Out of nowhere today, I remembered a comment that HWSNBN made to me once. It was December 2004 and I was high on life. “You know, things between us could have been quite different if you hadn’t been so melancholy last year,”  he said. (He was really, really good at breaking my heart)

What he meant, for those who have not been following my blogging for the EIGHT years it’s been around (I missed my blogging anniversary because I was drunk) was that I was weak because I couldn’t just ‘snap out of it’ when I was depressed and therefore was not together enough for him. And since my self-esteem wasn’t in very good shape, I spent a lot of time in the next few years trying to show how ‘together’ I was. Which is especially screwy considering HWSNBN wasn’t/isn’t even in my life.

I guess I thought of this because of something I heard at a SMART recovery meeting last week. SMART is very different from AA. In AA, you are defined by your alcoholism. In SMART your addiction is a problem but the philosophy is that we get better. That’s what someone said on Tuesday; we get better. (Coincidence to one of my favorite West Wing episodes?)

It gives me hope, because it reminds me I got better. More importantly, it reminds me I am NOT my alcoholism. The comment from HWSNBN was probably one of the most damaging things anyone has ever said to me, because he made me believe that I was my Depression. That that’s what defined me, and that no one could ever want to be with such a mess. I spent the next few years squashing down Depression, hiding it, believing that it made me deserving of shame. And then I spent a few years after that overcompensating for it; I wore my Crazy as a mask of sorts. I put it on full display and challenged the viewer to make something of it. I know I did that with OLB.

I truly believed that while Depression was real, I was only allowed a certain amount of help. I so strongly believed that my will was enough. I even expressed envy for those who were sicker than me, the people who could fall apart completely and get put back together, because I was too scared to fall apart.

So I quietly held it together. I think, to a degree, I’ve done the same with alcohol. Part of me just still hated myself too much for not being able to snap out of it. Because being a drunk is still a stigma. People understand, they do (and as I’ve mentioned many times, the people in my life are amazing. EVERYONE has been so supportive and wonderful and has just wanted to help) but there is that part of me that thinks they’re just humoring me and they think I’m weak and worthless and not worth knowing.

I was sober for 18 months. I worked so hard to get myself to DC. And even before that, I worked to get myself to my job through 8.5 months of no license, I worked at that attempt for the Libertarian Fellowship, I worked at being the best damn glorified secretary ever. How could I do all that and still not manage to keep myself together down here? I’ve been so ANGRY at myself, and I’m just seeing now how being angry just buys into the mistaken idea that I am my drinking. And I am NOT my drinking.

Yeah, I’m an alcoholic. I’m also pretty smart and can probably beat you in Trivial Pursuit. I don’t follow sports but I love cheesy sports movies, like Miracle and Angels in the Outfield. (Both will make me cry) I’m a libertarian and I’d love to tell you why libertarians are the awesomest political party on the planet. I’m a Jewish-Atheist. I can’t walk in heels and since I’m kind of a zaftig I don’t dig the skinny-jeans trend but I can look pretty cute in boot cut jeans. I know the lyrics to every Billy Joel song and I also like country music. I have pretentious degrees that I’ve never used. I still have no idea what I’m going to be when I grow up.

I am NOT my Depression. I am NOT my alcoholism.

At first, the requirement to create content drives me. It inspires me. The topics are as mundane as always, but they’re infused with that certain-something thing that I wish I could reference with utter sincerity. That is one of the first things you should know about me. At least half of what I say is tongue in cheek. Most of the time I am being strictly ironic when I use the vernacular. (I will purposefully use “like” to emphasis a point and hide its’ seriousness in one syllable)

I used to find a lot of things to write about. Life DID feel like magic. I don’t need the entries as evidence, because I remember, but the entries are proof that I used to able to talk about certain-somethings without the slightest bit of irony.

[EDIT] I have posted a bunch of stuff from my paper journals, which has thrown off my post count. I feel the need to note that here [EDIT]

I have written 1,166 posts. This makes 1,167. Some of those are private and I’ve definitely deleted posts altogether, but still, that’s not so many posts for seven years. That’s about 166 posts a year. About a post every three days. When I say it like that, it does sound like a lot, as if my life would be completely and accurately (ha!) documented here. But it’s not. It’s missing the months I spent in Europe in 2003 (although I did write that all down and the journal is Somewhere) and when things are stuck, like now, I’m less inclined to write.  And then there are all the things that I hid from myself that I still can’t bring myself to blog publically about.

So I’m sitting here, on a Thursday morning, blogging about blogging, because NaBloPoMo exists, and gives me an excuse to write things like this. I have to post every day for 30 days, and hey, a post about posting makes one! Great!

But it’s more than that. I thoroughly (and unsuitably) miss my old audience. HWSNBN, for all his flaws, and for all the ways in which the situation with him was bad for my sanity and self-esteem and whatever, got me to write. He is the one who made me feel like writing down all these words was actually important. Which is also ironic, because I don’t think he ever really gave a damn about anything I said. And I cringe when I think of those essays I wrote back in 2004-2005 that I let him read.

Things between us ended so long ago – five years ago, actually. But there is so much of him in so many things I do. He is, after all, how I wound up in NYC in the first place. Five years ago, I remember writing something about how it was so confusing to let the same hands that pushed you away, pull you back up. He was always the master of mixed signals (and I, admittedly, was the queen of selective hearing) and for all the ways in which he made me weak, he made me believe in things again. And for that, I still miss him sometimes.

So Evan, this is for you. Because it’s a Thursday morning, it feels like summer, Skidmore won’t stop sending me emails, I miss the city, I’m trying to cull together words that collectively Mean Something and I’m wearing khakis and that makes me think of you.

“You can’t buy back time. So stop and love. And sing and live. And laugh until you cry”

Off to New York.

I Could Not Ask For More

HWSNBN is in town. Thank god I have Laura and Sebastian other wise I would be flipping out about 10x more than I already am.

Oh, so last night, I went on a coffee run with him and we discussed pro-Israeliness and I’m going off on one of my usual rants, and he was said “You feed my radicalism.” And I said “You feed MY radical sentiments.” And it was cute.

Yes, I know.