My flat is very small but it is very empty. At midday S told me she was off to stay with her sister, two hours north of here.
Considering she told me she was moving out nearly a month ago, you would think I should have been prepared for this. After all, can't a lad with a PC, dozens of unwatched movies, lots of books and an interest in coding, find something to do.
The answer is yes, I can find lots of things to do, I just don't have the motivation to do them at the moment. I stopped cooking dinners a month ago after S announced her imminent departure. My psyche seems to be balanced such that cooking is only worthwhile if I am doing it for someone that I believe reciprocates the feelings I have towards them.
I would love to hear an evolutionary theorist explain how this particular behaviour has evolved. Doesn't it mean (putting it very simply) that I will starve unless I feel loved? I guess this forces me to find someone that I think loves me (and also hopefully my offspring).
S said earlier she thought she'd never have kids. Why, I asked. Because of all the damage done by drug abuse.
S rarely brings up the concept of her and children. She used to say very strongly that she'd never be having kids with me, and as a 28 year old I didn't worry about it. There was always time I thought.
Now, seven years later, it is something I think on. S has a beautiful niece and I have a beautiful nephew (who I have not been able to visit due to my chemical handcuffs keeping me always within 24 hours of Brisbane). I think her niece has made an impact upon her and gotten her thinking about reasons for existing etc. And maybe that's why she's so depressed atm. Seven years of using leaves a physical scar in the crook of your arm, but little else. No asset growth, little emotional growth. All the traditional markers that society uses to measure your progress have been ignored.
Stupidly I scored earlier today. Using is such a bad idea at the moment - I just went nearly eight days clean, which is my best period of cleanliness in over 9 months. I was feeling like a human being, well a little. And most importantly, S and I were communicating and relating civilly, at least until last night. Last night S decided she wanted to score today. When we had had our last shot, on Friday 23/6/06, I told S that I did not want to do this with her again.
Of course, junkies cannot always be taken at their word, not necessarily because they are all liars, but because gabo is very powerful, and what an individual wants to do and what gabo will let them do can often be at odds. I have wanted to get clean since 1993 when I first checked into a detox centre (Biala) at Roma Street. I was using within 24 hours of getting out of there, a pattern I followed at all future detox attempts.
Anyway, I believed it when I said it. This is about as good as I get (as a junkie) to truth. Anyway, I went through the next eight days with enough money in my pocket to score anytime. Luckily I have made it fairly difficult to score easily - it takes day before planning to see the people I see, which is a good safety mechanism against spur of the moment using.
Friday, my payday and traditional scoring day, came along without S bring up gabo the night before. Holding back would have taken her considerable strength, given that it only takes the mention of it on Thursday night to make me score on Friday. "Don't forget gabo" is all that needs to be said. Yet another thing to be admired about her.
Last night she came home after having a few beers at the pub with her friends that I have never met. I had gotten frustrated at waiting for her and zipped off to the valley for a quick dinner and a couple of bourbon and cokes, the only alcohol I can endure.
I returned at nine, and soon she was ringing M to get the number of a local dealer we have lost touch with. M didn't have the number, and suggested she just go round. S and I went to bed without having discussed the matter (usual behaviour from me and her).
Did I mention that I brought home a box of flowers last night? I felt a bit silly when she hadn't turned up by 8, but left them on the coffee table.
So I awoke this morning, went in to work to do some "first day of the financial year" tasks. I remembered to say "White Rabbits" first thing, S refused to. I don't think it helps that much, I remember doing the same last month and that was the month S announced she was moving out. Maybe in a year or two, looking back, I will think June 06 was a good month, but standing here today I can't see it.
I was arranging scoring as soon as I sat at my desk. S and I had both slept fitfully during the night, sleeping head to toe as S has done for a month now. She doesn't pull away immediately if I touch her anymore, but she rolls away within a minute or two. The couch was where I would go when she pulled away before, now I just absorb the sadness. Maybe it goes into my pillow? Must remember to get rid of it if S really does go.
Anyway, the fitful sleep is something that usually happens when we are stoned on a Friday night, so we awoke thinking of gabo and using. Maybe that's why I arranged scoring first up. I picked up the gear from Murrarie on the way back from work at midday, and we were stoned and off to see Candy (Australian movie with Heath Ledger and Geoffrey Rush, dealing with junkie love).
The period from our shot (1230) to the movie (1245) was good. We smiled at each other, S even touched me. Fifteen minutes for $220. Then the movie, 2 hours of starkness. Not claiming similarities between S & I's relationship and the one we saw onscreen, but there certainly were things we could point to and say "We've made that mistake".
As I was parking in the city near the Dendy, S reminded me that I was a friend. This is her explanation, or the closest thing I can find, for why she is moving out. Apparently S and I have been friends and friends only these last five years. I thought I was waiting for her to deal with some issues that would allow her to become physical with me again, but this was not the case. Somehow we stopped being lovers in 2001 and became friends.
All that time I was waiting for something that was never coming. And now I've gone and used, which sets me back to day one of dealing with S leaving. I have to start afresh on the painful mindf*% path that is rejection. The only thing I have asked her to do since she said she was leaving was to "Please stay, but if you are going, please go quickly".
She's halfway through her school holidays and hasn't packed a bag. Every time I allow myself to build a little hope that maybe she is staying, maybe the whole deal with her saying I am only a friend is all a ruse to help her make it easier to leave me, she says something like "You'll need to teach me how to cook before I go". It's as though she can tell the moment I relax a little, and socks in a comment like that to skittle my dreams.
She is so angry about something! She resolutely refuses to forgive me for some failing that I do not know, and she will never let me know what it is.
So I continue to punish myself with gabo - a moment's blind joy for a week's despair. As I told M this morning as I arranged the halfweight, "I'm crazy."