Maybe We Should Go Back

Forward

I haven't had much time to write lately. I feel like I've been busier than I have ever been in my life. Every second is packed with parenting, my job, working out, or driving miles and miles each day. Don't get me wrong, I feel really good. Hopeful. Very alive. Like I just came out of a coma. I actually remember things now and can tell reality from dreams (most of the time). 

When I was at the worst of the addiction, I mean completely saturated with opiates, I felt that I was always sleeping and awake at the same time. I existed in a never-ending waking dream. That is not some poetic way of talking about addiction. I really, literally mean waking dream.  I could never actually "sleep" when I tried. Instead I would lay down, close my eyes, and I knew full well that I was still conscious, but I would also be having these really vivid REM cycle dreams at the same time.  It was the weirdest feeling ever.  This would happen too when I would start nodding or even just sitting there in this very relaxed state. These were very mundane dreams too. For example, I would think I had washed Ethan's laundry because I did so in a dream that felt real, only to find out I never did the laundry. With every conversation or action came this cloudy feeling of, "Is this really happening or am I dreaming?" It was like watching someone else live my life. Nothing felt real. I still look back at that time, and huge chunks of days are just missing. I don't know where they went or if I will ever get them back. 

That's why I say I feel like I woke up from a coma. It's like my body has been dying to do all this stuff again, like play with Ethan, work out, dance, have sex. All these things I couldn't do or just didn't want to do back in the dreamworld. 

Cravings are virtually nonexistent now because I am on 4 Suboxone a day. It cost me $320.00 dollars a month, with a GoodRX coupon. Without the coupon, including my insurance, this drug costs $800 dollars. Without insurance, I think it's like $1200? Don't know. But no wonder there's an addiction crisis. Nobody can afford this shit. I wanted to go down to 3 because of the cost but I know right now I am good at this level so I'm not going to do that until next month.

I try to not think about how hard this is and the fact that I have virtually no support system. Every day I just go forward with blinders on, keeping me from thinking about all the ways this can crash and burn, all the ways I will fail. It's like walking with your fingers in your ears saying "Lalala can't hear you." I have one singular focus, and that is forward. No matter how this day or that day sucks, I only go forward. On days I fuck up with my work out plan or some other thing, I only go forward. It's the only way I can ever even have hope of getting back to the life I used to have and enjoy. Just keep going forward with all the stuff crashing around me, forcing myself to say it doesn't matter, just go, go, run.

I absolutely cannot stop to think about the pandemic, the state of the country, the fact that I can't see my family or friends, the endless alone-ness. I don't necessarily mean "loneliness" (even though God knows there's enough of that) but alone-ness in every area of life, like not being able to have a chat with strangers in the grocery store or Ethan not being able to play with kids on the playground. Just this sense of isolation, of separation. It feels like this will never end. But that's why I'm just going forward. I can't let myself look at the shittiness around me or I will stop. I'm running out of a burning house and I don't have time to save anything but myself.