All the good stuff

 Ive felt like your mother for the better part of forever.. I also feel like I don't even know you yet I know you so deeply. It's been the biggest mind fuck of my life. You never forget your mother. I remember how bright blue your eyes used to look and you had your hair in the cutest pony tail. You looked like my mom. I saw your spirit then. I don't know even if you were sober in those moments, but some how then it didn't matter. You were alert. You felt present. I wanted to be just like you. So beautiful, confident and outgoing. I, by God's grace, was able to capture those moments and emulate you. I can make friends anywhere. I say hello with deep conviction to anyone I run across. I will strike up a conversation with the waitress or the check out cashier at shoprite for no good reason other than to just be kind. I will go out of my way to make someone feel loved even when I do not feel loved myself. All of those beautiful lessons I've learned from you. They make up the best parts of who I am. They make me able to raise a strong confident daughter. They allow me to be a role model of Grace for her to emulate one day. In that confidence she will find a loving husband, she will work fiercely for the things she wants out of this life, she will learn to see both sides of the coin and relish in the dirty one. The side of life that isn't so kind. The best parts of both of us mom,  were created there. There is no joy that has not known sorrow. Completely void of all emotions ironically because we have the ability to feel everything so very deeply. It is almost too much to handle. Thank God for the escape. The quiet I call it. I've met you there often. Some how it all seems so still and numb. Feeling everything so profoundly has been the blessing and the curse of my existence. I can't even watch a sad commercial without tearing up. I can feel such deep empathy even through the television screen. That powerfulness is overwhelming. But my God the Joy. My heart grows ten times the size when I see people in absolute bliss. To be a part of their space. Occupy time in their heart and mind.. What an  incredible thing human connection is. To love another person, a friend, a partner... to love their children, their baggage, their bad days. I don't know that everyone gets to experience that, and that's the sadest thought I've ever thought. When you meet people in the pits of their lives. When they're barely hanging on is when they are the most beautiful to me. Their stories sound like music. It resonates with the rhythm of my soul. I was bread from despair, and notice it almost immediately in another. If all the people in the world had that ability no one would ever be lonely. I am but 1 person, with only 2 arms, and the wanting to hold everyone. Thank you mom, for all the good stuff.

That is the only thing that is for certain

   I guess you could say not much has changed in the past 31 years. In moments of sheer and utter sadness, I always come to write. I heard a quote once " We are writers, my love, We do not write, We bleed on paper" God how true is that. I remember many nights I'd hold myself up in the tiny bathroom of my childhood home, sit on the ice cold floor, and write until it didn't hurt anymore. I left my life on those pages. How lonely and beautiful, almost poetic justice in and of itself. I don't know man. I just didn't have one of those fairy tale lives ya kno. My mother and I kind of just " looked after each other" if that makes sense. We were like two lost souls nudging each other on. It was the hardest and most humbling part of my entire life. That alone has taught me more than I could ever express. 

  You know how in horror movies they throw in those "regular" scenes, where the people are out to eat, or on a date, or other mundane stuff, just so it makes the scary parts that much scarier. Well my life was exactly like that. I had really amazing times. I've met wonderful people, I've done really cool things, but I've also been more terrified than a human being should be capable of feeling without actually dying. I have quite literally felt my own heart break. Your whole body trembles, just as you imagine it would right before you took your last breath. It's sickening really when I look back on it, but all the while I am so thankful to have had the experience.

  Trauma initiates us into an irrevocable loss of innocence. It robs you of your peace, your security, your life. It alters how you interact with others, how you treat yourself. It inherently teaches you how to shut yourself off to the world. How to block things out. I scare myself with my uncanny ability to close the doors on people who are dear to my heart, because they are detrimental to my soul.

  I'll end with this. What life has taught me is that time heals nothing. The pain has always remained the same. WE are what changes. We evolve. We grow. We expand our minds to understand why some of these horrifying things happen, and we learn to accept. If we don't grow, we die. 

That is the only thing that is for certain.

 

This I've come to know

   I'm soft on the inside, hell I'm soft on the outside too. That thick skin of mine has failed me. It has been damaged from the start. God built me that way I believe. I was meant for this. Meant to feel, to think, to be all encompassed. How incredibly beautiful that is....

   I had spent my entire life scared to death of it all. I was afraid I knew too much, saw too many things, which of course I had. I was afraid of what it meant to feel those things. Feel the pain in its full capacity. It ripped through me every single day of my life. The fire in my soul radiated through every orafice of my body. There was no controlling it, and I was afraid of that too. 

   I remember getting angry. So angry...rage kind of angry. You know where that anger comes from right....Fear. Delusion. More fear. On the outside I looked fine...I had friends, and a smile, and cute clothes and all that happy horseshit that you use to hide the fact that you are slowly dying. 

   You could never get close enough to me. I'd hurt you...and for the simple fact that I was hurting more. I promise you I did not know that then. In my life today I couldn't hurt a fly. I was filled with love...too much. Way too much, and it was paired with hope. That is a deadly combination for a seemingly hopeless person. Never in all those years of life was I able to process that emotion correctly. My friends they knew. To know me was to know countless sappy love songs, and quotes, and words and words of wisdom that I have come to know...the hard way. What they will never know was how hard it was to have all of that inside of me.

   God allowed me to wallow in the sickness I believe that. He allowed people to come and try to love me back to life. I wish he hadn't. I have single handedly ruined far too many of them. He kept me safe...especially from myself. What a beautiful victim her created. Thank you for that. I would not have made it. You can not live one way and pray another...this I've come to know as well.

   Today he has not removed my gift to feel he has simply taught me how to use it. There is no pain great enough to destroy me, and if ever there is I know that it will be my time. Thank you for the ability to be a human being...whatever that means I think I like it.

You have no idea...

    I've become increasingly aware of the lack of knowledge society has about addiction, alcoholism particularly. I fully understand that it's not their job to know or to make it any of their business, but there are people dying all around us and we miss the warning signs. It even affects us in our daily lives and we don't even realize it.
    There are so very many faces of this disease. These people can be your doctors, lawyers, neighbors, friends and family. They can be high functioning, rich, well known. Not everyone is homeless or dirty or brown paper bagged. A good amount of us have good jobs, and homes and spouses. Not always do we show up to those jobs, or pay for those homes or treat our spouses with any kind of respect, but we have them. Society says were doing alright if we check off those 3 boxes. We're not. It's in those normal every day life scenarios where we do the most damage.
    Yes, of course there are the cases of the poverty stricken individuals, and the roamers if you will. These are the ones we see on the channel 6 news or when were driving underneath the bridges in the inner city. This has become the face of what we know of addiction today. It's the most obvious in your face, can't deny it version. What we miss is the not so obvious. The bad relationships with "jerks", or the "soulless" sorority sister that thinks she's better then the rest of us. We miss the truth of that.
    Not every party animal is an alcoholic, and not every alcoholic is a party animal. That's actually less often the case. Most people you see at parties can drink successfully. They may be white girl wasted at that moment, but they can not drink the next day and conduct themselves like a normal human being. Hats off to them. They are NOT alcoholic.
    It sickens me really when you see these young people bragging about how much of an alcoholic they are, and haha look at me and the crazy shit I did last night. Dude that's awesome. Party naked I'm all for that. Again, YOU ARE NOT AN ALCOHOLIC because you get a  little goofy when you're drinking. The most hilarious part is that if you were an addict you'd realize just how NOT funny that really is.
    No matter what the addict looks like on the outside. How much they've lost, or stolen or any of those typical addict behaviors our insides are all identical. These stories of ours may have different chapters but they all very much read the same. We have a hole inside of us that only we know about. THAT is what makes us an alcoholic. That undying desperate feeling to be loved and accepted and to feel alive for just a friggin second. Its when being a party girl is hardly a party because even when you're standing in a crowded bar you feel so indescribably alone.
    Now don't get me wrong there is fun to be had... in the beginning atleast. You're out with your friends, experimenting, etc. Then one day everyone grows up or grows out of it and life goes on. Here comes the difference between you and me. At some point my life took a wicked turn. My mind tells me that the buck doesn't stop here, and that I need to be loaded to be happy. I need to be loaded to cohabitate with the world. Maybe it's not every day right of the bat but it increases. That need grows stronger, and the hole gets bigger and bigger. Now tell me how fun that seems.
    I'm going to get real personal, and tell you my story. I want you to know the other less obvious side of this disease. The one that blind sides you. There's levels to this shit man, and great great lengths that we're willing to go to to quiet the demon that lives inside of us.
    Now yes I have all of those typical addict characteristics. I have stolen, broken my cars, lost my jobs, have had a ton of addresses, and lovers galore. I have been passed out with my brothers under those bridges I talked about earlier with the same look of death in my eyes that we all have come to know. That isn't what I'm here to talk about. I'm sure anyone that's ever met an addict you think you could write their story with just what you see written upon their face, and you probably could. I want to tell you about the part you may have missed.
    I have stolen more then you could ever know. I am not talking about money or things this time, I'm talking about dignity. The things were obvious. The shoplifting charges or the police escort from my job. The tiny piece of your soul I could steal was more valuable and far more undetected. I was charming. So charming. I could charm the pants right off you for goodness sake and make you feel good about doing it. That's exactly what I did figuratively and literally. This ability that we have is limitless. Not priceless, everyone pays the price when they meet one of us.
   There is so much more than meets the eye. You may not ever understand. Hopefully you never have to.
   

It's a love thing

   What's love all about?  Why does it have so many different forms and levels and meanings? Why can you fall in and out of it? Why is it so incredible yet has the potential to be so very painful too? They are all good though somehow.
   My favorite kind of love is the one that makes you sick to your stomach a little bit. You know the kind where the two of you are so cute others can barely stand to look at you. The kind where your inside physically hurt when the other one isn't around. I love that kind.
   I love when everything is so funny. You're like a couple of school kids doing big belly laughs on the playground. It doesn't seem like work in those moments. Those aren't the times where love is hard.
   I love when you could simply melt into the other person. The way they smell, or the way they breathe life right into you when they stare into your eyes.
   Why do those moments ever end. The times where you talk so pationately about all the things you're absolutely wild about. All of your daily adventures, and the things that scare you half to death. When the time loses its ability to end, and you find yourself completely lost in the other person. Where does that go?
   Does life happen? Is that what they call it. We get busy or tired or bothered. Time comes back to take back all of its lost minutes and hours...that's sucks ya know. You forget to hold hands or say the things you really mean. The silly stuff becomes actual stuff and the blind dates become bills and after you know it you're "adulting" way too much.
   We need that lightheartedness. The world is too big, and we are too small. It's all we've got really.
   I'm bringing love back. In all its forms.

Who are we to want?

    I was online last night and I read a woman's Facebook status that said " My husband isn't what I wanted." That's a pretty bold statement I thought. I wondered what she had wanted him to be, and who he really was. I wondered if he was mean or lazy or crazy or was he just not what she had pictured in her head.
    Women tend to live in this fairy tale. A constant state of Cinderella and prince charming. We have all these expectations that are nearly impossible to meet, and then some how convince ourselves that the man is the problem when he can't possibly measure up. Well who are we? Who are we to ask anything of anyone.
   When we are asking ourselves these self absorbed, oh pity me questions...I think there's one of most importance that everyone seems to leave out. What do we DESERVE?? Am I able to ask for a man who is loving, and kind and charming if I myself am none of those things. Do I beg of him to be rich, and honest and well groomed if again I am falling short in those areas. Am I willing to give exactly that in which I'm asking. If not, Who am I to ask anything of anyone.
   With this overwhelming statement in my head, I inevitably started to ponder, is my husband what I wanted? And you know what the answer is. No, of course he's not. HE'S MORE! If I think back on the years I've lived, and the horror of relationships that past, and most importantly the role I played. I wasn't anyone to have the audacity to ask anyone for anything. To be anything I wanted. To do anything I wanted them to do, but you know what...I did it anyway. I asked of you what I knew I was completely unwilling, and better yet incapable of producing myself. I did not DESERVE a single thing.
   Today my thought provoking question to myself each morning is...Am I what my husband wanted? It is not up to me to determine what he does and doesn't deserve per say, but I can worry solely about his needs. I wish this woman the best, and I hope that one day she is able to turn that question around.

Because in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.

madness

   It's amazing how life works out. How you have this larger than life plan in your head about how it's gonna be or how " If it were up to you.." things would be this way or that. All the while Gods just sitting up in heaven laughing at your grandiose efforts.
   When I was a little girl I had this dream, that one day the clouds would separate and a big glittering miracle would appear out of thin air. There would be no more worries, or bills, or heartache. Everything would always run smoothly, and not a step out of time.
 
Man, am I glad that wasn't the case.

   I found out that those moments of shear lunacy meant something. They still mean something. I found that the madness can be beautiful. We miss that I think because we're so wrapped up in the fact that it's a road block in this game of life we're playing. You see the madness means my hearts still beats fast for something. It means it still pounds faster and slower at the same time when I'm excited, and it has the ability to break into a million pieces at any given moment. I'm ok with those odds today.
   You see life is hard. It's real hard. It comes with big responsibilities like compromise and selflessness, and a whole bunch of other things that we fall short in every day. Some days more than others. Those things never disappeared when I wished for them so desperately. That wasn't where the miracle was. It happened many many years later when I finally figured out what all this is about. That my heart has the ability to mend itself after those tragedies, and that I want to stay right where I am when things don't go my way. Best of all it allows me to grow.

Baby, I may not always get this right, and damn it I try. For those moments of insanity....I am not sorry. I am more in love with you then than I ever am, and it's really amazing how life works out.