Last night I was awakened by Michelle talking to someone through the window. She had been writing in her journal and smoking when Bill walked by. It was Bill. Bill lives in Red Hook and is the main person who was selling dope to her, back in May. I hate this guy! He's a con artist, just like the other men that Michelle has befriended in the neighborhood, and the strange thing is her naive reaction to these types. After Bill left, she was extremely concerned about whether or not she should feel sympathy for him because his mother supposedly died. I said sure, he's a human being, but that doesn't make him a trustworthy person or friend material! This incident naturally reminded me of all the shit we went through during the summer, but I feel confident that she is stable on her methadone dose and will not relapse anytime soon. We were watching Intervention last night too, and I was struck again by the insanity of addiction. It is the very definition of insanity, to know all these facts, everything you have to lose, everything you have lost, and be unable to make the right choice. I really feel for my girl. She's such a generous, wise, kind person. While she's on methadone, she can use her mind to weigh consequences and choose life. If she were not taking it, however, there would be no argument strong enough to stand up to her urge to use. There is no breakthrough she might have in therapy, no set of skills to be gained, no love big enough to win against it. That's just not fair. But hey, life isn't fair. It's possible that someday she will reduce her dose and even stop taking it, but not anytime soon and perhaps she'll need to be on it permanently. I have no problem with that. Some people do, like these girls we met in AA. They were nice, but also narrow minded and judgemental. These two were a couple, and they wouldn't even hang out with us as a couple. Why? It's not proper AA socializing I guess. One girl was Michelle's potential sponsor and one was mine. My friend/potential sponsor was very sweet (and attractive, although I was not personally attracted to her), but she encouraged me to go to more meetings than I was interested in attending, and her girlfriend's stance on methadone turned me off.
I used "my" cane again today. I was very nervous. Using the cane on the subway is one thing-- using it in a high school is another. However, the students did not look at me funny or laugh at me. I had wanted to reschedule but I knew that getting through the morning with my cane might be good for me in terms of building character. I have always been a self-conscious, somewhat vain person. I have wanted to be wearing the right thing, to be cool, which isn't so unusual, but sometimes it's impossible because we may not have been exposed to certain things before. When I first moved to New York, I was out of style in quite a few ways, and this was painful for me because I immediately perceived my shortcomings but didn't have the material resources to make myself over right away. None of my clothes were right, but how could I have known? I was even unsure how to express my gender possibilities, and I wore a lot of lipstick and ugly skirts. And someday I'm going to be old and there will be no bringing sexy back. Some people think the elderly are cute. I have more of a fear of that sort of thing, my body decaying, wrinkling up, the veins showing through and the bones getting weak and breakable. When I look at old people, I feel curious and I want to ask them questions like if they're ready to die or about their faith or what they have learned by living so long. However, when I actually talk to old people, they don't seem any wiser or kinder. My grandma just talks about God and heaven according to her literal, Protestant interpretation of the bible. She's not afraid to die, which is good, but she is comfortable in simplicity, which never worked for me. It seems like it would rude to ask other elderly people if they feel ready to die. But I ask myself the same thing almost every day. Last night Michelle was talking about how she wants security (as in, a job) and I was reminding her that security is an illusion. Anything can happen. As Americans, we like to think we deserve and will probably have a long life of financial success and then retire and sit on the porch. We don't think about all the people who have died since the beginning of time. We don't think, I will definitely die, when and how? Sometimes I feel ready to die. I just think about birds, trees, or the idea of being suspended in the air over the ocean, at the center, with no land around for thousands of miles... the silence there. And I think about how I will join it. And how nothing lasts, including paper and books, electronic media, history... all of it disintegrates over time, or changes beyond recognition. No one will know me, and I don't even know myself from ten years ago. If my childhood self is dead, and it's okay, then it is also okay that I (sfwk on October 7th, 2008) will eventually not exist. I will be transformed into something else. When I look at the span of time like that, I am okay with letting this moment go and letting myself go.
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