The Daily Durvy

When Alex and I were looking for our First Apartment Together, we made several appointments with complexes all over Davis. We each had a few requirements. And by a few, we had one each: he wanted a living room with a wall big enough for his 42-inch television, and I wanted a walk in closet. Stereotypes at their finest.

What we both underestimated was the power of a well-proportioned kitchen. Why would we go look at kitchens? We were (and are, don’t get me wrong) a couple of dumb college kids, punch-drunk with the idea of moving in together. We barely looked at the apartments; we were too busy looking at each other and thinking about all the, uh, christening we would get to do WITHOUT ROOMMATES.

We found an apartment with a large living room, a large bedroom (enough space for 2 desks!) and, best of all, a. Walk. In. Closet. I still hold that having that closet has saved our relationship on more than one occasion. Not only because there is (usually) enough space for BOTH OF OUR SHIT, but it is also the only place that you can go and close the door and not have to hear or look at the person you are mad at. Does that sound dangerously like a temper tantrum? You bet it does.

As previously mentioned, in all the euphoria surrounding an apartment that met all two of our combined requirements, we missed the fact that our kitchen is the size of my left foot. There is literally a refrigerator, a sink, and stove and nothing else. The little counter space we do have is dominated by a toaster oven that Alex insists is too small (“How am I supposed to toast enough bread to eat??” he asks. To which I respond, “NO ONE EATS AN ENTIRE LOAF OF BREAD AT ONCE DUMBASS.”) and my coffee maker, which, no I will not keep in cupboard because our cupboards are all taken. All of them. There isn’t even enough space to keep a proper set of mugs. Cooking in there is a pain, and absolutely impossible if another person is just INNOCENTLY trying to help.

Basically, cooking in our kitchen is a one-person job, which sucks when it’s my turn to cook.

Today, Alex and I decided that it was time to reorganize our kitchen, and I must say for being a kitchen that is too small to really stand in, we had a lot of shit packed in there. We pulled out an entire years worth of unopened canned food, prepackaged lunches, and unopened spices and other general unexpired items that we had – I swear to god – intended to eat and use. So we put everything in bags and made a few phone calls, and we are going to donate a whole bunch of food to a homeless shelter close to our apartment. After seeing all that food that effectively went to waste, Alex and I decided to be much more careful about how much food we buy, because really, while I can afford to sit here in my beautiful apartment and bitch about my small kitchen, there are so many others whose kitchens are empty or non-existent, and I am only happy that I can help in some small way.

I was watching the Daily Show tonight before bed. I don’t watch that show as much as I want to, or probably should. I don’t pay as much attention to the news and specifically political news as I did when I was in high school, and I often feel appropriately guilty about that.

In this particular episode, Stewart discusses the recent Mosque debate/debacle/general hot mess. In a seriousness that isn’t always present in his political commentary, he talked about the fear mongering being done around the issue and the disservice it is doing to our nation as a whole. In fact, he quoted Charlton Heston, a man not often quoted with much seriousness. Heston was speaking out after the liberal left demanded that the NRA not hold its annual conference near the site of the Columbine shooting. Jon Stewart admitted that he was one of the people demanding that the NRA cease and desist; that he was angry and worked up and totally, absolutely wrong. Heston was right: there will always be tragic events, and that is no reason to persecute entire communities of people.

“This cycle of tragedy-driven hatred must stop, because so much more connects us than that which divides us because tragedy has been, and will always be with us. Somewhere right now, evil people are planning evil things. All of us will do everything meaningful, everything we can do to prevent it, but each horrible act can’t become an ax for opportunists to cleave the very Bill of Rights that binds us. America must stop this predictable pattern of reaction. when an isolated, terrible event occurs, our phones ring, demanding that the NRA explain the inexplicable. Why us? Because their story needs a villain. They want us to play the heavy in their drama of packaged grief. – Charlton Heston, March 2, 1999

Source

Connecting two sick kids with a nation-wide group of largely reasonable people who just happen to hold a different set of beliefs (in fact, Alex’s dad is a card-carrying member of the NRA, and I quite like him) is just as insane as connecting a few sick extremists to a nation-wide group of largely reasonable people who just happen to hold a different set of beliefs. Regardless of political or religion affiliation, I think everyone can agree with that logic: one does not represent all, no matter how much we want them to.

Personally, the fact that Jon Stewart looked back to his own reaction to the NRA/Columbine event and could admit that he was wrong at the time only strengthens he current position. He understands what it’s like to be on the other side of the debate, and can admit that he has changed his mind. That, my friends, is feminism at its finest. When you can look back and admit your own biases and pitfalls, relinquish your hold on objectivity and admit that you, just like every other person who has ever lived, have your own bad of shit that comes with the opinion being offered, you are a feminist.

Sometimes, usually when I start to think about my impending graduation from college or my preferred life path that leads me to teaching a screaming room of 6th graders how to read critically, I want to be a professional blogger/writer/published author/badass.

I mostly aspire to the badass part of that profession.

The problem is that I don’t think I have the chops to make it in such a competitve industry, and the first thing a life coach will tell you is that you have to believe in yourself. So really, I have fucked myself before I have even started.

It’s not that I am trying to sabotage myself per se, it’s more that I just have a negative self image of myself. And by negative I mean like horrible, bad, Hitler-negative. I mean, it a combination of not knowing what I want out of life and not seeing a therapist. I also stopped taking my meds, a decision that has been both fantastic and wonderful and horrible and insane. I’m not sure if I’m feeling better, but I don’t feel numb anymore either. I hated not feeling – I couldn’t feel when people physically touched me, and I couldn’t feel when I was sad or happy or alone. This is better in some ways, but unbearable in others.

I want to write here, in this imagined space – I love writing and I love people reading my thoughts, but I feel so horribly inadequate at the same time. I feel like my thoughts aren’t worth the time of day for the people who know me best – so why would anyone (strangers no less) want to read about them? Why do my thoughts and observations deserve an audience?

So for now, I’m not going to answer that question. I’m not going to feel bad if I don’t want to write here one day, because this is for me and no one else at this point. If that is different in the future, than my desire to write here will also change. Right now I’m going to let this be a space where I work through what I am thinking about – even if what I’m thinking about isn’t funny or witty or lovely or politically correct. I don’t have to write poetry and high prose to be a writer. And even though my self-image is shit, that doesn’t mean my writing is. My writing is what it is, independent of what other people (including myself) think about it. Regardless of my audience size or quality I am going to write. I am going to write about what I’m thinking about, without the strain of trying to impress or measure up.

I spend all of my time and energy trying to get people to like me, and I try to meet to a standard set so high that I crash and burn every time I reach for that perfection that I demand of myself. Maybe, just fucking maybe, I don’t need to set the bar so high for this one little area. I don’t need to impress anyone because no one is listening right now anyway. I can still try (and fail) to be perfect in other areas of my life, but I don’t need to be perfect here. At least for now, I can free myself from the constraints of perfection in my written life and let myself cry metaphorically, and save my anguish for my failed attempts at physical and spiritual perfection in my “real” life.

I can let my apartment stay messy, I can hate my hair for not staying perfectly poufed and teased, I can loathe my waist for not being 28 inches around and I can black out my mirrors in mourning when I don’t learn a new skill on they first try, but I’m going to let my writing suck. I’m going to be okay with the fact that I don’t write on my blog every day, like I wanted. Just this once, I’m not going to beat myself up for my utter lack of perfection in this one area. Just this once.

I got my 60 day chip on Friday.

I have debated whether or not I wanted to tell the Internet and the world and more specifically Alex’s mom and my dad that I am in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn’t know if I wanted my friends to know, or if my telling would somehow impair the way I am perceived by those around me. Since going to meetings, I feel like everybody knows what I’m up to on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights.

I know that it’s nobody’s business but mine, but I am finally in a place where it’s okay if other people know. I am usually so afraid of people and what they think of me that I collapse under the weight of fear and hopelessness. So now I am taking a small portion of my fear back by willingly revealing my secret: I am an alcoholic.

Alcoholism has always been in my life, though it took me years to call it by name. My mother is an unhappy woman, with problems that I do not pretend to understand. She has been a mother to me and my siblings and a simple drunk to those who cannot see her for who she is. To me, she has been both loving and spiteful, my mother and my arch nemesis, always complicated and always more than just a drunk or just a mother. I love her, but I cannot and will not be her.

It was not until I was 13 that I realized that my family, my mother, was different. It did not occur to me that other mothers did not get drunk, and many did not even drink. Not even wine with dinner. Even in the tender early teenage years the thought of not having wine for dinner was scandalous, and that forgoing the after dinner cocktails was only done with eye rolls and for a damn good reason.

When I first named the alcoholism in my family, I was about 15. It started as a dirty word, spoken only in private, scribbled only in my diary, and bounced around in my head when left alone to think. It was the reason I never had my friends sleep over at my house and why my parents were so glad that I was going to be getting my license soon; I was going to be a permanent sober driver.

When I turned 18 the word came bursting out of my body. I started to tell my friends why I didn’t want them to come over and why sometimes I was sad for no reason. It started as cathartic, telling everyone that I had an alcoholic in the family and that it wasn’t my fault and that I love my mom but we have a different relationship than many mothers and daughters do. And it would all come tumbling out just like, half ramble, half confession, with a dash of release for good measure.

At 20, my therapist asked me if my willingness to talk about my mother’s disease was a way of avoiding my own emotional pain. I looked at her as if she trying to sell me a bridge. Um, hello. I am one of those people who talks about it. It. The Problem. I am obviously emotionally evolved. Duh.

Then she suggested Prozac and I said that that was probably a good idea.

And when I turned 21 I started drinking so much that I would black out. I would insist that I was sober, but really I would be falling down drunk and I just couldn’t tell. I finally started to admit that maybe I wasn’t so emotionally evolved and that perhaps I don’t let people in like I think I do and maybe my cathartic ramblings are only that: ramblings. When Alex suggested that I don’t let him in and that he sometimes feels like he doesn’t know who I am I scoffed him. And I kept drinking to prove that not only am I emotionally stable but I can handle the drug that has taken my mother down. Because I am not and will not be her.

When I turned 21 and a half in June Alex suggested Alcoholic Anonymous and I suggested he go take a nice long walk off a SHORT FUCKING CLIFF.

When I turned 21 and a half and two days Alex told me that I need to save our relationship by getting better. I needed to get sober so we could have a chance at the life we wanted together.

So I went. Because the look in his eyes told me that he loved me enough to leave me if I didn’t. So I did. Kicking and screaming and crying and literally using God’s name in vain just to be spiteful. I went.

And I kept going back. I’m thinking it was the free cookies and coffee and cigarettes. But I kept going. And now I go. It’s what I Do. I’m the official coffee lady at the Friday Night Davis Young People’s Meeting. And when I go there at 6:30 they greet me with hugs and smiles and a genuine interest in how I’m doing.

And so on Friday, I turned 2 months old. 60 days. I have a sponsor and friends and people call me. I do things now. I even go to parties. SOBER. I KNOW. IT’S FUCKING WIERD, ISN’T IT??!?!?!?!

The other day, I was at a newsstand, buying a few magazines. After I picked up my copy of the newest Oprah Magazine, I walked up to the counter to pay and there was a large display of Snickers bars on the counter.

I looked at the display, and all I could think about was buying 5 or 6 and eating them in quick succession. I started obsessing about the creamy chocolate and smooth caramel and crunchy peanuts; I had a vision of myself laying on a big white bed in a long white dress stuffing my face with Snickers bars. It bordered on an erotic fantasy.

I quickly realized that even if I did buy 5 or 6 or 10 bars and ate them in quick succession, there would be no white bed or silky dress or euphoria. There would be me, cramped in a corner, eating until I couldn’t anymore and then riding out a stomach ache of epic proportions. There would probably be tears, and there would definitely be regret.

Not my finest quality, true. My “secret” food and eating behaviors are less “secret” and more “totally unsurprising because I will tell you if I’ve known you more than 10 seconds.” I am not a private person, by any stretch, but my motivations are often are buried beneath the act itself, and my immediate jump to speak on the superficial acts betrays my fear of the deeper emotional causes. The reckless abandonment and the free spirit that I so desperately crave in my life often manifests itself in food. I want to be carefree and free of constant regulation, and to do get that I often go to unhealthy extremes in eating, exercise, and physical appearance in general.

Look at me using my therapy in real life.

In the 2 second space between seeing the Snickers display at the newsstand and placing my items in front of the clerk, all of this rather depressing information flashed though my mind. I stood there, drooling at the candy isle and I heard Alex say behind me, “Babe, do you want the candy bar?”

“Um… errr… well…” HELL THE FUCK YES I DO!

“Yeah, we’ll take the Snickers. Do you want 2?”

“No. One is fine. Thank you.” ONE TIMES TEN MAYBE.

So I took my candy and put it in my purse. I carried it around with me for the next couple of days, waiting for the perfect moment to eat it, to enjoy it as much as I possibly can. And then, I was sitting on the couch with Alex, totally content. Calm. Serene. And I looked in my purse and pulled out the Snickers bar. Without looking at the nutritional information, without lamenting about the hours at the gym this was going to cost me, without regret or mania or tears, I ate it. The creamy chocolate, the smooth caramel and crunchy peanuts pleased me without a heavy heart, and after I finished I didn’t want another one. I smiled and continued on with my day, pleased with myself and my brief and oddly sexual Snickers bar experience.