October 19, 2021
Journal Entry
I took quite a few Klonipin today. I’m just finished with it all, you know? I just want out. I don’t want to do it anymore. It’s too hard. I’m not drinking enough water. I’m having dizzy spells, and lo and behold, after the amazing feat of staving off depression since the onset of Covid, today I’m depressed.
I spent quite a lot of time yesterday scheming how to get booze delivered to my house. But it’s not possible. And I don’t have the strength, nor sufficient motivation, to get up and go out and get it. And who can I ask? No one. I have no friends in Trumptown. And those I know, my brother, the housekeeper, they aren’t going to exactly line up to assist me in obtaining mind altering substances. There are some trust issues there. And common sense. I mean, I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to be in that situation. Or would I? This is a unique scenario. I’d manage to override my better judgment and load up my friend with Grey Goose minis just this one time. Ya. I could. I would. Goddamn, I’m a good friend. Goddamn, I’m a good woman.
God that was awesome about the Louisville vacation, staying at T.'s in Old Louisville. I got booze delivered whenever I wanted. And I spent my hot vacation dollars on the spendy stuff. Grey Goose, Kahlua, Baileys. I had some bitchin’ White Russians. And watched The Big Lebowski at the same time. I started on the White Russians before I watched the movie but was definitely a devotee after. Good memories. And those memories are mine alone. I was alone. I don’t have to be with people to be OK. I like that about me.
I’m tired. Mom’s cranky. I have days where I feel better, like I’m on an upward trend, then days like today when I feel like it will take months to feel OK. I don’t get cranky. I just feel defeated. I sit on the couch and cry. And mom, once again, as if she didn’t know shit about me and my mental fucking illness, asks me in a most startled way what’s wrong? And I explain to her, for the hundred thousand time, nothing is wrong. I’m sad. That’s it. I’m sad.
And then there’s this new fear that’s birthed in me. After all this Conversations With God stuff, and all my proselytizing about being transformed, looking at everything differently, changed permanently for the better. Then out of nowhere comes a NEW MONSTER. I’m afraid to go out. It started a week or so ago, and every time I think about going out, I’m more afraid to go out.
I’m afraid to go out without a negative COVID test, but what does that do for me? It makes me confident I’m not infectious. But I can turn infectious in a split second. I can get reinfected. And infect. And get reinfected. And infect. And maybe that will happen. Maybe I’ll cycle through every mutation of this virus for as long as I live. Am I catastrophizing? Maybe. Probably. Yet I believe Coronovirus is now part of our lives for as far into the future as we can see. We’ve only just begun our battle with this blight.
I finally get to where I’m not afraid of death, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get past being afraid of a long lingering painful illness preceding death. I can’t ever be this sick again. It’s like all the bad scary parts we’ve been told about death only I understand now, finally, death is freeing. This is the in between of living and hell, where you feel stuck, where you feel doomed to endless suffering.
Living and death and hell, all the wrong words, all the wrong concepts. This is more like a hell manufactured in my own mind. One I know is composed of smoke and mirrors, set up by my primal mind as a protection completely without merit or value. I struggle to deconstruct this manufactured terror through logic and fail. And all the while my fear grows enormous.
I remind myself all of it, everything, is only temporary. Each season of our lives is only temporary. If I suffer, it will be temporary. But time doesn’t seem temporary when you’re suffering. It seems interminable. But it’s not. We’re vapor. That soothes me some. I can do this. I will do this.
I Persevere. And life goes on.
"Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away."
James 4:14
