Dec 31, 2009

Comfortably Numb

I just got off the phone with BA. We were going to go to a New Year's party, but we decided not to, which is frankly fine with me. I'm fucking exhausted. I've haven't been sleeping for shit lately, and I just don't feel up to dealing with a bunch of noise and drunks and loud music. Or with her, for that matter. Having to manage my feelings and manage my people-pleasing tendencies and manage the awkwardness of our potential physical relationship and watching what I say and trying to be witty and trying to be funny and manage manage manage...I think I'm really OK with just sitting this one out and ringing in the decade with my computer. I love you, computer! You're always there for me. Will you marry me?

I got a massage yesterday. I have a really good, young, female massage therapist - and no, it's not that kind of massage. I don't live in Tijuana. Anyway, I hadn't had one for awhile, and I noticed how much better I felt afterward. How much more alive, more energy, and just an overall sense of physical wellbeing. Since I'm currently single, massage time is the only time I get any sort of extended physical contact with another human being. Oh sure, I get hugs at meetings and certainly I feel loved and cared about by my friends, but that deep, physical yearning never gets met. The only creature I have significant touch with is my dog. She likes to cuddle up on the couch and watch movies. I'm glad I have her, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be getting ANY touch. Plus I don't have to pay her.

Having some physical intimacy with a woman made me realize how shut down I've become. I'm numbed out, living mostly in my head because trying to be in my body and cope with how I'm feeling is too hard. Until yesterday, I guess that strategy was working because I felt...not a hell of a lot. Blank. Empty. Not in pain, just...nothing. It's a weird feeling, especially for someone like me who's used to always feeling so much. I think I'd rather be in pain than live in that blank, robot state. That seems worse than pain for some reason. There's something creepy about it. It's like being dead.

I'm not numb today. I'm feeling again. It's hard, but I think I like it better, even though it hurts. Mostly I feel exhausted. I'm so tired of coping with all this fear, always being afraid. And trying to keep up at work and make enough money. And taking care of the dog. Cleaning, for God's sake. And taking basic care of MYSELF. Diet, exercise, meetings, forcing myself to go be social. It's so hard to find any balance. Where is the energy supposed to come from? I've been overwhelmed for so long I've just kind of accepted it as normal. And it's getting harder, because I'm getting weaker as I get older. I feel more and more debilitated by it all and don't know how to get adequate help coping. How do single parents do it? Christ, I'd be dead in a week!

I guess that regular physical contact really does improve your health. That's why the weird lesbian who lives on the top floor of your building has 11 cats. She wouldn't have the strength to keep going otherwise. And the type of contact I crave lately is not sexual, which is also a very new and weird thing for me. I shared at a meeting recently that pursuing women and romance and fantasy and sex was what got me out of bed in the morning for the last 25 years. And it's true. That's what I lived for, for a long, long time. SallyMandy commented that her addictions loved her until they abandoned her. That's exactly what this feels like; the longterm love affair with sex and love is over. Now what?

Stay alive and try to find another way to live, or go numb?


5 comments:

  1. You seem to write the kind of blog-posts which prevents me from just writing a short 'oh, how nice' type of response. I kind of lived without my body for a very long time. There were good reasons for that, which I imagine it is for a lot of people. Numbness serves a purpose. I believe it defends you when you can't or won't adress a potentially damaging situation. Eventually you got to get rid of it too, though. At least this can open up to new areas of growth, I believe.

    And like you said: physical contact is needed. Whatever form it takes, it adresses a deep seated need in most of us. Getting a good massage is probably a very good outlet to satisfy this need. I am actually taking a small course to learn myself techniques on how to give better massages. I realised how incredibly positive it was when I recieved it as part of physical therapy I got through a medical treatment program I was part of (and still are).

    Have a good day whenever you read this.

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  2. Thank you for visiting! Yes, I love Journey and that song. Now I have Ms. Nina Simone. =)

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  3. Suecae, I should take a course like that. Sounds like a great idea.

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  4. I too, miss touch. And you're right - it's the intimacy that is what's missing. Not sex. Just the other day, I was at a party with my friends and one of the men whom I know and love as a brother cuddled me for just a little bit and I put my head on his shoulder and relaxed for just one second. And it felt like heaven.

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  5. Touch is the best, isn't it? I got some from a good woman friend recently, too, and GOD I felt better afterwards! I want that a LOT more often!

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