Being a chronic dulls a lot of emotions. This is good and bad. It’s good because all those bad emotions like sadness and anger are dulled out and you don’t really care about it. Bad because those good feelings are ALSO dulled out. Also not feeling and thus not working through “negative” emotions keeps you stagnant.

I am having regular emotions again.

I get sad and angry and happy and content and all kinds of things I forgot I could feel. Sometimes I get surprised by tiny tears forming in my eyes because I am feeling something. And it’s not necessarily something that is even happening NOW, it could be something from the past that I haven’t thought about in a long time.

The other day I was thinking about my cousin Christopher who fell to his death in an industrial accident in 2006. I thought about the feeling of falling and the impossibility of saving oneself and I thought about how scary that must have been for him, and it made me really upset. Intellectually when it happened I knew all that, but for the first time I really really FELT it. And that shocked me. It was such a surprise because it has been six years and it felt so long ago now but I was a heavy user even then and I don’t think I really processed it the way I should have at the time.

That kind of thing is going to keep happening to me, I know it. And I really can’t do much else besides work through those feelings. I can’t just switch to another substance and numb myself out, I have to confront all these old feelings I didn’t feel.

I’m a bit worried. I feel like I didn’t cry as much as I should have/would have about my last break up, and I am worried it is really going to hit me and make me upset all over again, in a deeper more fundamental way than when it was actually happening.

BUT I am also feeling this profound sense of joy and excitement about my life, like I am really living, REALLY living! And that also makes me feel a sense of awe, like I have potential I had forgotten about. When I was just starting my video/film career I was so optimistic and had big dreams, and I never really lost those dreams, but I lost the motivation and focus to actualize them. And for the first time in a while I feel hope, hope that I can actually get my career back on track and make something out of myself. I feel like I really could make a low budget guerrilla feature film that could get some attention. I feel like I just might be able to change the world in some way through my art.

And for the first time I have some positive thoughts about moving out of my Mom’s house, like I could manage to earn enough of a living to pay for a rental property with a yard for Mister and get a queer/native roommate to help cover the rent. Like I could really live on my own again and even keep the place clean and make my own dinners. It’s not going to happen right away, not for months. But I think it will happen. I can see it happening. I might even make enough to get a down payment on my own house in five years, which is something I really want.

Things are looking up. But this will mean I have to emotionally grow, and growth can be painful sometimes. Still, these feelings mean more to me than any high I got from pot. I think the only high I ever really liked was when I was 19 and went to the laser light show. But the rest of them are forgettable. Completely forgettable. Just something I did. I used to think really good things about weed. Now I just see how many hours and years I wasted getting stoned instead of having a life. I tolerated so much crap getting stoned. Crappy surroundings, crappy conversations, crappy food, crappy movies. I used to watch CSI and get stoned and forget how it ended and always be surprised when that episode came on again.

I don’t know what else to write about today. I’m seeing my psychic so soon! I hope she says good things, although I know she is a realist who will tell me exactly what is going on. That’s good though. I need to know that stuff.

I’m lonely for a girlfriend. But maybe I’m not even ready for one yet? I don’t know. I think I could handle it. I think I could finally be a good girlfriend. I just don’t know who.

I asked the love of my life if she wanted to spend time with me again. She just didn’t respond at all. I can live with that. I think I will end up with the right woman, and maybe it isn’t even her. Maybe there is someone I don’t even know yet.

I have a more reliable gym buddy now, although she is leaving in a few months. But today we sat in the sauna after working out and it was awesome!

I am also thinking of getting Rosetta Stone and learning more German. More than my teeny tiny amount of German, I would like to be able to have a rudimentary conversation when I am in Hamburg this summer.

I finished a short Super 8 film which screened in Toronto tonight, and this spring/summer will be making a short video about being Butch and considering transitioning to male before changing my mind. And this spring I am putting in a grant application to the Canada Council to finally make Bunnyhug, with the most money you can get from the CC in Media Arts, but which is a far cry from the 250,000 digital low budget feature I could have made with CFC if only they had accepted my application. I am feeling pretty excited about all this creative output, and I think now that I have gotten clean, it is all realistic.

That’s what’s up. Things are going to keep changing, I know it. I just have to be prepared to ride it out and learn how to deal with life, sans weed.