Thursday 24 February 2011

Pointless Post In Which I Am Lame (and a picture of Baby A.B)


(This is pretty much the face everyone pulls around me, all.the.time.)


So today I discovered (read: saw on the side of The Bloggess' blog) an awesome guy called Josh Weed who is basically the blogger I wish I was, but mormon and with a penis and with three kids (my vagina just couldn't handle that shit.) I clicked on his link at about 9pm and it's now 00:50 and I have been reading almost solidly (except breaks to take a pregnancy test and make some cheese and crackers and eat a lump of danish blue cheese crackerless BECAUSE I'M FUCKING FEARLESS) and I have laughed more times than I can count. I could say a bunch of shit about Josh, like that he's witty, and sensitive, and shows a surprising amount of insight into the life of his wife (known as Wife) and a touching appreciation for what she does for him and her role in their family and in society. I could say that I think if I could ever persuade Mr A to go to counselling, he's the kind of person I'd want to explain my marital problems to. I could say a lot of shit, but instead I'll say this:
He is crazy in a way that I seriously appreciate and twisted and dark in a way that had me cackling.
If that's not a first rate endorsement, I don't know what is.

Anyway, in an example of how fucking convoluted and ridiculous my life is, about a million months ago (November) Josh wrote a post about The NeverEnding Story (if you have never seen TNS you are not old enough to operate the Internet. Please go crawl back into your crib and stop making me feel so fucking old) and it reminded me that for a brief, shining moment in my pregnancy, I was all 'LETS CALL THE BABY ATREYU!' and my husband was totes scared of me because I kept waking him up in the dead of night by slowly twisting my thumbs into his back and screeching "I just can't stand the way you breathe!" so he didn't immediately voice extremely loud objections and question my sanity, which I totally took as a green light. Little baby Atreyu B.J was going to be awesome.
So tonight I was thinking back, and then I started wondering about all the people little Atreyu went to school with, who would think we actually named Atreyu after the band, Atreyu (which they knew of as some weird oldies music their clearly awesome parents listen to) and then I had this insane urge to listen to some Atreyu, so I paused Snakes On a Plane and youtubed me some Atreyu, and it was while listening to 'Lipgloss and Black' that I remembered how fitting this song used to be to my life, and realised with sadness how fitting it still is.



For those of you with less than perfect hearing, or who just don't speak metalcore, I've included some of the lyrics (without the endless repetitions)

If I gave you pretty enough words
Could you paint a picture of us that works
With emphasis on function rather than design
Aren't you tired?
cause I will carry you
On a broken back and blown out knees
I have been where you are for a while

Aren't you tired of being weak?
Such rage that you could scream
All the stars right out of the sky
And destroy the prettiest starry night
Every evening that I die

I am exhumed just a little less human and lot more bitter and cold

After all these images of pain
Have cut right through you
I will kiss every scar and weep
You are not alone
Then I'll show you that place,
in my chest where my heart,
still tries to beat;
It still tries to beat

Aren't you tired of being weak?
Such rage that you could scream
All the stars right out of the sky
And destroy the prettiest starry night
Every evening that I die

Live, Love, Burn, Die

I spent my teen years writing poetry, trying to communicate what people clearly weren't hearing in my much more eloquent habits of casual sex and black-out drinking, and in four years I never wrote something that expressed what I was trying to say like this song does. I wrote some dark shit and it still kind of flummoxes me to this day that no one took me aside and went "Listen, I've read some of your poetry and truth be told, I think you're a little disturbed." I mean...my boyfriends were reading this stuff, and what I was saying by writing it was 'Please, please, I am so fucking damaged that I can't even tell you how damaged I am, please tell me you see it so that some of this pressure building up in here can release.' I still know some of my ex-boyfriends now, and I kind of want to shake them and ask them if they realised at the time just what they were dealing with. Mr A was one of the only boyfriends ever who has never read anything I've written, and I'm sure that's a coincidence, but sometimes I wonder.

More to come soon, on such diverse subjects as holidays, moving house, cleaning, and breastfeeding.
Actually, those aren't that diverse at all. They're all boring and mundane and domestic. Oh Josh, you had me pegged.

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Avoidance and not-so-near-death experiences.

So, the Flu is gone, but it left me with what we thought was a fractured rib. It got worse and worse however, and on the night of the 13th, after what I thought was 3 weeks but appears to only have been one*, I was writhing around, in so much agony I couldn't breathe, screaming from every movement, convinced the the rib was breaking, splintering, and penetrating my lungs. I caved, and told Mr A I needed him to take me to the hospital. Four hours and an x-ray later it's discovered that I do not have a broken rib, but instead I apparently live in the 16th century. I have fucking pleurisy. Who even gets pleurisy? Pirates and poets, thats who.

I was released with a box of codeine and instructions to rest. The resting I was happy with but the codeine? Lets be straight here: I wouldn't say I'm an ex drug addict, but I'm an ex drug abuser. I didn't drink because I liked it, or because it was social, or because it felt nice. I didn't take drugs to achieve new experinces or enhance a good time. I did drugs and took alcohol specifically with the intention of getting fucked up. I attempted to obliterate myself with substances. I have abused everything from diet pills to ibuprofen to whisky to cocaine. You can't give me a drug and ask me to be sensible. I'm not. I don't have a filter, I don't have a valve that cuts things off when it gets too much. There is no shallow end of substance use for me. I always jump in at the deep end, and then I sink to the fucking bottom, because there is something wrong in my brain that won't tell me when to stop. Even when I was first given co-dydramol by my GP in response to my (at that point undiagnosed) hypermobility, I immediately started abusing them, however unintentionally. I was taking the maximum dose of co-dydramol alongside the maximum dose of ibuprofen, every single day, and I was still in pain. I weaned myself off them and now I don't even take them daily. Not because there's no pain, but because the fear of addiction and abuse is stronger than the pain. The knowledge of how easy it would be to slip up looms over me. The weight of this all is enormous.
So too was that box of codeine.
I turned it over and over in my hands. I didn't take any the moment she gave it to me, I made myself wait. Why? Why prolong my agony when I had a solution? I don't know. Just to prove I could, perhaps. Just to make sure I was able to. I waited until I got home, and then I waited until I got settled back into bed, and then I waited a little longer, and then I sneezed and then coughed and a scream ripped itself out of my chest and tears stabbed at my eyes and my vision sparkled with little white flakes of pain and I knew it was madness to wait any longer, so I took two tiny pills.

Ten minutes later I was filled with the knowledge that once the pleurisy is gone, the pills will have to be gone too, but I will probably spend the rest of my life hoping that something goes badly wrong with my body so that I am once again prescribed an opiate. Because I have never felt as at peace with my life and myself and the world as I do now. I have never felt as good as I do fifteen minutes after taking my pills.

And isn't it sad that that's a dangerous thing?




*Time has gone all screwy. The result of lying in bed for three weeks with the 'flu rather than drug use, because I was having trouble before the codeine, but still annoying. I was sure I'd been ill about 5weeks but first mention of it elsewhere on the internet is on the 22nd of January. I've been free of the 'flu but nursing the pleurisy for what felt like two weeks at least, but can only have been one. I'm a bit confused, to be honest.