depression issues head on. She said that she had never seen anyone so actively address issues in their life in such a short time. That I should be proud of myself, and that that pride should be a source of comfort for me. It made me feel better. I am becoming a better person, even though most of the steps along the path are painful. Tommy came over soon after that and we went to dinner, talked with Grant about children, drinking...
Tomorrow I start anti-depressants for the first time in my life. After much time resisting and feeling my brain reacting against me time and time again, I finally gave in. I got over my Marxist tendencies to consider it another opiate, a way of making happy workers and happy kids who would grow up to be happy workers and would not question the status quo. I went to a psychiatrist who explained what the research on the brain was in these matters, and I left his office with a two week supply of Wellbutrin XL Extended Release formula. I am so tired of feeling depressed, and the recent events and changes in my life have not really helped matters in this department. I don’t feel like I have been myself for several years now. I mean, I have been myself, but have been in a steady decline: losing hope, excitement, exhilaration, and sight of what I was put here for. I had hoped all along I would be able to fix it all myself, but lately I lost hope of this as well. I fell for short-term euphoria too many times. Decisions made when I was young (and we are young over and over, no matter how old we get) would deliver jolts of happiness that sometime last months, but would ultimately fade, turn bad, and become an aggravating part of the problem. I hope for no miracles. Just something to help me get to a place where I can work on me. A place where I can start becoming the Bryan that many of you have told me...
G’s grandmother died last night at around 11 PM. She had fallen a couple of days ago and broken her hip. Earlier last night she had a massive heart attack and G called to tell me that. She then called this morning to let me know that Thama had died. What I knew of “Thama” (a name G’s sister, the oldest grandchild, created through childhood speech) were these things. When I first met her after a stroke a couple of years ago, she couldn’t talk too well, but she still fluffed her hair and set up when I came into the room for the first time. All of her grandchildren were there that day and I took a picture of them with Thama when we got her up to go outside for a while. She kept on giving me an eye, like she didn’t know me, but she did know me. Like she was letting me in and keeping me out. Like we had a secret pact that could be shared with no one. All of it could’ve been my imagination. Perhaps I reminded her of someone she once knew but she could not put her finger on. Or perhaps I was just a stranger and I only imagined all that I felt happening between us. She had lost weight in her body and face and was not the same person I had seen even in recent photos. I know G hurt then about what was going on. Things would never be the same in her relationship with Thama. Conversation would be difficult if it could happen at all,...
I saw her today. Three days after we officially were over. I was taking a walk, one which would have taken me by her house, not by design, but necessity. Walking up the front sidewalk and into the house with sofa seat cushions she went. I thought all of that was going down tomorrow night, not tonight. I was trying to be strong. Had been trying all day, but seeing her almost brought me to my knees. Carrying sofa seat cushions is not usually the most romantic image, but she was a vision doing it. I guess she will now have better furniture in her new place. That will be good and comforting. I took a detour and went down through the park and around the golf course so as not to create weirdness or thoughts that I may be stalking. I wanted just as much to run up and hug her. To help bring the sofa in. To have a glass of water. To tell her I love her. To pretend like we were still together. Like I would be sitting on those sofas soon… but maybe...
drunk with his museI don’t know what little readership I have here, but I kind of wanted to tell everyone of my sins. Given my ambivalence on whether God exists and all, I know not who to confess my sins to, so I thought it would be best to admit my sins publicly, and if everyone else could hear it, surely God could hear it too. It is 4 AM on the morning and Grier and I have been broken up for some 10 hours now. My parents have come in town this weekend for a visit, and emotional rescue of sorts, and things have not worked out as well as I had hoped. I awake a few minutes ago with cold arms and tried to warm them and get back to sleep. The split second that it took to decide to put my arms back under the covers was enough, however, to let in the reality of what has gone on. G is gone. She told me today maybe it could work in the future, but it definitely cannot work right now. That we needed a clean break in order to work on the things that we individually need to work on. Hers may be finding out if someone else is more suited for her than I am and I imagine some other things. Mine are much more. I have been bad, very bad. I have kissed another woman once early in our relationship, during the time G says, and I somewhat agree, was the good time in our relationship. It was my mistake. I should never have...
Oh, these August babies! All hot in their mother’s womb. Like a vacation in hell, but you like it. I’m sure that the croupier’s hair is teased to hide the horns beneath. I’ve spent too much. Now in the bedroom, I’m thinking of you. I’m thinking of you a lot. When I imagine that Mississippi river basin out there, the one I saw when going to bed this morning, you are walking across it in a cotton dress. Sweaty and hair sticking to your neck, you are walking across it toward me this time. I feel you in my heart in this flat place. I feel you there intensely. I hope it is not just imagination. That is you? Cotton dress? Sweat and hair? You are walking toward me? Or is it away? Is the heat that rises, mixed with river water, creating mirages on the horizon? My kingdom for you to be here for just 5...
My baby just called me, drunk after the party, to say she loves me and misses me, and just after I had fallen asleep in this old new bed that has yet to be christened again and it woke me up and I wish she would do it again and again and...
Out tonight, the neighbors are having a party, and all up and down this street are cars, parked where yours did once and I came home worried about potential blockage to the back drive after watching Charade with Shannon at the new house that he and his wife and new baby have in Reynoldstown. I drank a beer a couple of gin and tonics had a burger a Coke and a movie and at midnight find myself back here with a picture of you floating in the air… just simply floating. I put on a shirt that you bought me with a shirt that you bought me on top like a double hug tonight because you were not here. Burger, gin and tonic, beer. Stop. Western Union and Pony Express. Your quackery is on the shelf. It’s all gonna be alright. Still the love of your life. It’s all gonna be alright. Beatles playing cards. It’s all gonna be alright. Western shirt and empty bed. It’s all gonna be alright. When I imagine dreams, and they will come, you will be floating there, just above the horizon, just simply floating. Your heart will be a house and you will hold it in your hand. The sign out front will not be for rent or for sale, it will just say for me to move back in. House, shirt, cards, comfort, and...
Tonight is nothing, I am supposed to be nothing too, or at least happy, and to be sure, this house is really nothing, a nothing you once thanked me so much for, but nothing can bring this nothing back. Nothing acting on nothing. The orange glow from the pub sign atop the refrigerator with the ice maker is nothing, and the picture of you applying mascara in the bathroom on the hall, your bathroom, is, too, now nothing. The oven stench from tonight’s frozen pizza is nothing, and I fear that where I sit here, in this room, and write this is nothing, and I too, and so is this nothing as well? The times we made love on the living room floor, atop a flea market throw will soon be nothing, and only later will other lovers hear maybe an echo, but ultimately echoes are nothing. Ultimately, the Florida room is nothing, and the 5000 packs of cigarette smoke there is nothing, as smoke always is. This house is smoke, this house is burning, this house will soon be nothing but a spot two blocks from where you chose once, in my absence, to carve our initials for the ages into a mound of concrete, and to then come back here, when here was...
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