D was at the bar tonight and he went off on how much he admires you 🙂 it was awesome we had a bryan love fest about you awesomeness

I woke up to this text message. It’s nice to still get drunken texts even though I don’t drink anymore. What is it? Almost 11 weeks. I’m switching to months permanently soon as week-math is too hard. But, it is worth pointing out that it’s been long enough that I have to actually do the math now. Speaking of which. I told my dad this week that I was sober it didn’t sound that important to him. When I was in Maine visiting back in May just before I stopped drinking I didn’t drink much and he commented on it at the time. He used to make a comment about how alcohol was a dangerous habit or something, but I haven’t heard him say it in so long that I’ve forgotten. He told my grandparents and when I talked to them it wasn’t that significant to them either. I suppose this is all to be expected from a family of alcoholics; if it was significant to them maybe they would have changed themselves.

In any case, it’s awesome to be awesome. I got to talk to J about taking on the burden of other people’s problems. We ended up talking about M, of course. When I mentioned friends and family thinking M was selfish for the way that she left me, J immediately disagreed and started talking, for perhaps the longest single thought she’s given me in over a year of sessions, about how she though that M felt that she did not deserve me, or deserve the amount of love I was offering her. I noted that I thought M felt that she didn’t want comfort, which could have been feeling she didn’t deserve comfort, on some deeper usually-left-for-people-smarter-than-me-to-imply level.

I once dated someone who, thought, that they had been sexually abused. To explain further, they presented it as a dream from their childhood, which, (god I’m doing it again) seems like a perfect coping mechanism. Anyway, they were very adamant that I not derive anything from it, that I not try to explain any part of who they were or why they acted the way they did from it. So, because of this per se, but I try not to.

J ultimately left me with a choice, to stand by M, investing in that her ambiguity is a product of what she thinks about herself, or to emotionally leave town, never to return the same.