It’s grey and overcast here lately; Second Winter has descended upon us. So, I’m remembering Hawaii’s clear blue oceans, it’s greenery and it’s gorgeous weather.
Remembering Oahu
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Tag Archives: Hawaii
We All Began As Something Else
I’ve decided to go off my anti-depressant medication.
I was winding down on all of my medications while we were in Hawaii and was due for a refill on everything when we got back. I had about ten capsules left of the half dose on my Effexor and I thought, “why do I even take these now?” I thought some more about it; I became an alcoholic while on these pills so they couldn’t have really been doing anything for me anyway.
I’m weaning off my full dosage for the next two weeks by taking only one of the half dose pills and then will spend (hopefully) two weeks of weaning off the half dose by taking nothing at all. My brain and I could be totally clean by the middle of March.
Also, I’m thinking about getting another tattoo. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and struggled with what I should get because I feel like the tattoo should have meaning. So I haven’t ever got any ink done because I couldn’t figure that part out. But, with this recent vacation to Hawaii and exposure to Hawaiian/Polynesian culture, I think I have inspiration.
It was during the aquarium luau that I felt the most challenged since quitting drinking back in November. It was really hard but I feel like getting through it was a real success for me… that it was a battle won. It was a moment where my inner strength exceeded the challenge.
I remember watching the Polynesian show after dinner where the tattooed performers danced various traditional Polynesian dances. Eventually, they got around to New Zealand and did a Maori haka which really struck a chord in me.
Now, if you haven’t ever seen a Maori haka… well, you’re missing out. The haka is an ancestral dance described as both a war cry and a challenge at the same time. I’m no expert on it so I’ll leave it up to you to Google it for information but it’s my opinion that there aren’t any words that can effectively portray it. Now, I believe that the vast majority of hakas that are performed are purely that, a performance. One of the few times you’re probably going to get to see an actual war haka is one performed by New Zealand’s All-Blacks rugby team immediately prior to a match. I’ll let you decide what you think about a haka performed by two dozen big fucking rugby dudes who want to dislodge your head from your body playing one of the roughest sports on the planet:
https://youtu.be/bUZJyZldy10
Anyway, getting back on topic; it all seemed fitting, to capture this struggle with a tattoo as Polynesians invented the tattoo and my first real battle would happen in Hawaii. I feel that I should embrace the culture and its impact on me by marking my body with a sign of my power and inner strength as a reminder of that day.
I know that the luau won’t be my only challenge for the rest of my life. I have been thinking of making my body a journal the battles in my war against alcoholism. My goal isn’t to turn myself into a walking tattoo man (I do have a full time career) but rather to permanently document my war.
Falling Down
One of the things that I wanted to do in Hawaii was do the Diamond Head hike. I guess that’s me and my landlubber mentality when you are on an island surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, I’m not going to claim that it makes sense but it’s accessible for my brain. There were other longer hikes that we could have done that were close by if it wasn’t February at the time; this one is popular with tourists and I was with teenagers who didn’t want to spend an entire day hiking.
One of the great things about this hike is that you can get relatively close to the park access by city bus. We jumped on the bus that took us around the base of the volcano and then we got on a paved path that wound upwards and inwards. Access to the inside of the crater is through a narrow tunnel (which is probably the least safe part of the entire hike as there is one lane of traffic in either direction and you walk on the shoulder of the road with only a series of yellow plastic reflectors bolted into the asphalt between you and oncoming vehicles) and once you come out on the other side of the tunnel, you’re inside of the crater.
The road is paved all of the way up to and including the parking lot out front of the visitor’s centre with a narrow shoulder and then bare dirt before the steep but short drop-off to the natural terrain.
I wanted to be prepared for the hike; I opted to carry my hiking boots and wear my flippy-floppies until we got to the trail and I also grabbed two large bottles of water… all of which went in my backpack. I knew the hike wasn’t that long but there were five of us and the weather could have been really hot. I didn’t want anyone to be without water but this added a lot of weight to my pack.
We had got through the tunnel and crossed an access road entrance that connected to the main road and had turned my attention to something off to the right in the distance, saying something to Finn. I can’t remember what I was raising his attention to but was mid-sentence when I either tripped over my flip flop or stepped on the edge of the asphalt surface and took a tumble.
I fell to my left and the first thing to hit the dirt was my left elbow. The weight of the bottled water in motion propelled me immediately onto my left shoulder and the rear section of the left half of my ribcage with my legs flailing upwards. The immediate pain was to my elbow followed very shortly after by my pride once I realized that there were about a dozen hikers headed our direction who had witnessed my clumsiness.
Once we got to the trailhead, I put my boots on to lighten the load in my pack. Because of the material of construction of the boots, it didn’t help much… the stupid things are actually pretty light. We completed the hike up to the summit and back down again without further incident. As the hike went on, however, I became more and more aware that I had re-injured my ribs (I broke three ribs midway through 2015) and that my shoulder had sustained more of a blow than I initially thought.
We rode the city bus back to the area where we caught it and walked the two and a half blocks back to the hotel. And I became fully aware of what I had done. Laying down on the bed was ok but getting back up again? Not so much. The pain in my ribs wasn’t as bad as when I had first broken them and my shoulder wasn’t as painful as when I’d first dislocated my shoulder. Thankfully. But dealing with them both at the same time was a new thing and a real inconvenience. At least I know what to do and what not to do while in pain.
The amount of pain has lessened somewhat since the incident but I know that I’ve extended my recovery somewhat. There are also certain positions that I put my arm in which are particularly painful and also a bizarre feeling if I put weight on it… like it’s going to dislocate if I continue any further. So I don’t.
I’m clumsy. That’s what it is.
My Hawaii Via Instagram
Surviving The Luau
You don’t fully appreciate how engrained alcohol is in our culture until you’ve taken a step back from consuming it.
I went to a luau at the Honolulu Aquarium with my family last week. My parents renewed their vows on the beach the day prior and invited my brother and his family, my sister and her family and me with my family to be there with them. They also arranged and paid for the luau; it was great value with music and activities for the kids followed by fantastic food and a great show after dinner. There was also lots of booze.
Everyone in my family was drinking… right away, as soon as you come in, it’s one free Mai Tai – alcoholic on one side and non-alcoholic on the other side. Everyone in my immediate area feels the need to point out that I should be having a non-alcoholic one. I don’t know if they think they are helping me but it pissed me off a little.
Shortly after we sat down at our table, my wife went up to the bar and literally got a drink for everyone in my household but me. Alcoholic beverages for her and my eldest son and non-alcoholic beverages for my younger two sons. I made a comment to my brother-in-law (who is cool as fuck, by the way) about my ‘loving wife forgetting to get me a drink.’ I wasn’t meaning a boozy beverage, just something to sip on while sitting around shooting the shit.
(He misunderstood and said, “I’d give you one of these but I’d get in trouble,” thinking that I mean an alcoholic drink. He played it ok in my books but I clarified the next day that I meant a drink in general and that I wouldn’t put him in that position. If I was going to fall off the wagon, I don’t think that I would get anyone else involved in that mess.)
Now, I could deflect my feelings and swallow my anger by saying that I’m a big boy and that I am capable of getting my own drink or giving her an excuse that she already had four drinks and couldn’t manage a fifth… but I’m not going to do that here. Swallowing my anger is what I did in the moment and is a chronic behaviour that has landed me where I am today.
It really pissed me off. She had been making a point of excluding me from all kinds of stuff which stuck in my mind. She wants a picture here with her boys. A picture there with her boys. No mention or inclusion of me in that. And this omission was the last straw… plus, I was already under duress with the whole free Mai Tai thing when we got there.
I had to step away from the table where everyone was sitting. I went over to the outdoor fish tank and watched some tropical fish swim about, trying to calm down. Then I moved to the seal habitat and watched the seal sunning himself on a rock. Eventually, I moved over to a third exhibit when my wife came to check on me. I almost completely broke down into tears. When she asked me what was wrong, I said that I didn’t know what was wrong. But I did know. I was angry and frustrated and hurt and completely overwhelmed with emotion.
She followed me as I went indoors to watch some more fish swimming in some aquariums; I told her that I may leave the luau and to just tell everyone that I wasn’t feeling well. I asked for some time alone as I needed to regroup and centre myself.
During this time, I recorded various types of tropical fish on video and had been recording this weird-looking Nautilus when they started serving dinner. I decided that I had sufficiently collected myself and opted to rejoin everyone for dinner rather than make a scene that I would have to deal with later by leaving.
Members of my family who had noticed that I was absent asked me how I was feeling, my wife had shared the story that I wasn’t feeling well. We all ate dinner together and I tried to just get back to normal as if nothing had happened… which was difficult.
The next day, members of my family were talking to me here and there about the evening. I guess it took some time for everyone to put two and two together about my disappearance at the luau. I heard things like it was maybe ‘tough on me’ and that I had ‘incredible willpower’ to have made it through the evening. Everyone was supportive and no one made a big scene over it which I was thankful for.
The question that I ask myself is… where was the tipping point between being uncomfortable around the drinking and my anger at my spouse for excluding me? Would I have eventually needed to step away from the table if she had brought me a drink? I’ve been around people consuming alcohol before the luau and it didn’t have this effect.
I guess it’s a question that I can’t answer for certain but it is more evidence that I have anger management issues that I need to deal with and need to deal with them to be able to get healthy.
The Crash
I haven’t ever been able to sleep on an airplane. I’ve made some long hauls “over the pond” before and for all of those journeys, I was conscious every bitter second.
Today was par for the course.
I hardly slept last night so I was aware that that today’s flights to Vancouver and then onto Honolulu were going to be exhausting. The amount of “hurry up and wait” that goes along with air travel is astounding which translates into stress as well as both mental and physical exhaustion. If I could get a wink of sleep on the plane, this might be acceptable.
But right now, in the hotel room in Honolulu, I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. More tomorrow.