This Here Life.

The very first words out of my mouth this morning:

"DON'T YOU EVER HULK SMASH INTO SOMEONE'S BALLS AGAIN."

Then I decluttered eight years worth of garbage and crap from the entire kitchen. Then I stood up on the breakfast counter, opened the window, and swung around like an abseiler to clean all of the glass. Half hanging out, with no bra on. If I fell, I would have seriously hurt myself.  SO COOL. Extreme clean.

Yesterday I systematically went through my entire office. Papers, letters, photos. I picked up a jewellery box that my real dad gave me in 1982.  Opened it up, and there's my WACKY pink zipper earrings and John Taylor badge. I wound the box up and it played "My Way." Which is ironic, because that was my second dead dads' most favourite song.  The ghosts of them both played around my room and my head, until Dave came up and broke the spell.

I found three rehabs worth of writings. I've written for my entire life - especially my dreams. How odd is it, that during the hardest times of our life, we dream the most? From 1997:

"Dreamt that Dennis Franz from NYPD Blue was my dad. He took me out to buy sandwiches and told me I could have ANY filling I wanted. He kept looking at me in the eyes, so maybe he actually gave a shit. I don't think he was talking about sandwich fillings .. I think he was talking about life. If I can just stop drinking, maybe I'll have more choice. About everything."

Then I found some things I wrote during some dark drinking times. I found all the Holy Cards my very Catholic beautiful grandmother gave me. Letters from doctors in the early nineties marked with "UNFIT FOR WORK."

In 1999 I had been clean for a whole year but couldn't sustain it. "I'm dark again. Why does this happen? It's like vultures. I should be scared. Trying to feel something but I can't."

So much, in a life. We can do so much.

I had to take a break, so put on my long-lost Emmylou Harris CD that my mum gave me in 1995 and lay down on the living room floor. Spreadeagled and spun out.

I did it for kicks and I did it for faith 
I did it for lust and I did it for hate 
I did it for need and I did it for love  
Addiction stayed on tight like a glove 
So I ran with the moon and I ran with the night 
And the three of us were a terrible sight 
Nipple to the bottle to the gun to the cell
To the bottom of a hole of a deeper well 

The kids - all four of them - walked around me, in and out. Can't remember the last time I just sat and simply listened to a piece of music. Dave came and sat down with a cup of tea. I told him that I don't like the physical world .. I much prefer the world inside us. He laughed. We waltzed.

We're getting our house professionally photographed tomorrow, to list it for sale. A house we never thought we would ever sell.

It feels so good to let things go.





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