Nothing more than feelings . . .

My tummy hurts! Ahhhhhh! I think that one big gallstone that is in the way is trying to go through my duct but can't get in the opening, and it's just pushing and pushing and ARG! I hate having gallstones. I want the damn thing cut out of me already, it's been a really awful couple of years. I drank three pops and some fried food and I think that's gotten to me. I have had to cut back drastically on my pop intake, and I was doing pretty good, one pop a day, my tummy wasn't bothering me. But then I had three today! Oh noes!

Anyway, that really wasn't what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about is being frustrated by my addictions and feeling like a low life trying to talk about it. FUCK! Why do I belong to stigmatized segments of society? Is it because I am an artist? No! It is because I am a Thirza, with flaws and strengths that sometimes fight with each other.

Ever since my ex told me she didn't want to be with me because I had no drive, ambition, or willpower, and that my inability to conquer my addictions reveals a character flaw, I've been using pretty hardcore! Like "OH yeah! Well fuck you I'm gonna go get drunk with my friends and puke over the side of the bed and smoke so much pot I will have forgotten you!" And it kind of worked, I did forget about her, and move on. But I also treated my body terribly and now it doesn't feel good. And maybe part of it made me throw in the towel on cutting back and so forth. Like "Well Rheanne already said I failed at quitting so I might as well FAIL!"

God my tummy hurts! One small relief is that the searing pain of having a stone go through my duct hasn't happened in a while since this horking great big stone got in the way.

Still hurts though.

A friend of mine has been pestering me to reveal feelings. I thought I already did, but I guess I am a bit closed off still. I dunno, what feelings? I have feelings about everything, but since I have a mood disorder and am being treated for it, they manifest differently than they did before. I still fall crazy in love and all that, and if a movie is really sad I will cry. Maybe I just don't feel like I have any feelings I want to share. I try to take the middle road on feelings and not get caught up in sadness or manic happiness. I dunno. So many things have happened to me in my life that I just kind of plod along like an ox pulling a plow. And then I do have wildly fantastic secret feelings that I always let slip out in subtle ways around friends. Like how I feel about certain persons and getting a goofy smile on my face when I talk about them. Really though I want to make grand gestures and get caught up in love and stuff. But it's kind of hard when one interest is recovering from major surgery and the other lives over the ocean. Kind of puts a damper on declaring feelings and so forth.

BUT REALLY! What feelings? I shall have to think of what I am feeling these days.

I am feeling anxious about my grandparents. I know they won't be around much longer and I want to see them lots. We see them probably a couple times a week. My granny is getting so frail and already her spinal discs are disintegrating. And my Grandpa doesn't hear very well anymore. They were fairly prominent in my childhood and I've always had a close bond to them. I'm scared about saying goodbye.

I am feeling a sore tummy. Oh, you know that. Well I am feeling nervous about my upcoming surgery, I am worried I will wake up on the operating table.

I'm scared for my future because I am starting my own business and haven't got any equipment yet and need to do some more work, and will always be having to do more work, and I have had to turn down work because I don't have equipment.

OH! I am happy about one new development in my life. Little Pine First Nations, my reserve, has bought land just outside of Saskatoon near Wanuskewin and my Mum and I are going to get a little plot of land and build a container house duplex with a shared kitchen and laundry room. We figure we can do it with three containers, and we will have a fence to keep out wildlife and keep in our dogs, and a hot tub, and a fire pit and a deck. And if I decide to move to a big city for a while or something, she can use my half for her studio. And because it will be reserve land, we won't have to pay taxes on anything we make and anything we order by mail.

And there will be no bloody basement!

I feel frustrated with my addictions because they are so fun and social, and while I do a lot of solitary smoking, I also have a lot of nameless friends who partake with me while chillaxing. I don't know, maybe even if I just cut out the solitary smoking. I'm confused. MY psych nurse just wants me to stop completely, but I have a lot of reservations about that.

I'm worried about a cousin of mine, because I am not sure she is really out of the danger zone yet from a mental health episode and I worry she has thrown away her medication and I don't want to see her have to go back to the hospital for a third time this year. And because I wrecked my relationship when I went off my meds, I am worried about people going off their meds. Sooner or later they all seem to end up in the hospital having to take meds again, and some of those meds don't work as well if they are always being stopped and started. And also just because I know the body is really exhausted after a manic episode and typically coming down from one involves a bit of suicidal thinking. At least for me.

It's because it is embarrassing to lose control and run around with no clothes and write scores of emails to a lover which estranges them because they are so bizarre. And also because all the seratonin gets used up in a manic episode and your body has to get it back to regular levels, so you feel like the best option is to walk off a bridge or something. And some people do it, as we well know. My post-manic depressions are usually terrible and long. Like a few months. It's like you are just shell shocked with all the risky things you did while you were crazy and are trying to make sense of yourself again.

This whole thing about feelings is silly. I repress my feelings! I could want to jump on someone and kiss them all over and all I will do is say hello and make some stupid joke.

I don't feel bad about being into Rheanne for so long though. I gave it a shot! I worked long and hard for it! But it was never to be. At least I tried, at least I didn't walk away from my feelings about her. At least I communicated my feelings to her. But she thinks I'm a loser! Whatever, what am I supposed to do about that? She and I haven't even spent time together since March 2007, so much has changed! I am sane now, mostly. Predominantly sane.

The thing is, if I am sleeping with someone I totally tell them all my feelings, even feelings I didn't know I was feeling. And not even just happy feelings, I tell them sad ones and angry ones and all the rest. I'll tell them a feeling I had in grade nine! I totally open up to women when I have sex with them. Not like, DURING sex, except for lovey lusty feelings of course. But after sex, before sex, between having sex and going for breakfast. And during cuddly times. I can keep very few things secret from my lovers. I like to think that is a plus in dating me.

That being said, I do keep some secrets secret from EVERYONE, believe it or not. Things that are between me and God!

Today I got sad while I ate my bacon. I thought about the pig who died to give me bacon and what kind of factory farmed life it had and was it meaningful and who was I to have an animal killed just so I could eat? Why is it's life less meaningful than mine? And I was thinking all these things and I couldn't stop eating the bacon because it tasted so good, so I tried to remember how humans have survived on meat for thousands of years and this is just what we do to survive and then I thought "This music is making me think about the sadness of eating meat!" And then I said to my friend "This music is depressing!"

No it's not, she said. And I ate my last piece of bacon.