Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs... I'm so clever I steal...

UPDATE (read the post then come back to this) - We are no longer together. It ended on my Mom's birthday over the phone. No comment on the phone thing. At least it wasn't text, e-mail, facebook, twitter or myspace. Those other ones would have been really cold. I didn't release this to the semi-public until I let her read it. She disagreed with a few things. I will address those now.

One, she doesn't think she is an alcoholic because "we handle alcohol differently". Now I'm no light weight, but her beautiful 100 lb. self can drink more than my 158 lb. self (that's after losing 15 lbs... go me!). I won't revise the statement that she is an alcoholic. She is. I wish she could admit it. Not for me, for her. You know, isn't that the first step to recovery? And no matter what, even when the gutted feeling turns to anger and hate (and I know it will... it is already starting... more on that in the future I'm sure). As for the handling it differently, sure, I pass out, she doesn't. That is pretty much it. I know I piss people off a lot of the times when I drink in excess. I know that. I hate it, but that's the way I turn. The only way I change that is with a Brian shoulder pat with a whisper reminding me I'm going to the "dark side, dude". Maybe I shouldn't have held the fact that almost everyone I know have asked "With all due respect, how do you put up with her when she is drunk. She won't shut up and annoys the crap out of me. Please don't pass out next time dude." Me - "Love, you take the good with the bad. And God only knows I can be more than too much to handle when I drink too much." Then there is the reason I can't take my car to the car wash. That's just scratching the surface, but I don't want to say any more right now as I don't want it to sound bitter and I truly don't want to be mean. That is not my intent. I'm not saying these things to hurt her. Just to further clarify my point. Never underestimate the parade of the self deluded... actually that was a mean way of saying denial... you know, like what I'm in. Anyways, enough on drinking. Everyone I know thinks we are alcoholics. I think that says enough.

Second (and I think final point), she said I made it look like she didn't try. I told her that it wasn't my intent for it to come off that way. I didn't lie to her when I said that because when I wrote it, it wasn't. However, I do believe it and I didn't really have the courage to say it. Even when faced with the finality, I still couldn't bring myself to really say it the way I wanted to. By that I mean I didn't want to say it, I wanted to fucking scream it. I guess her interpretation of trying was to do it my way instead of breaking up a few weeks back. My way was to stay together and work on things because up until that point the problems were hidden away. They weren't discussed. They weren't attempted to be worked out. I don't really believe in throwing away 2 years when problems first come to the surface. Either way, she said we'd do it my way. Unfortunately, according to her my way meant being together barely in name only and not even attempting to fix anything. She still thinks that was trying. Oh well, so it goes. Sometimes life fucks with things and even though you want to make it work it doesn't mean the other person can or wants to. I should stop this update now as I don't want to sound bitter (or at least any more bitter) or angry (I'm sure that's coming). At the end of the day, all said and done, no matter what, I love her.

BRIGHT EYES - "First Day Of My Life"

"...But I’d rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery..."

So I didn't know what should be the first "real" post, but decided that this should be it. I guess the reasoning is two fold.

1. As fascinating as it is to tell you all about the Veggie Delight I had for lunch I thought this would be more important.

2. I guess I need to start by talking about what is most difficult. To truly challenge myself to be honest in this semi-public forum.

So as anyone reading this knows I have been in a relationship with an amazing person for the past 2 years. We almost got married last year until I put it off because I thought it would be silly to get married while we lived with our parents and didn't see any sort of immediate out. In a way I wish I remained impulsive and did it because in this disposable society we live in at least in most cases if you tied the knot and inherited a ball and chain you at least try and give it your all to fix your problems. But that's neither here nor there.

The problems we are facing are both of our faults. We are both guilty. You know like Bush and Cheney (how do you like the dated reference... maybe I could throw in a Lewinsky joke later for good measure... cultural relevancy is what I am all about). I guess the best way I can think to describe it is imagine if you bought your dream house. After a little while there is a gas leak, but you choose to ignore it. You briefly turn to the old woman and say something about it, another day, a month later she may comment on the smell. However, for some inexplicable reason you both choose to ignore it. Then finally, one day... BOOM!!!!! Your house blows up. The warnings were there, but you chose to ignore it. You could have quite easily fixed the problem, but nope, that was the smart thing and we humans hate doing the smart thing. So what now? The house is gone. Boom. Poof. There goes your dream house. The one that you planned on growing old in. The one that you put so much into. Well, now, you have 2 choices (this assumes that you have homeowner's), you either rebuild it and get it back to what it was and make some improvements or you ditch it and move on to a new home. The latter is obviously much easier. You can shut off from your feelings towards what you had and hope for something better that doesn't require any work. The first though is the tough one. It requires work. Lots of it. I'm of the work camp. I choose the path of the phoenix. Out of the ashes comes new life. It can be better and stronger than ever. Please excuse me if my mythological aside didn't work. I'm not much of a myth buff. I'm just trying to sound kinda smart.

So there you have it, a long analogy about my problem. I hope it made sense. It has been what has made sense to me these past few weeks.

Ok, now for details. Wow. This is going to be tough. Really tough.

I love this girl very much. More than anything. I really would do almost anything for her (I draw the line at supporting our current health care travesty). Seriously, I would. Every time I look into her eyes I fall apart. Every single nerdy thing she does, every single silly noise she makes. It all makes me melt. There hasn't been any of that the past few awkward weeks... but at least I have my memories to remind me. I just got a little smile thinking back on "mue". She'd get it. I remember one of the first things that made me start falling for her. I remember when she told me about how before she was going to read Memoirs of a Geisha she had to read a whole slew of other books to perfectly understand all the elements of the stories time, place, look and feel. Who does that? A girl I started to fall in love with. We grew inseparable, the times we were together were amazing. One of the things I loved the most was how we could sit together and just be silent. There was that level of comfort. Laying on the grass after ice blocking looking at the sky quietly before defiling the golf course once, twice, thrice... This was how we grew close. This is the easy part to talk about. It's always easier to look on the good times because what bad can you say about them. They happened and were great and pure (ok maybe not so pure... sorry sleeping bag), what is there to dissect other then what was present on that night has been a silent killer to our relationship and our own personal lives. Alcohol.

We are both alcoholics. There is no other way to look at it. We have enabled each other non stop. There is always an excuse to celebrate. There is always a tough day. There is always a tough week. There is always a time to just have fun. Again, both of us are guilty of it. There is no one side more than the other. How has that caused problems? Hmmmm lemme count the ways. First of all, life has made us individually depressed (more on this later) and we have been treating depression with a depressant. Alcohol has been the lubricant on the dirt that allowed us to dig our personal lives into a hole. A hole that until recently got so deep I couldn't see a way out. I can't speak on her behalf, but I have a feeling that the feeling is similar. Second of all, it was the only time we could randomly halfheartedly talk about what was wrong with us individually and with us as a whole. This is kind of a problem. Now before you say, "no shit", hear me out. I tend to black out when I drink too much or I tend to develop a hazy memory. So we would have a talk about how she feels herself losing more and more emotion and entering "robot phase" and how scared she is of it and how I was supposed to not let it effect us... and it just wouldn't sink in. I was drunk. She was drunk. She'd later say "sorry, I was a whiny vaginy" or we'd share an e-mail or some cute text messages (which I will miss forever) the morning thereafter and that important moment drifted off into oblivion only to be grabbed back when the house blew up. There were other conversations that either I didn't really take all that seriously or could barely remember because we were drinking and the next day we were back to out cute business as usual. All I knew was that she had problems. All I thought to do about it will be coming up later. Third, we each did a pretty regrettable thing to each other when drunk. One happened in Vegas, my fault. One happened a couple weeks ago, her fault. I'm not going to get into specifics because that is something that I know makes her uncomfortable to have discussed and I can't discuss one without discussing the other. Fourth, it helped us grow stagnant individually. We used to produce stuff. She would draw, I would write and we would push each other to be the best at what we did. We were honest about each others work. I could tell her when I thought a drawing wasn't up to snuff and she could give me constructive notes on whatever project I was working on. In general we used to push each other to be the best we could be. I pushed her to think of Art Center as a tangible reality, not as someone else's dream, but as a school she could attend. Those were some great times for us. A time when we could feed off of each other. I loved it when she would pull up to my house after class and before she even got out of the car she was already excitedly talking about what she learned, how she had a breakthrough, and then pull out her sketchbook and start showing me everything she did. It seemed like almost every day back then she would be at my house sit in my chair, pop open her sketch book, and be working away. I would sit on my bed with a smile on the other side of my face relishing her talent, drive, and excitement. I was (and am) so proud to have a girl that talented as my girlfriend. Her raw talent was something too amazing. One of those, "That's my girlfriend. Ha! What can your girlfriend do?" However, a little bit of life and a DUI later and that faded away into excuses and seeming impossibilities.

As you can tell we were both depressed. I knew she was, but I hid mine from her. I stupidly figured that if she's down I need to be a man. A stoic man. A Humphrey Bogart type. I'm no Bogie and neither was the real man behind the characters. Shit, he didn't even have hair. Yes, people that was one of the best hair pieces ever! Anyways, I felt that when she frowned I had to smile. I had to push my problems down. Deep down. Every day I went to work I HATED life when the day was done. I got myself into a place where I couldn't see that a job that actually followed my career path was in my future. I thought this is where I am going to die. Working for $9.50 an hour as an assistant that does no real work of consequence. I thought "Hey, I could become a bartender again or maybe a waiter." Quickly though I wrote that off. Even though I was off track I didn't want to get further off track. At least at my job now I can read Variety in the morning. It seemed at least slightly on the same path. That was all just me lying to myself. Making excuses for myself. I can't leave my job because sometimes they can be really good to me. I can't leave my job because then I won't have time to do my projects.... never mind that I didn't make enough money to do my projects. I can't leave my job because the economy is shit. I can't leave my job because they need me there. Blah, blah, blah. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I was an excuse making machine. I sat there staring at a blank screen with the most halfhearted attempt at a resume staring me in the face for months. Fucking years. Again, making excuses and feeling sorrier and sorrier for myself. I was pathetic.

Then there was the creative end of disappointment where I would develop a project, get it ready to shoot and then there was no money. I'd come up with even lower and lower budget projects and sure enough I would stop work on them because I couldn't even afford to rent a camera.... I talked myself into believing (kinda rightly so) that I couldn't even afford to make a Dogme 95 film. It was killing me to have these projects ready to go and have no means of doing them. I stopped being inspired and stopped working. I lost my mojo (more on that later).

Tack onto all that a new fear I acquired. A few bad blood work results, a paranoid mother, and an atheist made me develop a horrible fear of death. Every single twitch, ache, burn, pain, anything and I thought I was going to die. And die at 28... having accomplished what exactly? Not a damn thing. I finally understood religious people. I get why it is helpful and almost essential to believe in a happy afterlife. I confess that I tried to find comfort in prayer. I couldn't. I had that cliched existential crisis. Funny thing is that the cure for it was a loss of care about life that has happened over the last couple weeks. Don't mistake a loss of care for a plea for help suicide watch situation. That won't happen. I just stopped caring about living.

I started letting myself go. I probably gained 20 lbs, stopped shaving more than once a week, stopped grooming other places (without going into detail, after doing it yesterday, you would not believe how good it feels), stopped wearing anything short of a t-shirt and jeans, stopped fixing my hair up, etc. Thankfully I just started prescribing to the mentality that if you look good you'll feel good. Now I am actually putting myself together again. It feels good. Real good.

There are other factors in my depression, but this is already long. Maybe in another post I'll get into it.

Point is, I got deeply depressed and hid it from her. I wanted to be strong for her. I wanted to help her. I wanted to put on the happy face and pretend that every day I got home I didn't want to simply crawl into bed and cry. I dumbly only was concerned about helping her. About being strong for her. I forgot a couple things. 1) Only you can help yourself. All someone else can do is be supportive and encouraging. 2) You can't be strong for someone if you can't be strong for yourself. This depression caused me to lose my libido (see I'm trying to not be too explicit). As soon as the clock struck 10 all I wanted to do was go to bed. I wanted her at times when I couldn't have her... the problems with living with your folks. Even at those times it was still hard to get excited about sex. I wanted her so bad, I just didn't have any energy. I still occasionally took care of myself... always to a video tape that we had made. That thing is wore the fuck out. It was killing me inside that all I wanted to do was sleep with a girl that I loved sleeping with and I couldn't find the energy to do it. I made the girl of my dreams feel undesirable. I let her believe that even though she is all I ever want to sleep with, I didn't. That couldn't have been farther from the truth. I wanted her so bad. I tried to push myself out of the bubble and get into her arms, but I couldn't. When we did, I was so weak I could barely put that much effort into it. I was trying so hard. It had nothing to do with her and everything to do with me. Life happened and instead of telling her all that I am saying now, I didn't. I sat there and wallowed in self pity and let a distance grow between us. I don't know if you can imagine what it is like to sit there and want to pick someone up and throw them on the bed and ravage them, but not be able to get up and do it. It was like being stuck in a dream where all I could do was dream of being with her, but not being able to do it even though she was 2 feet away. I hate myself for that. Of course, now that I started to work on fixing my problems I have gotten that libido back, but now we are having problems. Look at that circle, I realize I need to start working on myself and actually start working on myself because we are having problems. It makes it hard to get intimate when you are constantly fighting.

I think intimacy can be regained, but it doesn't happen over night. I hope that when I post next on this topic I can say that things are good and we are making positive steps. I really honestly hope so. Only time will tell.

Moral of the story. We both let ourselves get stagnant (creative bankruptcy, no schooling, no proper work, no place of our own, etc.)... and that stagnancy invaded our relationship like a dry heroin addict in a cake shop. I am working on fixing that. I am working on myself. That's what this blog is for. I hope that as we both work on ourselves we can let that help rebuild our relationship. Life happens to the best of us. It's up to us to know that and try to not let it get the better of our relationships.

There is obviously more to it. But that is all I am emotionally capable of including in this first post.

I love her. More than anything. I will always be here to try.

Next post will either be on losing weight, getting a new job, working on projects... or maybe more importantly a list of goals that can start being measured as the posts go on. That would be the smart thing.

P.S. - I didn't re-read this after I wrote it, I just let it all out without any other thought. I never stopped writing and I never looked back on the previous sentence. It is pure... from my heart to my mind to the keyboard to binary to the good ol web 2.0. So there you have it my heart on a platter. This is to getting better.

I can guarantee you dear reader that there will be more on this subject as it was the biggest and best part of my life. But rest assured it will be a very small part of the blog. There is a lot more coming that has nothing at all to do with her.