GodsOwnParadox

I suppose I should come up with a witty icebreaker of some type. Sorry. I can’t do it today. Instead, we’ll just jump right in.

Today, I’m out of stock on wit or cleverness of any kind. While we’re being honest, I woke up earlier than I wanted to with a mild anxiety attack in addition to opiate withdrawals. (If you’ve never experienced them, opiate withdrawals are a special ring of hell designed for those of us who have real pain and are unfairly further punished by their own body or those of us who have no real pain and are dumb enough to use narcotics as a crutch instead of getting a fucking hobby. My fiance is the former case. I am, quite obviously, the latter.)

The first thing you need to know about me is that I’m bluntly honest, but not to the point of being crude. I’m not one of those women who will go into gratutuious detail about her menstrual cycle or a bout of flatulence. When I encounter a woman who is that way, my first thought is always the same:

“You aren’t cool, or progressive, or blurring any gender lines by being ‘cool’ about bodily functions. Shut up, bitch, or go to the pasture with the other livestock.” 

Just one of my pet peeves. 

So you can rest assured there will be no discussions of my PMS or graphic descriptions of childbirth on this blog. I’m not an ob/gyn. I know how my own girl parts work, and I don’t need to discuss it with others. 

In what I now think of as my former life, I managed restaurants and retail stores. I spent a total of seven years of my life behind counters or in cramped, filthy closets that were supposed to be my office, forcing my permanent frown into a smile long enough to fool the universe into thinking I didn’t hate every second of my job. I made decent money. I bought and paid for a lot of things, some of which I needed, most of which I didn’t. 

I had cars. I paid the utilities. I provided for my family. I nurtured addictions and paid for them. I went to work every day, hung over or not, sick or not, and choked back the acid in my mouth long enough to make a few real friends at a couple of different jobs that I still have today. (One job allowed me to meet my now fiance, although he was not my co-worker. We’ll get into that at another time. I’ll only hit you with so much scandal per post.)

Then, a month ago, for the first time in my life, I got fired.

I’m not at liberty at this point to discuss exactly why I was fired, but let’s just say I was accused of not following policies. 

My fiance, whom I will simply call Grimm (there’s a story behind the nickname, but it’s not my place to tell it) and I have our wedding date set for October 29th, so of course I panicked at the thought of not having the money to pay for the wedding. We also have five children ( three his, two mine, none of whom live with us full-time at the moment, unfortunately) between us who of course need a constant paycheck. His SSID (full Social Security disability, for those of you not versed in government-pay lingo) doesn’t go any farther than paying our monthly bills. He’s religious about paying the bills, however, as amazing as the man is, he can only do so much with his money. Grimm has several different genetic disorders that affect his bones and muscles and is in constant pain. His doctor refuses to increase his pain medication (90 Vicodins and 16 Fentanyl patches per month) although if Grimm takes his medication as prescribed, it will only last 20 days no matter how you slice it. So for ten days out of the month, we’re forced to buy pain pills off the street, which is easy enough in our town, but at five to eight dollars a piece, five pills a day…well, you do the math. Even for only 10 days out of the month (and that’s if it’s a good month where he doesn’t injure himself or offer me more of his medication than he should), it is in no way cheap. I don’t mind the expense. I mind not having the funds available to spend, if that makes sense. 

I developed an opiate habit the same way everyone else develops one, except it was easier for me, having a supply right at home. Grimm is a strong, opinionated man, but he has never had the heart to say anything adverse to me about my opiate habit except for one time. (I had eaten 20 of his Vicodins in two days. He had every right to throw me out the door, but instead, he said mildly, “Baby, you’ve got to cut this down. I’m not asking you to stop, just cut back to what you were taking before, because we cannot manage this.”) After that particular incident, I was wracked with guilt for taking so much of the medication he honestly needs. I woke up one morning two days after that conversation with the raging impulse to detox, and detox I did, in all it’s sweating, irritable, problematic intestine, crying, rapid pulse, nausea, and dialated-pupil glory. I drank a lot of water and ingested a ridiculous amount of muscle relaxers and OTC ibeuprofen.

Then I got the idea in my head that it was okay to take a half a pill or three “every once in a while,” and then we came across a supply of Vicodin 10mg pills. Not to mention the fact that Grimm loves me and wants me to be contented at all times. So he offered, I accepted, and here we are again, with me sweating and cantankerous in our kitchen, hiding from my small universe because I’m a raging mess of dopesickness and my usual insanity. All thrown into a blender and mixed with the fact that we are currently broke, I’m not quite up to “witty” or even “conversational.” 

I suppose I’m picking the wrong day to publish my first blog, however, I have never had a knack for timing, so to hell with it. 

Tomorrow is the day I resume the search for a job that will not make me want to rip my hair out (i.e. not a management position). Tomorrow is the day I must force myself back into the world after almost a month home. 

Today is the day I realize agoraphobia is sitting on my chest with its claws sunken in and that I will be forced to deal with it.

Water. Ibeuprofen. A lot of non-standing positions. Grinding my teeth and wishing the love that normally is myself would come out of my lips instead of the short bursts of apathy and meanness that is stress and withdrawal and everything else. 

No more escape, anywhere. Life cornered me and clawed me to shreds when I wasn’t looking. Damn it. 

The best part is knowing you have to lick your wounds and get on with it because it’s not just your life. It’s mine, and the kids’, and Grimm’s. I say that’s the best part because, knowing that, I don’t have an option to be lax about these things anymore. 

Everyone bitches about responsibility and accountability. But for me, after living most of my life without having to account for a solitary thing, it’s actually lovely, loving people enough to not consider being a sub-par person and provider an option.

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