I'm sitting here right now, an itty bitty bit drunk, thinking about how it's so much easier to make decisions when I'm like this. While, yes, I know it's not practical or the healthiest way to be, if I could just be an itty bitty bit drunk all the time, I think life would be way easier for me (although I'm also thinking, as I sniff it on my wrist, that maybe I don't like the palo santo and patchouli oil I bought about forty-five minutes ago at Yellow Green Farmer's Market on my sort-of date quite as much as I thought I did, so maybe the drunk decisions I make aren't the best, but to counter that, if I'm drunk all the time, do I really care?).
Case in point: When I'm not an itty bitty bit drunk, I'm wishy washy, and I vacillate about, well, everything, but since we all know this post isn't about everything, I might as well say what I really mean, or okay, maybe "really" isn't the right word anymore, so let's go with a better one - primarily - in conjunction with my not-an-itty-bitty-bit-drunk-Jonathan-related dealings. When I'm not an itty bitty bit drunk, he and I talk and we don't talk, and I think to myself that I should block him so that he doesn't do to me what he did Monday night, which is text me after us having had almost two weeks of no communication, setting my everything back, but I don't have the nerve. The way I feel right now, though, I could block him, and that would be the end of that. Once I'm not an itty bitty bit drunk, though, I know I'd unblock him right away; therefore, if I were to stay an itty bitty bit drunk around the clock, Jonathan would be entirely out of my life.
***
Okay, so it's now tomorrow, and I'm no longer drunk, and all I have to say about what I wrote yesterday is forget not liking the oil I bought as much as I thought I did, I out and out loathe it. I got so excited when I first saw it since it's two of my favorite scents, and it smelled really, really good when I first put it on, but there's this overly alcoholish undertone that I smell on people often and can't stand, and as time went by, that same stench started to emanate from my skin. I thought maybe it was my imagination and put a little on after my shower today to test it only to scrub myself silly about two minutes after putting it on. Oh, well. At least it only cost twenty-something dollars which maybe is sort of worth it for the lesson I got.
Not clear about the lesson I got? Yeah, neither am I. I say we talk it out.
I can't make decisions. Ever. And I'm not just talking about big stuff. I'm talking every decision that has to be made in my life like, say,
things to buy. Let's start with that. Before I buy almost anything that goes in or on my body, I do more research than my students seem to do when assigned a research project. From product websites to reviews to ingredients, I spend, and I'm not exaggerating, probably twenty-to-thirty hours minimum doing research, and then a lot of the time, I still can't go through with trying a new product.
A table doesn't go on my body (I'd love to make a joke here, but I'm coming up blank) which might make you think buying one of those would take less time. Silly people who read my blog! If you had any idea how long I've been looking for a new table, how many websites I've been to, how many lists of tables I have saved, surely you'd think me mad(der than you do now). Same with comforters. And drapes. I've wanted to replace both my comforter and the drapes in my room for months now and have looked at countless comforters and sets of curtains online, but I just can't commit. Jesus, are you reading that? Because I am. For months, I've wanted a pink comforter and pink blackout curtains--pink! Just pink! I'm not looking for anything fancy at all. No patterns, no designs, just pink!--and I can't commit. To Amazon. Where everything can be sent back. Like, what in the motherfucking fuck?
That oil I bought yesterday? I never--never--would have bought it if I hadn't uncharacteristically had a daytime beer. What I would have done, and I know this because I've been in this situation sober many times, is smell the oil and want it but not be sure about making the purchase. I'd have put a little on and told the woman I was going to think about buying it, left and walked around and smelled my wrist every few minutes for the next however long, something that if I'd done, I'd have known I couldn't actually stand the oil's smell, but because I was an itty bitty bit drunk, I bypassed that part. So what did I end up with? Basura. Twenty-something dollar's worth of basura sitting on my shelf.
So here I was yesterday, all proud of myself for actually making a decision and buying something, and oh my God, right this second as I type this I think - wait a minute, let me check - okay, checked, and yes! That oil wasn't all I bought. I just checked my email and saw that at 4:14 I got a confirmation email from Amazon for having bought running shoes, doggie bags, and a shower liner I haven't been able to decide on whether or not to buy for a couple weeks, and all I have to say about that is, this post just became a little bit more layered than I thought.
I made a bad decision when I bought the oil, and I was ready to talk about how, despite my declaration yesterday about staying drunk so I could buckle down and decide on things I otherwise couldn't, the decisions I make when I'm drunk are obviously bad and that it's better to not do anything at all than it is to choose wrong, but the things I bought at 4:14? That decision was good. I know I need doggie bags; it's not like my dogs aren't going to poop, and yet, those bags have been in my cart for days. I also know I need a shower liner; I've needed that for over a month but haven't been able to decide on one. Never mind the fact that a shower liner does nothing but hide behind a shower curtain and keep the shower curtain from getting covered in mold, I literally couldn't pick (do you have any idea how many colors there are?). And the running shoes? I have these super unwieldy toes that curl up so much when I run, my shoes have holes in the upper mesh. Clearly I needed shoes, but if not for the fact that I was an itty bitty bit drunk when I looked on Amazon yesterday and saw that they carried the same model of Asics that I wear, I never would have clicked the button to buy; instead, I would have just kept saying I need to go to Running Wild but not actually go.
So I guess what I need to think about isn't whether or not the decisions I make when I'm an itty bitty bit drunk are good or bad since clearly they can be both, it's why I need to be an itty bitty bit drunk in order to make them at all. Like, what am I so afraid of? Making a mistake, sure, but like we saw when discussing Amazon, it's not like a lot of those decisions can't be reversed. So what's actually up? And, yes, I know everybody does things they normally wouldn't do when they're an itty bitty bit drunk (liquid courage, right?), but I'm willing to bet a lot of those people if not most are also capable of buying a shower liner when they're sober and now that I typed that I'm coming to a
Realization
and that's that anger is my non-drinking, itty-bitty-bit drunk. Before I threw Jonathan out of the house, I was miserable about Carla for a long time but it was the blinding anger that made me take the action that I took. I told you before that when I lamented having acted out in anger, my therapist said she didn't think that I did, that this was something going on for a long time and that I knew I had to take action or it would never stop. I suppose she knew what she was talking about. The thing with Carla bothered me so much for so long just like the way he pussyfooted around his cunt of a mother, and I knew what I had to do, or better yet, what I should do, but I couldn't. I'd decided long before I ended things that if things continued the way they'd been going, I'd have to end it, but my decision to end things with Jonathan was my shower liner in my Amazon cart. It just sat there in my insides until something made me click the "Place Your Order" button.
I'm realizing now, like right this second as I type, that somewhere, somehow, I lost all my nerve which now, having walked the dogs between the word "nerve" and "which" and thinking about this the whole time, I think translates to trust. I don't trust myself. At all.
I think I've made so many bad decisions in my life, decisions that I regret, that I just don't feel like I'm capable of deciding anything at all. Take the tables in my wish lists. About a month or so ago, I sent those tables to Jonathan, my sister, and my older son, three people who have absolutely nothing to do with my house, and when any of the three of them didn't like my top choices, I took them off the list. Like, why? What reason do I have to think that the tables Jonathan, my sister, or my older son likes are any better than the ones I do? First of all, in this situation, what does better even mean? And what if they are better somehow? What's going to happen? It's not like I'm going to put all the fine china I don't own on whatever table I get and it's going to collapse. So what do I even need for them to decide? I'm the one who has to live with the table and look at it every day. Shouldn't it be my choice, and wow, now I'm realizing
something else, and let me tell you, it isn't pretty. If somebody else were to tell me what table to get and I ended up not liking the table in the end, it wouldn't be my fault. I would have sacrificed the table I wanted because somebody told me there was a better one out there, and when I looked at it every day and regretted getting that table instead of the one I wanted, there'd be someone else to blame, and holy shit, what I'm realizing now in front of everybody who reads this is that I'm a coward who doesn't want to take responsibility for the things that I do so instead, I leave what I do up to somebody else.
Wow.
But let me digress because I've already written almost a chapter in a novel, and this is going in a direction I couldn't have foreseen. Going back just a few steps, to the place we were before I discovered my proclivity for placing blame, I also discovered that I hold things inside of me that I know have to be acted upon, and it's not until I get angry enough that I follow through only to later regret it just like I do buying yesterday's oil. When I'm sober which for me seems to mean not angry, but sad, I care about the consequence; when I'm furious, I don't. What I didn't think about before this post is that unlike people who have anger issues and make decisions without thinking about the consequences, I have thought about them. A lot. But because I know how painful those consequences will be coupled with the distrust I have in myself, I avoid doing what has to be done
and let's face it. I have good reason. I've been miserable - miserable, miserable - for the past five months. But what's the alternative? Always being just a little bit sad? Having a boyfriend who doesn't care about how I feel and lies all the time, whose behavior I've always justified by telling myself that when people are in a relationship they decide what annoying behavior they can tolerate and what they can't?
I have two things I want to say. I'm not sure how to tie them together, so I won't even try. The first is that when talking to my former therapist about how irritated I get, she told me to practice not getting angry with little things and that eventually it will extend to bigger things. I've been trying that recently. Cocoa, one of my dogs, has been peeing in the house at night. About a week ago, I was so mad, I think I traumatized her for what's left of her old-lady life. Yesterday morning and this morning, though, I didn't even raise my voice. I simply didn't let myself get mad. Something else happened, something I can't remember now, and instead of getting angry, I just told myself it wasn't a big deal and didn't get upset. I'm thinking if I can do this with little things that would normally make me angry and get so used to it that I'll no longer have to, I can do this with decisions, too: push "Place Your Order" when something is in my cart; choose a table on my own; buy shampoo and conditioner or sunscreen or for the love of God, even a pack of Expo markers (yes, I've recently been unable to even follow through with purchasing that). If I can practice making decisions and accepting the outcome, like with my not-getting-angry muscle, maybe I can also strengthen that which brings me to
the second thing I wanted to talk about, and I guess maybe they do kinda sorta connect. I have, I don't know, a friend? A somewhat friendly former lover? A guy who I talk to and sometimes see (but not in the talking to and seeing way you may be thinking)? who told me recently that discipline is the highest form of self-love. Since he said that, I've thought about that statement a lot. This whole thing with Jonathan - the knowing I needed to end things but not being able to until I was incensed and the fervent need I feel to have him back in my life the way he used to be despite knowing, during moments of lucidity, that what he did was horribly wrong and not in the realm of when-you're-in-a-relationship-you-have-to-decide-what-annoying-behavior-you-want-to-tolerate behavior - these are a lack of self-discipline because along with lacking trust in myself, I've also lacked self-love. I've lacked that for a long time, long enough that it's responsible for a whole lot of those bad decisions I've made, and that's not me placing unwarranted blame.
It's merely the truth.
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