Traveling reflections

(Picture on left: "Neal Page" and "Del Griffith")

Traveling has a way of putting me in a reflective, nostalgic mood/mode (as if I need help in that department!). Whether on the road, on foot, or in the air.....traveling holds meaning for me in both the old memories I can recall and the anticipation of new memories about to be created.

It astounds me how there are some people out there who have never been on an airplane, nor even ventured outside of the state where they reside. It saddens me and simultaneously gives me an appreciation for all the experiences I have had, far and wide across the US.....and anticipation for future travel adventures.

As I was en route to the Seattle-Tacoma Airport on Wednesday (and as I likely do each time I am headed for a traveling destination), I recalled different memories of the people I would soon be seeing and wondered what memories this particular trip would bring. Flashbacks of airport and airline memories in general also filled my mind. I remember being both excited and somewhat nervous traveling to and from Florida by myself when I was a kid. I was really young when my parents divorced and soon after, my dad moved to Florida....hence, the need to travel to see him.

I can't remember how old I was the first time I flew on a plane by myself, but I do remember sitting in a window seat at age 12 or 13 reading feminist author Naomi Wolf's "The Beauty Myth".....intense reading material for a young teenager. Sometimes I wonder if traveling by myself as a youngster paved the way for the self-reliance and independence I proudly embrace now as an adult. I remember sitting in the seats of numerous airport 'gates' (Why do they call them 'gates' anyway? Are we animals trapped behind fences?)......LaGuardia, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Chicago, Tampa, Boston. I remember the days before terrorism was an everyday possibility, a time when you could go to the airport and carry pretty much anything in your bags without scrutiny by the TSA.

I especially remember how exciting it was when loved ones could actually greet me at the 'gate' as I stepped off the plane. All the unpleasant symptoms of airline travel (ears out of whack, sleepiness, hunger pangs, having to pee really bad, impatience, bodily discomfort from having to sit in one spot for a long period of time) suddenly disappear those 5-10 glorious minutes leading up to who was waiting for me at the gate. Heart beating fast with anticipation, I would hurriedly exit the plane and be overwhelmed by a sea of faces looking past me for their loved one as I sought mine amongst the crowd. Whom would be spotted first, me or my 'greeter?' A rush of joy ran through me in that moment of recognition, which typically involved a long-awaited warm and welcoming hug. I miss the days of gate greetings. And airline meals, albeit even if barely more edible than hospital food. I still chuckle at signs posted at baggage claim: "Many Bags Look Alike." Well, no shit, Sherlock! Are we as a society lacking that much common sense? Actually, yes....but that makes for another blog in and of itself.

I liken how I feel to one of my personal favorites: "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," a John Hughes movie from the 1980's starring Steve Martin and John Candy. It centers on the weird, crazy and sometimes frustrating experience of traveling from point A to point B.....mainly what happens between point A (place of departure) and point B ( place of arrival). Both the experiences and the memories created from such experiences embody a sense of significance for the two main characters......what they are grateful for, what they learn along the journey, and a reminder that they must have a sense of humor or they will (and do) lose their sanity.

A violent significance

(Art by Salvador Dali)

I have been busy, busy, busy this month (!), including in my dreams it seems...or rather, nightmares mostly. It occurred to me today after having told a handful of people (friends and coworkers) that dreams of an intense, violent, and/or tragic nature have been the recurring theme. I'm usually one to be pretty good at interpreting and making sense of even the weirdest of dreams I am prone to have, but these are in a world of their own. The only thing I can postulate is perhaps I am feeling scared and vulnerable about something in my waking life that is being revealed in my dreams. What do you think?

Here are a series of nightmares I have had recently:

1. I am in Chicago hanging out with my friend Scott and his female friend. They are talking about a party they would like to attend later and Scott asks if I can go to the building next door and see if his other female friend would like to go with the three of us. I acquiesce. When I enter the apartment, sun is streaming through. It feels radiant and warm. I spot a young woman standing in front of a window. She is wearing a dark colored, long flowing dress. She looks beautiful. We make eye contact, but she says nothing. Her eyes, however, convey a sadness. Before I can speak, she opens the window and I wonder what she's doing. She sticks her head out and then the rest of her body....purposefully! As if in a movie, I see her falling, falling, falling. The building I walked into was only a three or four story building, but suddenly her fall makes it seem like it was 50 floors. I want to help her and I feel powerless. There's no turning back. She is going to die. Before she hits the ground, the scarf around her neck whips back, 'hanging' herself to death before the impact of the ground does it for her. The ambulance arrives and I search for my friend Scott, feeling guilty that I couldn't stop her in time and wondering how the hell I'm going to tell my friend that his friend just committed suicide.

2. I am working in a shoe store and about 15 feet ahead of me, I see my dad and my stepsister on either side of my stepmother. They each have their arm around her, trying to hold her up. Her head is down and she looks unconscious or at least about to faint. I wonder what is going on. Next thing I know, there is a hole in the palm of her hand and all this blood spurts out of it. Before I can make sense of this shocking occurrence, she is on the ground....and her body was split in two, like someone sawed her in half. I could see the inside of the lower half of her body (inside her abdomen). My dad and stepsister started screaming and crying. I'm watching in the distance and I start to shout. I am so freaked out that the sound I made in my dream materialized a bit out loud and I woke myself up from this hellish nightmare.

3. I am in my work building (though it doesn't look like my 'real' work building), about to go up the staircase to the second floor when suddenly an older woman comes barreling around the corner in the opposite direction and rudely, abruptly runs into me. Out of frustration, I tell her to watch where she's going. She is standing in front of me at the bottom of the stairwell and pulls out a gun, pointing it at me. I tell her I will do whatever she asks; I don't want to die. She leads me up the stairwell, gun concealed and still on me nonetheless. I'm trying to think fast. What do I do? How do I keep everyone safe and alive? When I get to the top of the second floor, I notice there are no therapy rooms for our sessions, just one huge room where I see kids jumping around. They don't see us and I'm relieved for that. Unfortunately, neither did my coworker Melanie when I attempted to surreptitiously get her attention as she walked past me. She was intent on getting to her next session, undeterred by any and all distractions. The woman with the gun put her hand on the doorknob to our therapist office and I stopped her, saying it was locked and didn't need to go in there anyway. Next thing I know, however, we are in the office room. I made up my mind in the blink of an eye, fight or flight mode. I chose to fight. I told the woman I didn't care if I got shot in the process; I was not going to let anyone get hurt. I went for the gun she was holding. We struggled for the gun and a gunshot went off, hitting no one. I handcuffed her to the wall. I also remember either her or I making a comment about her mental health history and/or whether she needed a referral to see someone.

"Chapter" 3

I had said that I wasn't planning on posting anything more from my 'book' writings on here, but after having a handful of friends telling me they wanted to see my writing on here as I go along (if it even becomes a book, see last blog entry)....I have decided to go ahead and put it on here. Who knows, maybe you guys can help give me feedback and direction with it...see something I'm missing at the moment. I'm really unhappy with this particular piece not flowing well and sounding boring, but here it is nonetheless.

I had no idea what I was in for with my new role as 'substance abuse counselor.' I must sound like a broken record, but I can't emphasize this enough. How could I comprehend a title I knew little about to begin with?

Waking up at 4:00am to start my day was an arduous adjustment, in and of itself....especially since I had always been a night owl. Thus began the period of my life of chronic sleep deprivation and mass consumption of coffee (my own growing addiction). While I appeared calm and collect on the outside, I became more guarded, vigilant on the inside of my mind.....with everything that had to do with the job. Just the thought of having to travel around 5am in the dead calm of morning with random strangers brushing past me on the sidewalks, or the possibility of being confronted by a dangerous criminal on the sparsely filled train car was enough to raise my anxiety level. It took me months to get to a comfort level of fearlessness on my commute. Even still, I exercised acute awareness and precaution as I walked down desolate streets.

Six days a week, this feeling spilled over into my work hours. Unarming a security system in order to walk through the door to my workplace was standard operating procedure, a mere tip of the proverbial iceberg. Constant alert was necessary. I imagine it's somewhat akin to what it must be like to live on the streets. You can never truly relax, because if you do....that's all she wrote. Street smarts (aka 'common sense') is absolutely essential. More about this later.

As I said, the first two weeks were spent at the downtown office. I became acquainted with two other fellow colleagues, who would be joining me at the new clinic we would be 'opening' together. M. (the office manager) and A. (the nurse) had worked together at another methadone clinic that had been shut down due to financial reasons, so in essence I was the only one who was totally new to this experience. I instantly took a liking to M. the moment I met her, a kind woman with a warm personality. She was instrumental in helping me through the most stressful and scariest of times, a pseudo-counselor in her own way.

First things first....building up an existing caseload of clientele that had transferred from the clinic where M. and A. had worked, in addition to juggling and learning the ropes of daily operations. I was literally learning everything from scratch. M. and I became engrossed in learning how to use the computer program, as there were 40-50 clients whose information we would need to put into the system. We tried to coordinate the transition as smoothly as possible. This entailed knowing ahead of time when to expect a particular client to come in to be 'dosed' and/or receive their 'pickups' in work lingo.

A client's frequency in coming to the clinic was dependent on different factors, according to length of treatment and 'proof' of consistent sobriety.

New clients require the most intensive level for obvious reasons: they are at highest risk of continuing drug use and need constant monitoring, guidance, support, and behavior modification. A majority of addicts get high for years. The longer they have been addicted, the longer the recovery process. One must have a minimum of at least one year of heroin dependence to be considered for methadone treatment, though as I have mentioned a large percentage have been doing it for years. Trying to help someone get clean and change their overall well-being can be as exhausting as parenting a young child or teenager. Every client is different. There is no 'one size fits all' treatment approach. Try telling the clients this when they don't get what they want though!

Due to the highly addictive properties of heroin, many addicts choose methadone as a supportive 'tool' as a part of their overall recovery process. By this, I mean they cannot stop using heroin cold turkey (whether for mental or physiological reasons) without medication to ease them into sobriety. The only somewhat close analogy I can make to this is what the nicotine patch does for a smoker. For some people, quitting is impossible without the assistance of a patch to gradually decrease the amount of nicotine absorbed in the body. The same can be true for heroin addicts. Cravings and withdrawal symptoms can be downright intolerable without medication to make the transition more comfortable.

While methadone can be effective if utilized properly, it is still a narcotic that is tightly regulated by the DEA and in turn, the clinic staff that oversees methadone related procedures. It entails just about every aspect of the job....bringing in new clients, collecting urine specimens, and strict guidelines on how much methadone a client is allowed to have in his/her possession outside the confines of the clinic. Safety is also a top priority, methadone kept under lock and key by the nurse. As the counselor, I only had access to the security code at the front door. The nurse only had access to the nursing station security alarm, for obvious safety measures.