whatever and everything

Blog

  • fears

    Carrie isn’t into AA meetings anymore. She finds them “boring” and “hates going to them”. It’s been a struggle the last few months trying to encourage her to go to meetings. 4 weeks ago she finally committed to a wednesday night meeting and made it her home group. the following week when it was time to go to her meeting she decided at the last minute to not go. I have tried to tell her that we don’t really have a choice whether we want to go to meetings or not – part of our responsibility as sober alcoholics and that if either of us put anything else before meetings we will lose that stuff first when we relapse.

    She says that without meetings she will still be fine – siting her sponsor and her sober friends as her connection to sobriety and the AA way of life…

    Last night she told me, “come on, nick. We both know we’re not in to AA anymore”. I disagreed, pointed out the commitments I have to my sponsee Scott, my bi-weekly commitment running a step group at Turning Point and going to Golden Key at least every two weeks.

    Of course I imagine that within a couple years of not going to meetings she will inevitably see drinking as a good idea and when that happens I fear I won’t like the new drinking Carrie. What will I do then? Is this part of the “through sickness and health” piece?

    Am i wrong in thinking relapse is an inevitability of not going to meetings?
    Am I being codependant in trying to get her to go to meetings or just a caring, worried husband?
    How does this change our relationship if suddenly one of us stops going to meetings? Starts drinking?

  • some goals – 28 year plan

    2012

    • Begin part-time Construction Management program at BCIT (4-5 years for completion)

    2013

    • Have a second child
    2015
    • Have a third child
    2016
    • Investments will equal ~$80k
    • Move to [Calgary] and buy our first house
    • Carrie start nursing program in fall

    2017

    • Complete Construction Management program, recieve Bachelor of Technology in Construction Management
    • Get first job as a construction manager for large construction firm, income increase to ~$80k
      2019
      • Rowan will turn 8, Second will turn 6, Third will turn 4
      • Carrie graduates from nursing program, begins work as an RN
      • Take family to Disneyworld in Summer
      • Investments (including equity) will equal ~$122k

      2020

      • Sell house and upgrade
      • Move to tropical climate?
      2040
      • Rowan will turn 29, Second will turn 27, Third will turn 25
      • Investments (including equity) will equal ~5.4M
      • Carrie will turn 59, I will turn 57. Neither of us will need to worry about money again and can retire.

    • The way I felt on September 22? I don’t feel that way anymore.
      That feeling has since been replaced with a feeling of gratitude for my beautiful, clever, loving wife and my beautiful child. I have everything I need and want for nothing. Sure there may be things that no longer fit in my life but that’s OK. I have come to terms with it and no longer live wishing my life were different. What a goddamn relief. That was the kind of thinking that splits marriages and leaves bastard children.

    • It’s not something you can stop halfway through. It’s like the first time you fuck a girl. You’ve wined and dined her, committed a lot of time and effort in the flirt and the hunt and when the moment comes to fuck and you’ve got her shirt off and you’re making out and your hands are in her pants rubbing that wet pussy and then her pants come off and you go down on her and – uh oh – you smell fish. fucking rotten tuna. you can’t bail! you got no choice! you’ve come this far brother you can’t just take your hat and your coat and leave! no fucking way. You owe it to the chick at this point. It’s now service work. It’s fucking but it’s service work. and That’s what I mean. Sometimes life’s pleasures and lives obligations are cleverly disguised as one another.

    • the rains came last week. i felt their effect of my mood immediately. i think it’s been affecting me since.

      today i’m not feeling okay. isolated. like isolating. not talkative. not able to connect with people – even my wife, even my baby. feel this creeping feeling that i’m on the wrong path. that i shouldn’t be married. that what the fuck was i doing tying myself down like this. that i should be out exploring life and the world. that i am marginalizing myself. marginalized existence. i know life is what i make it and if i don’t like it so much why don’t i change it. well, that’s a hard thing to do and a choice that comes with a million sacrifices. enough sacrifice to be a road block, at least until perhaps my sanity can return.

      i feel though that the sadest part, the thing that makes this whole feeling worse is feeling like i have no one to talk to about it. my wife is too busy with the baby, and thinking about herself and how hard life is for her today to really hear what i’m going through. it’s okay. i’ve gotten used to solitude and coming to terms that there really is no one. we are truly alone and any idications to the contrary are lies and deceipt.

      things that aren’t my life:

      • photojournalist on assignment in africa or asia
      • banging countless dumb whores
      • overseas at some obscure military posting in Cyprus or Kandahar
      • in the Canadian Special Ops
      • posessing a college degree and owning a home, a high-paying job and driving a Range Rover
      • making art in some loft somwhere

    • Change of heart?

      While watching the news last night, conflicts in Libya, revolt in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, carrie Commented, “why aren’t [the Canadian Forces] going there to fight? We should be helping those people.” I challenged her on it saying, “it’s not our fight. We can’t go messing in other countries’ affairs like we are a world social worker.” She defended her position, “yes we are, we are privileged enough to have a stable gov’t and the resources to be able to help other people that are enslaved and oppressed by their governments. We absolutely have an obligation to go and fight for other’s freedom.”

      I feel hopeful.

      – Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

    • Why?

      Feeling so sad. Not sure why. Is this a creeping depression? Scared of having a baby. Afraid of being married. Afraid of things never changing. Ashamed of the way I am right now – self loathing and bitter. Afraid of not being able to do whatever I want: deploy overseas, be young and full of possibilities, have finished my degree, have a significant and respectable career. All these regrets and fears. I must overcome.

      – Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

    • I’m in

      I was sworn in to the Canadian Forces about four weeks ago (march 23). My official swearing-in ceremony followed two weeks later. Carrie has been less than enthusiasitc about the whole husband-in-the-army senario. I can sense her fear. I don’t think she’s there yet, at the point of realizing her fears around it, and not yet ready to face them. I understand and accept her fears. How can she not associate the army with war and war with the inevitable death of her husband and loss of her love – to have to raise our child alone. I would be terrified too if I were so uninformed and out of touch with what my feelings are towards it.

      I just watched The Devil Came On Horseback, a fim about the genocide in Darfur. Sure I play a lot of violent first-person shooter video games, and sure I have spent my entire life virtually role-playing and glorifying war. While I can’t deny that this had a part in my enrolment in the army, when I search my heart I can attest that the major reason I joined up was to be of service in the truest and most noble sense I can fathom – to sacrifice my self for my fellow man and to protect those more vulnerable than me from the threats that be. That is it – plane and simple. When I imagine myself on a deployment or tour, I know it would only be right if it were that. It is for this reason that I cannot support the engagment in Afghanistan. There was no atrocity there before western forces attacked. Sure, there was oppression but there was no genocide. And it is not obvious to me that we are there to stop the oppression of women. No, we are there for selfish reasons. To be brutish and take. I do not support that kind of conflict. However, show me a cause where I can protect the vulnerable, those that are being slaghtered and cannot protect themselves and I say I have a duty as a man, as a warrior, as a human to help that person. Just as Carrie voluntarily chooses to help people when they are having the worst day of their life – when they are cut up, broken and mangled, I too want to get in to the dirt, I am not afraid of the harshness, the ugly, the crazy or the scary. This is my advantage and this is what I can offer the world. Carrie doesn’t want to lose me, and I don’t blame her. But right here right now, I say it’s selfish of her not to let me, as a tool, help others that may need me. And right now, what that looks like is preparing myself to be an effective soldier. I need to complete BMQ, complete SQ, complete DP-1 and DP-2, get in to Recce Squadron, so that when the opportunity arrises, I am ready and able to help my fellow man. Cause I am already willing.

    • What I would do if I won the lottery

      Bought a Lotto SuperMax lottery ticket. Draw is friday for 22 million.

      If anything Wayne Dyer said is true I should set out to visualize my goal. What is my goal? To win. Let’s just look at what I would do:

      1. Buy a house or pay off the mortgage for:

      1. Carrie and I – a house in East Vancouver or North Van.
      2. My mom and dad – since they already own, a retirement cottage in Parksville
      3. My brother
      4. My sister
      5. Carrie’s parents, brothers and sister

      2. Go traveling every 4 months – South East Asia, India, China, Europe, Brazil would be top choices.

      3. Continue to work as a carpenter, finish my Red Seal

      4. Go back to school and get my degree; probably an undergrad in Architecture and an MBA.

      5. Sell the old car and buy Carrie a big ass German SUV and a ’69 Challenger.

      6. Pay off all loans and debts for all immediate family members and open a trust in each of their names for $500k a piece maturing at each members respective projected retirement date.

      Well, that takes care of about 14 million. For the rest of the 8 million, I would put it in a long term investment option and forget about it.

      What would you do?

    • Started taking herbal medicine again two days ago in the effort of curing this depression. St. John’s Wort three times a day (30mg x 3) and Gingko Biloba in the morning.

      Noticeable lift in mood Yestyeday and today. Also went to the gym last night and hung out with Briony. Maybe that helped too.