December 24, 2008

I was doing alright.  I really was.

Then I wasn’t.

I thought that getting out of Jen’s house and coming home would be the hardest part after the funeral – but boy did I fucking underestimate.  Cuz when I got here, the moving truck with all her stuff was waiting for me.  Shit, I had forgotten about that.  I couldn’t bring myself to even go near the thing.  It sat there, mocking me for more than two weeks before I worked up the stones to open up the back.

I swear to God, the truck smelled like her.  I shoved up the door, and a subtle cloud of Jen’s essence floated out around me.  I crawled inside with her stuff and just cried.  I meant to go through some of the boxes, but when I opened the first one, and there on top was the picture I gave her of the first time we met back in the 90’s, I lost it.  I slumped to the floor, which wasn’t easy – that truck was pretty packed and I’m not a small guy.  Jon found me curled up on the floor of the truck a couple days later.  I hadn’t eaten, barely slept – just sat there with her stuff all around me, trying to feel comfort.

He said “fuck this”, dragged my ass out of the truck and to a head shrinker.  Fucking hell.  I can’t believe I’m going to a fucking shrink.  I also can’t believe I’m writing all this shit down.  I’m not a writer – not like that.  I fuck around with music and lyrics and the occasional essay, but I don’t write like this.  Not in a frickin’ diary – sorry, JOURNAL.

The shrink said a journal would help.  He said I don’t have to share what I write in it with him or anyone else if I don’t want to, but I should still tell it shit – treat it like a “silent therapist”.  Hah!  What the hell am I paying HIM for then?  If a silent therapist is going to help, then I don’t have to pay $350 an hour for some quack to sit there with his stupid white beard and his stupid half-moon glasses sitting on the end of his stupid nose looking like stupid Santa Claus.

He said I should actually talk to this diary/journal thing like it was a person – to name the fucking notebook and have conversations with it. 

But not to name it Jennifer.

He has no right to say her name to me.  NO fucking right at all.  I wanted to punch his smug face in for him.  But I didn’t.  I don’t need that kind of aggravation.

I’ll name the fucking book.  I’m naming it ‘Asshole’.

It’s my journal; I can do whatever the hell I want to.

You know, that damned doctor had the nerve to laugh at me when I got pissed and told him to fuck off, that he was full of shit about the notebook.  He said I wasn’t the first to tell him that, and I wouldn’t be the last.  He said I didn’t even use the most colorful language, and I didn’t hold back.  Then when I was sitting there surprised at this frickin’ Santa was laughing at me, he got serious.  “Nothing else is working, is it?” he says.  “You don’t want to go back to being a drunk do you?” he says. 

I don’t know.  Maybe I do.  Things felt so much better when I was neck deep in the bottle.

Jon had stayed with me that day at the doc’s – the stubborn prick.  He knew it was the only way he was going to get me to stay.  We don’t share this shit outside the family.  Airing all this touchy-feely shit; digging into this soul-deep pain is really to-the-grave stuff.  The world doesn’t have to know.  We take care of our own.  I don’t need someone outside my brothers seeing how fucked up I am.  No way.  Shit, I don’t even want the guys seeing me like this.  Jon won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, though, when he insisted on coming with me to the shrink, which is pissing me the fuck off. 

And I hate to say it, because it’s mean and spiteful, and I feel like shit for even thinking it, but as long as I’m venting: seeing Jon with T?  Seeing him with the woman he loves just pisses me off something fierce.  There I said it.  I’m jealous that his girl is still here and mine isn’t.  Not that I want her dead, because she’s a nice lady, but she had cancer for fuck’s sake. If ANYONE should be mourning, it’s Jon.  But no, he has a tough broad who beat her rap, and I had marshmallow Jen.  Jen who would have done anything I asked.  Hell, she DID do anything I asked.  Including getting on that plane.  For me.  So yeah, when the doctor asked me if I wanted to go back into the bottle, I had to think about it for a second.

Oh, and by the way – all that cancer shit right there, Asshole, is something else that will go to the grave.  I will never, EVER, let Jon know that thought even crossed my mind.  And if Dr. Santa says anything, not only will I sue his ass and have his license revoked, but I will beat him senseless.  Jon and T have been nothing but good to me, putting their lives on hold to take care of my sorry ass, they do not need my lunatic ravings.

Jon, the fucker, actually had the balls to slap me upside the back of the head when I thought about drowning in a bottle again.  I know drinking never solved shit, but I don’t actually want a solution.  I want oblivion; merciful, total numbness.  Just for a while -- just until the pain won’t be so bad when I come back.  Jon won’t let me get away with that again; I know it.   Besides, Jen would be so disappointed in me if I did that.

Anyway, I talked to the guy and I did feel a little less like shit, so I’m giving this writing thing a try.  I can see that I was a total mess after the truck, and maybe the shrink wasn’t such a stupid idea, but I did get better – WITHOUT you, Asshole.

But I gave my word, and I keep my word.  So, Asshole, I’ll tell you shit.   I don’t have to like it, but I’ll do it.