Old pictures and a depressing conversation

Ugh. I feel like shit. And not just because I have a headache. Going through old pictures at my mom's house turned into a big emotional thing.

Evan was talking about the baby and what he thinks she'll look like. Then he wanted to look at his baby pictures. I got his baby album out and we looked through it together. Then he said he wanted to see baby pictures of me. I thought I had some here, but I guess I don't. So I went over to my mom's house after work to get some.

I grabbed an album that has a bunch of pictures of me and my siblings as babies and little kids in it. But my mom also has a million other pictures, so I decided to look through some of them and maybe take some of them to show Evan, too. My mom sat with me and helped me go through them. I came across a picture of Jeremy and me when we were Evan's age. We were in little soccer uniforms at one of our games. Jeremy had his arm around my shoulder, and I was holding a soccer ball. We looked quite a bit like Evan in the picture. Our hair was a little darker, even as little kids (it's quite a bit darker now), but other than that we looked a lot like Evan.

Then I found some pictures of us as teenagers. We had a lot of crazy hairstyles, and even crazier colors haha. I found one of my favorite pictures of Jeremy and me, and I asked my mom if I could keep it. She has a double somewhere anyway. It was the day we both pierced our lips. It was shortly after our 15th birthday. I pierced mine on the right side, and he pierced his on the left. Our hair was the same at that time, so we looked exactly the same, but with reverse piercings. My mom was PISSED at us when we got those lol. But yeah, I have always loved that picture of us. I'm going to frame it.

After flipping through pictures some more, I came across a picture of me and Jeremy shortly before he died. I looked at it for about half a second, then went to the next one, because I thought seeing it might upset my mom. I flipped through a few more pictures, and then looked over at my mom. I saw that she was teary eyed. I figured it was because of Jeremy, so I just said, "I know, Mom...I miss him too." But she responded with, "It's not that. Of course I miss your brother, but that's not what upset me." I asked her what upset her, and she motioned toward the picture I was holding and said, "It's that picture of you. It just reminds me of how close I was to losing you, too." I hadn't even noticed the picture, because when I flipped to it I was looking at my mom, not at the pictures in my hand. It was one of me, when I was about 21 or 22. I definitely looked like shit. You could tell I was on something in it. I was way too skinny, and the circles under my eyes made it look like I hadn't slept in days. I probably hadn't. I was at the height of my addiction at that point. Well, I was at my worst from about 18-23. But 21 and 22 were BAD years for me. When I ODed on heroin I was 21, and the really bad cocaine overdose that almost killed me happened when I was 22. I just know the picture was taken somewhere around that time. After studying the picture for a minute, I looked back at my mom, who had become more than just teary eyed. Now tears were streaming down her face. I felt so bad. I put my arm around her and just said, "I'm sorry, Mom." I didn't know what else to say.

I probably could repeat the whole conversation, but I don't really want to. It was too depressing. Basically, she said that she was almost convinced I was going to die too, and that she couldn't bear the thought of losing another son (and the other twin, at that). I hate seeing my mom cry, and I hate that I put her through so much, so I already felt pretty shitty. We had looked at quite a few pictures of me during those years, so I asked her why that picture specifically upset her so much. Then she said something that turned it around and I ended up being the one crying instead. She said, "Look at that picture, Chris. Imagine that's Evan. Imagine seeing your little boy doing that to himself. I never knew if you were going to come home, or if I'd get a call saying you were dead. I had already lost Jeremy. If I would have lost you too, it would have killed me. And I was almost sure I was going to. Just put yourself in my shoes, and imagine that happening with Evan." Then I fucking lost it. Well, I didn't lose it...but I started crying. More than just tearing up. I just said, "I'm so sorry, Mom." Then she just held me while I cried for a minute. After I had calmed down a bit, I grabbed the picture and tore it up. I thought my mom would get mad at me for that, but she didn't. I just didn't want to see it anymore...I wanted to get rid of it.

I know she wasn't trying to upset me or anything...she was just answering my question, and also trying to make me understand. I thought I understood before, but I understand even better, now. I have always said that I couldn't stand the thought of Evan ever getting into drugs, and that seeing that happen would just kill me. But looking at that picture of myself looking damn near death and imagining that it was Evan REALLY made me understand how my mom felt...or at least I was able to understand it as much as possible without actually going through it, which I hope to God NEVER happens. I have always felt incredibly bad about what I put my mom through, but now I feel even worse about it.

Fuck. I want a cigarette. REALLY bad.

Evan had better like seeing these pictures, because getting them sure ruined my day haha. I'll show him when he comes home from his friend's house later. I'm sure the second I see him I'm going to give him such a long hug that he'll probably be like, "Dad, wtf?" Well, not literally the "wtf" part, but you know.

I need to down a Diet Coke in an attempt to drown out my cigarette craving. On the plus side, Jenny is making me brownies. When I came home she could tell I was depressed, so I talked to her about it a little bit. Then she said she'd make me brownies to cheer me up. HEEELLLLL YES. I'm already feeling happier just thinking about them. Haha.

Back to Zero

Well, I made it almost 24 days without smoking. That’s longer than I’ve ever gone before. I have to start over from zero now. Ugh.

I haven’t written about this too much, but for the past week or so, I’ve been having a REALLY hard time not smoking. I’ve been kind of stressed, depressed, and anxious lately, so I’m sure that’s a huge part of it. The thing with B really made me want to smoke the other night, and sitting next to him while he smoked made me want to even more. I had a shitty day at work yesterday. Work has just been stressing me out lately. I fucking hate insurance companies. One company in particular is pissing me the fuck off, because they keep fucking up the stuff they expect us to process, QA, and all of that, and they keep sending it in late on top of that. Since I’m in charge of the bulk of that type of work, I have employees bitching about it to me. I don’t know what the fuck they expect me to do about it. So I had a pretty shitty day at work today, too. I think that’s the most I’ve ever talked about my job here haha. Besides my side job at the youth center. My “real job” isn’t worth talking about. It’s just pissing me off and adding to my stress level. The old pictures and conversation at my mom’s house just pushed me over the edge. The little things just build up. I wanted to have a cigarette right after that, but I didn’t. I wrote that entry here, and then watched TV for like an hour. Then I logged into my work e-mail, read an e-mail from one of our stupid fucking insurance clients, and it pissed me off. I’ll skip the boring details because they don’t matter, but that e-mail assured me that I’m going to have a really busy, stressful day at work on Monday. So that e-mail was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back. I opened the window in my office, grabbed a pack of cigarettes, lit a candle (to hide the smell) and smoked a cigarette. I didn’t go into the garage to smoke it, because I didn’t want Jenny to see me. It’s not like she would have yelled at me or anything…I just didn’t want her questioning me about it. When I was done, I sprayed Febreeze all over to hide the smell even more. After a couple minutes, I went downstairs.

Jenny was sitting at the kitchen table looking through some baby clothes catalog. I went to get a Diet Coke, and she stood up, came over to me, and gave me a kiss. She said I looked stressed, and put her arms around me. When she pulled back, she asked if I’d been smoking and said I smelled like smoke (it had only been like three or four minutes since I smoked that cigarette). I told her I hadn’t been smoking, but she called me on it. I didn’t say anything in response, so then she said, “Why are you lying about it? I can smell it, Chris. B isn’t here, so you can’t blame it on him.” So I tried blaming it on the cat. For the record, blaming things on the cat never works. Never. So finally I admitted to it. She asked me if I was ok, I told her I’m fine. She asked if I wanted to talk, I said no. The cat walked up and meowed at me, so I grabbed her and told Jenny I was going back upstairs with my smoking buddy. She rolled her eyes at me and just said, “Make sure you two open a window, if you’re not going to go to the garage. And if you need to talk, I’m here for you.” I made the cat wave at her and went upstairs. So here I am, with my cat in my lap, and another cigarette.

I’m mad at myself for smoking. Really, I am. I shouldn’t be having another one. But I’m just so fucking stressed right now. I was so proud of myself for going so long without smoking, too. Now I’m just disappointed in myself. The disappointment on top of the stress, depression, and anxiety just makes me want to smoke even more. Dammit. I’ll try to quit again soon. Oh well. It's better to "relapse" on cigarettes than on anything else. I put it in quotation marks because I don't really think relapse is the word for it. I suppose it is, since it's still an addiction, but I don't know...it just doesn't seem like the right word to me. Maybe part of that is because it's a word I'd rather not use.

On a lighter note, tomorrow is Evan's 6th birthday. A bunch of his friends are coming over for a party tomorrow. That should be fun. It will be hectic, for sure. I can’t believe he’s that old already. He’s growing up so fast! It’s crazy.