The Tech Support iPhone Guy and the Music Students

On the night of January 15, 2015, around 2 am, I awoke in bed, writhing in pain, consumed by an unearthly darkness that was attacking me from the inside. I couldn't breathe, and therefore I couldn't scream. My attempts to do so emanated in deep growls.

Before I continue to explain what happened that night, let me go back to August 1, 2014, when I had posted part 9 describing the end of the relationship with Jason. I went back him a week later, so, I stopped posting. This addiction is cunning, baffling, powerful...and embarrassing.

Then, in September, I was granted full custody of my son because his father relapsed on heroin, and Child Welfare Services got involved. That did finally spell the end of the relationship with Jason. I told him I could only handle raising one child, and hardly that. He ended it, because he couldn't have all of my attention any more.  I thank God, Who did for me what I couldn't do for myself.

But of course, along came #32, the Tech Support iPhone Guy, who offered to trade me his iPhone 5S for a kiss, took me out on a date, and then got me into a lot of incomprehensible demoralization. Any time my son was at school or with his grandma was fair game for him to demand I see him. Our activities ultimately left me in so much physical pain that I couldn't even have sex for a week...and the emotional pain had been mounting....so, I was able to end our little three-week stint. It's a good thing, because if we'd gotten caught having sex in his office, we'd have both been fired (we work at the same place, by the way!).

Then came #33, the Christian Latino Music Student ("Carlito") who had started poking me on facebook once my relationship status changed on October 1 (#32 had come after me on facebook, too). I think we got to something like 344 facebook pokes before I decided I wanted to try to be a grown-up and actually meet him for lunches and dinners. So we did that, and I also started going to his church on Saturday nights where he played bass in the band, and I started getting close to Jesus again, even though I was really there for Carlito.

#34 came about a month later (the Atheist Latino Music Student, "Rodrigo"). He was a mutual friend of Carlito's, and also a friend of mine on facebook. He offered to help me move into my new apartment the second week of November when I posted that I was packing, and moving, and lonely. I accepted. My son was having a supervised visit with his drunk dad (I had breathalyzed him, and he was at .08, but the court had mandated that he get six hours per week supervised by his mom, regardless), and I was depressed.

The sexual tension with Rodrigo that night was palpable. Nothing "happened" other than the move, a dinner at Robertito's, candid conversation, and a game of Headbanz riddled with sexual innuendo. But after a few days of texting-turned-sexting, he said that friends with benefits can be fun, and we should do it. And in response to my concern about "seeing" him and Carlito at the same time, he proposed, "¿Por qué no los dos?"

I was out at dinner with Carlito the next Saturday after church. I had had sex with Rodrigo earlier in the day, (I began allowing longer supervised visits for my son and his dad to allow myself to see these men). I was showing Carlito a video of something on my phone when a text came in from Rodrigo: "You drained me good."

It was a terribly awkward moment for me and Carlito, and my heart sank. I had been trying to give Carlito the impression that I was a sinner, yes, but repentant, and of course I hadn't told him about me and Rodrigo. I'm pretty sure his heart sank, too. We were both silent as I drew my phone back into my lap. We both looked down at our food and took a few more bites before he suggested we go.

There was some meaningless conversation in his car on other subjects as he drove us back to the church parking lot. He parked, and that's where he said, "So, Rodrigo, huh?"

I broke down crying. I explained how Rodrigo helped me move and suggested we become friends with benefits, and I didn't want to say yes, but that he was really pushy, so yeah, that's what was going on.

Carlito wiped away my tears and in our closeness, we kissed. It accelerated quickly, and his tone changed from the soothing, calm one of a man who cared to the prompting one of a man turned on, and he asked me if I wanted him. I said I did. He ended up fingering me for an hour, taking me to total ecstasy (and getting my entire long skirt wet), and then we drove back to my place in separate cars and had the most passionate, amazing sex I've ever had, for another three. He stayed with me for awhile after but left early in the morning; both he and Rodrigo lived at home with single mom and parents, respectively, and both had a thing about being back before mom woke up, apparently.

Being a Christian, Carlito repented. When we saw each other after that, he denied me, each time. I would try to hug or kiss him, and he would pull away. I told him I wanted us to date, but he said there's only one reason Christians date, and that's to lead to marriage. He said he was considering me for marriage before he found out about Rodrigo, but that, since he had been cheated on by every other girl he's been with (two), with what happened with me, he just didn't think he could date me.

No words can tell of the bitter morass of self pity in which I came to wallow.

When I told Rodrigo about my having sex with Carlito, he said he didn't want to share me after all, and that he was going to make me his. But I decided I needed to end it with both of them. I tried to end it with Rodrigo via text, and he told me to not text him again or he'd punish me worse than he all ready was going to, that I was his and he takes what's his, and to expect him the next night at my apartment because he was going to be there at 9 pm. I didn't text him for fear of what he had planned, and I went and hid at my neighbor Melissa's house that night, watching for his car to go by. At 9:30, there was no sign of him, so I walked down my street to my apartment, thinking I had dodged a bullet. 15 minutes later, he showed up.

Rodrigo blindfolded me, tied me up, and pierced both of my nipples (his own penis was pierced, by the way -  a Prince Albert). He said I was lucky that I did as he said and didn't text him, because otherwise it was going to be a lot worse. As it turned out, Rodrigo was a stigmatophiliac and even more into BDSM than #32.

I drove 600 miles to visit my sister for Thanksgiving a few days later, by myself, leaving my son with his grandma because he was sick. While there, I ended up texting Carlito and Rodrigo the whole time, even though every day I "tried not to".

On my way home, I had a "God moment" while driving through Monitor Pass in the Sierra Nevada on the 89. I pulled over to watch the sun rise for two hours. It was stunningly beautiful up there alone. I decided I just wanted to be with Him and didn't want to return to the "life" I was living back home. I begged Him to please just take me, as I drove the hundreds of miles back. But, to my dismay, He didn't. For a solid week therafter I still wanted to die. The world became gray, and I was numb to the ugly lot of it.

I checked all the "wrong" boxes when I went to a pulmonologist (I had also been sick, physically, for two months; I couldn't stop coughing, and enough was enough). I was honest when filling out the new patient questionnaires, and the secretary handed me an extra form to fill out about suicidal depression. Once I turned it over to her, she made a call, said something about an APB, and they rushed me into the back room where they said to wait for the doctor, who'd "be right in, so don't go any where". Uh oh.

I called my AA sponsor and confessed to her that I admitted to being suicidal on the intake questionnaire at the doctor's office. She told me that if I better get honest, because if I really was suicidal she was going to come right down and take me to lock-up herself (I had chosen her to sponsor me because her daughter had committed suicide a couple years prior, and she maintained her two decades of sobriety through it - I had needed someone whom I could talk to about Margo, my friend who took her life on November 12, 2013, who I now envied).

I told her that even though I couldn't stand being alive, I would never kill myself. Then I cried, and assured her I'd do everything I could to get better.

The doctor came in, and I reassured him that I wasn't going to kill myself, that I was just going through some things and it's normal for us recovering alcoholics to feel this way every once in awhile. He conceded to the proposition that it was simply a situational depression due to the goings on in my life - the relationship ending, the ex-husband relapsing and me getting full custody of my son who cried for his dad daily and said he hated me, the not getting to go back to school and losing that validation, the being evicted due to the upcoming remodeling of the 1949 family estate and having to move to an apartment I could hardly afford, and the involvement with men in ways that made me hate myself - and so he decided not to prescribe me anything other than an inhaler for my cough, and he put in an order for a pulmonary exam and chest x-ray.

I started going to more AA meetings, and after a couple weeks I didn't want to die any more. But I was still depressed. On December 13, 2014 I was going to go out on a date with a guy who would have been #35, but Rodrigo whined about it, so we got into an exclusive relationship.

I now was deep in the throes of my sex/"love" addiction with Rodrigo, and yet still obsessed with Carlito (I couldn't get over him). I felt like a colossal failure.

The week between Christmas and the New Year, Rodrigo was in Chicago visiting a friend of his, and on New Year's Eve he texted me he loved me. I was shocked, and didn't really believe him, but decided to go with it, and eventually responded that I loved him, too, even though I didn't really believe that, either. I told him I wanted to pick him up from the airport when he returned in a few days. He said he would love that.

But, the day before his return, when I reminded him of the above, he said he hadn't talked to his dad yet, who was planning on picking him up. Rodrigo didn't want his family to know about me, and so he didn't want me to pick him up, after all.

I still ended up going to the airport, hiding from anyone who resembled the picture of Rodrigo's dad that I had gotten off of facebook, and I surprised Rodrigo with a quick kiss when he got to baggage claim before I took off.

When I was walking to the parking lot from the airport, I realized I was, in fact, completely insane.

But, it wasn't until a week later, when Rodrigo blindfolded me and tied me up and pierced my vagina (the pain of which made me faint, throw up, and shit all over the couch all at the same time) that I really began to come to my senses. Of course, however, Rodrigo pierced me in the wrong place. A few days later he wanted to take me to get it professionally done. He kept needing to mark me his, but he conceded that he ought to leave my vagina to the professionals, perhaps.

The professional guy did two piercings - a "VCH" and a "Triangle" - and he re-did my belly button, which used to be pierced before I had a kid.

Finally, I was in too much pain to have sex again (like after #32)...but Rodrigo and I still had sex right when we got back to my apartment, despite my vagina having just been pierced three times in the past week, and bleeding - and not in the way vaginas are supposed to bleed.

I was glad that he decided, afterwards, that we should wait until it healed. He couldn't quite slam into me the way he normally liked to.

The one-year anniversary of my baptism was on January 12, 2015, and January 13 was the day of church's baptism renewal ceremony (the Methodist church recognizes Jesus' baptism each year with a baptism renewal for its members, and the year prior I had picked the celebration of Jesus' baptism as my baptism date, so it's especially special for me).

I wept uncontrollably as I dipped my fingers in the bowl and touched them to my forehead under the cross. I found myself saying, "Get behind me, Satan - you are a liar, and the father of lies!" I'm sure people looked at me as if I were crazy. And in fact, I was.

For the rest of the day, any time I wanted to text Rodrigo, the voice came again, "Get behind me, Satan!" And I would have the strength to not text him. I began to hit my knees in prayer at various times throughout the day. Then the next day, January 14, I began with prayer in the morning, then the urge to text him would come but so would a voice, "Lord, cast him out of me!" I went throughout my day with supplication and prayer, asking God to please remove this evil that I sensed was pulling me towards Rodrigo. I hit my knees before bed, and the early morning of January 15, around 2 am, I awoke, possessed.

After my writihing in pain and being choked by utter evil, with all the strength I could muster, something finally came out of my mouth in a loud, low, demonic-sounding growl, with my back arched: "CAAAASSSSSTTT HIIIMMMMM OOOUUUUTTT!!!"

Suddenly, a clean wind blew through me, and I breathed in a deep breath that I instantly recognized as the Holy Spirit.

The demon was gone.

I fell out of bed onto my knees and crawled to my window, weeping and kneeling under the open curtains between me and the stars in utter humility, unable to even express my gratitude to God. Once I had spent myself in my prayer of thanksgiving, I went back to bed.

When I woke up in the morning, I saw that my curtains were closed, and only then did I know it had been a dream.

I hit my knees and wept.

I wept for Margo. I wept because, for over a year since her death, I had been trying to cover up the pain of her death, with men.

And I wept for my son's father, who has just had his second heart surgery and could very well die - he had a drink in his hand days after his first heart surgery. I wept because, ever since I left him three years ago because he couldn't stop drinking, I had been trying to cover up the pain of the divorce, with men.

And I wept for my son. I wept because I had been trying to cover up the pain of being a terrible mom, with men.

And I wept for myself. I wept because I had been lost, since the age of nine, trying to cover up the pain of losing my faither to my parents' divorce/drugs/his girlfriend and my mother to alcoholism/drugs/men....with boys...and then, with men.

But I also wept because I knew that I had now been found. It was nothing short of a miracle, in which I fervently believe.

Today, it's day 24 of no men. I've returned to Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. I am praying on my knees morning and night (or more), am reading the Bible every day, have joined a new Bible study, and am listening to at least two sermons each day.  I'm going to between 1 and 3 AA meetings a day, working the 12 steps like never before, and calling my sponsor and other women daily; I have a new AA sponsee, and I was asked to be a speaker at a meeting next week.

And I'm present for my son. I'm helping him with his homework and spending time with him instead of texting or being with men. He's seeing a counselor at school. I'm not pawning him off on his grandma so I can engage in demoralizing activities that make me want to die. I don't want to die.

But yes, although it lessens each day, I'm in pain. But it's a different kind of pain than the pain I felt from within the throes of this nearly 21-year addiction. It's a pain that I welcome.

I've waited to write about all this, because every day I fear that I'll fall again. I hate being the girl who cries wolf, over, and over, and over. Rodrigo watched the movie Thanks for Sharing with me before our relationship ended, and it was actually he who suggested I go back to SLAA. I had told him about my addiction from the very beginning, and before he "fell in love" with me, he said that my sex/"love" addiction sounded "fun". But then, in the end, he did say that all he wants is for me to get better, and he does support me having my SLAA-prescribed 90 days without him.

90 days of no men. I'm thinking more like 6 months...9 months...a year...

...or more.

Romans 8:6 New International Version (NIV)

6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

Amen.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 8

I usually take two tacks with relationships, lately - all, or nothing. With Jason, because breaking up with him wasn't working, back in February and March, I decided to ask him to marry me in May.

I know, that makes so much sense.

It doesn't, of course - I wasn't offered any tools or given any examples growing up to teach me to foster a healthy relationship with someone. But you know the saying, "Wherever I go, there I am"? If I don't work on myself, no relationship I have will ever be a success. Namely, if I don't work on myself when I'm with myself, I certainly won't be able to do it when I'm with someone else...and will therefore be quite capable of making two lives quite miserable.

The other day I became very angry with Jason for singing and playing music in his room when I was trying to write. I didn't let him know how I felt. Instead, I stomped outside to the backyard - and saw his bong next to the wicker bench. I wanted to go break it, but, because he went off his bipolar/OCD/anxiety/sleep meds and has decided instead to get a legal medical marijuana card, I decided not to break the bong, begrudgingly. But, since I can't handle being around a bong, I went back inside to the living room to write...where it was loud again. As the music was grating my nerves, I got an email from Ronnie, my ex-husband, telling me that I'm a disappointment to our son because I don't call Lyle every day at five like I'm supposed to, and Lyle is sad every day waiting for my call. Instead of admitting my mistake and telling Ronnie I'll make the commitment to call our son, I got even more angry, and when Jason came to ask me what's wrong very kindly and compassionately, I exploded. I got up, I threw my phone onto the floor, the contents breaking apart and scattering into the hallway, and I stormed out of the house without so much as a word, still wearing my pajamas, driving 30 miles back to my aunt's house a few towns away.

Um, yeah. Psycho...

I do the very best I can to justify my actions, to any one. Even to you, dear readers. In part 7, I justified my leaving Jason's house, and my plan to leave the relationship, without giving you all the deets.

The truth is, I'm a liar, and a rager. Growing up, my dad lied so often that it was a problem, and both of my parents' significant others flew off the handle in violent rages. I didn't learn the best communication skills, to say the least. I don't blame them, mind you. They were obviously fucked up by their parents, and them by theirs, and so on and so forth, back to the chicken or the egg or homo erectus or Adam and Eve or whatever you choose to believe. (Book nudge: The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz includes some great stuff about how our parents and society fuck us up as individuals.)

But maybe I just don't know how fucked up I really am until I try to live with someone else. Say I'm dating you, and I fall in love with you because you're special, and you feel the same way about me. We've both dated quite a bit - one of us was even married before - and we can safely say that we've never felt this way about any one before. Then, we spend a large of time together. Finally, we start to argue, and we realize we're actually both pretty messed up. "You're crazy!" I'll scream at you, hypocritically. Or, "I can't be with you, because I'm just too crazy. It's over!" And I run like hell, without hardly giving you a chance to say anything in the matter.

So I'm flighty, to boot. I really need to re-read my own "7 Ways to Avoid Getting Into a Bad Relationship" that I wrote just yesterday. "Love"...I've written about it plenty, from various perspectives. Sometimes I really sound like I know what I'm talking about, and other times I really have no freaking clue. I hold no Ph.D. in the subject. Hell, I ain't got no GED in the subject, neither. I'm like, in pre-school. And like a child, I want, want, want. If I really could just follow my own advice and "master love" the way Miguel Ruiz prescribes in The Mastery of Love, I wouldn't even be writing right now. Maybe I should read that book again, too.

Anyway...I guess what I'm saying is, the chapter on Jason isn't actually closed after all. I've embarrassed myself plenty over the past month oscillating from this-guy-sucks to he-can-be-my-boy-toy to I've-never-loved-someone-so-much to yay-happy-day-I'm-engaged to get-me-the-hell-out-of-this-shit-NOW. I know...crazy.

If you were in my shoes, dear reader, what would you do? Keep in mind, that, most importantly, you have an almost five year-old son who needs your love more than anyone.

Well, what I did was, I apologized to Jason for my freak-out, told him everything that was bothering me about our relationship, and I told him that if we're going to continue to consider marriage, before we even set a date - we need to undergo pre-marital counseling. And include Lyle. I got therapy with my son Lyle last year when Ronnie went to jail and rehab from May to August. It worked well for us.

All I want, in the entire world, is to be a good mom. It's more important to me than a relationship with any guy, and Jason knows this. If he's willing to let me put Lyle first, no matter what, maybe there's a chance for us after all. But he's going to have to support me when I need space to work on myself and on my relationship with my son, and, again, undergo therapy too, both individually and combined (and then we can call Captain Planet). And I need to follow #7 in my list: taking special consideration when dealing with mental and emotional disorders. Shit, I need to follow all 7 on the list. That's why I wrote it; because those are things I need to remember.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 7

*Breathe*

You know you aren't in a good relationship when, the second you get home and away from it, you do a little dance, make a little love to yourself, get down, jump up, heel click, sigh relieved and wax poetic to your room ("Oh, my sweet, sweet room"). Then, you pet your sweet little kitties and say, "I'm free you guys! Freeeee aaaat laaaast!" before singing a montage of Queen's I Want to Break Free, Tom Petty's Free Fallin' and George Michael's Freedom (the choruses, at least). Finally, you sit down at your beloved old desk in your favorite comfy chair with a cup of iced coffee that you thank God isn't expired (because you've been away so long that everthing else in your fridge is) and you do that thing that has never failed you: write.



Watching Californication, writing, watching Breaking Bad, and getting a bit of reinforcement from a couple of concerned third parties have all helped me with my latest monumental turnaround. After swearing off men and starting this blog last November to help me stay on track, I strayed - far - off course...and became engaged. And I completely believed, at the time, that I was doing myself a favor. Not that there's anything wrong with being engaged - if you're mentally/emotionally healthy and find a mentally/emotionally healthy mate, with whom patience, soundness of mind and mutual understanding/love grant you a relationship that enhances both of your individual, stable lives - by all means, unite! But, if you're a total sicko in need of a lot of help, and you latch onto another total sicko in need of even more help and who latches back onto you even harder resulting in the exponential waning of your individuality, self-respect, stability, and sanity, holy shit - peel off before you leeches reduce eachother to unrecognizable, unconscious fragments of your former selves, and get some fucking help, mutha fucka.

Check.

Now, back to the giving of "props":

"Californication" is the bizzomb. I simply can't stop raving about it, as you know. It shows, for me, an all-too-relatable character fucking up his life: Hank Moody (David Duchovny). Hank gets involved with every woman who'll have him instead of spending quality time with his dauther, Becca. But, he is an accomplished writer, making bank off these sexcapades (oh, I wish!). And yet, despite his sexual meanderings and over-indulgence with various mind-altering substances, I clearly see him as a better father than I mother, and, certainly, a better (or at least financially-compensated and well-read) writer. It's enough to bring tears to my eyes and make me question everything in my life (as I'm wont to do anyway, but I appreciate the extra nudge).

I don't know if God really exists - I choose affirmatively, but, I don't know who God really is. But, if "Writing" were God, somehow, I'd thank the hell out of It, because It just saved my little ass once again. Writing has helped me to see everything in black and white - literally (tom-tom high-hat). It's much more difficult to delude myself or play pretend when I can actually see the insanity on the page.

My former situation with my (very soon to be ex-) fiancé is in fact just as bad, if not worse, as anything I've gotten myself into since my (first) marriage. It's a downright dirty mess. I'm finally starting the "outline" for my memoir because I think there's at least one woman out there who's doing the same shit I have and needs to read my story as a reflection, and hopefully it'll give her the motivation to turn her life around (girl power!). But even more importantly, right now, I need it to help me, too; I need to rub my face right deep down into all of that nasty ass laundry of mine (literally, again - tom-tom high hat). I don't want to forget what it smells like, and at the same time, I want to stop living in it. So, memoir, come to my (and others') rescue! (It is exciting - I all ready have outlined up through chapter 9! And this is just the beginning...tee hee.)

Speaking of rescue...Californication isn't the only show that has given me a tinge of leave-his-ass inspiration. It's ironic - I stopped watching TV shows when I left my husband in 2011 except for any time I've had a boyfriend since (because whoever it is gets me to watch them, too...and one of said shows, in turn, inspires me to leave his ass). So far, Jason's had me watch the whole series of The Big Bang Theory, a few seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Californication, and we're all caught up on Hannibal. All enjoyable to me, I can't lie (The Big Bang Theory is what inspired me to propose and accept Jason for his Sheldon-like self, interestingly). But Jason had also been wanting me to see Breaking Bad for the longest time. Yesterday I used the excuse of being too busy to watch it, and I was - I was creating a photobook on Blurb.com for a photography client. But more accurately, the "punk" in me didn't want to see Breaking Bad, at all, because everyone in the whole damn world raves about it.

But I guess if "everybody" agrees on something, maybe that something kinda-sorta has a chance of being true. Jason put on the first episode of Breaking Bad on Netflix, just to spite me, and...shit, I couldn't look away for even a moment! Whatever I was doing completely ceased to exist. I then insisted we watch the next episode, and the next, and the next, until finally I had to ask him to turn it off so I could finish my project and get it to my client at 3 am, and he did. But I had to watch more today. And the first thing I'm going to do when I'm done posting here is, I'm gonna watch it some more. That's right, baby...2 am? Psh - I had iced coffee.

But, so how did Breaking Bad change my life, you might ask? Well, it prompted me to ask of myself, what would I do if I was told I only had a few months to live? Would I be living my life the way I am now? The answer to the first question is a hell of a lot more complicated than the answer to the second, which is an easy Hell No!!!

Watching Breaking Bad, and, reading real people's experiences with cancer, makes one, naturally, consider her own mortality. I also thought about death a lot when my friend Margo killed herself last year. And who do you think the first person who comes to my mind when I think of death is?

One of the last things my son said to me this past weekend was, "Mom, Daddy loves me more than you do, because he takes more responsibility for me." Yikes. I have to admit, I've been so caught up in my latest addictive relationship that I hardly noticed the impact it was having on my son as usual. It sucks - I was the one who had it all together when his dad and I were still together, but now, I'm the fuck-up. The truth hurts when it looks you in the eyes with tears in its and says you don't love it. You're too busy looking away.

Well, along with my son's truth, here's some more truth from which I couldn't look away:

And that's not even half of it. Not even a quarter. When I had said that Jason was "cleaning his room" obsessively, in one of my last posts, it's because he was throwing piles of crap onto his bed and floor, bringing crap in from outside of his room to add to the piles. His internal chaos was externalized. Ceasing to see his psychiatrist and going off his 8+ medications for his bipolar, OCD, anxiety, and sleep disorders and just smoking weed as a replacement made for a horrible thing to witness.

I knew from the beginning that he was "crazy". He told me so. But did I really believe him, or understand what he meant? Not really. I thought, "Well hey, I'm crazy - great, two peas in a pod." No - he's a different kind of crazy. Diagnosed. My therapist thought I might have a general anxiety disorder, but other than that, I (at the time, at least seemed to) have a pretty sane head on my shoulders. Jason, though...I saw many signs of instability - 25, living with his parents, everything in his room had to be in its own little place (and I mean everything - until the psychotic break), only part-time temp jobs, and a giant drawer full of prescription bottles, some that he no longer even needed but kept around "just in case". Then he decided, "You know what? My psychiatrist is expensive. I'm not going to see him any more. And I'm not gonna take my meds any more either. Yeah, I'm just gonna smoke weed. That makes me feel pretty good." But his version of feeling good included staying up for a week with only short naps; snapping at his parents, brother, sister, and me and saying such horrible things that made everyone either cry, scream or run out of the house; speaking so erratically and quickly that at times nobody could understand him; stretching for two days straight (that was weird); and prompting his mother and I to want to call 9-1-1 and be taken by ambulance to Aurora, a mental hospital where she put him a few years ago (but he appeared to stabilize the other day, so, we didn't have to...but I fled, and his mom is still on edge).

Despite knowing his history, I still decided to go into a relationship with him. And not just any relationship - 5 months in, I asked him to marry me. Why? I don't know. I guess, once again, I got caught up in my most averse addiction: Jason "loves" me.  "Love" = my Achilles' heel. At least, it was my Achilles' heel, until I cut my heel on the sharp razor blade of reality (yes, there were a couple razor blades in those piles...but no, I only stuck myself with a thumbtack...there were like 70 of those). Part of me still feels like I should stay with him, that I do love him. But, his insanity drove me insane, and I'm all ready insane enough as it is without him making it worse. And I've done the research on love (thank you don Miguel Ruiz), and I know what it's supposed to look and feel like. So I told him today before I left: "If you really do love me, you'll let me go." It sounds cliché on the radio, but I meant it. And...finally...he did.

Okay, I just gotta do this again:

*Breathe*

Ah, better. Never before this very moment have I so appreciated solitude. God, don't ever let me forget it this time.

This morning, again inspired by my favorite writing prof, I sketched a rough draft of my memoir cover. (And Rocco, don't worry, if they ever make my memoir into a movie starring Elisha Cuthbert, I won't let them put her on the cover, no matter how much they want to pay me...or wait...shit...let me sit on that.) Ugh, I'm a horrendous artist. But, I woke up with this morning with this image in my head, and I just had to get it on paper, however poorly rendered. In case you can't tell what it is, it's a bride falling away from her husband and child off a precipice into a throng of men (I only drew 16, but there should be 30):

I'll do much better on it next time, lol. And I don't know why all the guys are wearing Heisenberg hats. But that reminds me - time for more Breaking Bad.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 6

"Aspiring memoirist" doesn't do a damn bit of good without any actual effort on my part. And I don't have a job right now, so what the hell am I doing? I've been scattered. Trying to start a business doing way too many things. Performing, voice lessons, tutoring, photography, editing/proofreading, publicity...and not making a cent yet.

I was just laying here on my fiancé's bed in his bedroom at his parents' house while he plays Ben Folds on his keyboard, and tears came to my eyes. "This is what I've come to...I don't recognize my life any more."

The life I recognized was with my dysfunctional family growing up, and my fervent educational pursuits as my escape. Then I recognized being in love with an alcoholic, who made me laugh and kept me up all night long, telling me stories, but with whom I also fought belligerently. Then, I recognized being a mother. All that other crap that came before...blech. But that last thing...that was what life was worth living for.

I wasn't a bad one, either. I use to take my son out every day to mommy-and-me classes, the ones where you sit around a circle with a bunch of other mothers (and a few fathers) with their babies and toddlers to sing songs for half an hour until you took your kid(s) out to the playground for a couple more hours. Those were the days of glory, where in my memory the sun shines bright like the mythical gate of some holy place and bounces off the glittering sand that I would scoop into buckets for my little guy to pour out all over the toys in the sandbox. Real-life toddler heaven, it was. Of course, home was hell. But, as they say...better the Devil you know. (Not really...I'm not being sarcastic or cynical at all in this post.)

These days, my son is four - five in August - and I only see him on weekends, sometimes only every other weekend. Any time his dad asks if he can keep him again "this" weekend, I act like I'm hurt, or sad, or pissed, or I react in some way that hides the fact that deep down I'm relieved as hell to be left to my own selfish, albeit failing pursuits. When I do get my son - when I'm not offered an "out" - I try my best to act like a mother for a couple of days until I "get" to drop him back off with the guy I never thought would be a fitter parent than I. But so it is.

So, yeah. I don't recognize my life. Somehow I'm actually worse a mother than my own was. She didn't pay much attention to us, but she was there, physically. Behind a closed door most of the time, but she was just a knock away.

No, what I've become is my father. Like his, my dedication is to an other on whom I place monumental significance, an other who isn't the parent of my child but who satisfies my need for "love" in a way only a "significant other" can. And I don't have to do all that much to take care of him, except be with him...all the time.

I stood by him during his pyschotic break last week after he'd decided to stop taking all his bipolar/anxiety/OCD/sleep/etc. meds (that's what all the stretching was, a couple posts ago, a precursor to absolute unrecognizable madness that I can't even begin to describe at the moment). Sure, he "loves" me more than anyone has since my husband, #1, and #20 (the other two boyfriends who at least said they loved me). But, I remember when I left my husband, and, when it didn't work with #1, I "knew" that "love just doesn't conquer all" (and that's why I settled with #20 for awhile, because I didn't love him, at all - but my son did, and that's the only reason it lasted as long as it did, until I just couldn't do it any more).

I'm not sure why I've put myself in this position again. I put "loves" in quotations marks, knowing full well that the true word that belongs in its place is "needs". I'm with someone who would completely lose it if I left him. (Hey, that's a song..."As long as he needs me...I know where I must be...I'll hang on steadfastly...as long as he needs me." It's from the musical Oliver! and so says Wikipedia, "It is a love ballad expressing Nancy's love for her criminal boyfriend Bill Sikes, despite his mistreatment of her.")

As a matter of fact, Jason's mental breakdown came on the heels of me packing up because I wanted to go home, just for a night or two, to get away from his all-night manic cleaning episodes. There was shit all over his room, and he was up day and night bringing more shit into it from all over the house, obsessively. Yes, it was part of his disorder gone haywire, and somewhat beyond his control (although, did I mention he's decided to stop seeing his psychiatrist, and just smoke weed from now on?). A good fiancée would stand by her man in his time of need, I guess. But not I. I had tried to get away at least three other times over the course of the week, but he begged me to stay each time. So I did, reluctantly. And so here I still am...miserable.

I just want to get back to my life. I want to open my mail. I want to clean my own room. I want to take care of my cats, instead of just buying bags of catfood and dropping them off for my aunt, with whom I (used to) live. Not only that, I want to pet my cats. And I want to have space, alone time. I want to write my memoir. This blog is just a gathering of ideas. I want to write the real thing. This isn't it. This blog is like a little girl's diary, really. It's just...there's been so much wreckage in the present that it's been hard to just write about the wreckage of the past. It started with Margaret's suicide. Then I dated again - damnit - and that's the irony - this blog was supposed to prevent me from creating any more present wreckage. At least, that was the idea, if you go back and read my first post. I keep acting like getting engaged to be married is the ultimate redemption. I find Jesus, get baptized, start dating a guy in church, have a slip and kiss someone else, so ooh, I know, I'll ask the guy I'm dating to marry me, that'll fix everything - game, set, match!

It's all wrong. I feel like a prisoner. Getting engaged to someone just so he'll "know" you aren't going to leave him and he'll therefore hopefully "let" you leave his house, without freaking the fuck out, is clearly - how shall I put it? - fucking dumb.

I should have been writing throughout the course of our relationship so I could have gotten honest with myself. I was on a roll before this one. I over-analyzed the shit out of the last guy I dated (#29).

(And sorry, I just have to take a moment to laugh about Jesus being #28. A lot of good that did me, lol.)

(Oh! PS, #29 just got married, actually. I saw it on facebook. I wouldn't have been happy with that one, either, so I'm glad it was someone else and not me.)

"Love" - I've made such a joke of the word that I can't even take it seriously any more. And yet I say "I love you so much" every day to...what's the fake name I assigned #30? Oh, Jason, I think. But when I say "I love you" to him, what I mean is, "I don't want you to freak out if I don't say it back, so I'm going to say it back and act like I believe it, so that maybe you believe it, too."

But then...when I'm away from him - when I do GET to go home - first, I feel utter bliss. But then I feel so alone that I can hardly bear it. Even with my son with me at my house, I feel empty. Like something's missing.

I guess that's that "need" again. It's apropos to say that Jason and I "need" each other.

But my son needs me, too, and that one doesn't belong in quotation marks. I'm sorry, but I need to get my shit together. Watching Californication has changed my life. I just finished Season 3. Hank Moody is a better father than I am mother, a better writer than I, too, and, he fucks a shitload of women...which makes me not feel so bad. But it's not cool what he does, and he's has frequent downfalls. His daughter is currently pissed at him, in the episodes I'm watching, for sleeping with her 16 year-old almost-step-sister. But he didn't know she was 16, and he's got a good lawyer that he's fucking, so it'll probably all turn out fine (sarcasm).

Any way, Hank is a fictional construct. But...watching him fuck so many women and and still pick his daughter up from school and out for ice cream makes me feel like a total shitbag. I haven't even fucked that many guys - many of the guys on my list, atleast #20 and forward, are guys with whom I was legitimately trying to get into the relationship to end all relationships.

But it's still fucking lame, putting relationships with men above being a mother to my now four-and-a-half year old boy. This past weekend my son told Jason he hated him, and told me that Daddy loves him more than I do, because Daddy takes more responsibility for him. Those were pretty much his exact words. I hate to say that the kid is right. After four rehabs, his dad is finally doing really well. I'm the fuck-up now. I'm sober, sure, but that hardly means shit any more. I'm not going to go drink or use, because that would make this whole thing so much worse, and there's no need for that. But I wish I could. And why wouldn't he hate Jason? I give Jason way more attention than I give to my son. Goddamnit.

I'm still holding onto the hope that I can get my act together. I started the outline for my memoir. I still don't know if I should write it as a novel, or, "truly". I feel like I'd be completely damning myself in every circle of which I am a part if I write it as a true story. But maybe that's what I deserve.

But I'm not thinking of that yet. What I'm doing now is, I'm just writing facts. I'm writing a summary of things I've done and putting them into little chapters to be expanded upon later. Not how I felt, or what I thought. (For the record, I know that's a sentence fragment, I just don't care. And know that's a comma splice. Again, I don't care.)

In my outline, there are no motives. No self-justifications or rationalizations or painting pictures of people that make me look like the victim (because I'm pretty sure I've done a shitload of that). There's no answer to "why". What is, just is.

Jason was saying, as we were watching the show together, "Poor Hank. He just gets shit on, all the time."

"No. I don't agree with that," I said. "He does it to himself. He can't just fuck everything that has a vagina and a pulse and not expect his daughter and her mom to just be cool with it. It's not about him, in the end. It's about them."

"No, it is about him," Jason argued. Jason doesn't know how much I identify with Hank. I was crying today at Albertson's and Jason asked me what was wrong. "If I told you, it would probably end our relationship."

"I'll never stop loving you, sweetheart. Nothing's that bad," he said.

I still couldn't tell him. I couldn't say, "Do you know you're number 29 (not counting Jesus) in a long line of guys I've been with in some capacity since I left my husband? Do you know I don't even truly know if I love you or if I'm just with you to numb my pain? I don't even know if I'm capable of loving anything. I don't even love myself."

Cheating on him and breaking up with him in the beginning didn't work. So I'm not going there again. But I'm in fucking deep, here. We go to the same church; the pastor announced our engagement to the whole congregation a few weeks ago, at both the 9 am and 10:45 am services.

So now what?

"I believe in you, baby," he just said to me. He knows I'm writing, but he doesn't really know what about. I did tell him I'm writing my memoir. I told him earlier, at Albertson's, that he may not love me so much when I'm done.

The truth will set you free, they say. We'll see.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 4

We're engaged.

I'm just gonna give that some space.

I broke up with #30  - on February 14 of all days - because this sex and love addict from one of my meetings was obsessed with me and I totally bought into it (plus, I didn't like #30 that much, remember?). Nothing more came of it than a kiss (THANK GOD) and him leaving the state to go join the Navy (he was all ready leaving for that; it had nothing to do with me).

But anyway, so, #30 fell absolutely head-over-heels with me, by the way. He was heartbroken when I broke up with him after meeting with #31, and I was surprised. I didn't know he liked me that much.

I still broke up with him (#30...I'm calling him "Jason") one more time. He smokes weed, and I felt really tempted to smoke one day. He supports my drug and alcohol recovery, and so he does it out in the backyard of his parents' house and cleans himself up so he doesn't smell...but just me knowing that he was doing it was making me want to smoke so badly! So I broke up with him again in March, because I can't take that risk.

But he said I was breaking his heart, again, and we talked about how his smoking weed was affecting me, and we figured out some alternatives to ending the relationship. I am glad; I gotta admit, I'm so tired of being "out there" - you know, single, or serial relationshipping/dating, whatever - that I was willing to go ahead and keep trying with him. So he smokes a little weed? It's not the worst thing in the world. Plus, now we actually talk about things - finally!! He cries a little more than I do, but that's okay. He's sensitive (well, bipolar, you know - but that's okay, too).

Oh...

So, I decided to go ahead and propose.

Crazy? I know it would appear that way. And I never thought I'd want to get married again, least of all to a guy with so many mental disorders that he has to take eight different medications and see a therapist and a psychiatrist. But he is also so kind, loving, intelligent (high IQ's often come with an array of disorders, I hear), talented, fun, comes from a good (not-broken) Christian family who adores me. He was all ready talking about marrying me someday. It sounded almost too good to be true - until I bought him a ring, got down on one knee, and asked him to marry me, for real, then - and he said, "Yes," of course.

So that's it! I'm done, right? It's a victory story, the way I see it.

The Mastery of Love by don Miguel Ruiz helped to teach me what Love is. It's a great book, and I highly recommend it. I also spend a lot of time reading the Bible and working the 12 steps, and I still go to meetings (not the sex and love ones any more [sorry, but fuck those]).

I'm so happy today. I want to write a book!! It's time!! My classes are over for the summer, and so is my job, for now. I do have to find another job; Jason and I want to be married in a year's time and have a place to move into with each other. A two bedroom, so my son has his own room when he's with us (he and my son are developing quite the relationship, too! It's great!).

But....man...a book...can you imagine? I can...but until I get on it, that's all it'll be - imaginary! So, what should I write about? Should it be an autobiography? Should it be fiction, based on my experiences? If the latter, should it be first person perspective, or third? Should I write a series of short stories, with different protagonists, or the same protagonist? What's more interesting, my childhood, or my adulthood...or both? Or should I write creatively about something or someone that has absolutely nothing to do with myself? Now's the time to call upon my varied English education (and professors), whip out some old books, and pick up reading again, avidly.

All I know is, I have to write. I just have to. These past few months of focusing on school and securing my fiance have taken up all my time (yeah, you can laugh there), and now I'm exploding with creative desire. My photography class provided a great outlet for creativity, but I just had to give the loaner camera back to my school's Arts Department. I'm still singing, and Jason's going to help me record a CD (he's a sound engineer/singer/songwriter and has his own mixing studio and equipment). But it's writing that's always been my first and foremost passion, ever since I was four and learned how to read and write rhymes a lá Seuss and Mother Goose.

But, it does feel like I've turned the pressure valve a little to the left here, and I can *sigh*, smile, and get a good night's sleep. Oh, but I just want to say one more thing:

YAY!!!

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 3

Wow, I am a selfish biatch.

And I'm clearly an addict.

Here's my morning:

I text Jason at 10 am. (It was hard to even wait that long, but I didn't want to seem desperate.) I check my phone every five minutes for two hours. Then I text him again. He texts me back, and I can finally smile. Then more waiting, impatiently, on edge. Feeling worthless. Irritable. Discontent.

Meanwhile, I'm only half-present for my son.

That's pretty much how my whole day went. I half-played with my son, took Melia to the doctor and the pharmacy, took my son to a playground and to the airpark, but never was my attention fully on him, or her. All I could think about, all day was, "When's he gonna text me again? Come on!"

We did text a little throughout the day, but it was sporadic, and it was mostly him saying he was busy...he was as at work (duh), then he was writing music (which he does), then his grandpa was in the hospital, and then he didn't feel well. I called to talk to him, but he didn't answer. It was right after he had texted me, too. Then in a text message I offered for him to come over so he wouldn't be alone, but he didn't want to. He just wanted to go to bed.

But of course, that was me being selfish, under the guise of being of service.

Really, come on, Adora.

Meanwhile, I texted 3 other guys today. Two were in response, one was initiated by me. All 3 platonic, but still...why do I need attention from men in order to feel okay?

I also called 3 women, so I didn't just focus on guys. But with the 3 women I talked to, two of them didn't have time to talk, and the third one just wanted to talk about her own problems, so we did, and I offered her solutions that I pretend work for me.

Even my aunt with whom I live has noticed something's been wrong with me. "Are you okay?" she asked me today. "You've been quiet." It's true; I told her I've been depressed. I've begun to withdraw, more and more. I'm starting to hide from people. I'm glad I'm going to be seeing a therapist twice a week now, but I'm nervous about that, too. At our first meeting she brought up damn meds.

I remember before Margaret committed suicide, she shared with me her desire to get off her anti-depressants because she just didn't like not being able to feel. She hated being numb. A week later, she was dead.

It scares me, the idea of being medicated. Why must it be? Hell, my therapist is even talking about how my son may have ADHD. Fucking a', bitch, he's four.

I'm sorry. I don't know what's happening to me. I did all my spiritual guru prayer meditation shit today, but there's still this part of me that looks at everything in existence as totally meaningless. I'm driving, looking at road signs, and saying to myself, "Fuck that sign. What's the point of that fucking sign? There's no fucking point. Fuck it." Yesterday on the way to pick up my son I fantasized about pulling into a row of palm trees lining the middle of the road.

I'm so glad I have my son. He makes me laugh. He astonishes me with his brilliance, his innocence, his unconditional love. I want to see him grow up. I don't know the future. For some reason I expect every day to be my last day here -- I don't know why I'm just feeling like it's pretty much all over, all ready -- but I'm not suicidal; I have no REAL desire to end my life.

Still, I'm having a hard time enjoying anything besides laying in bed. Writing's okay. Singing's not so bad. But even with writing and singing, I'm like, "What's the point?"

I'm so glad I have things to read. I need to read a hell of a lot more. All this isolation just coops me up with my own ridiculously drab thoughts. I need to go to more recovery meetings, too. I'm at maybe three a week. But even then, I go to meetings and I look down my nose at people. "You pathetic, lying humans," I think to myself. I think everyone's full of shit. How I became Holden Caulfield, I have no idea. That persona is so played.

My therapist thinks I haven't fully allowed myself to grieve my losses. My parents, my siblings, my husband, Margaret, my boyfriends (or at least Evan, the one I was closest to). My son for half the week. My innocence...my identity...my inner child...or some shit.

She also has noticed that I don't have any girl friends. That is weird, I have to admit. I have some female friends in recovery, but they all have the qualification of helping me stay sober and vice versa...like they're not real friends; they just serve a purpose. I don't know what the hell it's like to be someone's friend, really. I've always been a loner. I've always preferred reading and writing over interacting with actual people. I don't like it when people don't like me. I give them too much power, and yet I can't seem to stop doing that. And yet they probably don't even not like me.

I heard myself say today, as I was getting me and my son into the car at 2:00 pm to go get Melia, "That's it - he doesn't like me any more," just because Justin wasn't texting me off the hook. I laughed at myself and thought, "What if someone thought that about me? 'She didn't text me back right away; she doesn't like me any more.'" The idea was completely ridiculous. Just because I don't respond to someone's every text doesn't mean I don't like him/her. Duh.

And so then I circle back around to, "Why the hell am I being so selfish? Why do I need to be liked? Why can't I just love people, and leave it at that? Why do I feel so damn deprived?"

I don't know. I need to widen my circle. Be less judgmental. Stop thinking my shit don't stink. Or stop thinking I stink like shit. Whatever extreme, neither are real. Stuff matters. Life has meaning. There's a reason for all this. I'm not gonna be a broke-ass student working two part-time jobs forever...unless I keep dropping my classes like I did last semester and keep missing work like I've done five times in the past couple weeks.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 2

Well, shoot, now that I've started writing again, all of a sudden I have more to say.

After spending all day at Starbucks writing my post yesterday, I drove down to pick up my son from his dad's house. He fell asleep on the way back up to where I was headed for church choir rehearsal. I had over an hour before rehearsal would start, so I went over to my now-boyfriend's house for a quick kiss. I had spent the night there the night before so I'd all ready seen him in the morning, but, I wanted to see him again.

[The interaction between us that morning had both depressed me (as things tend to do lately) but also provided me with a revelation (as things tend to do often).]

That morning I received a call from a bill collector that got me out of my boyfriend's bed. Jason (not his real name, as usual) and I had just woken up, and I had all ready begun to express some dissatisfaction with certain aspects of my life. He shushed me and said, "We've only been awake for what, 20 minutes, and this all ready? Come on."

He doesn't want to hear about such things. I'm not sure if it has to do with him being 25 and living with his parents and being totally spoiled, with people taking care of him hand and foot and therefore him having no concept of what it means to nurture someone else, but, that's what I'm going with.

He complained when I got off the phone with the bill collector - I had answered and calmly set up a payment, which he didn't understand. "You should have asked them, 'What the hell are you doing, calling someone at 8 in the frickin' morning?' Geez!" I started to explain that I had previously scheduled that call, but he wasn't interested in hearing me speak. He interrupts me routinely, implying that he feels that his words have more value than mine. It's a trend I've noticed over the past few days since we became "boyfriend and girlfriend". I'm much quicker to pick up on these sorts of things now that I'm in recovery and am being "restored to sanity" one day at a time (some days are saner than others, for sure).

I meditated in the shower so that I could get my mind off what I perceived as his immaturity and how invalidated I felt. Or, rather, what I mean to say is I meditated to accept his perceived immaturity and to observe my feelings and figure out what to do with them other than what I would have done in the past (scream, kick, yell, punch walls, drink, use drugs, etc).

[Also worth mentioning is the fact that he takes medications for bipolar, anxiety and sleep disorders...so...his demeanor is probably a combination of the aforementioned living-with-his-parents-at-that-age and these latter conditions. But...nature, nurture, tomayto, tomahto...all that is really beside the point.]

If I don't kick and scream when I don't get my way, how do I make myself feel better when I feel "wronged" by someone?

I kill my ego. Doesn't sound like it'd feel good, but actually, it does.

And here's how I do it: First, I meditate, bringing myself wholly "present", taking my mind off the other person and focusing it on me (my body), my feelings (not my thoughts), and what's in front of me (literally: shampoo...soap...hot water...shower curtain...etc), and then, after becoming aware of my self and what is real (tangible corporeality) as opposed to what is not real (thought perceptions)...all that's left is really all there "is".

And then...I enter another realm. Y'all ready? That's right -- I pray.

Okay, this is where the atheist goes, "Aww, man, another crackpot." Or, "That is all so effing kooky, and way too complicated." But my mind is a complicated thing, and it gets me into trouble, time and time again. So what I do here is actually simple. And I need to simplify things so that I don't have to feel insane all the time (because, as of right now, I don't have meds to regulate whatever happens up there...but hell, maybe I don't need 'em, any way. Let's see...).

One prayer I use is called "The Serenity Prayer". It goes like this: "God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." One thing I've learned by now, although I have to remind myself every day, is that I can't change anyone else. And that is for damn sure. The only person I can change is me...but I can change me. (Though, still, not without some outside help.)

Then the next one: "God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy Will, always." I was an atheist for the first 28 years of my life, and I have to say, I much prefer spirituality these days. When I let go of everything and just trust it to be part of some Master Plan that I have nothing to do with, I get to experience a sort of simple, effortless peace and freedom...even joy.

Here's another prayer that I recite from memory, after the other two: "My Creator, I am now willing that You should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that You now remove from me every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to You and to my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go from here, to do Your bidding." I take a look at what "defects of character" are driving me and making me "useless" (sitting in resentment and self-pity makes me "useless"; helping others makes me "useful"). These "defects" usually include selfishness, self-centeredness, dishonesty (most often I'm dishonest with myself), and fear. Doing God's Will, as opposed to mine, for me, means asking God to remove these "defects" and replace them with positive, useful attributes, like love, patience, tolerance, kindness, honesty and selflessness. Because, believe it or not, that makes me feel better than resenting someone for how they're treating me.

For the record, alcoholics like me actually can't afford resentments. Resentment is what leads many a recovering alcoholic to relapse. "Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink," the saying goes. During my interaction with Jason yesterday morning, I actually thought about how nice it would be to just "check out". I thought about smoking weed and how nice it would be to be high. I thought about drinking and how nice it would be to be drunk. After my nearly two years clean and sober, that is a very dangerous place for my mind to go; absolutely, under no circumstances, can I pick up a drug or a drink, or my life will be over.

And, so, here's the final prayer, the Mack Daddy of them all: "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace! That where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness. That where there is discord, I may bring harmony. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is doubt, I may bring faith. That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there are shadows, I may bring light. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted. To understand, than to be understood. To love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life."

Amen!

(I do need help remembering this one, though. HWDEDDS CUL SFD...lemme try that.)

After I meditate and pray, I do, at least temporarily, forget about whatever it is that someone did that bothered me. It's a lot of work, but it's a small price to pay to get out of a living hell.

I came up with another way to help me deal with Jason for when I'm around him, because I can't easily do all that meditating and praying when I'm actually around him - that'll take some practice. So before I left the bathroom and went back to his vicinity, I said to myself, "Okay, Adora: any time you're with Jason, shut your mouth other than to laugh at his jokes, to console him, to kiss him, to sing to him, or to suck his dick."

Fuck, I know. It sounds horrible, doesn't it? And my perception could be entirely wrong. But I'm gonna re-mind myself of the phrase my cousin coined when I left my husband to "be with" a co-worker, 2 1/2 years ago: "Enjoy your boy toy." Right now, maybe that's Jason's place in my world. And I really do feel, based on how he "treats" me, that the above five verbs about sum up the place I have in his. I'm not going to try to "get anything" from him other than what he's willing or able to offer (and my prayers do help me with that.) He's not a stepdad to my son (my son's dad is in his life, and okay, so I'll be doing it on my own when he's in my custody...fine). He's not a financial provider (I'm going to school and trying to finish so I can work full-time with a degree...so...I don't get a man to "take care of me"...fine). He's not a spiritual guru (he's an ego-driven, science-loving atheist...fine, I love science, too; ego, not as much, but whatever). He's a musician, and we have fun making music together. He makes jokes, and we have fun laughing together. He's sexy, and we have fun being physically intimate. And he's leaving for the Berklee School of Music in Boston for two years in July, although he'll be coming home for vacations...so the fun'll be over in six months save for intermittently thereafter...if we're even still involved with each other at that point. 

Boy Toy. Fun. Fine.

So, I went over to his house again before choir rehearsal for a kiss, since my son was asleep, and because I do like affection. I came up with another mantra on the way, where I reminded myself: "Save your crazy." In other words, I'll "save my crazy" for, or only talk about my feelings when I'm talking to sponsors, friends, my therapist, people in recovery meetings, or save them for when I write. But presenting them to Jason may not give me a favorable result; I've all ready found him to be a black hole. "Don't go to an auto mechanic for heart surgery," a saying goes. 

So Jason is, to me: "laughter, affection, and music". When I went back over there, instead of talking to him about my feelings, because experience has taught me that I can get nothing out of that other than frustration, I decided this time to just listen to him, laugh at his jokes while sprinkling in some of my own to make him laugh, show him affection, and nurture him. And it all worked out just fine. I didn't lose one ounce of serenity because of my acceptance and decision to just "give".

[And no, he won't read this. I'm hoping he ends up proving me wrong eventually, really. But we'll see.]

Then, I left, and I drove to the foster care facility where I picked up my 16 year-old sponsee Kassandra. She's recovering from alcohol and drug addiction, and I'm working her through the 12 steps. I also hired her to babysit my four year-old son for me during my choir rehearsal last night. I enjoy spending time with and being of service to her, whenever I can, and she enjoys getting out of the foster care facility any chance she gets (it's not a "home" with a family...it houses a large number of "former delinquents" without a home...and the place more resembles an apartment complex with a big office building in the middle than it does a house). Kassandra's doing a lot better now that she's not living in a motel room with her heroin-adddicted dad and now that she's not ending up in juvie over and over (she's been twice). Now, she's going to an adult school for her GED, she's involved in club volleyball, she volunteers at a mental health facility, and she gives me one more reason to stay sober and knock my own bullshit off. I want to be a positive example for someone.

Choir rehearsal was good. I enjoyed watching my director intently as I led the Soprano section. He's so good at letting us know when to be loud, when to be soft, when to cut off, when to come in, with his hands, arms, and face. I think I want to go on for a Master's Degree in Choral Conducting after I get my Bachelor's Degree in Music. I'll be done with my BA in a few semesters; I'm going half-time. Actually, when I woke up here at 4:53 am and decided I needed to write some more (I love it when my addictive nature latches onto writing as opposed to other things), this idea was the first thing that came to my mind.

I dropped Kassandra back off at "home" and drove my boy and I home, where we commenced to build a castle out of giant legos and had the bad guys tear it down and then the good guys beat up the bad guys for tearing it down. Then he asked to watch Max Steel on Netflix, so I set that up for him while he ate dinner, and I took some time to read don Miguel Ruiz' The Mastery of Love. I hadn't read anything for weeks (I was too busy obsessing about Jason and trying to get him to be my boyfriend), so it was nice to get out of my head some more. I picked it up while thinking about the last prayer that I'd quoted above, otherwise known as the St. Francis Prayer (or the 11th Step Prayer), thinking, "Hmm, maybe this book will teach me how to love." It was a Christmas gift from a girlfriend of mine in recovery, but I hadn't opened it up yet. And I only got through about ten pages before my son needed me again, but I read some things that I really appreciated. I have to open myself up to solutions from outside of myself as much as I possibly can. It's just the only way for me to go on.

Before I got to writing here this morning, I had also begun to read again one of my ol' writing professors' blogs. Whenever I go on a reading spree, I try to make sure his work gets in there somewhere. I'll be forever indebted to him for his inspiration; I always learn something from him, even though it's been, say, nearly ten years since I've taken the two classes I took from him (a literature class focusing on autobiography and a beginning creative writing class). Right now he's having to undergo chemotherapy; he's about done with it, and it's working, so I'm glad about that. But gosh, it's amazing to read his work, not just because as a professor of creative writing, he writes extremely well, but also because when I read his work, I always gain some new perspective on my own life situation.

One of the things he wrote about in his last post is the value he has found in community, as people gather to help one another in a common purpose. We don't have to do this thing alone. And that reminds me why I'm of service to those less fortunate - because nothing that I'm going through is really that bad. Other people have it plenty worse.

I need the death of the self (or ego) that St. Francis (attributedly) talks about. For example, I also help a crippled woman named Melia who's in her fifties and can't go anywhere without someone's help. I give her rides and bring her things and spend time with her, just because it gets me out of myself. She calls me every day, in a lot of pain both physically and emotionally. I can't do anything to alleviate her physical suffering, but it makes me feel good to make her laugh or to help her through her own resentments and self-pity (which are probably more founded than mine, though no more or less detrimental to one's well being).

Today I'm giving Melia a ride to the doctor at 2:30. Before that I'll be taking care of my son and reaching out to some people on the phone, to see how they're doing.

I'm gonna try to just be okay today, whatever it takes.