where I am (II: physical)

What the hell is wrong with my liver?! Nothing! That's what's wrong. How can there be nothing wrong with my liver? There must be something wrong with my liver. There was even a period not too long ago when I felt unusual lower back pains that may have indicated something was going wrong internally in that region, and if so, I knew exactly what it must be. But even that pain disappeared in due course.

I'm not bragging, I'm no Keith Moon, but come on, I drink a fifth of liquor every 2 friggin' days. Isn't that too much? And I've been drinking more or less like this nigh on 20 years.

But alas, I'm not counting on alcohol anymore to do my evil bidding in case I can't do so myself. I think I just have to accept it that I'm not genetically pre-disposed to die of liver failure or alcohol poisoning. Otherwise, maybe I'm too physically active/healthy from running and cycling and maybe mentally from mindfulness training.

It's possible. Physically, I could be much worse off than I am if I really wanted to, but for some reason I need to run or I need to ride. I need to test and push myself physically and that keeps me from becoming a blob sitting in front of a computer. Physically, at least. I by no means have six-pack abs, but I just don't like it when I feel a keg developing.

And mentally, I don't like losing control of my mental facilities. Even when I'm physically affected, I draw on internal energies, what I think are the basis of Qi Gong practices, to not let alcohol affect my mental state. My body knows when to stop and tells my mind it cannot take in anymore. Stop.

I may be an alcoholic by volume, but not by identity. Similar to depression, alcoholic is not part of my identity. It's also just a natural consequence of my circumstances, and this may be the strongest argument, through me, that me and my brothers were emotionally and mentally abused as children (via neglect).

I started drinking as soon as I got out of the house. As soon as I was in college, first year, I was asking older students to pick me up cases of wine when they went on alcohol runs.

Wine was fine for starters, all sorts of cheap Riunite if I recall correctly, but it got more difficult when I moved up to liquor, as you couldn't buy 80 proof liquor in Oberlin and a bunch of townships in that area of Ohio.

But once I got a car out there, I think after my sophomore year, I did find townships where they did. I think a town called LaGrange had a real liquor store and I went there on my own on my 21st birthday. 100 proof Yukon Jack, I remember. And 100 proof Southern Comfort. I got into 100 proofs at the time. 

So what other inexplicable ailments have I had through the years?

- Within blog history, I've had rampant hiccups which could last up to 70 hours. I'm sure there's a psychological basis to them, but I don't know what that is. I think they started in my senior year of college.

- I've always had some unexplained skin sensitivity that may or may not still exist. Actually, I'm pretty sure it does. If I scratch my skin, it will welt up, and if I feel itchy all over and start to scratch, it gets seriously hideous. No idea what that is.

- I thought insomnia was just a Taiwan thing, but as I read through past records, I was an insomniac in San Francisco, too. Yay, me.

- Tendinitis. A repetitive stress injury that goes with the territory if you play bass or drums like I did. But only when I was in a band and competing with other instruments. It was particularly bad on bass because I really dug in with my right hand for the tone I wanted, and even my left (fretting) hand I treated like it was a part of what came out of the amp, and not just establishing the pitch of note.

- In high school I had nosebleeds that didn't stop. I don't think there were any events in college or afterwards, but in high school if I got a nosebleed, it wasn't just a matter of putting my head back until it stopped. I was basically lying forward, draining myself into a cup or a bucket or a sink for unusually long periods of time. I don't think anyone knows about this.

- When I was a kid I was asthmatic. There was no reason why, no trigger. My brother was allergic to ragweed and got asthma and his was relatively mild, but mine had no identifiable trigger and I had severe episodes. I remember one time being home from school alone (parents didn't take a day off from work for a sick child), and I literally couldn't turn my head without losing my breath and wheezing for dear life.

I don't remember how my asthma was during high school, I know I didn't run winter track because exertion in cold weather definitely led to asthmatic wheezing, but I do recall asthma returning late in college to the extent that I kept an inhaler on my night stand because I regularly woke up with asthma. It wasn't as severe by then, and drugstore inhalers were enough to keep it in check.

I got rid of asthma after college. After college, I was leaving for Japan for an indeterminate time, and when I was packing, I was mulling over whether to take my inhalers or not. For some reason I thought I wouldn't be able to get inhalers in Japan after I ran out, so I decided to leave them. I never got asthma again.

Now? It's just age. I'm old now. I didn't realize it back then, but even when I was contemplating the suicide option earlier, there were still options because I was physically more capable because of my age. I mean I'm not keeling over, but let's face it, the older you get, the older you get.

And it's vanity when you hit 21 and you think you're getting old. It's vanity when you hit 30 and you think you're getting old. From my experience, when you hit 30, you're just hitting your stride and you're looking at the best years of your life.

My "best years" of my life are behind me. If I don't have a wife, a career, a family . . . well, there still are options, but not ones I'm socially genetically pre-disposed towards. It's values. With the values my family pushed, my life is over. If I wasn't trapped by my family values, then I could be Ernest Hemingway. I could be the renegade, the bohemian, and enjoy whatever life I can soak the very essence of life out of. And then I could commit suicide.

But I'm not that. I don't have this drive to live, to break out of my own borders to quench a thirst for life. Life is ... whatever. Life is. Life is a cycle. Any one lifetime is no big thing, not to be attached to.

My parents, people, whoever may react to my disappearance in whatever way they do. So friggin' what? I disappeared partly because of what they were or were not to me. And it, I didn't matter. Or else they wouldn't have played so perfectly in my purpose. It's not that I wasn't looking for options or alternatives. I just didn't care to find them on my own.