Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Fearless Moral Inventory

I am pretty good with my Quit (thanks to Nicorette), but I am at the stage where, during any free moment, my mind plays a "greatest loves" reel of me smoking in blissful situations: walking down the sidewalk, sitting on a park bench, outside a bar, in my kitchen, on the toilet...and I feel kind of dumb for breaking up with my boyfriend, Samson. I miss him.

Today I actually attended a meeting of Nicotine Anonymous. I didn't even know such a thing existed. It was about 160 blocks out of my way, but I knew that if even one thing was said that made sense to me, it would be worth it. So I went. It was small and they had me read the preamble to the meeting, as well as the 12 steps. I said "God" 5 times and the pronoun another few times. This made me uncomfortable, because I do not believe in Him. Other than that, and the fact that they use the word "smober," it was good. Most of the people there were in other 12-step programs too, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and Co-Dependency Anonymous, to name a few. I didn't know it was going to be 12-step based when I got there, but that's cool. We did an hour of peer-to-peer support and then an hour of Step Four, which is "Making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."

I cried more than once.

Having my little brother here this weekend was a huge help in getting me motivated for the Quit and shepherding me through Days 2-4. Just like Girlfriend, Little Brother is exceptionally good at leading through example and not being judgmental at all. He was also very helpful when I needed to e-break with CL 10.1, because he called me to go out over the weekend and his voicemail gave me the shivers, and not in a good way. I asked Little Brother how to handle it and he helpfully told me what a girl told him: I think you're a great guy but I'm not feeling anything in the way of chemistry.

This is fucken genius because the situation boils down to CHEMISTRY! It's science! It's not me; it's not you, it's nobody's fault...it's CHEMISTRY.

I am pretty much done with craigslist dating right now. The Ukrainian and I were supposed to hang out this weekend, but neither of us called each other, and that's okay with me. I was supposed to go out with an unknown, 11.1, sometime this week, but I'm over it. I'm tired. Mick invited me to see Jersey Boys this week but...he smokes. Could be easy as that, huh.

Okay, okay, I'm having issues. Little Brother pointed this out to me too. Well, first he introduced me to this:
I pulled my shoes off at Brookstone the other day to try this sucker out, and I almost came in the store.

Swear to god.

Oh, but he also showed me that I'm still in love with Love Affair.
He called me while we were at dim sum on Saturday and I kind of had a meltdown and was pissing him off.

"What's the big fucking deal? Call him back."

"I can't. I can't handle it. I miss him too much. Why is he calling me?"

"Isn't it obvious? He wants to maintain your friendship."

"We never had a friendship."

"Well, then...maybe he wants to keep you on the back burner."

I know that being kept on the back burner isn't exactly a glamorous position to be in, but this thought had never crossed my mind, and it made me so happy that I caused a small scene in the subway, inspiring some douchebag to say "Oh, I can't conTROL the VOLume of my VOICE sometimes!"

Ahh, douchebags. Sometimes I'm one of them, though. Can't really blame them.

Anyhow, I would love to be kept on Love Affair's back burner. I'm sure as hell keeping him on mine. Isn't that romantical? Yes, entirely unhealthy. Maybe this will preclude me from falling for some perfectly matched men who are right before me. But I'm okay with that. I'm supposed to be concentrating on school anyway...I guess I'd rather be in love in my mind with a fantasy than trick myself into a half-assed relationship in the real world.

Wait. Maybe I didn't tell you. I'm going to see Love Affair in January. No, I'm not going to San Francisco specifically to see him. To be honest, I don't really want to go at all, but my family made this decision en masse, and we are going to California for the holidays. My mom thought she was doing me a favor because she knows I miss my friends, but really, this is too soon for me. This presents a gross situation with me and Love Affair, as I would love to go back and stay at our apartment, but if I'm not allowed to touch him, it might kill me. Or if he's dating someone else, that might kill me too.

This is why I smoked cigarettes...to have control over what would kill me.

1 comment:

e2eca said...

Chemistry. What a great line. I might use it tonight.