Real people problems time. In 2 parts:
1) I'm definitely starting to hit major withdrawal symptoms. I have this worst headache where it weels like my brain is painfully expanding in my skull. Just like my kidneys when I was sick, I can fee it throbbing. Also, my face feels hot. Not in a fever way (there is no fever, I checked). There's also some mild nausea/weirdness in the chest and stomach that is unusual, but that's not really terrible if I remain in bed, which I am.
2) Yesterday I sent my brother an email explaining my situation. I kept it devoid of melodrama and made sure everything was clear and terse. Just the facts. I figured he deserved or needed to know what's happening and that chances to communicate or make things right or settle things with me are limited at this point.
I haven't had a good relationship with my brother. The other day I mentioned living in Arlington and working in Georgetown, back from 1999 to 2002, and referred to it as the best time of my life. At the time I was living a block away from my brother and we were best friends. Argh, I regret getting into even that much detail. Long story short, my brother and father simultaneously getting and dying of cancer in 2003 altered our relationship in a couple ways and things deteriorated over the years. In the past 6 years I have spoken to him twice, once being him asking me to borrow money for legal reasons. The second was an extremely awkward attempt by me to try and open lines of communication again. Up until about 6 months ago I routinely called him, though he'd never answer.
So I sent him that email yesterday, and today he's called just about every hour and I've ignored it just because I can't have that conversation. I just blocked/set my phone to ignore calls from that number. His wife called me (I answered because I didn't know the number or have it in my phone) and rapidly hung up and blocked it. Through the magic of facebook, I've oddly had a more communicative relationship with her over the past several years than I did with my brother.
Between doing the journal thing last night and all this bullshit, this is fucking hard. This is fucking ugly. It informs me that my life was in embers long before the events of the past 6 months.
I know nobody cares or reads this stuff or takes me seriously here. I wish you did.
I don't think I have a point to this post anymore, but I may as well ramble. Last night, before I got rid of my, ugh, 13 years of journals, I read a bit from the very beginning, which coincidentally covered my initial plans in moving to Seattle. It's kind of the reason I started the journal, or at least one of them. My deal was to write at least one full page (in whatever medium I was currently writing) a day. I came up with a lot of details and stories and plans. It made me a better person. Over those 13 years, there were a number of gaps, maybe 4 or 5, of about 6 months to a year. These periods where I stopped writing were the worst periods of my life. I'm not saying "I stopped writing and my life went to shit," I'm saying "My life when to shit and I subsequently stopped writing." This means that looking at my journals painted a very positive picture of me. The TVC in there was ambitious, could plan things well, had good things and occasional happiness in his life, frequently was good natured and wanted good things to happen. Now, it's all so fucking alien to me. I look back at that person in 2002 that decided, largely on a lark, to move across the country and start his life over again without anything or anyone he knew, and I so fucking hate him, and I hate everything after, because I'm jealous of that person. He succeeded in what he set out to do, but he sold out himself and what he stood for and ignored every opportunity or chance to set things right or move onto a better path. He could have been a lot more. That fucking person became me, and I hate him and I fucking hate myself.
