That was the worst Christmas ever.

...Did I expect anything else? Here's how it went:
Christmas Eve morning - I wake up later than I had intended to, around 10:30. I shower. I get out of the shower. I beg my boyfriend to please wake up and help me pack up and get ready to go. He mumbles and groans. He eventually gets up. I send him to the store to pick up cat food and cat litter while I pack and try to straighten up around the house. My boyfriend returns. Sits down on the bed with his head in his hands. I bring out his gifts. I don't remember if I previously wrote this already, but I know that the $150 dollars I gave him stupidly for "presents" is gone, and it sure didn't go towards Christmas gifts. It went straight up his nose. He stares at the packages that I brought out. "I don't want these" he says, and pushes them away. "You sure know how to make someone feel great" I say to him, barely managing to hold the tears back. "Just take them! What am I going to do with them?" I open them up for him. "Here's a shirt I thought you would like, and these books you've always talked about reading..." I start rambling a little, just amazed by his thoughtlessness once again. He doesn't even look up. "Listen, I really don't want to come with you. I feel horrible. I just want to stay here." Translation - I want to be alone for Christmas so I can do all the drugs I want in peace and be away from your nagging. This time I'm just speechless. He had said he wanted to come and I was relying on him not only to help me carry my lighting equipment (I had a few shoots lined up) but also just to BE there. I mean, it's natural to want to be with your boyfriend during Christmas, right? He's always been there before. It's always nice to know your man would rather spend Christmas with heroin than with you. So I insisted that he come with me. I started packing his clothing for him and spouting off all the reasons why it would be incredibly fucked up for him to ditch me last minute. It worked. He sighed and put his shoes back on.

The train ride was awful. The entire time he acted like a moody, brooding selfish baby. Around now is the time where I started hearing about the tooth. He's always had problems with his teeth because he's never really been to the dentist, only when there has been problems that were too big to ignore. He has broken teeth, abscesses, you name it. On and off for the last few days I've been hearing about his "pain". I haven't written about this yet, and it is a key element in the story of my boyfriend's deterioration, but he has metastatic thyroid cancer. I was eventually going to write some long detailed blogs about this when I had some time and motivation but hadn't gotten around to it yet. He often says this causes him extreme pain, which is hard for me to always believe. He had surgery and radiation 2 years ago and was pronounced cancer-free. It wasn't until very recently the doctor has suspected that the cancer is returning. Before his drug problem began in the summer of '07, he rarely complained of pain and it didn't seen that this was what caused his addiction. He was not prescribed pain killers and never really expressed that he wasn't feeling well. But lately he complains of pain very often and sometimes I think it's just so that I feel sorry for him and am more sympathetic to his addiction.

Which brings us back to the train ride. On and on and on he bitched about his tooth and how it was killing him. I had been telling him for weeks to just go to the dentist to which he would say he has no insurance and couldn't afford it. But paying for a shitload of heroin to ease this pain is understandable though. God. I honestly don't know if the tooth thing is real or not. You would think that if the complaint were legitimate he would just buck up and see the dentist. But no. He'd rather just self-medicate and self-destruct even further. Finally I said something I probably really shouldn't have. "Maybe my mom will give me some pain killers when we get there." My parent's Vicodin is a huge issue because of my boyfriend. Back in May of '07, before the consuming heroin addiction had taken over his life, my boyfriend stole about 40 Vics from my parent's medicine cabinet on mother's day. Even though he was basically caught red-handed, he denied doing it up and down, and made us all feel terrible for even accusing him in the first place. It was so fucked up. He eventually did admit it when I went to great lenghts to prove he was guilty, and he apologized profusely to us all. Needless to say, my parents's are no longer his biggest fans (and really weren't to begin with). So because of this, asking my mother to give me some pain killers for him was bound to be a touchy subject. And I did it anyway. It's funny how he's only nice to me when I give into his addicty demands. I guess that's what being a true codie is all about. It fucking sucks. My mom gave me her Vics after I told her he was going to be a miserable baby throughout our stay. And it did perk him up, although just a bit.

Christmas Eve was actually not so terrible. We went to my aunt's house on my mom's side of the family. They're a bunch of fun crazy people and I had a nice time. My bf was a bit on the quiet side but didn't have any complaints.

Christmas day we went to my aunt's house on my dad's side of the family. By the time we left to go there he had already polished off the Vicodins my mom had given me and was starting to bitch and complain and was clearly going to be difficult all day. Once we got to my aunt's he basically parked himself in front of the tv for hours and barely said two words to anyone. And I HATE having to explain what's wrong with him to my family. I hate making excuses and being with someone who can't do something as simple as attend a family function without there being some sort of problem.

After we got back to my parent's house he REALLY starting acting like a selfish asshole. He kept insisting we go back to the city, obviously to get drugs. He made me call someone I know who can get "stuff" repeatedly for hours until it became apparent that he was just going to have to go without. And of course it's MY fault that he's not feeling well. MY fault that he can't get drugs. God, he made me so fucking angry. Here we are at my parent's house who treat him like gold even though he doesn't deserve it. They are cooking for us, washing our clothes, showering us in gifts, even giving him painkillers so he can feel better. And all he can do is complain that nothing is good enough. And here I am spending all of Christmas night trying to find him drugs, worrying that he might do something crazy. On top of it, a bunch of my friends are also home for the holiday and they all keep calling me, asking me to come out for drinks. I ask my bf to please come. He refuses, and forbids me to go. Finally he says "give me my unemployment card and you can go". The card has $600 on it. I'd have to be a total idiot to give into something like that. Not to mention that morning he had woken up at 8am, gone through my stuff and found the card. He then walked around my neighborhood in search of an ATM which gladly he never found. Once I realized it was gone I had demanded it back and he handed it to me sheepishly.
So of course I had no choice to stay in and baby-sit once again. Good times. I slept horribly that night because he kept huffing and puffing, tossing and turning. All I could imagine was him finding where I had hid my money and his card and sneaking off in the middle of the night. What a wonderful Christmas.

The next two days were slightly better, minus him freaking out and screaming he was in pain last night, even though I had gotten in touch with a dentist earlier in the day who had agreed to see him and he had refused. Oh well. He had his chance.

On top of that, yesterday morning I finally saw my doctor in regard to my high blood pressure and splitting headaches I've been having. When the nurse took my BP it was higher than it ever had been. My doctor expressed a lot of concern and said I seriously need to reduce the stress in my life and go on a beta blocker to get it down. I also need to go back in a week for extensive testing to check my kidney function, my heart and some other things. Great. I am a huge baby when it comes to anything medical. I feel an anxiety attack coming over every time I step into a doctor's office. So hearing news like that scares the shit out of me. She suggested I get one of those home BP monitors which I haven't done yet. I'm too young for this shit!

So now we are back in Brooklyn. I'm so scared that any moment he's going to get the desire to use and demand the card and/or money from me. I told him before we left, no matter what I am NOT giving in. He can scream and bitch and threaten me and still I will not let him blow this. Finally it seems as though we will be able to pay rent on time this month and maybe even have enough left over to pay the phone bill too!!! This is big news! I don't want to say that I'm hopeful yet though, since hope is a dangerous gamble. Every single time it seems that my hopes are smashed to pieces and right now I just can't bear another let down. So now I am taking it minute by minute. So I better start watching that clock.