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October 24, 2004
scream
2:34AM, Sunday, October 24, 2004
there is no way to scream. there is no way to scream in words. writers most effectively convey the emotions behind a scream with description of the sound of the scream, but there is no way to adequately convey a scream using a combination of 26 letters, even with the addition of punctuation. it has to be heard, it has to be felt in rough distortion against your eardrums, resonating in your chest, raising goosebumps on your skin.
for the last week, maybe two, i have wanted to scream. wanted to scream into some vast abyss like the main characters do in garden state, wanted to let it all out and feel the air and sound and this burning and horrible disruption i feel inside rip at my vocal chords, make my throat raw with passion, with everything that i've felt and am feeling and want to feel.
i couldn't do it. not in words, not in reality. i drank, i wrote, i fought the things i felt. the drinking pushed it back, gave me lapses of freedom to write and not be a slave to the things i felt. but it only pushed it down.
wednesday, i came down with the hives. welts exploded all over my body like the bites of a multitude of mosquitos. they would itch and disappear, only to reappear elsewhere. i went to the doctor on thursday, but i already knew what was happening - my body was rebelling against the imbalance it was being thrown into by my mind, my heart, my life, the drinking.
thursday, i held off from filling the prescription for the antihistamine the doctor prescribed, because for a while, the symptons lessened a bit. i did not drink on thursday, despite the eerie pull i felt to do so. by night, by the time i went to bed to prepare for the next day, they returned, as aggressively as ever. that night i could not fall asleep. my mind was overwhelmed with visions filled with an anger born of emptiness and bitterness. once sleep finally came, it was saturated with nightmares and more anger and sadness. i woke up yelling several times. in dreams, i remember wanting to drink to make it all stop. by the morning i was a wreck, pockmarked with the red, irritating bites of guilt and anger and hurt.
friday morning, i filled the prescription, took the pill, and within a couple of hours, the hives subsided. i did not drink on friday. against my own desires at the time, against the feeling of uselessness, and meaninglessness, i went to play basketball at UT for several hours after work. the sweat poured out of me, and i felt washed clean a bit.
today, saturday, i struggled. i ignored the calculation of meaning and significance. i did what needed to be done, no matter how my mind argued that those things were pointless. i ran errands, went to the gym, and went running around town lake. i felt no meaning, no feeling of impending success, but relied on the logical possibility that maybe these things would lead to something positive, would lead me back to hope. i even changed my mind about going to the humane society casino night benefit tonight with morgan and amanda.
our tickets to the benefit bought chips to gamble with, a raffle ticket, and two drinks each. still feeling the momentum of cleansing my mind and body, i ordered a water. but a water took a ticket just like a beer did, and i used it as an excuse to order one, just one beer.
the first taste set something off. i immediately wanted more, wanted that feeling that had sustained me so well, so erringly but unwaveringly well for the past month. but this time, it didn't liberate and lift me. instead, it brought reality crashing back down on me. or, at least, the reality of this moment in my life, divorced from the optimism of any hoped-for future.
we took a break and went to get food from the vietnamese restaurant next door. i had a tsing tao with my soup. then we went to the liquor store to buy beer to take back to the event. i had three harps, gave three away. i already felt ashamed for drinking, and for not wanting to stop.
after the event ended, morgan and amanda sensibly went home. i went downtown to meet jennifer and her friend carrie. harp, harp, harp, harp.
2:36PM, Sunday, October 24, 2004
ok, it's sunday afternoon now. i woke up a few hours ago and found that i'd gotten to the couch somehow. i feel as rough and uninspired as yesterday morning, but unlike last night, i can press, push on, ignore doubt, ignore the seeming certainty of living more of the same. the draft of this post was still sitting on my computer, waiting for an ending, for a resolution. i don't have one at the moment, except, again, to press on. i thought of deleting this post, but somehow censoring myself further just doesn't seem right.
Posted by Rob at October 24, 2004 04:34 PM