Sunday, January 20, 2008

Drinking, smoking, other vices, and change

Today i feel strangely numb, and i have a desire to drink and smoke cigarettes. I gave up cigarettes about two weeks ago, and gave up drinking "abnormally" at about the same time. The cigarettes i gave up for a couple reasons, but only one of them actually gave me the motivation i needed to be able to do it. The reason was that I wanted to see if i still had strength of will left in me. In my life i felt like i knew, whith each choice i made, whether that choice was a victory or a loss. I felt like i was losing all the time. Quitting smoking was a way to prove that i still had the ability to win these battles, a way to prove that i could still summon up self control. I feel like i have been in a sort of slumber for the past 5 years, and that now i am finally starting to wake from it. I was becoming a spectre, losing form, now i am starting to take form once again. This is due largely to the fact that i recently have acquired a girlfriend. Though she might hate to hear that she is a reason for the change. She would hate to hear it because she always insists that i do things for myself, and never for her. But i am making these changes for myself, but she is definetly helping me. Sometimes i wonder if i understand her well enough. We have only been together for about 2 months approximatley, i have a horrible sense of time. Things started off really well and the relationship moved fast. It seemed premature to me when she asked me if i wanted to be exclusive, but i said yes because i wanted to be. Then she said that she loved me, which i also thought seemed rather soon, and wondered how she possibly could. I dident say that i loved her at the time, but i have said it since and i believe it. My life is seeming to improve greatly with her present in it, but not everything is roses. I have been feeling intense emotions, emotions that hurt me. I feel a fire inside of me that burns and motivates me to win the little battles that i talked about earlier. But this fire hurts me as well. I feel rage at not being a better person, and this rage gives me the motivation to change. She says that she wants to be whith me but that i need to have a plan to become somebody who she deserves to be whith. When she says this part of me tells myself that when i fulfill my potential i will deserve more than her, but i think that is bitterness talking, but still i cant deny having thought it. Right now im scared, scared that i wont be able to keep this positive momentum going, if it is indeed positive. I am not changing for her, but for myself. She brings up other complaints as well, she says that i do not show enough interest in her and her life. And that she doesent feel like she can come to me whith her probelms and that i dont give her enough advice about what to do. Also when she gives me these concerns she has yelled at me for "looking hurt" and making her feel like she needs to comfort me when she is the one that needs comforting. Also sometimes when she comes at me whith these concerns i sometimes freeze up and dont know how to respond, i feel like i cease to become aware of how i feel, which she also does not like. She has also said that she thinks that sometimes i behave in a way that encourages her to tell me bad things about myself. It was 2 nights ago that all these things came out. Things seem okay now, but i feel like that discussion is looming over us. I want to work on all the things that she said about me, sometimes i feel like it is humiliating though, but i think i need to just push that feeling back. My plan is to not stress too much over this whole thing, to keep winning the little battles of my life, and to do my best to become more emotionally honest and open whith her. Another challenge that i am facing is coming up whith ideas of what the two of us can do for fun. She has voiced that she needs me to be more outgoing and creative in this manner. I think that the problem is that for 5 years now my only idea of fun has been drinking and smoking. I am starting to enjoy other things like the outdoors, but i feel like my idea-coming-up-whith muscle has grown weak. I am trying to strengthen it though, ive been painting, exercising, hiking, ice skating, feeding the ducks, and going to poetry readings. But i still feel a panic at coming up with fun things to do. Even taking showers regularly, and taking care of my higene has been a change that i have undergone. I used to walk around smelling to tell the truth. So thats where i am now.

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