It’s been forever since I have written.  I guess I have felt like I shouldn’t write about things if they weren’t about Glenn.  That’s silly and from here on out, this is not a blog about my struggles with Glenn.  He is no longer my struggle and I want this to reflect that.  The last few months have been great and they deserve to be remembered far more than the awfulness that preceded them. 

Today I don’t have time to write a good entry but I def will start a new sometime this week!

I don’t even know what to say.  It has been forever since I posted.  This last 12 months has kicked my ass!  I am exhausted.  I just got over being ridiculously sick.  They don’t know what was wrong with me but I was throwing up blood and it was awful.  A few days ago my dog, who I whole heartedly adore, broke his leash and attacked a neighbor dog.  He didn’t just pick a fight with the dog, he tried to kill him.  We are desperately looking for a home for him because it isn’t fair for the other dog owners in the neighborhood to be in perpetual fear when he is out.  Really, could anything be more terrible? 

So in the last 12 months I found out that my boyfriend of 8 years was a heroin addict, i broke up with my boyfriend, I watched my grandmother die of cancer, I was insanely sick, my mom lost her job and now I am having to get rid of my dog.  What the fuck?!?!  How am I supposed to keep an optimistic view when this is what goes on in my life.  My current boyfriend said to me about a month ago “I’m so sorry you are having this string of bad luck.”  It made me laugh a little and I looked at him and said “You haven’t known me for long enough to realize that this isn’t a string of bad luck.  It is my life.”  How can I be anything other than exhausted and discouraged?

First and foremost, my best friend is waiting to get married until next August.  I would like to think that this is because she came to her senses and realized that what she was planning was pure lunacy but that’s not the case.  In her words ”if it will make everyone quiet down, then fine.”  It is a good thing that they are waiting but I wish it was because she thought better of it.  Oh well, I guess I have to take what I can get.

It has been unbearably hot and humid here.  We have had about 5 days in a row where the temp was above 90 degrees.  As if that isn’t bad enough, I live on the fifth floor and my A/C is broken.  I went and bought a little unit for my bedroom.  My life is infinitely better since I installed that! 

I’m not sure if I ever wrote about this in the past but I spoke to Glenn awhile ago.  He told me that the positive drug test he had was a false positive.  He and three other guys all got positive results back and none of them had used.  They stopped using that company shortly there after. 

This might be completely unreasonable but lately I have been thinking about when Glenn finds out that I am dating someone.  Glenn has always had an anger management problem.  I know that it is far better when he is clean and sober but I’m not sure how he will deal with that information.  I am a little afraid for my current boyfriend.  I told him this the other day and exactly like he is about everything else, he was great.  The first thing he wanted to know is if I was at all worried for myself, which I am not.  Then he said, “Megan, there is nothing you can tell me that will make me not want to date you.”  He’s so great.  I can’t imagine how stressful it must be to be in a situation where you are potentially in danger and not able to do anything about it.  I know it is a slim chance that Glenn would do anything but if he did it’s not like he would go pick a fight with him.  He’s the kind of guy who would walk up behind him and stab him. There is not a lotyou can do to protect yourself from that.  Because there was never a moment in my relationship with Glenn that I was ever afraid of him I feel a little silly saying this.  However, he has the most intense jelouse streak possible and I don’t know how he would react.  I guess we will se because if he writes to me again I am going to tell him that I am dating someone.  I’m a little terrified but I think that I have to tell him.  I can’t just let him continue to think that we are going to get back together.

Since this blog started out as a way for me to vent my eternal frustration with dating someone who has bipolar and dealing with all of the serious repercussions, I have not written about this.  I have a new boyfriend.  I have been dating him for a little over two months and he is fantastic.  He adores me.  He worries about me.  He takes care of me.  It is a completely new situation for me to have someone else take care of me that I don’t need to take care of.  It has taken me some getting used to but it is great.  He’s smart and funny and caring.  I got lucky.

On another topic all together, my bestfriend recently started dating a new guy.  He is great.  The four of us go on double dates and get along great.  I was excited when they started dating because I think he is hilarious and awesome.  I’m not so excited anymore.  They have been dating for a month at the most and for 2 of those weeks she was in Israel.  The other day they were making jokes about getting married.  Haha that’s hilarious.  Wait, your serious?!?!?  NO WAY!!!  I sat there with her and asked “why would you even consider marrying him now” and she had no answer for me.  She couldn’t give me one reason why marrying him now is even kind of a reasonable idea.  I gave her all of the reasons why what she is considering doing is completely unreasonable and irrational and she agreed… and then said “but I don’t care.”  What’s worse is that he has been married before!!!!!!!  Seems as though he would want to approach this with more caution and not quite so casually.  Apparently not.  He is the one convincing her that this is a good idea and it makes me want to punch him in the face!

There are not many people in my life that I love whole heatedly.  A handful, maybe.  One less now that my grandmother has passed away.  One less now that Glenn has exited my life.  I have this feeling of impending doom.  I feel like if I don’t support her in this terrible decision that she is making it will be the end of our friendship.  I don’t know if I can handle losing another one of the people I love.

I feel like I should write something.  I feel like I should want to write something.  I don’t.

My grandmother died on June 10th.  It was and still  is terrible.  I lost what feels like the only person who truly knew me.  To make matters worse, her friend Will that had a heart attack a week before she died is not doing so well.  He went to have some procedure done and they started before they realized how much damage he actually had to his heart.  They transfered him to a hospital in New York City.  He needed a quadruple bypass!  He made me his healthcare proxy.  That’s terrifying!  He had the surgery a few days ago and his recovery is going okay.

I haven’t recieved a letter from Glenn since she died and that makes me angry. 

I guess that’s all I have to say at the moment.

The last few days have been horrendous!  As I have written about previously, my grandmother has terminal lung cancer.  This weekend I went to go visit her and her best friend Will that lives with her.  I see her at least once a week if not much more.  I had not seen her since the previous weekend and she was in fairly bad shape then.  In addition to the fact that she can hardly breathe she can barely even think about food with out getting nauseated so she now weighs about 90 pounds.  I have spent the last 2 years preparing for this, but there is no way to actually ready yourself to see someone you love wasting away.  She has been the most intelligent person I have known through out my life but now she is starting to slip away.  Seeing her in terrible shape was bad but it was just the start of a bad few days.  Her friend Will and I went to visit my grandfather in the nursing home.  That in itself is a really sad experience every time I go.  He also was extremely intelligent and to see him there is horrible.  There are all sorts of people there who never get visitors and appear to not have anyone who cares about them.  That too makes my heart hurt.  After we left, Will and I went to the super market to pick up a few things.  Will has been experiencing what he thought was acid reflux for about a month.  It got much worse anytimehe did physical activity.  While we were at the store he started experiencing terrible pain which he automatically thoght was indigestion.  He was insistent that he stay until the shopping was done but I forced him to go to my car and sit for the next few minutes while I finished shopping.  He felt better once he rested but I knew that it needed to get checked out as soon as possible.  The problem with that is that he has very little income and no insurance… and he hates doctors.  Eventually I was able to convince him that he could go to the emergency room and a compination of Medicare and charity care would pay for it.  I took him to the hospital and promised to stay the whole time.  Eventually what it came down to is that he had had a heart attack.  If I haden’t made him sit down it could have been far more serious and if he haden’t gone to the hospital it would have become worse.  They wanted to keep him for 48 hours to make sure that he would be okay.  They also determined that he likely has skin cancer.  Skin cancer isn’t that terrifying but he has had it for atleast 2 years and refused to do anything about it so they fear it may have metasticized.

He does little things to care for my grandmother like get her food, drinks, and medication.  She is too sick to be alone so we worked something out where I stayed there all day yesterday and last night and then my mom is staying there tonight. 

This is the longest story ever that I’m sure is uninteresting to everyone but I had to get it out.  It doesn’t even sound that bad but it felt horrible.  I love my grandmother more than almost anyone and I also love Will.  Like I said earlier, I have been preparing for 2 years for my grandmothers deterioration but I was not prepared for Will to be sick.  It’s just really upsetting.

Despite the fact that I have been sad about officially breaking up with Glenn, I know it is the right decision.  This was solidified in my mond when I spoke to his nce counselor this week.  I haven’t spoken to her in about two weeks so I haden’t recieved any updates.  The last I heard he was living in the halfway house on the grounds of the facility he did his inpatient at.  He had some freedom because he was supposed to get a job and was responsible for going to meetings.  He had family week last week and his father and step mother came down for the week.  His counselor said that they were under the impression that it went well.  Apparently last week they got a positive drug test on Glenn.  He is so adament that he didn’t use but it’s almost impossible to get a false posotive in the type of test they did.  They got an original posotive that showed an opiate in his system.  They analyzed it further and determined that it was a morphine derivitave that he took.  The more specific analysis is the one that doesn’t usually get false posotives.  They have moved him back to the highest level of care, which is inpatient where they are  monitored all the time. 

This is why I am glad that I did it.  I have spent nine years being optimistic and then getting disappointed and I don’t want to do it anymore.  I can’t do it anymore.  I plan on continuing to talk to his counselor and write to him if he writes to me but I am satisfied with my decision.  This does not make it any easier or less painful but it does make me feel better about it. 

A lot has happened in the last week but I just haven’t felt like writing.  Last week Glenn called me.  He isn’t supposed to but he did anyway.  He can do this now cause he was moved to the halfway house so he has more freedom.  I missed his first call but he left me a message and told me he would call back but if I didn’t want to talk to him he totally understood.  So I spent the rest of that day fretting about what I was going to say to him.  I didn’t know if I wanted to talk to him or not.  Eventually he called and we talked for a long time.  As always he was funny, smart, and witty.  I wished he wasn’t cause it would have made my life easier.  We talked about how this last couple of months I have made more friends than I had made in my past 2 1/2 years at school.  This is because I’m not run by his intense jealousy.  In the past I didn’t feel like explaining who I was going out with, what I was doing, and when I would be back every time I had plans so I just didn’t go out.  We talked about lots of other things but most importantly we talked about our status.  He asked me where I stand and I told him that I love him whole heartedly and entirely but this relationship would eat me alive if stayed in it.  So, after all of this time, we are officially broken up.  He was great about it.  He said that he totally understood and that he just wanted me to be happy.  It was a great conversation but it was horrifyingly sad.  I told him that if he was ok with it I would like it if he called me the next week at the same time.  That was Tuesday night.  I thought it was supposed to be 8 and he thought it was supposed to be 9.  When he didn’t call by 8:45 I jumped in the shower.  Of course he called while I was showering.  He also called the next day and I didn’t have my phone with me.  He left me a message saying that he got the message by me not answering and he wouldn’t call again.  I’m so sad about that.

Sorry I disappeared for a while.  I am actually doing pretty well.  I received a letter from Glenn about a week ago.  I couldn’t possibly have hoped for more.  He said that if I felt that I needed to take a break, temporary or permanent, he  will support what ever decision I decide to make.  He also said that he is just now starting to be able to imagine how horrible it must have been for me.  He said that when he is healthy and clean and can be a supportive healthy influence in my life, he is going to come fight for me.  If he doesn’t feel like he will be good for me he said he won’t come after me since I have suffered enough at his hands.  I don’t think he could have said anything better. 

Other than that I am doing fairly well.  I am trying to get somethings settled in my life but most things are fairly uneventful, which I am totally ok with.

I went to a Families Anonymous meeting yesterday.  One of my best friends came with me.  She has a brother who is very similar to Glenn so it was good for her too.  It was nice to be around people that know what dealing with an addict is like.  I plan on at least going next week but I don’t feel like I am going to get anything out of it.  Even yesterday after the meeting so many people said “you are so far ahead of where I was when I joined the program.”  The other issue I have is that I don’t like how much of it revolves around God “as  you see him”.  At this point god is not part of my life and I am okay with that.  It’s difficult to accept everything else when that is an issue for me.  I was raised very religious and it was a horrible experience for me.  Life altering really.  I’m not prepared to have god in my life.

I spoke to Glenn’s counselor a few days ago.  Apparently the reason he has not responded to my letters is because he seems to think that I broke up with him.  That was not my intention but I am not going to correct it because I know it is something that I should do anyway.  I wanted him to hear and understand how awful this has been.  I wanted there to at least be some sort of dialog about the situation.  It seems like if he thought that I was breaking up with him, at the very least he wold have responded to acknowledge it.  His counselor said she was going to ask him why he hasn’t responded.  I guess if I don’t get a letter by the end of next week that will be the end of it.  She also said that they are tapering him off of all of his meds.  I expressed concern over that.  I have seen him not on his meds and it is horrible.  She made a great point though.  She pointed out that I have NEVER seen him not on his meds while he was clean and sober.  It is difficult for them to tell what his actual psychological state is.  They are going to take him off the meds and see how he does.  They will then reintroduce specific meds as they deem necessary.  I’m ok with that.  She also told me that they are recommending that he stay there until the end of the year.  I think it is the best idea ever but how in the world is that supposed to be paid for?  Maybe they have scholarships.