calm

      I never imagined in a million years that I would understand what  it felt like to " be still". Never could I have understood how to merely grasp the concept of  even STANDING still. My busied mind and body constantly had me bouncing around from insanity to astronomical insanity and back again. I'd tap my foot a hundred miles per hour because my nerves were so shot. I legitimately could not stop my heart from racing, my eyes from staring or my limbs from shaking. When I was a child I had a horrible case of Restless Leg Syndrome that carried on heavily into my addiction. I remember being  up for hourssss, days on end kicking my legs. Hanging the left  one off of the bed, and then the right one, and then both of them. Over and over. I was quite possibly crawling out of my own skin one single nerve ending at a time. My own body didn't even want to be a part  of me...what does that say?!
    My mind moved faster than my legs most days. I'd be ten steps ahead of myself, before my limbs could catch up I'd in turn be ten steps past that. I wandered. My poor soul was left out to dry on a regular basis. It would try desperately to catch up to the empty vessel  that had  abandoned it, and sad defeated time after now even more sad  completely defeated time I imagine it had just given up. I began to truly feel that hollowness. I imagine it happened somewhere between 18  and 24...I was lost before, believe you me...but not until I hit  my full maturity did  I begin to realize just how strayed I  had become. I  talk a lot about surviving. I Know now much of the time I did not spend living, but the more I think about it...I'm pretty  positive I just existed. I took up space. Always in a rush to go  no where and to pull everyone along for the ride. I don't even think I breathed the first 23 and a half years of that shallow existence. Didn't have the TIME I  guess.
     Today I sat still. I sat through an entire movie...alone mind you. I laughed, and I was the only one around  to hear it, and that was ok. I did not need to phone a friend or fast forward through the boring parts. I was just PRESENT. That is my new theme for this journey I continue on. I will  not survive, I will not merely exist...I will be very much present and I will  be very much alive.

Truth

        Maybe I don't want to know the truth.  The lies are safer, they are easily digested past the knot that becomes my intestines every time you speak to me. Don't think  for one second that I don't know,or that I don't think about it. Don't think that the thought hasn't crossed  my mind a damn near hundred times as I replay the same scenario over and over and over again. In sickness and even in health I have difficulty judging reality from fantasy. My heart and mind still play those little girl fairy tale games, where I dream of prince charming and candy coated rainbows. I need to be blind sometimes.
         I will think until my head hurts. I will find a way to blame myself for crimes that I did not commit. The things I had done in the name of love. I screw things up, lots of  things...I bob and weave, I weeble and wobble,  I generally always fall down,  but I indefinitely ALWAYS get back up. I can forgive me, my diseased mind. I can justify every move I  make. It is you I can not disregard. I have to know why...Why the half truths...because they weren't all lies. The look on your face screams innocence but your hands are in cold blood. Where did your mind wander off to when you were staring in my eyes. Did you have to convince your conscience to look away because you could not stand to feel the pain that was living behind my freshly mascaraed eye lashes.
        I can not see through you. I never wanted to, I still  don't want to. That takes the purity away. This blindness ruins us, this I know, but it is also the only thing that keeps me coming back. If I choose to acknowledge every disobedient moment then I assure you I could not allow myself to continue to return back to you time and time again. For now I will trust that my instincts will let  me know when the pain has gotten to great to bear, and that God will tell me when its time to come back home.

Restless

    68 days sober today and I am more restless, irritable and discontent than ever. The first month I was on a high...the pink cloud if you will. I couldn't tear my eyes out of my big book. I could not tell you the last time I was up until 3am reading anything let alone the alcoholics anonymous bible for goodness sake. I did not sleep Id have to say  for the first 40 days of my sobriety. I couldn't begin to wrap my mind around it...for so long I had "passed out". A complete sedation. I did not dream, I did not toss and turn. I was paralyzed with substance. Remove my crutch and my mind was off to the races. I was up rearranging my closet, or writing or turning the tv on and off and on and off. I think I was crazier in those early days of sobriety than I ever was using. Uneasy is an understatement.

    I was completely lost when I celebrated my 30 days. I actually had forgotten what day it was until about 1030 at night on Novemeber 15 where I then proceeded to throw myself a pitty party. All my friends are out having a good time and here I am wallowing in my own shit. Boo freakin who. I AM AN ALCOHOLIC. I KNOW THIS. I can not drink safely. I can not throw caution to the wind the way that they can. This Dis- Ease is mine alone to own. Am I jealous that my loved ones do not suffer the way I do...Some days of course I am. I do not wish this pain on any solitary human being, my worst enemy even, but do I like to day dream that I could trade places.. sure I do. Most days I'm happy that I can't go back to who I was. I was a gypsy monster. I was nil and void..sooo lost in so many many ways. I miss her some days,  because she was familiar that sad girl. She was justified, so she thought, and she was sick beyond her wildest imagination. On my good days I would not trade my worst days now for my best days then. I find disgust in who I was...

     This is painful. It is an unexplainable feeling of joy and weakness. It is freeing to have your life placed in gods trusting hands. The hard part is leaving it there. My will has gotten me no where. It has hurt the ones around me, it has ruined everything it has touched, and still my sick mind travels back to that. I have to keep remembering that I need to stop forgetting that I am one bad decision away from losing myself, my mind, and most importantly my whole life. 

     

Touchstone

I heard once in a meeting that pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth. This emphasizes that pain is a necessary element of life, but it is optional to suffer from it. That's right, OPTIONAL. To suffer means that you make the conscious effort to live in the past, to avoid the future and to neglect the now.  Why? What in the past is so important that it needs to be so heavily dwelled upon. Have you not endured that pain once already? Have you not lingered in the presence of danger long enough. You go to any lengths you can to evade the future because It is unknown. We as alcoholics especially are not fond of the unknown. We must have all of our half drunken stumbling ducks in order..in OUR selfish sequence, following OUR unrealistic will for them or the lack of control will strangle us. The now, forget it. We never experience this now you speak of. We are either miserabling sitting in the hole that we have dug over the course of our reckless shit storm of a life or we are feverishly stacking premeditated resentments for incidences that have not yet, or may never occur. Right now never happens for us. We live backwards almost. You act then you think. Your emotional shell cracks, the tears are rushing down your beat red intoxicated horror stained face, and then somewhere between cracking and crying you actually realize what its all for. Your dead before your dying. You have given up well before you've started to fight. That is this disease. What is this you ask yourself. Why do I constantly force myself to relive the pain over and over and over again? Your scared shitless that's the problem. Your friggin terrified to live..but that's ok, because so was I. Its FEAR. That as humans is our biggest motivator and in turn our most profound handicap. I remember a time I could not take a single step in any direction...forwards or back without being incapacitated by trepidation. What if I made the wrong move, or chose the beaten path..What if by chance, and the chance was great, I was alone on that "road less traveled by". Who the hell cares!!! ANY move is the right move as long as your not standing still in the trench of terror. And Thank god if you happen to be alone on that road..No one to get in your way, no one to sway your opinion. Just walk...Breathe and walk. Today when I move it is by faith and not by sight because my heart knows what my sick mind still ignores, that I will never be alone. That grace follows me in every subtle footstep. In my prayers I ask that it not only guides my sails but my thinking as well. I do not suffer today, for today I do not fear.

humbled

Today I have to sit back and count my blessings.  There are so many days, minutes even, that just fly by without even a glance. We are so caught up in "the now" that we miss so many of life's little miracles and don't even realize. There are thousands and thousands of hours wasted pursuing countless selfish acts of "heroism". People who are stressed out over petty minuscule things, continuously robbing Peter to pay Paul, giving only in hopes that they will receive. There are natural disasters and personal daily tragedies. There are deaths, births, relapses, homelessness, greed, lust, envy...Incomparable bouts of pain, fear...solitude. Yes these are real life scenarios, and yes they are of importance, and yes they sometimes can be a matter of life and death...but where is GOD? The biggest miracle of all is the human ability to have faith. Belief that even if not viewed from the beaches of Turks and Caicos, the sun still rises just as bright and beautiful. The leaves are still filled with the morning dew even when there is no one around to feel the damp branches of the freshly planted trees. I think somewhere we have lost our ability to trust. We are all so hurried to get things done that we miss the joy of  doing them. We plan so far in advance that we actually MISS "the now" that we constantly strive to be apart of. We are lost and we don't even know it. I humbled myself by thinking  I was very much present, for I had played god  most of my life. I thought I had all things, saw all things. Sure maybe through blind eyes and empty hands did I defy the odds. I could make lemon juice out of lemons...although I'd hardly call it lemonade. I didn't trust anyone and I barely trusted myself. God was not a question for me...He hated me. THAT I was sure of, at the time atleast. Until one solitary day...I had no where else to go but down, on my knees I went in the middle of a beautiful church cathedral, and I cried. I wept oceans of tears, enough to drown the angels and the consistent chaotic noise I'll call it that filled  my head, and I prayed. I prayed that the madness would end and that my heart would find peace in " the now". I had been one of those busied people for far too long..racing and racing, going no where fast." eating poison, and waiting for someone else to die" is how I lived. The best advice I was ever given and that I can give to you is to live every single moment. Live it like it is the last moment, the only moment. Live for right this very second, if it feels right than capture that experience. Your gut instinct is usually right, and if it is not god will make sure some way some how that it all makes sense in the end. Every passing day is documented whether we rush through it, ease into it, smile or cry...and when we are old  and gray, those scribbled down memories become " the greatest story ever told"...the story of our lives.

my dearest

My dearest Samantha,
  Hello down there you hollow shell... with your unfortunate existence and your blank haunting stare. I have left you so you say. If not for my sympathy for you dear friend I would have never returned. I promise you were not much to write back home about. You wander, and yes in case you haven't realized you are so very very lost.
    Remember that childhood game we used to play...where I'd escape you for a time, and you would then come in a desperate search of me. This time is unconventional...for lack of a better word. I have escaped you, that part is true, but you did not come running. You barely blinked your weary tear soaked eyes. Your limbs paralyzed with Fear, uncertainty and shear painstaking emotion. Crumbled like the dreams of tiny children whose bodies left them well before their minds...who are you to break in such a way. Extraordinarily pathetic this seems. Have you not a spine that threads your skeleton. Have you not a thought that fills the vacant space between your modest ears. You only hear what you want to, and never what you need. The words cast aside in complete dissaray. The  language of your crimson vessel tainted with idiosyncratic bullshit, and half truths.
     I could no longer linger where one is not able to stand on ones own two legs. I am but a whisper, not a muscle. I am a guide willing to take the lead if thou will choose to trust in me. I am your soul, and quite frankly the only portion of you that is still alive. It is no wonder you can not feel but the cold against your chest. The hollow barrier beneath is just that, a void, a complete uninhabited space where I used to live. You can no longer  hear the music. Are you not saddened by the lack of memory? Who is this hollow girl... It isn't safe to feel this all alone ya know. One day you'll come to find me when the hours get to long to bare, and the silence speaks in tongues. You will find me right where I've been hidden...In plain sight. You left me my feeble angel, and I have never left you.

This smells like sanity...

        I know in my heart of hearts that I have absolutely known this all along, but today I can admit that I am a full fledged, fully capable, competent, qualified alcoholic. I have scored ridiculously high on every blood alcohol content calculator. I have drowned myself deep enough into the bottle, buried myself far enough into the toilet and the vomit soaked sheets of my bed, and woke up without an ounce of remorse too many times to continue to deny it now. My IQ is quite often less then my BAC, yet finding alcoholics anonymous is indefinitely the smartest thing I have ever done.
          I sat in the rooms with my mother, my qualifiers, myself time and time again since I was a small child, and for the life of me I would've told you that I am strictly a visitor. I wanted no parts of what they had, I wanted no parts of admitting what I was. If not but for the grace of GOD would I be proud of that neurotic girl because through these steps, and the sweaty palms of the countless peoples hands I choose to hold on this journey, would I not TODAY be proud of this WOMAN that I have come to be.
         I know where I belong, and I can not begin to describe just how freeing that feeling is. I was pretty sure I belonged everywhere...Every party, club, bar, concert...etc..etc...If I wasn't necessarily invited I'd make sure you loved me by the time I left. I'd for sure be the drunkest and luckily for me 9 times out of 10 I was a ton of fun. Being the good addict that I am I have too had my fair share of monster moments where I'd show up and you'd want to lock the door the moment I hit the first of the 5 front stairs, but I'd find a way in. If not the window, the back door, a parade of phone calls and thrown stones until you caved and unlatched the bolt lock. Nothing stopped it, the disease, the horror. I'd get drunk because it was Christmas, Easter, Halloween...Well then as the years went on I got drunk because it was flag day, earth day or presidents day weekend...and well the years that followed that I got drunk because it was, well...Wednesday.
       I no longer belong at those functions, but I DO belong somewhere much cooler. My new happy place has retro 70s wall paper, and books  that have been read by innumerable eyes. It has that familiar  musty church basement smell, and wobbly uncomfortable chairs. It has no windows, but it has a door that is always open, and a multitude of people with a look in their eyes that only sobriety can bring. In my weakest moments those coffee stained stools looked like thrones in king alexanders paradise, and those 4 walls looked exactly like home.
         This insanity does not define me...what defines me is that I can allow myself, be it one day at a time or one second at a time...to find serenity. I will be the most SOBER at all of these NEW functions, and I will still be the most FUN!!!
                                                         Thank you god for all you've given me
         

a mind is a terrible thing to waste

My whole life i've been the pretty one, the tan one, the one with the nice body. The sexy one with green eyes to die for and the lips to kill. I've been viewed first for my looks and then second for my sexual ability or my walk, or the way my brown hair sways in the wind. What about my mind? What about the millions and millions of gut wrenching thoughts I think...Can those not be seen? Do they not know the creativity that flows through my mind, the constant stream of dictionary words that toddle around from right temporal lobe to left or the lyrics that leave burn marks on my soul and not just ink stains on my skin. They can see the words sexily wrap around my thigh, ribs, stomach, but do they not see the impression it leaves on my heart. My hands have always freshly painted finger nails and designer rings, but do they not know the loads they have carried. Do they see the rough patches from years of dirty dishes or the millions of tiny permanent paper cuts from my many nights spent scripting every solitary moment of heartache I have ever endured. My legs are long, and tone but do they not know the miles they've walked or that I am so fragily built that I live in a constant state of "weak in the knees".  Do they know that those knees have been used for countless hours  praying for life, praying to be heard, felt, touched by something absolutely purely beautiful. My back looks strong, but it is weak..it has been strained by heavy burdens, and the weight of my entire world crashing down on me. My posture poor, but my faith is abundant. My heart beats with but a measly interworking of half broken wires, and patch work memories. They wouldn't know. I hope one day the world can stop seeing me. Stop seeing the shell, and start FEELING the human that lives within these 4 extremities. The inside isn't healthy, it isn't flawless or prim or proper. It's crumbling, starved...it's deteriorated from 12 years of harsh unremorseful abuse. It is flooded half with coffee, and the other half with a love that could drown a nation. They wouldn't know that either. Let me see YOU instead. Let my eyes envelope your entire being. I have been blessed with the ability to see from the inside out, and the mind to comprehend the true worth of beauty. My physical looks have gotten me by, but my soul is what keeps me going. humbled be the ones that experience the power.

touched

I felt the wind today..I felt the tickle of my long brown hair dance across my face. The air embodied a certain chilliness that sent shivers down my spine....the numbness was like tiny ants marching in succession to the tune of mother natures symphony. I had never been touched that way before. The gentleness...it was alarming. I have been held by strong able arms, gazed at with the innocence of a childs newly opened eyes, and yet nothing was as powerful...as consuming as the way the wind encompassed every fiber of my being. That hurricane is usually inside of my chest. I feel the pressure and the cold from the inside out instead of the outside in, the way I did today. It was soothing. My heart was able to feel the warmth for the first time since I was small on this breezy November morning. It could beat without frozen restraint...How ironically silent the wind was as it spoke volumes rustling through my black zip up sweatshirt. That heat coursed through my veins with such reckless abandon that it nearly burnt right through my ice cold skin. That fire, that undeniable thirst for life hasn't been present in my heart in weeks, months, years even. I would've sooner told you I was dead before I could merely utter the words.."I am alive". I wasn't alive. I was standing, like the rugged skeleton of a dilapidated tree in the forest...I was present,but I was far from living. Even the gentlest of winds could have crumbled my frail exterior....The rains would wash me away with the tears of the many souls  i've seized. Today  I am very much alive...I felt the wind today...and my roots were as sturdy as the day God gave them to me. I did not turn my back on that current today, and God did not turn his back on me.

dare to be you

       Today marks 8 days of total sober living. Ummmm....it's been long to say the least. The first few nights were sleepless, the next few nights weren't any better, but of all the things it is... the best thing is that it has all been WORTH IT! Yesterday was my first sober bar experience and it was AMAZING. Yea, never in my life would I have thought that sentence would come out of my mouth. Mind you this is coming from the girl that couldn't have a drink without a second one in her other hand. The girl that would still be dancing long after last call at 3am when the music has already stopped. The girl who would throw up just to make more room...and the girl who justified all of this by the fact that she never missed work in the morning.
        Once I had that first one there was no stopping me. I was invincible. I could be the life of the party or your absolute worst nightmare when I was drinking. I could shake my tail feather faster then you could shake a stick, and I could pound a beer faster then a runner could chug a bottle of water after running a marathon. I have driven under poor circumstances, and when I wasn't behind the wheel I was recklessly hanging out of my best friends sun roof singing whatever Q102 song that was on that radio. I've thrown up what looked like black tar, thinking back now it was most likely tiny pieces of my liver that I slowly watched flush down the drain. Shot for shot for 30 friggin shots on my friends birthday only to find myself face down in a turkey club in the back seat of my girlfriends car. Was I embarrassed...Nah. Not then atleast.
           I worked drunk which was the most miraculous of all. I'd show up at 530 in the morning in my walmart uniform head to toe with the exception of my glitter high heels I so conveniently left on from the long night before. Clearly you could tell I stopped drinking at 430 when I had to count the same bag of money 15 times to come up with a different amount by the end of each go around. It was 2,000....It was ALWAYS 2,000. I lost that job it goes without saying. Must have been my 9th day in a row with no sleep or substance other then alcohol when I screamed at my boss. I proceeded to rip off my walkie talkie and my keys that were wrapped around my frail sickly wrist and threw them at him and told him to fuck himself. I walked outside like the bad ass that I was sure I was only to turn around 2 minutes later and have the audacity to ask for my job back. The best thing that man could have ever done was exactly what he did...tell me NO!
         I am free today of that heavy burden. Addiction is not easy. It is a load I wish no one ever has to bear. A load far heavier then any I have ever carried. I sat in that bar last night with a glass of water and a smile that couldve lit up all of disney world. That load is small, its just my size and I will carry that instead all of the days of my life.
       

Retired

           Whoever said 24 is too early to retire obviously hasn't lived my same craziness because I would've retired at 9 n if I could have. I love my actual job even on the longest of nights, it's my LIFE that i'd like to take  a break from.  It's the secrets...the lies...the ones i'm sworn to take with me to the grave, and the ones I tell myself when I say " it's all gonna be ok". I'm sick of pretending i'm not hurting. Mainly, I'm sick of stretching myself thin for everyone else but myself.
              This may be hard to believe but I am not the creator of miracles, and I am not the ruler of time. Time is tricky, its designed for you to be forced to use it wisely which some of us can just never grasp. It isn't meant to be spend pondering what ifs or how sos its meant for action...for completion of those half hearted promises you make to yourself. If your unhappy you should changed that...I know I know I should really take my own advice.
          Ive been alive for approximately 8,760 days...thats 12,614,400 minutes....I sit and wonder just how many of those  millions of moments of my life I have spent alone, tired, high, confused, happy, angry, resentful. How many of those moments could I have avoided, reacted differently..perhaps out of love instead of hate. Taken the high road, picked up  a hitch hiker...swam against the current. How many solitary SECONDS even have I spent trying to relive the past.
              THIS IS MY LIFE!!
   This is no love connection on the game show network, there are no daisys growing in my garden or tomatoes  on the vine thats wrapped around my rusty chain link fence. There are no redos or rematches or RE anything.This is IT. Every one of those days has come to this, and this is going to have to be ok because it is all she wrote, all that I wrote.
            This is MY miracle. I'm still  here against all odds, against every wave that has crashed into me...I am bent but I am not broken and I refuse to claim defeated. My smile will  forever be my best disguise against the ugliness of life..and my heart will forever keep the time.

simplicity

For anyone that knows me I'm an absolute tattoo fanatic.  I love to display the road map of my crazy life proudly on my body.  I love the  questions people ask...I love when their jaws drop after you tell them  the horror stories. Actually one of my favorite songs in the world has a line  that says " I met a girl who kept tattoos for homes that she had loved if I were her i'd paint my body until  all my skin was gone" That has stuck with me, and why not?! its beautiful ! The latest one is a solid black cross on my forearm. As much as I love all my tattoos this has to be one of my most meaningful. My faith  is so STRONG today...it EXISTS today. I've been scared to death, strung out, starved, beat, built up..broken down. God has seen me through. If you had asked me even a few years ago I would tell you there's no hope...there's no love..no devotion. A sick person I was at best. This permanent ink masterpiece will  forever remind me of the road I'm on, the path i've strayed from and the destination in which im headed. Thank you lord for all  you've given me.

color

             Man it feels like it's been forever since I've written, way too much going on I suppose. My life is chaotic to say the least, but I don't know that I'd change a moment of it for anything. I like to know that I'm someones superhero...that I've helped them, if even for a second. I like to think that gods intent for me on earth was to spread my love to those around me.
            My world, from the time I can remember, has been a roller coaster ride of ups and downs...highs and lows. One minute I'd be on top of the world and for the next 6 days of the week I'd be buried underneath it. It's a sad existence some days, but my good days are priceless. I've seen the faces of living angels, and I have too felt the flames of death.
            When I was young I convinced myself that there had to be more to this. That somewhere, someday I'd realize that it doesn't all have to be so crazy. This for me, was a hard pill to swallow. My body runs on adrenaline, anxiousness and COFFEE. I sleep little to none, I work more then I do anything else...I take the same road to work everyday, in the same restaurant corroded sneakers and ketchup stained apron. I keep a calendar book of all the bills I owe, and I leave myself notes on the whiteboard on the fridge...as if my neurotic self would forget anyway. My days, now that I'm older are less crazy...or different crazy should I say....
           Growing up it was literally surviving. Much like it is today, but my worst days now could not compare to even my best days then. That was hell...this here I guess is purgatory. I faced demons then. BIG ONES Things that were far out of my comprehension. Seeing only black and white rainbows, and tear soaked pillow cases. Today I am able to see in color.
            Things are just as scary in color, but atleast it gives the present state a hint of life. Now that my world so to speak has leveled out, and I no longer wait in immediate danger, my mind lies dormant. So naturally I have to create new chaos for myself. My thoughts travel with the speed of light. If there's nothing to worry, I automatically conjure something to obsess about. I have to function at 120mph at even my lowest point. I do not know any other way. So maybe things aren't crazy today, maybe I just work myself up more then I should. The bills will get paid, some how they always do. My friends will find there own way even if I am not there to guide them, and my heart will still beat at 80mph if I can ever learn to decelerate. But for today acknowledgment is enough, and clarity is in the near future. Thank you god

lucky

I feel lucky today, and I am so thankful to know what that word  means. Some people take luck for granted, they make it materialistic...they make it petty. Dumb luck, luck of the draw. NO! I think that being lucky means that you are blessed. I think it means that you have something amazing that you don't share with anyone else. For me, i've always felt blessed....although this wasn't always as prevalent as it is today. There were days where I thought the world was against me, but those are the days i'm sure I had been the luckiest. I had people open doors when life has closed them on me, i've had people offer me couches, and meals and great big hugs. I've seen hell, but nothing compares to the warmth I have felt from the people in my life. To be lucky isn't to have all the coolest stuff. It isn't to hit big on the slot machines, or to win the lottery. It is to be surrounded by good people, to laugh out loud....OFTEN and WHOLE HEARTEDLY, it's to be able to swallow your pride, to start over, to recognize failure, but to see also a new success. Luckiness is being strong enough to offer your heart and your home to someone, to love even though your heart is breaking, its to have people to stay up late with, and talk about how life just isn't fair sometimes. It's being able to get down on your knees and pray, and trust that someone will be there to pick you up when you've lost your way. I am a lucky woman to know pain, to be able to share that sympathy, empathy, compassion. I am honored to take on the roll of  lover, friend, coworker, partner, daughter...I stand up tall today with all my might, and shout at the roof tops that I am the luckiest of all for the life I lead, and I thank GOD everyday for making that possible for me.

I think I found my way home...

           I think I found my way home, I think i've probably known it all along. I AM MY HOME. I am the only one that can seek solace for myself . I am the only one that can soothe the rage that is in my heart.
          My spiritual life was empty for many years so to fill  the void I sought comfort in the most unconventional of ways. I played with drugs, with boys...with fire mainly. I tested the waters, and tempted the tides. Its incredible how i've ever survived. I learned many consequences none of which that would've ever muffled the sound of the gears running in my head preparing for the next unsatisfactory move.
         This life style has voluntarily and  involuntarily clouded my perception of normalcy. It has also made it impossible to understand boundaries. I have mastered the art of invasion. I know not of personal space bubbles or emotional walls. I have scaled towers of cerebral distortion the way king kong climbed the empire state building, strong steady and with nothing but pure internal drive and a hint of upper body strength. My frame was frail. A 5'5" skeleton of skin and bones, scars, bruises and daggers for eyes. To know me was to hate me, but to hate me was....well....LOVE.
           My flaw. To love another with all my heart. Cliche, eghh you would think. Nauseating ...very  much so. How can one love someone to such great lengths, and at such severe costs, and hate themselves all the while. How is it even possible to bestow so much of your own time and energy into another...slowly draining your resources in more ways then one. I have lost money, pride, self esteem but most importantly....TIME. Time slips away faster then we think. Its infinite yet you can never seem to acquire enough. There's the irony.
           I am well versed in the art of conformism. There's a science to people. Twist there arm a little, they don't know it yet, but they like the pain. With this i've coached myself how to bend without breaking. Since birth I have possesed the constant need for affection. I needed to be needed. I still do, I think that's human or atleast what I know of human nature. I could've been an ant in a previous life. I've been known to feel that small. I can love to the point of desperation. Gasping for air just to survive the next full blown submission into the burning hell of love as I knew it.
               Today I learn that although those feelings are familiar they are not necessary. I can be consumed with ME. With who I am, and what is healthy. Today I have found a way home...to my home...to open the door to the rest of my life.

down and out

I feel like giving up. This doesn't make any sense anymore, and I don't know why. I started trying to hard I think. I started correcting my actions. I thought I used to know what I wanted, thought I had it all figured out...I don't..I didn't then. I had a diff love affair every 5 minutes, falling inlove more with the thought of them then anything else. I hate to be alone. I hate that i feel that way most of all. My skin is crawling. I feel like I can see it, my skin is rippling over my arm n tiny pin needles prick my finger tips. There's spots everywhere. mainly on my liver but they are also clouding the stars in my eyes. Trying to be an adult is hard, it entails facing yourself, considering harder the actions your taking before you take them. A bunch of grown up junk that just complicates life. Even though it was chaotic I loved my old ways, I was used to them...it was nice to feel at home. my cup was full, but theirs was always empty. I just went back and read this...wow how crazy I must feel, let alone sound.
I cant even find the words to pray.
I always pray, everyday, atleast for a moment. I pray I get my act together, and that I get to keep any right of passage that i've already earned. I pray that the days go by quickly yet the years pass slow. Time moves faster then you think.
When I pray I wish for the strength of many many men, and the soul of mother theresa. I wish I had a third arm to accomplish more tasks, and an extra foot to run three times as fast as my fears can chase me.
I feel like living. this doesn't make sense anymore, and I don't know why. maybe,  its because i've corrected my actions...maybe I know now what I need and not just what i've wanted. Being an adult makes needs trump desires. Who even knows whats best for us. 99% of the time we don't even know whats best for ourselves. and so what if it hurts, it always hurts. Nothing good in life ever comes easy.

life

This week has been one for the record books for me. I'm not going to go into detail about what exactly happened, but I had a much needed. much long over due epiphany! I saw my life through new eyes. Me...i'm scared of everything...most things. I'm scared to live, i'm scared that some days i'm not even sure what that means. I'm scared to fail, but I would fear more not knowing what to do with the success. This week although has shown me that things aren't all that terrifying. Our minds exagerate those fears, and they appear larger and more volatile then anticipated. I in turn got to experience the other side of that coin. The world around me was grossly distorted, but my fears appeared to be much smaller in ratio. I needed that. Today, another addition to how crazy and exciting my week has been, I have deleted skydiving from my bucket list. WOW what a freeing experience. It seems simple ok you get on a plane, go north about 12,000 feet, and then you jump out. Including of course the gamble of dying on your way back down. With all risk aside I decided it was something I needed to do. I still felt small to the world...which is strange because being up so high made everything and everybody else look so tiny. I was a molecule in the sky, just a tiny organism wearing a jesus tshirt, and black track sneakers, but that was exactly where I belonged. I saw what it was to be removed from reality for a second, to look down, and see that maybe the world isn't all that bad.

For anyone that knows me I move a mile a minute. I do not have a lick of patience to my name. I'm constantly one step ahead of myself. I go and go and go, and even when I run out of steam...I run on the water droplets the steam leaves behind. This week has been so spiritual, and it has slowed me down to just the right pace...for today atleast and I thank god for that.

LOVE DOES FAIL

"I'm the jet black sky
That's just before the rain
Like the mighty current 
Pulling you under the waves"

That quote is from one of my very favorite songs and it has been resonating with me lately. I feel cold as ice most days. I feel isolated, alone in a crowded room...I feel lost, but I have also been found. I'm all figured out, but I'm nothing that you'd expect. I am by default the exact definition of an oxymoron. I feel what that quote entails. I'm the darkness right before the rain...the black clouds roll in fogging everyones judgement. It send a shiver down your spine, but it's enthralling. The power of the thunder rumbling, and the slight glimpse of light in the emptiness after the lightening strikes. Some days I'm the darkness, but on my good days I'm the light. It's conflicting. I think the best thing for me lately is to be alone, aka my biggest fear. That solitary vulnerable feeling needs to wash over me in the worst way possible. Drowning me in the ocean i've created. 

I had a conversation with a very insightful person today. We spoke of love and what it meant to truly love something...what that feeling is like, how you know when it's real. All I know of love is chaos. The sickness it embodies. We played a game where we'd each name 3 things that described to us what love felt like in it's purest form and my response was as follows. 1. demeaning

                                                                     2. painful

                                                                     3. insanity

Then it dawned on me. What do I know of love? I know that the only love I mainly knew was produced by drug addicts. I know that it is unhealthy to feel as though your world will physically and mentally self destruct had you ever left these people. I know now that to love someone is not for them to NEED you, but for them to WANT you. But who wants me is NOW the most prevalent question. Am I able as a woman and as a human being able to stand alone in my skin, and allow myself to be accepted. Will they appreciate the truth...Will they run first if I tell them I run always...Can I run faster? or would I even want to?? Can I stand still, and be seen for the better woman I am today. I wish I felt more proud of me. I am no better I just survived. 

...But I think the modesty is what proves how painful this all is. 

Today I pray as I do every day. I pray I am one day better then I was yesterday. And two days better then the day before.

busy

I've been such a busy beaver lately. Trying to pencil in friends, family, activities, work, projects around the house and now writing a book. Of course in my most occupied of times I decide to pursue my dream of publishing a memoir of my life to share with the world. I think the craziness will help me think actually. My mind has constantly moved a mile a minute since the moment I think I was able to think. haha. The chaos is like high octane booster for my brain. The only problem i'm experiencing currently is writers block, although I should just chalk it up to writers overload. I have a hundred different ideas all of which don't tie in with the next one making planning the format next to impossible...so I freeze. It's so like me to want to give up right from the start...when the going gets tough I get going, but I refuse to let that be the case this time. Nothing in my life has come easily so why should this. There would be no reward in that. Sitting in an al anon meeting the other night it dawned on me why it's been so hard to kick off this book, and I think it's because of my faith. God was always prevalent in our home...my mother is a born again christian, every night before bed we would say " see you in the morning god willing ", but until I was about 18 or so I never thought god was willing. I was actually quite sure he hated me. As I sit here today recalling all those painful memories the power of god in my adult life, and the many many meetings I have attended have changed my out look on all of those horrific memories. I am thankful for them today. God had sent those challenges my way because he knew that I could handle them, and not because he wanted to torture me. I try to think that if a weaker person was handed these battles they wouldn't have made it, so it's almost like I saved someone...So I like to think. I sit with my pen in my hand trying to remember how feverishly I had written as a child. The ink would burn the pages, today I'm  lucky I can scribble a line at a time. That is recovery. God shall make this challenging, but today I shall except this challenge..with a migraine and opened arms.

frustration

My life is horribly frustrating...horribly frustrating in the fact that I mainly torture MYSELF. You could classify me as insane on any given day. Doing, saying, acting the same way and expecting a different result. Constantly waiting on a miracle to occur where my wallet magically fills with money upon opening it. My car has an unlimited amount of fuel, the refrigerator is always full and I can leave my air conditioner running without fearing the electric bill. I buy things I know that I don't need, and I always buy them at the most inconvenient times. You'd think I was rich the way I spend so frivolously. I have worked since the day they would let me and I haven't quit since. Always making sure my bills were paid, on time, never late. I always paid more then the minimum on my credit cards, had back up tooth paste, toilet paper and shampoo in the house. Knowing all of this, whatever money I had other wise went out the window. I'd leave a tiny cushion in a savings account, but other then that gone it went. I'll be the first to complain that I'm broke, but I'll also be the first person to get another job to compensate. I have been buried alive time and time again, today not being any exception, but I do everything in my power to stay afloat. I make sure that the rabbit is tended too, that we have food in our house, and running water. I get bored and paint my house a hundred different colors,buy patio furniture for a patio that I haven't built yet...Impulsive is a good word for it. One day I'll realize that I'm not running out of time. Patience is a virtue, and I would kill to know what that must feel like. I rush to do everything, and then once it's done instead of enjoying it...I stop for a second, smile, then race off to accomplish the next task. I envy my friend Sean in so many ways. He sees things, and he chooses to see them as positively as he can. It's not always easy for me to find the good in the things I've done. I'll criticize my paint strokes or the placement of the furniture. How ironic it is that I trust myself too much when it comes to money, knowing I'll always provide, but I doubt my every day decisions. Maybe I shouldn't have had 3 cups of coffee this morning or maybe I should have picked red instead of pink at the nail salon. Sean will see the beauty, and not the fault....I need to embrace that. Thank you for showing me life through your eyes. I've learned so many BEAUTIFUL lessons from you.

reflections

This may come as a shock to everyone, but I've been thinking an awful lot lately haha There have been circumstances I have been put into, and ones that I have willingly volunteered myself as shark bate for the rest of the world. There are decisions I have made that I may not be happy about, but I choose to live a regret free life today. I recently recalled a time in my life when I was utterly and disgustingly inlove with one of my childhood best friends. He was the boy that lived down the street, the quiet type ya know. His body language, the way the national park clouded sunlight shown threw his eyes....the silence he embodied. I swore he was my soul mate. We talked as children of intimate moments and things only him and I would've understood. I felt his sadness in the quiver in his voice, like I am sure he felt mine. He was sick even then, but so was I...." One day when your better I will love you I told him"...little did he know I already did. I prayed that my beautiful boy could learn to live and not just exist in this cold world, and when he did I couldn't imagine him sharing that life with anyone else. I got the call one day saying that he was sober, and as I promised...I was there. What an incredibly painful, rewarding, whole hearted emptiness I had felt threw out our relationship. Never having been more satisfied or so broken in my entire life. I did things I hate myself for, but in that time I had never learned more gratitude. I had a new family then, my al anon family. I learned that there was beauty behind this life altering disease. All I had ever wanted was to FEEL, I wanted to feel something beautiful...and there HE was. " there was no act of god that could've torn me away from him"...that phrase, which is permanently scarred on my body, holds more truth today then it ever has. I have carried the strength he has taught me threw out the course of my life. He made me strong when I was a 5 foot 100 pound skeleton of tears and bones. I stood 10 feet tall when he needed me to, only to walk home feeling lower then dirt. He sucked me dry, but that emptiness was familiar. I needed only my lungs to breathe, my heart he needed more. I lost a piece of myself that very first day when he buried me in the sand up to my neck when we were just little kids. That is a piece I have never gotten back. Thank you for keeping me alive in you. This person made me blind. He made me feel the same craziness that I had growing up in the world of fantasy and make believe. If he said the sky was green I would've believed it, not because I was a foolish woman, but because I wanted to. Arguing was useless. I would've rather played in traffic...my odds would've been better then. Although, letting him win when I did only added to our down fall. I am sorry that I have failed us. Today I am grateful for that life, I can let go of what I can not change and embrace what has been presented to me. Your eyes still guide me deep into your soul, the same soul I see when I look in the mirror...I am face to face with an angel in disguise...thank you god for letting us see threw clear eyes.

fumes

Running on fumes. Literally. Had one day off and do I rest? Of course I don't I stay up for 24 hours straight painting every room in my house. I imagine it's from my mind being so wound up lately...a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Well today has rolled around and I am in utter pain, and borderline hallucinating due to lack of sleep and the incessant paint fumes. Normal people would've opened a window....me...I like the high. I've filled my home with cheerful colors in hopes that when I rise each morning I'm happy to be alive. The paint helps, although I find it a little ironic that I choose a dark purple for my bedroom...so technically the first thing I see when I open my eyes is, well darkness...To me it's soothing. I don't run on the same wave length as most people. I'm easily relatable yet so far from being understood. The mystery keeps them coming back. I've been plenty fortunate in my life, I'd go so far as to saying that I'm BLESSED. This is because my biggest accomplishments have been some of my biggest mistakes. Learning more from the pain then the joy is most cases. Happiness is easily shared....the sadness is all consuming, it resonates in every orifice of your body. " I can see it in your eyes " they say...and that's true. You can see it in my crooked smile, in the crows feet around my eyes, and the slight shake in my hands. I'm neuritic....by nature. The colors in my other rooms are vibrant, describing my personality perfectly....a little funky, a little loud and a lot unique. The familiarity is comforting. I sit in the same spot on the couch every day, I wash my hair first in the shower, I always have to rewind the saddest part of every movie just to experience it one more time. I don't like change...if you hadn't caught on. This paint project was a good change, subtle...but necessary.

do doo doot dooooo doot do

I can't escape it. This feeling inside of me. I can't run from this, I can not hide. It sees me everywhere I go, hearing my most vulnerable thoughts. I can not pray without judgement...from my socially-inept self. Praying the way I was taught. Never for me, and always for the happiness and welfare of others. I had faith in who I was. I lost me somewhere between then and here. My body followed but my mind is estranged. My heart...Is with you, and you and you. In everyone I meet. My pulse beats out of rhythm. Ironic. Pausing ever so slightly...doo doot...dooooo doot...do dot...my heart keeps time.

something beautiful

"Something Beautiful"

In your ocean, I'm ankle deep
I feel the waves crashin' on my feet
It's like I know where I need to be
But I can't figure out, yeah I can't figure out

Just how much air I will need to breathe
When your tide rushes over me
There's only one way to figure out
Will ya let me drown, will ya let me drown

Hey now, this is my desire
Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful
To touch me, I know that I'm in reach
'Cause I am down on my knees, I'm waiting for something beautiful
Oh, something beautiful

And the water is risin' quick
And for years I was scared of it
We can't be sure when it will subside
So I won't leave your side, no I can't leave your side

Hey now, this is my desire
Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful
To touch me, I know that I'm in reach
'Cause I am down on my knees, I'm waiting for something beautiful
Oh, something beautiful

In a daydream, I couldn't live like this
I wouldn't stop until I found something beautiful
When I wake up, I know I will have
No, I still won't have what I need

Hey now, this is my desire
Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful
To touch me, I know that I'm in reach
'Cause I am down on my knees, I'm waiting for something beautiful
Oh, something beautiful

-needtobreathe

options

...Options, I absolutely HATE options. I hate that you can go to a store and there's a hundred different paint swatches to sift threw, or fifty different brands of the same cereal. You go to the diner and there's a million different ways you can have your eggs cook, and even when your in the car you can drive ATLEAST two different ways to get to the same exact place. To " normal " people, options are incredible. It gives them a chance to try a bunch of new things. Although, to a runner, this is horrific. What do you mean I have the world at my finger tips? Your saying that I can choose something, and if it wasn't necessarily what I had anticipated I can simply discard of it, and choose something else instead?? Knowing this was a huge red flag especially as a small child. Out with the old and in with the new.We didn't have a lot growing up. Nothing we had really held any value. So when the couch acquired a burn mark the size of a grapefruit, eghh we'll get rid of it and trash pick a new one. Things changed constantly at our home. A new nic nac or another 1970's computer a friend of a friend of a friend gave to my mother. We didn't hang on to too much, it goes without saying. As the years drug on I made my own interpretation of what it meant to purge. If I had it, you were welcome to it. The shirt off my back SUREEE, I can always get another. This seemed like a very selfless quality, until I started to discard of human beings that is. I'm not positive at which point it was when I started associating love with objects instead of people. I'd have pebbles that I found that I'd love more then most of the people I knew. These rocks were rare...one of a kind. People were stereotypical. You meet one asshole...you've met them all i'm sad to say. I could thumb threw men the way people flip threw the pages of the sunday newspaper. I'd capture a glimpse of everything they were and then build myself an emotional wall as to only get as close as I could to the parts that I could run from, and then ignore all the rest. It's sickening to think about, but I loved these people. I just hated myself. I hated that I knew I was pretty, even though I never personally thought too much of myself. If you asked me i'd tell you I don't even know what it is that these people see. I hated that I needed to collect tiny pieces of them in order to feed my growing ego. Not ever considering the toll I was taking on the ones I loved more then anything in the world. It never occurred to me that the best way to love them was probably to give them those tiny pieces of ME in return. I need to always remind myself that those people love differently then I do, my heart was only able to feel in one direction. I could spill out every feeling that I had, but I could never accept them...I never learned how to be that vulnerable. As long as they were loved that made me feel like a super hero. Swooping down, and then slowly fading away...I'd let them suck me dry, but in those moments i'd never felt so whole. They needed me, and I needed that.

let me count the ways...

They say that as soon as your born, you start dying. They say that your biological clock starts ticking the moment you take your first breath.This must be what that feels like. I want to feel every minute of this pain, this pain that they call living. Every day I want to feel my heart beat once less then it did the day before. After all, every feeling is worth feeling..right? How do I feel the sorrow. let me count the ways..The pain, it comes in waves. Its seen in my expressions. The way I nervously gaze around the room because it pains me to look you in the eyes, the way I always have something witty  to say so I can break the awkward tension. I can cry pure tears on command, pent up frustration strangles me..it easily bleeds through my brittle skin and dry eyes. I fidget in my seat like a 4th grader on a field trip, but you swear to god i'm incredible. I die inside every time I see your smile, knowing that I could never love you the way I needed to. A sick person I am,  embodying my sins mind, body and soul. My own reflection can make my skin crawl, even on the best of days. I see a battered woman, and woman who has lived her life suffering at the expense of others. A woman with hands worn like shoe leather, and a heart torn to shreds, of half hearted love notes, and valentines cards that had gone unread. She views her life through technicolor rainbows, and periods of  freezing rain. Wondering what those shades of grey keep covered...She knows she's dying, the sickness has lived in her for years. "It is always darkest right before the dawn", she'd read in a book one time. Her happy place soon became a prison for her thoughts, and a bunker for her alibi. Hold your breath sammy, can you feel the pressure. Her world becomes COMPLETE darkness, and she whispers, I am HOME.

just as free as we'll ever be....

Who said life would be easy? who said it was all gonna be worth it in the end?? why do we spend our time waitin' on the world to change? and not taking it upon ourselves to change the world?? There are years and years of unanswered questions. Hate crimes, gender crimes...race crimes. why? Do we not all bleed red, do we all not cry when we get hurt, and smile out of joy? Jealousy between young girls about whose prettier, skinnier, more developed.... high school girls killing themselves because they can't live up to the standard that society has created for them...We should be disgusted. Hating people for who they choose to love. Banning gay marriage as if they don't love the same way straight people do. Well ya know what, they don't love the same way...they love BETTER. They are more accepting and patient then we will ever be. We as human beings take our lives for granted. We mock the sun for not being the moon, the land for not being the sea. Why is it that we can't accept things for what they are? Why must we ruin the purity of everything, is it because we are so damaged that we've taken to using that as a coping method?? Instead of pin pointing each others faults, realize that we have faults of our own, and we are better then no man. I guess, as sad as it sounds that this is as free as we'll ever be...politically caged like animals...emotionally jailed for mental and physical battery...sad

take it easy

Today was one of the very few days i've slept in in my whole life. I was always the kid that would be wide awake as soon as the sun shown threw the windows, i'd tip toe into the living room to see if the beast was still asleep on the couch, and pray that I could leave for school undetected. I knew at a very young age that it was always going to be my own responsibility to wake myself up, eat something....if there was anything to eat, double check my own homework and leave the house. I knew that nothing would ever get done...on time...the right way...if I didn't take it upon myself to do it. There have been mornings i've woken up to swedish fish trailing our home, in my moms last stitch effort to rummage the house for a snack at 4 am. There have been nights where I had been woken up by screaming, or police officers hovering over my bed, or my mother clumsily trying to ram sack my drawers for an outfit she could wear the next day. The days were long, but the nights were longer. Sleep was my enemy, i'd fight it, id fight the urge to doze off for the shear fact of the terror that would be in store for me. If I didn't sleep then I could see all these things coming before I was startled out of a rem sleep coma, and nearly given a heart attack. In my adult life i've grown to be the same way. I no longer stay up at night waiting to be ambushed, but my sleep is interrupted with visions of killer electric bills, and the repo man coming for all my worldly possessions. I still rise with the sun on most days, whether I choose to lie around in bed or get motivated I spend alot of time gazing out of my bedroom window in those early hours and thanking god that i'm alive. " waiting for daylight, prayin for that mornin sun...so I can pretend my whole life ain't goin wrong.." I still get up every day, in my own home now, and detail the house before I have my coffee. Relentlessly wiping down the counters in my kitchen horrifically picturing the grape flavored jelly that used to covered the cabinets as a child. Digging threw my freezer for old food still searching for my mothers frozen solid morphine patches that she'd store for later. I'm glad that I have been bread to do those things, the compulsion keeps me on track. The routine is comforting, it always has been. I slept in today, a littleeee longer then i'd like to admit, but my body needed it. I run on fumes most days, and most days turns into most weeks until i crash completely...today was that day. I sucked in every last ounce of rest I could get before jumping out of bed with a smile ready to burn threw the day. I need to learn to slow it down. The counters will still need wiping in an hour, and my rabbit will not, despite my psychotic  thoughts, eat threw her cage and come attack me for not getting up soon enough to feed her. I enjoyed this morning very much. I don't know when my conscious will let me sleep this long again...but until next time....TAKE IT EASY!

try

I"m sitting on my couch dabbling on my facebook, and I see a post that says "mistakes mean your trying"...wow. I feel like i'm always trying, trying to be a better woman, trying to be better then I was yesterday. One upping myself whenever possible. I am my worst critic, and my own biggest fan on most days. I can look in the mirror and admire myself as a woman, and absolutely hate myself as a human being. There are days I get dressed in my ribbons and pearls, although my reflection shows my scars, the blackness that runs threw my veins, skin on bone. Ripping myself apart for not being a better worker, friend, lover, partner...the list a mile long. Hating yourself for the extent of your life for being as needy as you are, as terrified or for how you absolutely go mad when you have to spend any time alone with yourself. Cursing every decision you've made because it was under false pretenses or lust filled delirium. Trying to make the next right move, always conscious to keep your side of the street clean. What if we all stopped trying so hard? What if everyone just went with the flow for a little while, would it be all that bad?? Human nature is to surpass the next guy. We learn as children to form clicks, and out number the enemy on the playground. We get worse with age. The problems grow increasingly more difficult, and the force behind the blows is generated by years of abuse. What if we all beat up ourselves a little less? Before committing suicide, really thinking who it hurts?ourselves?? I've waited my whole life to die, instead of "trying" to enjoy the moment. I tried convincing myself that the world was better with out me, all the while the world was better because I was in it. "Everyone has a purpose", that phrase makes up the entire circle of life. You live until god feels you've fulfilled your duties on earth. There is a sadness in knowing that death awaits you one day, but a joy in understanding that when that day comes you've done everything you needed to. Death changes people. It awakes something in your soul. There is something about witnessing lifelessness that makes you feel alive. You start trying hard, living moment to moment, appreciating what life you have left. Its beautiful. The vulnerability it releases between individuals is powerful. People walk a little lighter, smile bigger. Make it your lifes goal to always say hello to someone you pass on the road.... take a little longer to chew a good steak, and TRY to the fullest and most important tense of the word to live a little bit sweeter. Even when you fail, you will know that its ok because mistakes mean your living, and living means you let go of what you can't handle, and surround yourself with what really matters. Today is your day

gods will

This soul searching quest i've been on is more exhausting then I had anticipated. There's a reason I chose to put this on the back burner for as long as I did. As I learn and grow i've been told many times that my life isn't on my time, it is not my will to enforce how I feel or what I think is best for me. The world runs on gods time, it is his will and not my own that projects what it is I need to be doing. There are times when I choose to trust him because the situation is far out of my hands, I trust him because I know that his decision will never fail me regardless if it is one I agree with or not. There are also times that I test his will. Imposing my own guidelines, and regulations. There are times I get ahead of myself, I think that I don't have to wait for him to guide me...I will just as well go off on my own and find the answer. Although, This always lands me in the same place. I am back down on my knees because it is the last place left to fall, and I pray. I pray that he will forgive me for rebelling and allow me to start fresh. God is always willing, a good friend once told me that, and knowing that has changed my life. I have reacted lately out of sadness, anger and even loneliness. Since I was a child I could never stand to be alone, if I was the last person left on earth I wouldn't even hang out with me. I saw no need for "me" time, no one wanted to deal with me...I wanted to set out on my next journey to cure someone else. Today I have "me" time. I have time when I reflect on the decisions i've made, and I feel the pain of that. It hurts....who knew? but I like it. It makes me feel alive. I am grateful for that. The pages of my notebooks are now filled with gratitude. Do not get me wrong my " give it up to god" list still stretches a mile high, but today my faith is strong...and that is whats important.

oh the places you'll go...

Yesterday was life changing. I never in my entire life ever thought I would experience such a moving moment. I don't know if I have mentioned this in my blog previously, but my father had left when I was just a little girl. This is  hard to talk about sometimes, but if I want my message to reach someone out there then I have to be honest with my story whether that pains me or not so here it goes...I remember my dad up until a point i'd say I was probably 3-5 roughly I could describe what he looked like, how his voice sounded, but as I grew apart from him I could remember less and less. Growing up I heard a bunch of stories, especially from my mother. You'd think that when people seperate they talk trash on the other parent and yada yada, but my mother never spoke a poor word about my father, and for that I have a great respect for her. She said he was a good man sammy he just didn't know how to be a dad then. I didn't understand when I was little...I couldn't imagine someone could leave their child with the beast, but as I aged I realized that he couldn't save us...that wasn't his job. I'd stay up at night and wonder how my life would've turned out if he had raised me instead or if I had both of them, but after all that has happened I wouldn't change a single thing. I wouldn't trade a single day for a hundred years the other way. The pain has made me strong. Its been a long time since i've really thought about my dad. After almost a quarter of my life passing by I kind of chocked it up as a loss. I didn't know any different so it was hard to miss someone you barely knew. Now that i've made it to adulthood I can see life for what it's really worth. I myself has grown into quite the runner. I questioned why he ran, why he didn't stay or call or any of the millions of questions kids ask themselves. I was mad, but I find it easier to let go now that I share that same quality with him. Maybe he ran because he was scared, maybe he wanted to save us both and just wasn't strong enough...or maybe he " just had to go" a phrase I have used far too often in my own life. Yesterday has opened up a door to finally knowing the answers to those tough questions. I was on my fb and checked the others category of my inbox message to find a year old message from a mister you know who. Needless to say I almost fainted. My mom had said to me a million times " do you ever wanna reach out to your dad sammy?" and I never quite had an answer, I was so emotionally strained then that I couldn't have appreciated it for what it was worth. She said that he is the same way, and I may have to take one for the team and make the first move. The sound of that made me cringe considering ive been QUITE the team player, the team captain one might say, and i'd hoped that he would step up...and he did! I received the message a year late, but even one year ago it wouldn't have meant as much to me as it does now. After an exchange of messages and voicemails I heard his voice for the first time in 20 years...it sent chills down my spine. I laughed, I cried, I felt numbness and uncontrollable fascination at the same time. It was life changing. He has lived down south for many many years now so seeing him has been impossible until now. What are the odds that the day I call him hes in the area for the weekend, and I get to meet him all over again. Im so excited to see what he looks like, even last night on the phone I can tell hes my dad...the way he talked the things he said. Hes the other half of me. my blood ruins in his veins. I dont know who this post will touch, but for anyone who has been without one of their parents this is life altering. It completes you....You can't run from where you come from....this i'm learning everyday.

confident

I feel confident today. I wear my smile as a suit of armor. I bat my bright green eyes at the world, and take them by storm...most days that is. Some days I feel lower then dirt so I thank god for days like this. I picked up a second job to help get myself out of the hole I am in, and today was my first full day alone. I don't want to say my coworkers aren't friendly, but lets just say there not out for your success....Needless to say I had to think on my feet. This is where i'm thankful for my people skills. As long as you can stay positive you can talk yourself, and mainly anyone else off the ledge as well. One of the other servers I work with is an older woman named Ruby, I guess you'd say shes the b i t c h of the group, but we've taken to one another quite nicely...you know what they say about birds of a feather haha I think the others are a little intimidated. I know what I know and I don't take crap from anyone, if anything i'd think they'd rather work with someone down to earth, but...not so much. I was also bustin out some spanish to the kitchen staff that they gruffed at as well. Today was a do or die kind of day, or like i've mentioned before eat or be eaten.  I'm proud that I have the skills I do. Im glad I had all those crazy jobs growin up where I learned patience and management skills. People are ignorant because they don't know better themselves. Hard work never goes unnoticed even if it takes far too long to get noticed. The greatest reward comes to you at the end of your life...when all is said and done I want to stand before god and say with a clear conscience and a whole heart that I couldn't have done anything better.

blessings

I've been writing this blog at a seemingly depressing time in my life, but today I want to step outside of myself  and count my blessings. My mind has been so wrapped up in whats wrong in my life, and not enough of whats right. Harping on bad break ups, unpaid bills, my lack of sleep and starvation. From experience I know that what doesn't kill you indeed makes you stronger, and knowing that alone has gotten me through. I have some of the most incredible people in my life today, some amazing opportunities for me to better myself and I would be a foolish woman not to acknowledge that. I have 2 jobs, sure they drive me nuts and some days its not as easy as I hope, but I have to remember that people struggle to find one job and I was blessed to find 2. I have stacks of bills that I can't even look at sometimes for fear of crying, but they are bills that have accrued because I am lucky enough to own my own home at 23. I drive a nice car, I may not have much but I have worked hard to have the things I do. With that being said the bills seem worth it almost. I have an incredible roommate who I am not only blessed to have the financial support, but to have such an amazing person to stand beside me threw my mess that I call a life right now. Also my girlfriends you all know who you are if your reading this. We have fallen apart, we have grown together, and for the rest of my life I will carry us threw the best way I can. We were and still are just a couple of kids trying to save each other....FINALLY I see it in color...and as hard as it is the reality of that is beautiful. I am wise beyond my years, aged to not quite perfection, but I am better then I used to be and that's a blessing in itself. The moral of my story today is remember the little things, remember why your here and where your going. The troubles are just road blocks god puts down to test you. My heart is strong and so is my will....by all means...LET IT RAIN

broken

 Today was such a profound wake up call that I desperately needed. For this first time I can look back on my life and say whole heartedly  that I absolutely messed everything up. I came out of the whom backwards (literally I was breech), but man did I take ass backwards to a whole new level once I emerged. I'm a good person, I pray, I always go into everything I do with the best of intentions although my running instinct always kicks in. Your a lover, I'm a runner....we'll go round and round. I prided myself on a quote i'd heard once " always leave them better then when you found them". This pertains to people in general, my relationship partners especially.  To me that always meant that they would be wiser, or happier or atleast held themselves at a higher regard after I was done. I convinced myself for 23 of my 24 years of life that I was a super hero, and I would've done anything and everything I had to to uphold that role, including hurting myself. I have been my own last priority for as long as I can remember, my life  held very little value. I had prepared for death since the very day I was born. My mother wasn't supposed to be able to have children so the fact that i'm here at all is a miracle within itself. Knowing that I decided to live each day as if it were a gift. Sometimes that gift wouldn't be a gift at all. More like a punishment. If I was lucky enough to survive it then my reward was to live another day, but sometimes that gift was a new friend, or a 10 dollar check my grandfather sent me to buy shampoo and toilet paper for the house. God knows no one else would put out the money for it. I was selfless, I still am, and that has ruined me. I am the strongest woman I know, and in the same breath I can say that I break just like a little girl. Somewhere there's a miracle in that too.

exhausted

Its hard to say if its the weather or just a combination of the way i'm feeling, but I woke up today absolutely exhausted. An oh too familiar feeling i'm sad to say. I feel like I sleep, but i'm not dreaming, I lay down although my body is not at rest. Irony plays a humongous role in the past 24 years of my existence. For instance, I KNEW to run before I had ever even learned to walk. I don't mean the kind of running where your kicking around a soccer ball with your friends, or running to keep up with the crowd. I mean bolting threw life constantly defying the odds of time. Running out of fear, vulnerability, confusion. Rushing into relationships, rushing out of them, making hasty decisions because the pain of taking the time to think it threw is too unbearable. I've lived fast, but for that I know I will die slowly. The world is funny that way...race to the end only to find a wall, a wall you have built yourself over the course of life, that by the time you reach it you have not an ounce of strength to stand beside it let alone take the journey over it. Let me clear some of this up for you.. from the time I can remember I was taught to be a survivor, to eat or be eaten.. Everyday was a war between the beast a.k.a. my mother and myself. We didn't LIVE in my house, we battled to stay alive. Who was gonna eat the last can of corn in the cabinet or who was gonna take their turn being locked out of the house. Atleast I was handy with a butter knife. To this very day I can break into almost anything....THANKS MOM that's one for the resume. I was taught to believe make believe, that what I saw was never what it was. Your mommy is sick sammy...she doesn't mean it. The jelly covered counters, and burn holes in the carpet definaetly spelled out the FLU. I was young but far from stupid. So of course I tried to hurtle my way threw that sector of my life. leaving for school an hour early only to hopefully sit quietly alone in the rain on the bus stop, I was cold...but it was safe. Id beg my friends to stay over or if  I could escape to there house just to sleep threw the night. Those days were long, but some how these days feel longer.....

        until tomorrow....

this is me

hello all,
 My name is Samantha, and thanks to my adoring friends I am now a riveting blogger. haha. This actually all came about at a pretty dire time in my life so I am thankful to be able to have this outlet. I will apologize in advance for most of my posts being sad, but I find that in my weaker moments I do my best work. Hopefully someone will come along and read these one day and it will change there lives, because these experiences have forever changed mine. For starters I have a wicked case of attention deficit disorder, so reading my mental and emotional roller coaster ride threw life may be a bit confusing,but please bare with me. I was raised in a pretty unorthodox setting. No father, a grandmother who played both mom, dad, supporter, disciplinarian, and so much more. all the while My mother: a blue eyed, thick skinned, opiate dependent woman minoring in parenting, and majoring in full blown paranoia had the run of the show. So needless to say god didn't make it too easy for me. Also let me put it out there that I am very spiritual. I am open to every different religions takes on life, and culture even though I prefer to follow my own path. I believe in the will that lives within myself. That may sound a little crazy, but as a child convincing myself that I had some soul searching to do was much easier then thinking no one cared enough to relinquish  my unanswered prayers. I was lost...I am STILL lost, but I have made it my lifes goal to find a little peice of who I am in everyone I meet. I'm  an avid collector of people one might say. My friends are amazing examples, there is a sliver of all of them that live in me. My mom had brought home a paper from one of her many trips to rehab that spoke of 2 men. One was an old deteriorating man with a heart that was beaten and torn practically to shreds, and the other was a man with a whole crimson perfect beating heart. The whole hearted man boasted how he had the most beautiful heart in all the world, but in the midst of his public display a young girl approached the elderly man watching in the crowd, and declared that HE indeed had the most beautiful heart. The old man chuckled and said theres nothing left of this tattered muscle however could you think that. She assures him that the emptiness is what makes it beautiful. The fact that over the course of his life he has  given so much of himself away, and never took anything back to fill the holes. The beauty lies within the people whose lives hes changed with his selfless ways. I have never forgotten that...and that has kicked off the theme of what my blog will not only represent for me as a person, but for every one who sees this. I hope you stay tuned