zero sugar

I've been down with the Plague for most of the week. Four consecutive days off work and I'm finally starting to feel better now the weekend's half over. And I haven't managed to consume any red wine at all.

I went to the dentist today and was brutalized by a bad tempered hygienist who made me want to poke her in the eye with that pointy little thing she kept stabbing my gums with. I never understand why some hygienists can make a cleaning so painless while others seem to enjoy making it torturous.

So tomorrow I'm back to writing my paper, finishing touches, and then it's due Tuesday. I wish I'd chosen a different topic now but I don't want to rewrite at this late date. So onward. Go go go... B-plus. Phhhttt.

Things have been calm with C for the last little while. I'm not entirely sure why. I keep reading about people who've lost their addicts to overdoses, heart attacks, organ failure... and I want to believe C can get better... but I'm worried she won't. Truly. So maybe I should treasure these moments of calm as much as I can. I've agreed to take them out tomorrow for a couple of hours. Again, hoping for no incidents.



*

unequivocally

This week has been busy. First there were the rehearsals for Dry Grad. (Dry Grad offends me, largely because it's not "dry" and largely because its coordinator seemed drunk during the show.)

Today we had a tech rehearsal for the One Act Festival. Gawd, I love my little tech crew. In retrospect I know I pursued the wrong aspect of theatre. I always ask kids to consider whether they're serious about acting or whether they just really really want a lot of attention. And in fact if I'd considered that question myself at their age, I'd probably have become a lighting or a sound operator instead of an actor in university.

I love my little tech crew.

They were so delighted by the tech booth that they took pictures of it on their cell phones to post on their Facebook pages. Too cute. Sometimes I want to stroke R~'s hair (but that's a weird thing to say). I don't mean it in a weird way. It's just because he's so sweet. And P, talking to his mom in Mandarin on his cell phone in my car.... "blah blah blah 100th Avenue and 55 Street blah blah blah". I wonder why I was so dumb in high school that I wanted to love actors and wanted them to love me. I look at my tech crew... and see the same thing these generations later. Girls don't love these boys. And yet, they really are the most lovable ones. They're the ones who have substance and character and personality. They're the ones who love themselves enough not to need the spotlight to be on them. They're the ones who really have the courage. (Rawwwweeeeer)

So tomorrow afternoon I'm giving up part of my weekend to attend the One Act Festival with my maniacs.

And Sunday I am "supervising" a visit between Little J and C. (This may be sheer stupidity. We'll see.)

And after that... the rest of the day is dedicated to writing a paper worth 25% of my final grade in this course. So shhhhhh.



*

Yesterday was a low day. I was emotional and feeling awful. Today I decided I needed to talk to C because I just can't live with myself when I don't soften when I need to.

She admitted she was kicked out of treatment, although her reasons were not completely coherent.

I called the centre and tried to advocate on her behalf to have them take her back. They said they were going to talk about it and make a decision in the next week.

I hope they'll let her return.

As must as the cold part of me lets go and gives up hope, there's always the other part that wishes to god something would change.


*

Less optimistic some days. I wonder why there are days that I can be at peace with what is happening and accept that I cannot do anything about it... and other days when it pains me so much.

A well-known problem with studying psychology is that we tend to diagnose ourselves as well as others. Unfortunately today, while poring over Adler, suddenly I saw C in his words, his description of those children who feel inferior and purposeless and become lost. And I regret so much that it happened to her. Wish so much that someone could have saved her before it got so bad and she had to go through all this pain.

I hate that she is in pain.

I hate that she has been in pain so many years.

I hate that she was born different and that it has caused her to suffer.

I hate that she's in danger and that I can't save her. I hate that she thinks I'm her enemy. I hate that I'm losing her more every day.

*

*

Though my fears have allowed me long and frequent periods of uncertainty, I am becoming more and more sure of the fact that we are going to have Little J here with us until she is grown up and ready to move out on her own. We are effectively her parents and I cannot foresee a change in C that will ever allow her to resume that role, sad as it is.

Though it is so sad watching C choose her drug over her daughter, choosing to die slowly and with no grace, it is simultaneously a miracle to watch her daughter blossom into a more confident, more happy version of who she was seven and a half months ago when she arrived here. In spite of what's happening to her mother.

I'm heartbroken and optimistic simultaneously, nurturing and mourning at the same time.



*

straight ahead and rest assured you can't be sure at all

So C is back living with Hairy Scary. This is hugely disappointing if not very surprising. Undoubtedly after the two weeks of stabilization was over and they tried to get her to stop using she went into withdrawal and ran away. Or was kicked out for breaking rules. Either way, it's disappointing. I wonder if Hairy Scary is going to pay for her funeral and eulogize her. "I loved her too much to encourage her to finish rehab. Three weeks without a blow job was all I could take."

It makes me sick.

He doesn't care about her at all.
He just cares about the fact that she can plump up his sagging self-esteem because she needs him to stay off the streets while no one else in the world needs him for anything. He's a big empty hole.

Little J is handling it well, though. I'm seeing strength in her that defies logic. She's amazing.


*


It's weird watching old episodes of Three's Company and shows like that from the 70s and 80s before everyone had botox and collagen injections. They looked so much more human in those days.




*

ferry between friends

The prickle on the back of my neck wasn't about Little J about going back to her mother. It was about C running away from rehab again. Tonight Little J called the treatment centre to wish her mother an early Happy Valentine's Day and they told her that C had left.



*

i'm caught out of time, my blood sings with wine

I feel like something is going to happen. Like that little prickle you get on the back of your neck, that little prickle when there's a lightning storm brewing nearby and it hasn't touched down but it's getting too close.

C has been communicating to me through email. This is better than trying to have any kind of conversation with her on the phone but it's still not as good as a complete disconnect would be. She says her lawyer wants the dates of Little J's visit to the grandparents. I'm nervous, of course, because she has threatened to phone every airline on the planet to scare them into not letting the little one travel in spite of the court order that says she may.

And of course when I went to check on that order, something had held it up in process.

That's when the prickle started.

I fear what's going to happen if/when C has completed her 90 days of treatment. Will custody be returned to her just like that? Little J, understandably, doesn't want to go. And we don't want her going back into the wasp's nest.

We have no way of knowing what will happen. People are comforting. They tell us it won't happen like that. But it's still worrying. And how do we keep Little J from being subjected to that worry?

I've made a rule for myself that I will only drink on the weekends so that I won't succumb to the pressure by diving all the way into the bottle, tempting as it is at times.

*