Hold On - Guster

So let's be honest, I'm not a writer, I'm a musician - and I like to watch The Bachelor. Well, more someone who likes to sing and play guitar. Details...

Part of the reason I haven't been writing is because I'm just not a good writer. It doesn't make me feel any better, it just makes me feel inarticulate. So I've decided to switch it up a bit. I'm gonna sing songs and you get to watch (if you want).  Playing makes me feel better. So here you go. Don't read in to the songs too much, they're just ones that I like.

Enjoy. I know I do.

All the world don't got keys to their own ignition

My my my, how things quickly change. I'm back from vacation and feeling very different than I was before I left. Is it better than I was feeling? I've been honest with a lot of different people over the last few weeks and it takes a weight off your shoulders but doesn't always have the best result. So it depends what your definition of "better" is and I don't really care to analyze that right now. 


Being out west for a week definitely helped quell some of that sense of adventure I felt I was lacking. Although I kind of knew this before, I love driving. I love driving alone. I love driving alone through the desert. I wasn't actually alone on this trip but it was still a great feeling. Driving, while alone, while smoking, while listening to whatever the fuck I feel like listening to helps me connect with that "brooding lesbian" I want to be. After therapy every week I allow myself half an hour to drive on the highway and either slam on the gas listening to the Scissor Sisters or watch the dotted lines go by listening to Rufus.  


Driving makes me feel like a badass (bad-ass, bad ass?). Those who know me see how far-fetched that actually is from who I am. I've always been one to try and live life as if I were in a movie - not thinking through the consequences of things I say because, isn't it just gonna fade to black anyway? Serenading women at their windows believing they'll dump their current girlfriend once they hear me play guitar - yes I've actually done that and yes she dumped her girlfriend but then went back to her a week later. Don't know if it's a phase of some kind (or "ennui" as my friend keeps calling it) but I need to figure out how to work some of that back in to my life.


Anyway (said with big sigh), I know it might be time to change the name of this blog. The transition from medications is pretty much over. But I kinda like the name and am gonna keep it - unless meondifferentmeds.blogspot.com is available.

Epilogue: Driving an RV is not the most glamorous thing - you feel pretty bad going up a hill at 35 miles an hour with a line of cars behind you knowing that the harder you step on the gas the more damage you're doing to the environment. 

Harvey

My father died three and a half years ago. I've never been able to write about him. I barely let myself think about him. It was easy to hold back because that's what the Prozac did - it told me when to "not go there." Well with the Prozac out of my system, I'm going there.


Watching him die was heartbreaking. There are some people that, once they've been through enough suffering, are at peace with their fate. The last time I saw him with his eyes open he was still fighting and hoping. In fact, the last words I ever heard him say were "Oh, shit." There was no part of him that was ready to die. He was young, 63, and even as his daughter, I could tell he had just starting feeling comfortable in his own skin. He was always proud of me, but I had just started to be proud of him. 


Since he's died it's been very difficult to feel the same amount of love for my family. He was the one I wanted to talk to. He was the one I wanted to sit in silence with. He was the one that would call me to ask about me.  He was the one that carried the weight of our problems and made it look so easy. We never appreciated that. Now my mother, brother and I attempt to do that for each other, but my body can't handle the weight. 


Over the last few years we have realized what he had been protecting us from. My mother in particular had been the most naive. She has never held a job, never balanced a check book, never dealt with an insurance company or bank. It has been so overwhelming for her that at times I have felt she was suicidal. Part of me wants her to go through with it. Her pain is a pain I can't carry on top of my own.  But then I hear this voice in my ear, words of disappointment from my father, telling me how selfish it is to think that. 


He was a shield. He was an open book. He would cry on Valentines Day. He would curse in his sleep. He would call his mother once a week and tell her how much he loved her. He bought the book "Loving Someone Gay" after I came out to him - but he already knew how. He told bad jokes. He spoke horrible Spanish. He washed the dishes every night.


There is a bench with his name on it in Central Park. I've never had the chance to visit it by myself. And I don't "talk" to him. But I miss him, and I'm going to let myself miss him. 




p.s. If you know my mother, pretend you never read this.
p.p.s My dad is the one saying "Run Lola Run" and I'm the one saying "The Breakfast Club"
http://www.errolmorris.com/content/shortfilms/oscarmovie.html

"You're tearing me apart!"

A few days ago I was starting to worry that my emotional and creative edge was slipping away again. I was feeling "good" and that scared me. How to define "good?" In my case I started thinking about quitting my non-drunk smoking, didn't listen to sad music, and felt motivated to do something other than mope. And I didn't like it. I told my therapist that I felt the drugs were kicking in and that I was getting concerned about the void coming back. She gave a logical suggestion: wait until I'm on the full dose before fully examining any numbing effects it might have on my soul. In short, I was feeling good and didn't necessarily like it. And why is that? Because I want to be a brooding lesbian! There, I said it! I want to be Jim Stark! Jim Stark was sexy and emotional and charming and lost. But while these characteristics would be attractive to people between the ages of 16 - 25, adults would find him unreliable, annoying, still lost and probably a crystal-meth junkie. 

It's a pathetic, childish aspiration. But going for a hike with a pack of smokes and a bottle of bourbon sounds pretty good right now - maybe even throw in a game of chicken. But I can't help but wonder if I want to be this person because it's a more accurate reflection of who I really am or who I'm really not? 

1

            Fuck fuck fuck fuck. I’ve been on anti-depressants (Prozac for all of you versed in psychopharmacology) for at least 8 years.  Those have been some pretty good eight years, exactly what I needed - stability, ability to maintain a healthy relationship and healthy friendships. But for some reason, I’ve recently decided it wasn’t enough. I wanted to feel again, to experience some lows, perhaps to justify to myself that I actually need these meds. I wanted to be able to think again, to ponder, to appreciate. So back in therapy after a 6-year hiatus, I’ve decided to try some new meds. I’m currently making the switch from an anti-depressant to a mood stabilizer. As my partner can contest, I come from a family with delusions of grandeur, and sometimes I come home feeling like Napoleon ready to take on the world, I decide it's best to start with cleaning my house but never make it past that. So perhaps this “stabilizer” will help the lows not be so low, and the highs not be so unrealistic. 

I found out yesterday from my therapist that these new meds will take up to six weeks to kick in. So I’m in this weird limbo where I’m feeling again, everything makes me cry, I want to bore people to death with how crappy I’m feeling, how nothing in this world makes sense. I’m smoking cigarettes while sober, sipping on bourbon and listening to sad music. But oddly, I’m feeling a little more like “me.” I’m thinking about things, about existence, about purpose. Before, I was only thinking about thinking. Now I’m actually doing it. So I’m taking this time, before the meds kick in in a few weeks, to express myself. I haven’t written a song or made a journal entry in years simply because I felt like I had nothing to say. But now I do. It’s kind of all over the place, very self-indulgent and probably not interesting to most people. But I’m hoping it will help me cope with my fucked up brain chemistry. And down the road I’m going to use these words to remind myself of who I really am, but also that who I really am can’t function and can’t coexist in a world that demands one be entertaining and ambitious.

I’m not a writer. I’ll make grammatical errors, misuse dashes and commas. But I feel that doing this will be better than posting something on facebook in code hoping that someone will pick up on it and reach out. I’m doing this in hopes of strengthening my relationship with the people who mean something to me. And I’m hoping to develop a coping mechanism that will allow me to one day live without stabilizers.