Polaroids in the Darkness

It's been about a week and a half since all this crap with Lisa and the police went down.
It's been the same length of time since I've touched any alcohol.
It feels as though it's been considerably longer than that. I know that's a cliche, but it's true. In some ways the uneventfulness, the peace and relative tranquility of the past several days has been like a tonic to me, and the world - the life - I left behind is lost in a distant shadowy past.
It's been a sleepy , slow paced week, although in a lot of ways I've been more fulfilled and more active - at least mentally active - than I was in Toronto.
I feel healthier - in mind, body and spirit now that Im away from that awful life, than I'd thought it possible to feel again. There's another cliche for you, but that one is also true. At the same time, it's not untrue to also say I've been lonely and sad, with feelings of loss and regret.
I've been online more consistently than in about a year, and watching more TV episodes and movies than in a very, very long time.
Despite all these positive feelings, I'm also adrift.
I'm a bit directionless right now, a little lost. But I'm hoping I'll wind up the better for it.
I have to hold on to that hope, or I can't go on.
I want to try writing some fiction, I just don't have any good ideas.
Or,rather, I have to many ideas - I'm bursting with them, but it's winnowing them down that's the problem.
But why should it be? Why leave any thing out?
What? Am I saving it to use later in something else? That's no way to write, I should throw everything in and then the kitchen sink besides.
Throw everything at it. Why hold anything back when tomorrow you may die. I've heard that before and I'd even thought I'd try to live it once in awhile, but I think I understand it now more than ever. And I'm not getting any younger.
So I need to hold nothing back.
This isn't just about this lame blog or writing, or any one thing, but in all aspects of my life - I should be giving everything I've got all the time.

I've reconected with an old friend here in Guelph, one who I'd not gotten along with the last few times we'd seen one another.We've been getting along better than at any time in the last few years. That's a good thing.
The other day he paid me 50 bucks giving him a tutorial on how to use his fancy new laptop.
He has a level of knowledge in using PC's that allows him to use email and the web at work, but anything beyond that - even something simple as copying and pasting files is a mystery to him. I hadn't actually asked anything for doing it, but he gave me the 50, probably thinking I could use the money. Which is true.

The past few days though, I've been having the hardest time getting anything done and for lack of a better fall guy, I'm blaming it on the internets.
I've got unlimited high speed here at my sisters, and so unlike back in the city, I can actually be online all the time. I'm hoping the thrill will die off sometime soon and I'll be able to get some writing done, not to mention getting a job. And a place to live and all of that messy real life stuff.

I was craving a drink all day yesterday, from the moment I first woke up in the cluttered and chilly basement. It's an awful conflicted feeling because I know I don't really want one, and I know if I did I'd not only be disappointed in myself, but I'd also not enjoy the feeling.
I'm over my withdrawal, so I don't need one, per se, but I'm just bored and feeling a little low and this is how I've conditioned myself to deal with that.
duh.
Today is a little bit better - at least I'm not wanting a drink - but the depression and feelings of loneliness and shame and failure persist.
I'm holding on.