Ups and downs

I am not surprised that it’s been nine months since I last posted something here. I’ve been struggling to focus on the things I believe I want to do, and exploring the landscape of psychological discomfort, learning my way around. A few weeks after my February post, I simply quit drinking. It felt like the time had come. It’s not that I enjoy this dismally sober and brittle state of mind, but I’m getting used to it. Sure, there have been a few outbursts (two of them directed at brother Brian) of the sort that used to be fueled by mild spirits (I rarely ever indulged in anything other than beer or wine, but of course it’s not the type of alcohol, it’s the amount that one must be concerned about). This might be the longest span of time I’ve traversed without the sort of relief I was used to—since moving to Huntsville in 1981. At that time I’d utilized AA meetings during the summer to motivate both sobriety and dieting. Upon encountering Alabama's most Christian-oriented AA meeting (I should have tried others!) that October, I gave up. Now I’m simply on my own. Just what I do not need at my age.

In addition to anger, or maybe even paranoia (Brian would call it that, and has), I’ve had gushes of anxiety. Not every minute, but in relation to perceived and forseen difficulties in the world. My little dog was diagnosed with kidney failure; she was throwing up and slowing down, and I made an appointment to have her euthanized (to avoid what I’m going through now), but was talked out of it by Russell and the vet at that very appointment. I’m glad Maggie’s still here after all, but the expensive probiotic pills she’s supposed to take have to be refrigerated. Can’t put them in warm food or they’ll be ruined. The result is that I stand over her, for long minutes, begging her to eat. I can slip the pills under her nose when she starts and she’ll gulp them down. But I still have to wait until her appetite gets going, which cuts into the time I have for worrying about other things! The cat has been a pain, too, meowing in a way that makes me want to kill her. I do not kill her. She’s old, and has decided that there’s always something I can do for her whenever she sees me, simply because I have not ever failed to respond, sometimes by tossing her to the other side of the bed, but often by giving her treats. These animal needs are constantly buzzing around in my home environment. It’s not world-broadening, it’s world-shrinking. Just what I do not need at my age.

So much musical activity going on since February: attendance at many in-person open mics, and open mics online. Cyberspace is a good venue for me: the words and chords are on the screen where I can see them without making it obvious that I’m using that "crutch" (which can't be avoided in person; I'm the not-OK boomer with the notebook and music stand). An online open mic scheduled for the evening, songs chosen, a few run-throughs earlier in the day, a proper audio setup, and I’m ready to emote and deliver, close up, with a dark background. I’m told I’m very good by more than one person, and not in the way that everyone gets congratulated, but in private emails. Gratifying? Maybe, but in-person local situations are more fraught. I’ve made so many mistakes, technical (capo falling off) and performance-related (missed or wrong chords, losing my place on the lyric sheet, letting go of the mystical energy rope). I’ve sat by myself at a table, wondering how to socialize (without beer), and just as I was making new friends, the place of everyone's favorite open mic (Salty Nut Brewery) closed. I’m now recording songs for another album, slowly but surely. The experience is humbling. Just what I do not need at my age.

Yes, Brian’s still here (after a year and four months), and Russell and I are trying to prod him to announce his plans. Of course he doesn’t have any (I wrote a song about that, of course). It’s at times like these that I understand cousin Denise’s horror at my situation. No choices. No room to move. But there will be a move anyway—Russell and I are moving to the smaller front room for our bedroom, and he’ll use the big room for his magic studio and office, the way it was supposed to be from the start. No more waking up because Brian is talking in his sleep! But Brian himself makes me anxious, simply by his hiding, his postponing, his relentless depression that he refuses to seek help for and yet makes obvious, and his Coffey know-it-all-ness continuing unabated despite his dire, dependent situation. During one of the aforementioned outbursts I accused him of hating me, but now I think it was me who perhaps hated him at that moment. I’ve also quite recently accused Joy of “despising” me, led there by her obvious avoidance of me (except socially at poetry meetings) since our final zoom session a couple of months ago. These days her reasons for living are to save the Earth and destroy capitalism; any deviance from that path or, god forbid, impatience with it, will earn you her silence, if not disdain. I feel I’ve lost that friendship, which makes me wonder how it ever came to be in the first place. But I know it was real for many years, and there's something that was once important missing now. Just what I do not need at my age.

Recently I’ve run out of time for the weekly “women writers reading” zoom event on Monday evenings, I’ve struggled through a last 40Days program and almost lost my enjoyment of writing, and I’m taking weekly jazz ukulele lessons from a smiling old gnome at Harmony Sound, causing me to question whether I ever played adequately at all. Also, due to lack of privacy and Russell’s commitment to driving homeless Dave and Kim around whenever requested during the afternoons when Brian's out of the house at the coffeeshop, there’s been no sex for months. I thought that wouldn’t bother me, but now after many months, it does. Will moving to the front room at night bring that back (in its limited form)? Without being able to look forward to the relief of a couple of beers or a glass of wine with sparkling water, I have to take everything at face value, and it’s rough, and nothing flows smoothly except for practicing ukulele (the lull of repetition). The moment of finally putting my head down on the pillow at night is the closest I get to pleasure now, but then the cat ruins it by walking on my neck or pushing under the covers next to me but never staying put once there. However, for the first time since I had those gulps from the wine pouch, on the rollercoaster at Paragon Park with Ralph in 1966, I think I can do without. I really do. Just what I need at my age.

Coming to a bad end?

Does my penchant for self-examination (often resulting in dead-end puzzlement) mean I’m really a “narcissist”? I can’t be the judge of that, but of course there are times when my behavior causes problems that I have to ponder, or feel guilty about, or feel victimized about.

Sure, it’s alcohol-related, I suppose. But the expressions that arise from me while I’m drunk surely have some deeper origin than just a random (unpleasant) release of inhibitions.

I’ve antagonized people close to me once again, especially Russell. I did not respond well, in fact, I responded like a two-year-old being removed from a party, to his arrival at The Nook, where I sat feeling relatively comfortable with Joy and Susan Davis after our monthly WriteNightOut where we respond to prompts, write, and read aloud. Beer was involved, perhaps more for me than the other two, I’m not sure. But then, Joy says I’m a “lightweight” when it comes to tolerance. The name of the beer was “Pernicious,” and I had three of them. On a relatively empty stomach.

So, my two girlfriends called Russell “behind my back” to come fetch me from The Nook, where, our meeting being more-or-less over, I’d continued loudly complaining about something-or-other (perhaps about Brian’s expectation of my not-worrying about him even after the extreme circumstances I found him in; or perhaps about my newly-discovered resentment—thanks to my cousin Denise’s bragging about her own lifestyle—of Russell’s never having had a ‘day job’ all these years.)

When I saw Russell walk in to the patio where we were, sitting at a table with gas flames flickering on top (which Eco-Joy did not object to, so what’s up with THAT?)… I was surprised, then confused, then very angry, VERY ANGRY. Russell says I “traumatized” him by beating my fists against his very substantial chest, but I felt I was fighting for my autonomy, my psychic life, very much the same way I felt I had to verbally fight Felicia over Zoom when she criticized my songwriting last year. I know I shouted “Fuck you” to Joy and Susan as Russell pulled me out of there and I continued to fight him and to shout (he says). When he got me to the entryway of The Nook, he pushed me very hard up against a post, twice. It didn’t hurt, it just was evidence of his upset-ness. I suppose I’m sorry for that. I am still convinced that if I’d been left alone I’d have driven home perfectly well. I’ve done that so often, and from that exact location, and in even worse shape. True to the “drunk” profile, I thought I was pretty much OK. Was I? I don’t even know.

My yelling got my vocal cords seriously strained (can’t sing right!), and my relationship with Russell is strained, and now he wants to accompany me to every outing I plan, including open mics and obligatory attendance at fellow ukulele players’ gigs. That’s fine; we’ve had fun so far, but he may get tired of it, and I still feel that my much-vaunted ‘independence’ is threatened. These, though, are superficial concerns.

My main preoccupation now is: Why is this happening at this time in my life? Back in the summer of 2019 there was an incident which Russell doesn’t remember with as much hurt: when I fell off a porch leaving a party of our friends, carrying a half-rejected food offering. My foot slipped inside my sandal, which might have happened despite the five beers I think I had. I hurt my hip and leg, I let go of Maggie (Sycamore fetched her) and also shouted at that time. I had unsightly bruises for weeks.

If I am a sort of ‘functional’ alcoholic, it’s kind of low-level. My intake would not sustain a ‘real’ alcoholic. I suppose I have a weird response to any alcohol at all. I’ve tried, over the years, to abstain. But I’ve never had peace of mind in any circumstances except for that (physical) mood after a couple of beers or glasses of wine. Peace of mind, you’d think, would be a reward of getting through the working years and having some money come in regularly. Maybe it’s not even ‘peace of mind’ I want, but just a sense of relaxation and a conviction that I’m good enough to hang out with people without having to GIVE or PERFORM or HELP others. Having been instructed as a child that simply being there was not enough, I’ve had a sense of obligation, even resentment, about almost anything I do—rather than a feeling of simply WANTING to do something. I’ve never really known what I ‘wanted,’ and have been angered by that very question. How the hell do I know what I want?! No one ever encouraged me to pay attention to THAT. With the result now that that is ALL I PAY ATTENTION TO.

“What is wrong with me?” Is one question, bringing on the filthy flood of memories false and true, and then the counter-attack, “Maybe nothing. Maybe this is how you’re supposed to be.” Then the reality: “You’re really endangering your social relations, the ones that keep you afloat, such as your marriage and close friendships.” But maybe I should have sunk to the bottom long ago and found a different way up to the surface, I don’t know. I do not like depending on others, so this scenario is going to get worse, NO DOUBT, as I get older and more feeble in various ways.

The glaring truth that I DO fuck up pretty badly (occasionally) CLEARLY does not help meliorate my chronic lack of pleasure or satisfaction with myself or my circumstances. Without at least some ‘peace’ with myself, it’s pretty hard to get through the day. I have willpower, and I can get a few things done, but I take no satisfaction in these things, really.

 

There are always more things to do, and some of them seem almost impossible.
I have a trunk and suitcases full of my mother’s memorabilia. I have an office-ful of my own. What am I supposed to do with all that? Projects to organize it disintegrate. No one cares anyway.

Yes, I take myself too seriously. I keep half-believing that there’s a reason I’m HERE. Am I supposed to write and sing songs? Am I supposed to just write? For whom, now that I’ve deprived myself of Facebook through my own stupidity (on the same night I cursed out my loved ones at The Nook, but later, when I thought I’d calmed down and a new musical acquaintance, James Leo, asked me to send him a code in Messenger.) Eager to make up for my transgressions earlier that evening, and wrongly believing James was hapless and might likely NEED my help, I responded cooperatively to the scammer’s message, thus doubling my bad luck and poisoning (with regret and attempts to get a response from FB) the hours that I try now to fill with reasonable small creative or pedestrian achievements that never make me feel better about myself anyway.

Shouldn’t knowing that 20,000 people died in the earthquake rubble in Turkey and Syria this week…never having strummed a few chords at an open mic…be a modifying factor? It should, but it isn’t. The sick feeling I have about THAT is different from the blank feeling I have about my own inner self and its puzzles and shortcomings. Right now a perspective from the outside (such as Russell’s) is only humbling me to the point of paralysis. I really want to feel better. A glass of wine will do the trick for a little while, won’t it?