quitting alcohol?

there's this pharmacist i work with who is always quitting alcohol. the first time when i met him he told me he'd quit. i asked him, "for how long?" he paused for a while and looked like he was counting his head and then said, "two days!" hahahaha! i don't think he understands that quitting means "complete refrain" cuz every monday he's back to 0 days clean! he makes my monday mornings.

burning bridges, breakeven

life is insane. but coming from the place i was i can't complain cuz even when everything feels like it's crashing down around me, i can remain calm, cuz i know how bad it can get.

so just as i'm about to resign from the government, my uncle who works there who i've been bugging for months to get me a transfer from the hospital from hell finally comes through. and i meet with the country director of medical services who says he could get me a change. and i'm like noooow? why not like a month ago when i was losing it. so now i'm hoping wherever they decide to take me it's a place i can work part time so i can still do my other job, down at the coast, which is a very sweet deal.

ultimately though, if they take me someplace shitty, i'm gone. i'm going. then this other place i interviewed at gave me a call back, i have a meeting friday morning, i'm not exactly sure what for cuz that place was cool, some ngo run hospital that is just coming up which would be awesome cuz i can grow with it and bulid my name. currently though, because my leave officially ended monday, i'm absconding from the government i. e. - the shitty hospital i was at but i can't go back cuz i HATE that place. at least not this week, i have too much to do at home, then i have the meeting friday. but if i get caught, it's curtains for me. fuck! i hope everything works out and most importantly, i don't get caught by the fucking government before friday. if i do get caught though, i promise to keep writing from prison. :)

then something really sad happened, one of my sister's best friends died on saturday morning. she had ovarian cancer. she was 21. and i was like shit. cuz i have this memory, i'd driven my sister out to meet her and afterwards, i drove them both home. we were happy that day. she was smiling. i like that memory, that's how i want to remember her. not unwell, and dying like she was towards the end. her funeral mass is tomorrow. i miss her. i wish death would quit following me around.

in other news, i tend to go crazy about music, particularly rock music, which speaks to me. so i heard this song by this band called "the script". the song's called "breakeven" and it overwhelms me. seriously, this song is beautiful: the guitar, the lyrics, the emotion, my god. this song will take you  there, and everywhere; the place you want to be:

I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing
Just prayed to a god that I don't believe in 
Cuz I got time while she got freedom
Cuz when a heart breaks no it don't break even

Her best days will be some of my worst 
She finally met a man that's gonna put her first
While I'm wide awake she's no trouble sleeping
Cuz when a heart breaks no it don't breakeven

What am I suppose to do when the best part of me was always you
What am I suppose to say when I'm all choked up and your okay
I'm falling to pieces 
I'm falling to pieces 

They say bad things happen for a reason 
But not wise words gonna stop the bleeding
Cuz she's moved on while I'm still grieving 
And when a heart breaks no it don't breakeven

quarter-life crisis

crisis:

noun-

1. a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, esp. for better or for worse, is determined; turning point.
2. a dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in a person's life.

mine was more 2. than 1. but still, a bit of both. the worst thing was that even though i'd seen it coming, it still threw me. far away.

and for a while it seemed like everything was a mess, and nothing was going right. at first it was easy to be hopeful that the next day would be better. but time took my hope and i kept falling.

and it's funny how when you're in this situation you'd wish life would stand still and everyone would mourn with you. but the sun still rises and people continue breathing, and living, and laughing, and it sucks cuz when you walk outside you want to grab someone and go "STOP!" but they wouldn't get it.

i thought it was a passing thing and the fever would break, but it never did. work sucked, and i missed home. eventually, i came home because i had taken leave from work. the new hospital i was working in was a fucking mess, like most of the government-run institutions. things had ran bad for so long that it seemed everyone accepted it and resigned themselves to the fact that it couldn't get better. sadly though, in my line of work, that kind of attitude means life or death.

i'd worked there about a month (i got posted there after a year's internship in a private hospital which i'd taken for granted; it ran like clockwork and things got done). after a particularly trying week, i gave up trying to change the staff's mentality and save lives. i was pissed off. i took twenty days' leave.

in those days, i was caught between resigning from the government and staying. resigning would make me happy, but a little guilty, cuz i felt like i was giving up on my patients. it wasn't their fault. still, i couldn't help because the hospital's inadequacies tied my hands. staying would eventually kill my spirit, but at least i could still pay the bills. i needed a new job.but i couldn't catch a break. everywhere i went it seemed like it wasn't about what but who you knew. it was fucked up.

then somewhere in the middle of all that, my grams died. she'd been sick for a while, diabetes, and she was old. she'd come to live with us eight months ago and my mom had quit working to look after her, which got harder and harder cuz my grams couldn't do much alone. pretty soon she was bed-ridden, and then she wasn't eating. and then one morning she just suddenly got worse.  my mom called me to have a look. she was breathing hard and with great difficulty and her pulse was through the roof (google: ventricular tachycardia).

i knew she was dying. i told my mom she didn't look good. she called her sisters and they decided that i should make the choice: to take her to hospital or not to. one of the hardest choices i have ever had to make. i decided she should stay, her prognosis was poor either way, i thought it'd be better for her to go surrounded by love. i stayed with her  and asked her how she was feeling, she whispered between gasps: "i'm going..." then "pain...". i called my mom who'd left the room to make a call but grams never spoke again. mom sat in her bed and held her. a half hour later, she was gone. i held my mom as her body racked with sobs. i couldn't believe my grams was dead. i used to make her laugh, and now she's gone. i miss her.

in that and the next days following her death up to her funeral, i died a bit with her. i cried my eyes out as they lowered her body into the grave. i hate goodbyes, and funerals now.

it's been a while since then. i caught my lucky break, i'll be going down to the coast for a while, to my favourite city in this country for this new job, so bye bye GoK (Government of Kenya), hello the good life. things are getting back to good. i like to think the crisis is breaking, maybe my grams has something to do with it, helping me out from beyond (i couldn't help the cliche).

i still miss her.

april 29th

it's been a while since i last wrote and it feels foreign, like i've forgotten how to write.

i'm mad confused and i don't know why maybe because my life is in kind of a whirwind, which was temporarily punctuated by some weird luck bestowed upon me today by Providence (aka God?). now everything feels white.

and i am insanely tired thanks to the aforementioned whirlwind, my head feels light.

but finally my life feels like life and that's pretty tight.

cuz i have faith beyond and despite myself and it's a struggle, some kind of fight.

but it worked today, of all days and situations, when things had already gotten blurry and the foundation was shaking and the cold was beginning to bite.

so bright, insight, in flight, ignite, my mind, my dreams, just might, reach that height.

P. S. - eizzy, i'm working on my honesty, honestly! :)

P. P. S. - KD*, check out the other side.

what is a man?

(i came across this, it's pretty long but it's awesome!)

A man carries cash. A man looks out for those around him -- woman, friend, stranger. A man can cook eggs. A man can always find something good to watch on television. A man makes things -- a rock wall, a table, the tuition money. Or he rebuilds -- engines, watches, fortunes. He passes along expertise, one man to the next. Know-how survives him. A man fantasizes that kung fu lives deep inside him somewhere. A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn't matter what his job is, because if a man doesn't like his job, he gets a new one.

#1. The Communication Style of Man

A man can speak to dogs.
A man listens, and that's how he argues. He crafts opinions. He can pound the table, take the floor. It's not that he must. It's that he can.
A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.

#2. Man's Ability to Handle Mistakes

A man owns up. That's why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.
Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.
A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it's just to put an end to the bickering.

#3. Man's Basic Instincts

A man does not wither at the thought of dancing. But it is generally to be avoided.
Style -- a man has that. No matter how eccentric that style is, it is uncontrived. It's a set of rules.
A man loves the human body, the revelation of nakedness. He loves the sight of the pale bosom, the physics of the human skeleton, the alternating current of the flesh. He is thrilled by the wrist and the sight of a bare shoulder. He likes the crease of a bent knee.
Maybe he never has, and maybe he never will, but a man figures he can knock someone, somewhere, on his bottom.
A man doesn't point out that he did the dishes.
A man knows how to ridicule.
A man gets the door. Without thinking.

He stops traffic when he must.

A man knows how to lose an afternoon. Playing Grand Theft Auto, driving aimlessly, shooting pool.

He knows how to lose a month, also.
A man welcomes the coming of age. It frees him. It allows him to assume the upper hand and teaches him when to step aside.
He understands the basic mechanics of the planet. Or he can close one eye, look up at the sun, and tell you what time of day it is. Or where north is. He can tell you where you might find something to eat or where the fish run. He understands electricity or the internal-combustion engine, the mechanics of flight or how to figure a pitcher's ERA.
A man does not know everything. He doesn't try. He likes what other men know.
A man knows his tools and how to use them -- just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud, when to use galvanized nails.
A miter saw, incidentally, is the kind that sits on a table, has a circular blade, and is used for cutting at precise angles. Very satisfying saw.

#4. The Paradox of Man

He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn't winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation. He doesn't see himself lost in some great maw of humanity, some grand sweep. That's the liberal thread; it's why men won't line up as liberals.
A man resists formulations, questions belief, embraces ambiguity without making a fetish out of it. A man revisits his beliefs. Continually. That's why men won't forever line up with conservatives, either.


#5. Man the Island
A man is comfortable being alone. Loves being alone, actually. He sleeps.
Or he stands watch. He interrupts trouble. This is the state policeman. This is the poet. Men, both of them.
A man loves driving alone most of all.

A man watches. Sometimes he goes and sits at an auction knowing he won't spend a dime, witnessing the temptation and the maneuvering of others. Sometimes he stands on the street corner watching stuff. This is not about quietude so much as collection. It is not about meditation so much as considering. A man refracts his vision and gains acuity. This serves him in every way. No one taught him this -- to be quiet, to cipher, to watch. In this way, in these moments, the man is like a zoo animal: both captive and free. You cannot take your eyes off a man when he is like that. You shouldn't. Who knows what he is thinking, who he is, or what he will do next.

spiralling

I'm waiting for my moment to come
I'm waiting for the movie to begin
I'm waiting for a revelation
I'm waiting for someone to count me in

Because now I only see my dreams in everything I touch
Feel their cold hands on everything that I love
Cold like some magnificent skyline
Out of my reach but always in my eye line

Now we're tumbling down
We're spiralling
Tied up to the ground
We're spiralling

I fashioned you from jewels and stone
I made you in the image of myself
I gave you everything you wanted
So you would never know anything else

But every time I reach for you, you slip through my fingers
Into cold sunlight, laughing at the things that I had planned 
The map of my world gets smaller as I sit here
Pulling at the loose threads

Now we're tumbling down
We're spiralling
Tied up to the ground
We're spiralling
When we fall in love
We're just falling
In love with ourselves
We're spiralling

Did you want to be a winner?
Did you want to be an icon?
Did you want to be famous?
Did you want to be the president?
Did you want to start a war?
Did you want to have a family?
Did you want to be in love?
Did you want to be in love?

I never saw the light
I never saw the light
I waited up all night
But I never saw the light

When we fall in love
We're just falling
In love with ourselves
We're spiralling
We're tumbling down
We're spiralling
Tied up to the ground

We're spiralling

faithless

if i make it through this  storm, i'll come out on the other side faithless cuz i'm impatient, cuz i want things to happen right now, and it gets a little harder each day to pray and hope, cuz i keep waking up empty. and if it does happen, i won't know if it's because i prayed or because it just happened. i'm afraid to be faithless cuz i'm scared i might be wrong but each day brings me closer to the end of my faith. or is it because i need to believe in something and i'm afraid to believe in myself cuz i don't think i am that powerful? i dn't know, all i know is i'm running out, but i guess i'll have to get to the other side to see how it goes.