Minutes Pull Eyelids

The last days, or weeks, however you chose to divide and categorize time, have been dedicated to the strength of my teeth to hold me firmly to this earth rather than succumb to a relinquished will.

I am exhausted and thin in ways that I have never known. It is work and school and not enough art. It is being the one who takes on responsibilities like most people kick back beers. I say no to beer these days; I am, it turns out, allergic to booze. Thank you genetics and trauma for both an addictive nature and no means with which to fill that gap.

It's been good. The cold off the sauce life. I am learning about myself through recovery. I won't get all higher-power or any such nonsense like that, or at least I don't think I will, not now at least. I am too tired, over scheduled for meetings no matter how helpful they may be.

I cried on friday when I spoke with my mom. I had seen her all too briefly that afternoon, she called to say something, and I overwhelmed by all of it, felt hot tears behind my eyes swell spill over silently freely. The combination of her voice, my exhaustion, my reality of choosing to be constantly scheduled overly booked and three minutes behind hit me all at once as I said, I have a break tuesday afternoon from 1530-1730, if you're available, maybe then? and I had to reexplain that I didn't have time for dinner that I have a class at 1730, that I only have a two hour break, and that is seriously the first moment I will have between now (friday 17:00) and then. It's crushing. And in the back of my mind all I can think is that I don't actually have a day off until god knows nine days away from then, or a week from today and all my mom wants to do is cook me dinner and all I know is that I want that but that I am also a little afraid to see her because she is magic and puts me to sleep, she is magic and makes my eyes fill with soft tears. You see, I love her very much and she is like a cloud.

I don't drink or smoke or sniff anything stronger than cigs and coffee and adderral these days. I've spent most of my life doing all of those to feel anything but me. Me was not my favorite kind of feeling. Or, more accurately, the feeling I had when I was high was transparent, illusive, temporal, universal; I felt like a more me version of me.

Now I am me me and it's okay. All of it. I am starting to feel feelings and it scares me. I limit emotion; I often don't know how (or what, (this is confusing multiple tenses overlap.)) I am feeling. I couldn't (cannot) tell you because I don't know. I don't feel, that's what I've been saying, not like normal people. It's true too. It's a gift that I've been saving to open. I am only now edging the tape off the paper. Or all at once eleven or thirteen feelings manifest in an instant and it is so noisy that I cannot hear.