Ghosts of Christmas Past

Hi everyone. Hope you are having a wonderful Christmas! Today we get to celebrate our Savior being brought into this world with his wonderful gift of redemption and grace. I am deeply grateful for this. It's amazing how God can turn lives around. Like mine, for instance.

I'm going to take a step back today. Most of you that read this diary now don't know me from before I found Jesus. You don't know me from when I was a using drug addict, not a recovering one. Today's going to be a little illustration of the power that God has to change lives around and give all of us second chances, even the most undeserving. Fortunately, Christ doesn't see any of us as undeserving.

I kept a blog when I was using. It's not pretty. Many times in the last couple of years I've thought of deleting it. Letting go of the past to move on to my future. I can't do it though. It's such a great reminder of where I came from and the kind of person that I was that I think it's an absolutely great testimony to the power of God to transform lives. A gritty, somewhat vulgar, testimony to be sure.

Without further ado, Here's my week of Christmas from 2004. It's not easy for me to read, I hope it's not too hard for you to look at. This WAS me, circa end of my active addiction.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

THIS IS RATED NC-17. BAD LANGUAGE, SEXUAL SITUATIONS, DRUG USE, AND GENERAL HORRIBLENESS FOLLOW THIS WARNING. IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED DON'T READ ANY FURTHER. THANK YOU.

2004-12-18

Obligations

What am I doing? I feel pretty out of touch with the real world. It's not a terrible place for me to be at this time of year. Numb. I have succeeded in numbing myself for the holidays. All relationships seem fragile. Unimportant. That's good for me because I'm trying to insulate myself from caring. I am doing the minimum required to get by. I need a connection that I don't feel obligated to fuck when I score from her. I don't mind fucking her neccesarily, I don't like feeling obligated.

2004-12-21

Have a holly, jolly christmas

Hi diary. How I wish that it was not this time of year. When I could look forward to putting some lighthearted entry that makes everyone go "Oh, that bub!" However, I'm not lighthearted at present. I hung out with My Man James last night. That's about the best that I have felt in the last 2 weeks. The closest to "normal" that my life has felt. Christmas music playing. James dancing while I was holding him and singing to him. A beautiful christmas tree. Alabama sitting in the comfie chair watching us, smiling. Some wierd, surrealistic scene. Something along the lines of "Carrie" when the girl goes to visit Carrie's grave and the hand reaches up from the grave to pull her in. Nothing that dramatic happened, of course. The problem is when? When is it going to happen? When is she going to feel the time is right to fuck it all up again? I just tried to stay in the moment, singing to James about chesnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose. It was a good night. I can't get over that feeling of impending doom. I'm hanging in there. I really am. Five more days until the day after christmas. I can do it. I really can. I'm just staying in the present, no matter how much I dread the next couple of days or retreat back into the horrors of christmas past. God, I just think it's awful that I feel like this about what is supposed to be a wonderful holiday.

2004-12-22

Bub the red nosed addict.

Time for me to clean up for a couple of days. Have to go to Shelly's house on friday and they will know if I am all strung out. Should be a lot of sleep for me the next 72 hours. I need a good connection that I don't have to fuck in order to score. Actually, I don't have to fuck her. I just have to act like I want to fuck her. I would much rather just get it from her without all that fuss. I have been avoiding her the last week. I told Alabama about her. Alabama and me? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

2004-12-23

Cold Turkey

God, I hate feeling like this. It's been almost 2 days since I've did anything. I can barely keep my eyes open. I had a marvelous chat with a wonderful woman last night. Probably the highlight of the day. I'm thinking I should feel about 70% tomorrow. I'm only running at maybe 40% today. Yeah, it's that bad. It feels like my body is having like intermittent power outages. Like someone is turning the switch on and off. I could probably use a drink. Maybe I will break into the hard liquor to knock myself out. I should sleep like a rock tonight. I hope.

2004-12-24

Merry Christmas everyone

Christmas eve! getting ready to go shopping for the family. Kassie and Beckah aren't coming down. Got a note from their mom this morning. I saw groovebunny's christmas song post, so I decided to post my own. It's a song I wrote some 13 years ago. It's not a happy song so be warned. I hope everyone has a wonderful christmas! Please stay safe. I'm outta here until sunday morning I think. I'll stay safe too, ok? P.S. Sorry the playing is so horrid, first time I have picked up the guitar this month and a long time since I have played that particular song

Rachel

Rachel sits by the christmas tree
Wondering where her daddy's gone
Seems he's never around no more
Seems he's been gone too long

Chorus:

She don't know what's going on
Daddy don't live there anymore
She's too young to understand
He don't live there anymore

Rachel goes to the park to play
She climbs up on the swing
Ain't no one to push her
Least not the way daddy did

Chorus

Rachel goes to sleep at night
Her prayers go unanswered
Mom gives her a hug and a kiss
She don't know what to say

Chorus

And this was one of the good Christmases! Thank you God that I don't have to live like that anymore.

Tuesday Thoughts

Welcome to Tuesday Thoughts, which we shall be used in lieu of Wednesday Words for this week. Wow, what a week it was! I guess we should start with last Wednesday.




Wednesday was D-day, as in demolish my mouth day. I woke up a little late, Letty and I had a great breakfast at the Omelet Factory in La Mesa and then headed down to TJ on a rain soaked freeway. Anyone that was in San Diego that day can tell you how miserable the roads were. Now imagine throwing that same amount of water on roads where there is NO real traffic laws that are followed and also no real means of drainage of said water. TJ nightmare. The city was flooding. We had a real problem. We couldn't drive our car into Libertad (barrio where the dentist's office is located) because the water was getting too high. Our appointment was in 15 minutes. What to do?



I think Letty and I would do well at that one TV show The Great Race. At least if they edited out all of my yelling and general panicking while my wife calmly handled the situation. I had the idea to get a taxi. Then I realized we had no money. Actually, I had a $10 bill but no one had American change in the spot we were at. Besides, we weren't even sure how much a taxi cost.


We walked into a supermarket over at the Pueblo Amigo shopping Center. We find the ATM machine and are confused when it tells us it only gives out money in increments of $50. I sigh and tell Letty oh well, we need the money so I withdraw $50. Ummm, wrong. That's 50 alright. 50 pesos. Doh! When I looked at the transaction amount later that was about $3.70 with finance charges and everything. It did the trick though as we soon were standing outside waiting for our 30 peso cab to Libertad.



Our cab driver didn't have quite the same fear for his vehicle and natural flooding disasters as we did. We hopped into the cab and it was like Mr. Toad's wild ride through the flooded streets of Tijuana. Actually it was a lot of fun although I'm sure at some point it was pretty dangerous. I actually forgot for a second that I was getting all my teeth pulled out of my head in about ten minutes and just felt the freedom of being in the present as we slid from puddle to puddle. Actually more like stream to stream.



We made it to the office and walked inside. Dr. Rita was there right behind us. She was ready to go to work. I got in the chair. she dropped the chair back and it was time to get her tooth pulling on.


I'm not quite sure what was going through my mind as my teeth were being individually pulled out of my head. I will say that it wasn't a painful experience. Dr. Rita numbed up my mouth but good and the only thing I could feel was the pressure. I only had one tooth that wouldn't numb up because of how infected it was. That one was a little painful coming out.


It's crazy how much blood comes out when a tooth is pulled. Now, take that and times it by sixteen. My head was like a sieve. Lots of blood coming from lots of holes. The longest part of the whole procedure was trying to stop the bleeding enough so that she could pull the next tooth. Finally, the last tooth was pulled (a half buried wisdom tooth) and Dr. Rita leaned back to grab my NEW teeth.

It wasn't a very ceremonious occasion. Pop and they were in. Mind you, there was nothing covering the holes in my head. Except the dentures. She said to use them to apply pressure to my wounds. Alright, I can do that. Unfortunately it didn't work too well. After about 10 minutes the blood started seeping through the teeth. Of course, at this point we are in the back of a cab heading towards Pueblo Amigo.

My head was totally numb so I couldn't feel the blood and spittle coming down my chin until Letty pointed it out to me. I tried to wipe away as much as I could but it wasn't pretty. Finally we arrived at our car and headed back to the border.

The one great thing about the rain as that there was hardly any line heading back to San Diego. I finally had to take the lower denture out because there was so much blood in my mouth that it wouldn't sit right. Letty had been smart enough to purchase some gauze at the farmacia while she waited for me. It took about 8 large gauze but finally I was able to soak up all the blood and get it somewhat under control. When we got to border inspection the agent took one look at me and we were on our way. Viva las Estados Unidos!

It's 6 days since that wonderful day. The teeth look great! My head is finally starting to heal up. I'm getting used to having them in my mouth. It somewhat reminds me of having braces or maybe closer having a retainer. I'm able to eat a little more each day. I am having a problem with my bottom denture, it seems that it's a little loose. I'll have to wait until January to get it fixed. It's not that big a deal unless I try to eat something with it on. I've pretty much started taking it out when I want to eat something substantial, at least when I'm at home.

Maybe this is going to have to be a two part post as that little story took a lot out of me. If I don't get back on to finish, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and thank you all so much for praying for me. I don't think I could have gotten through all of this if I didn't believe that He was there with me, watching over and protecting me. Thanks again.

Let's try it again!

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Wednesday words, can you believe it!

Here's a quick update to what's happening in my world. Ya ready? Here we goooooo. Still working the two jobs. It's going alright although I had a horrible week at the day job last week. That last sentence was weak. To add on to all of that I've been having to go to TJ (tijuana for the non san diegans) for dental appointments. Saturday our border wait coming back was 3 hours. Sigh. Only two more and I'm all done. I hope.

Saturday they are going to pull all of my teeth and give me my dentures. I might be down for a couple of days. I'm just a little frightened of that whole process. I'm just giving it to God because I know that he has a plan for me. It would suck to bleed to death in a TJ dental office, you know what I mean? Hopefully, God knows what I mean. Oh bub of little faith!

I'm not sure what's going on for christmas. I've been working so much that I haven't had much time to try and figure out things for the kids. The logistics of my life with 5 kids with 4 different mommas is crazy at this time of the year. I'm sure that it will all get worked out.

One thing I'm totally stoked about is that we get to go to Journey for Christmas eve. Usually we haven't been able to attend because of work and heading to my sister's house for her party. Everything fell into place this year with the times so we are really happy. Now I have to figure out who to invite.

OK, that's it from me over here, a quick update on my fantastic life. I'm not being sarcastic either. I'm so blessed by my Lord to have all of the opportunities that I do have in my life that I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Although I still do. OK, off to the shower and work, yay!!!!

I hope I didn't screw up...

My entry into the big blogger tournament in a week and a half. Let's see if this works.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This PokerStars tournament is a No Limit Texas Hold’em event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 822916