“Moving Boxes (and Little Else).” 5/24/13. Tempera and pen on paper. 12×16″.
She might be scared, but that has nothing to do with me, my choices, my attitude, or my … how I’ve been.
I’m ambitious and I have confidence but moving out starts the ticking of the clock. It sets the deadline for my success or the date of my failure. Not moving out is what I’m comfortable with. But how long is it okay for me to stall intimate relationships so that I can enjoy myself (and do the things I want to without worry)?
Is it okay for me to be okay? Complacency. Fear. Priorities. GROWING UP. I understand far less than I let on. Strange that someone with all the answers in interactions has nothing but questions when alone.
That’s the text within this piece – painted in my Friday expressive art therapy group at Tranquil Shores. It was getting closer to the time Heather and I had talked about picking up and moving to Jacksonville. We were bickering a lot. I had asked her what was really going on. When she failed to come up with anything, I suggested that maybe she was scared about moving to a new city. After all, it wasn’t me. I’m itinerant! I’m punk! All we do is move. We have no roots. “I don’t live anywhere!” She, on the other hand, had never moved to a new city before so she was scared and that was making her irritable. Obviously.
But this was expressive art therapy and (in therapy) we don’t look at what’s wrong with other people, we look at ourselves. So that’s what I tried to do as I painted and – when I started writing – all of this suddenly came out of me.
God dammit. It was totally me. I was terrified. If I moved to Jacksonville with Heather, I’d suddenly be responsible for rent and utilities and who knows what else. I had been out of (inpatient) treatment for three months and thus far was doing great. I was supporting myself without having to give in to reality and get a real job. (Which – in hindsight – I realize may not have been all that impressive a feat considering that I had absolutely no bills to pay). But if I moved to Jacksonville and came up short on money for bills one month, all of a sudden, I’d have to admit that I was wrong. I’d have to get a job and acknowledge that I couldn’t support myself creatively…
Maybe I should just break it off and stay in Bradenton and live with Taylor’s family forever…? I don’t need a girlfriend or to be an adult or…
God dammit.
“Moving boxes and little else” is an acknowledgment that I had moved more times than I could count but was terrified to move forward.
But I did! And – so far – so good.
This piece is important to me because the process of creating it really was revelatory. I had spend a lot time thinking about this stuff and had gotten nowhere. After I made this piece, the bickering between Heather and I stopped completely. It’s pretty remarkable how much garbage sometimes lurks just below the surface (and how badly it can fuck me up). This piece is proof that art is essential to the maintenance of my mental health.
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Here’s the song I quoted in this entry. It’s from the new Dead Mechanical album out soon on Toxic Pop (who split released the last DM full-length with Traffic Street (that’s my label, you guys!)) When I lived in DC, I spent a lot of time in Baltimore. When I wasn’t copping or shooting heroin, I was usually at a Dead Mechanical show. (Sometimes both!) But getting to see them play all the time was definitely one of the best things about living up there.
Here’s another song from the same record. Just ’cause.
Hit the Toxic Pop website to check out the album art (by Julie Benoit!) and pre-order the LP, which starts shipping next week. (I know the site says that it starts shipping in early August, but Mike (Toxic Pop) sent out an update changing the shipping date due to delays at the pressing plant).
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This painting is currently for sale. Or – if you’re not a big spender – you can pick up a signed and framed (behind glass) print/poster that’s the same size as the original.
Up and running for two weeks now and I changed the sitemap today. I think I’m going to really divide the writing and the the visual art a little bit more. I set up a gallery so that all of the drawings and paintings I’ve put up thus far can be seen on one page. From each image, you can click a link to go to the blog entry it was originally featured in, but from now on, I think I’m just going to add the images to the gallery and feature the statements there. And then I’ll use this (the frontpage) as more of a daily journal. So far as older writing like the (gasoline) story from yesterday’s update (“Funny”) or the rehab journals, I’m not sure yet. It’s early though and I’m still figuring this out so we’ll see.
I had a session with my counselor this morning, in which I decided to go to an NA meeting here in Jacksonville. I journaled about it afterward because it affected me more powerfully than NA or AA meetings usually do (in a good way). As the day went on though, I found myself feeling more and more depressed. Unreasonably depressed.
I feel really, terribly inadequate.
And since I don’t like feeling this way, I’ve got to do… something.
I don’t think I’m going to use Facebook anymore. I’ll let my website post updates for me when I post here, but I’m not going to post anything directly to my page. If you’re not a fan of these updates, tonight would be a good time to hide me from your newsfeed or remove me from your friends list.
Heather read my “life story” project last night. All 165 pages in one sitting. I was scared because it’s even more personal/confessional than anything I’ve written/posted here, but I think it was a good thing. She also told me last night though that – one thing that’s been different about me since I was away for a month to make that movie – I’m less positive. Less upbeat. And way harder on myself. I’m a lot more critical of everything I do, say, and feel. And she’s right. It wasn’t an easy month and a lot of things changed. Mostly though, my ideas about myself and who I am. I’m still sorting all of that out. Obviously, I slipped up (see: “Diazepam” from 8/1, for example) so I’ve “lost” my clean time, but that’s kind of a bullshit statement/sentiment anyway. My “clean date” was in August but I didn’t really get much better until December… but the time that I did have, spent doing the right things, doing well, doing good: I still have that. I didn’t “lose” it. And I’ve got a lot more of it coming up so long as I take care of myself and make healthy choices.
Tonight or tomorrow, I’m going to take steps to ready myself to approach some businesses in Jacksonville (later in the week) about the possibility of putting pieces on display, on consignment.
I’m also going to keep (as I have been) selling off the material things in my life that I don’t really need. I feel weighed down by so much of it. I want to get rid of enough that I can get rid of the furniture that’s been holding it all. Then again, this could be some type of substitution or projection. I don’t really know. Well, I know one thing: selling off a bunch of books and records isn’t going to make me happy. My issues are a little deeper than “clutter.”
I finished a piece today that I’m really excited to share, but it was made for someone else’s project and I don’t want to steal their thunder so I’ve got to sit on it for a little bit. It means a lot to me though and I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity to make it. More on that later, I guess.
I shipped the last of yesterday’s orders today. Some got little thank you notes with dumb little drawings on them. Nothing remarkable, but for some reason, I really like one of them, so I’ll just share that.
