Empty Spaces

For eight months I was doing everything right. I had quit drinking. Stopped smoking. I was going to the gym almost everyday and absolutely in love with it. I was trying to be the best wife I could be. Although that may sound simple, when you come from a world where the only interest worth having is self interest. It is not as simple as it seems. I tried to start exploring why it is that I feel so disconnected. From myself, from my emotions, from love, and my husband. But then like I should have expected other forces began to come into play. Forces that are so much larger then myself. Forces that make self destruction, excessive drinking, hell even the warm numb of drugs so much more appealing then anything  life.

I have either been blessed or cursed with a complete lack of memory. I have spent the greater part of my adult life arguing with others on the way history really was. A therapist once told me that the things that had happened to me were so horrific, my brain was protecting me. My mind knew enough to know that the truth was more then one person could carry. But it wasn’t just the bad stuff either. I can’t remember almost anything. I get blips of these moments that pass through my head. I know somewhere in me the rest of the details lie. But I can never, not ever recall them.

About six months in to this new me. This happy healthy all encompassing me. Something started to change in my brain. These soft moments of memories started to slip back through. At first it seemed kind of nice. I would have a glimpse into a day at the Airplane park with my brothers and cousin. I could feel the hot metal of the nose of the plane as I crawled out to sit on it. I would just catch myself smiling. Mid day, and for what to others must have seemed like no apparent reason. It was nice at first to start to regain some of these memories. Can you imagine what it must feel like to feel constantly like an empty box? As much as I can logically know that I am made up of all the little moments in life that built me to this place. I have no recollection of any of them.

But the sweet, easy, and kind memories. They didn’t stick around too long. Very quickly the blips I was beginning to remember were the very things that I never needed to really know. The feeling of a hard slap. The way some ones blood comes flowing from their wrists. The way it sounds when you hear the man you respect most in the world crying because he couldn’t protect you. Now most of theses memories I already had some tiny recollections of. I probably would have been ok if everything had stopped there. But it didn’t. Soon the memories of being held down and ripped open started. Things that I couldn’t have even told you had ever happened to me. All of a sudden in the middle of my day they were in my brain just washing around waiting to tumble out of my mouth. I didn’t know how to process.  Still don’t. I just know I prefer the numb and empty soul.

I started drinking again. Slowly at first and I convinced myself it was all in good fun. But the truth is, I can’t feel. I can’t feel joy, or pain. I can’t feel love or even hate. I am always just this empty shell mimicking others emotions. I do not know if there is good in me. I am certain that I am not bad though.  I think I am just hollow. I have been trying to play the game the way the world expects you too.  But I only seem to be hurting more people in the process. Maybe I am at the point where I need to accept I am too damaged.

Are You Trying To Please Everyone?

My Positive Outlooks

If you are trapped between your feelings and what other people think is right, always go for whatever makes you happy. Unless you want everybody to be happy, except you.—  Unknown

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falling or drowning

Falling in love is easy. It’s actually one of the easiest things I have ever done in my entire life. I just so happen to find it so easy that I like to do it as often as possible. But the problem is I have never, not once, fallen in love with the ‘right’ person. The first six  months with someone new is like one long drawn out Christmas morning. One where no one gets sick or mad that the toy they wanted was green and not the mellow yellow they had pleaded so hard with Santa for. The obnoxious drunk uncle never shows, and there is always enough rolls for everyone to have seconds.

The first six months of love is when the whole world seems to be swallowed up and consumed. Hidden somewhere between you and your new lovers lips. You whisper words that truly have no meaning. Words like forever, you and me, a small cabin in the woods. Whatever your poison really is I suppose.  True reality is forgotten in the overwhelming urge to thrust your hips harder together. To remove the clothes that separate you from your new beloved. As if those acid washed jeans are the only things stopping you from having everything you might have ever wanted. Maybe you hold out. You pretend that if you don’t succumb to the carnal powers that are at play you may be able to hold onto this euphoric feeling. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you throw caution to the wind and remove the last layer that is separating you and your new love. You stand there, bare naked, and exposed.  And I hope for your sake that this is not your  moment of realization.

Exposing your body. Using your mouth for everything but the words that should have already come. Manipulating your heart through your pelvis. Well that never works. Manipulating their heart though your pelvis , that is a whole other story. The truth in sharing yourself comes from something more. Something deeper. Do you know how to love yourself? Do you know what it is you expect others to love about you? Convincing someone to love the simple parts of you is easy. The parts that are easily shared. Exposing your soul while standing before someone fully clothed. Standing there in the full glory of everything that you are, and everything that you have to offer. That is when you have to wonder. That is when you have to fear. That is when you doubt. Will they love you then?

I have spent the greater part of my adult life making men fall in love with me. I get high off knowing that with a few smirks, an eye bat, and maybe a bit of extra exposed skin. I can own them. Even if for a moment.  Even if for a small blip in time. Men are simple to obtain as long as the things you want from them are as simple as the creatures they are. I grow tired of them. I will move on. As soon as the challenge is over and they are standing there with their hearts in their hands. I am sickened by them. They will be left wondering, probably forever.

The truth of the matter is though, I have NEVER fallen in love with myself. So every man and every moment where I convinced these poor eager souls to fall so deeply in love with me. I was really reaffirming everything I will never understand about myself. The things that I can convince others to love about me. Are the very things that I may never, ever be able to see. And even if I could. Even for a moment. I don’t think I would believe them anyways.

Friendship and Love. Always end up the same.

I have always been GREAT at falling in love. Even better at getting men to fall in love with me. Most of the time, as soon as I realize that these men have fallen down that slippery slope I lose all interest. I love the men who want to use me. Treat me like crap and walk away making sure I am the one feeling jilted and wanting more. I always dated these losers. Boys who could never appreciate me. Or just flat out refused to. I would chase them, conform for them, beg them to love me. Even if that meant changing everything about me that it was I actually loved about myself.

The irony has not been lost on me that I married the exact opposite of every kind of man I ever pursued. In fact he was the one man I would crawl back to for kind friendship and a warm bed to lay in no strings attached every time one of those losers would rip my heart out. He told me I was better then what I was giving myself. A friendship like the one we had, the one we have. Is not something you take for granted. So when we finally became boyfriend and girlfriend and the irony continued I could almost expect no less. I was completely wrapped up in my addiction. I almost destroyed everything. Our friendship on particular. But somehow, some way this man was able to stand there open arms and wait for me to fix myself. I am a work in progress. Maybe I always will be. But I am blessed enough to know that by my side, deservingly or not. I have this man. Who loves me. Not despite my flaws. But because of them. I need to be able to look up and around more often and remember the things I have in life. The people I have in life that are worth everything to me.

Let them whisper.

I use to be a heroin addict. Hell, who am I kidding. I am a heroin addict. I am not an active one. I do not use, I don’t snort it (not that I ever really did that) and I certainly do not shoot it. But if there was a way I could still use without destroying everything and everyone that cares for me, I would. I said that to my husband last night. He doesn’t really understand addiction. He has never had that struggle. He posses this self-control that I both admire and loath. When he heard me say that I would still use if I could I think it broke his heart. But how do you explain that to someone who has it so…. “together”? How do you explain that the only time in your entire life that you have felt whole and at peace was after you pushed that stopper and released that little liquid heaven into your arm.

Now I could tell you the horror stories of my childhood that undoubtedly helped lead me to the path I ended up on. But I think that even if I had some “picture perfect story book”  upbringing. I still would have fallen in love with numb. I have never felt any peace quiet like the first 4 minutes after releasing that magical elixir into my arm. But as wonderfully numb as that made me feel it was stealing far more from me  then I was even able to be aware.

It starts taking things slowly at first. By the time you realize how much of yourself you have given over to the drug it’s too late. It took my honesty first. I remember the exact moment I told my first lie for my lover, heroin. My husband (boyfriend at the time)  saw my botched injection marks. When you are self taught it takes a few times to get it right. He very fearfully asked me what they were. I know he knew in his heart what they were. I was already struggling with my prescription pills. I lied though. I told him I let a tech in training take my blood at the doctors and she botched it. I saw in his eyes that he could read my lie. We both knew it was a lie. But we both choose to accept it as fact. We were not quite ready to face anything else.

Everything progressed so quickly after that. The lying, stealing, robbing, and countless other things that I am not quite ready to openly admit even now. I betrayed every single person that bothered to care about me. If I didn’t physically rob you for anything worth money I manipulated you into giving me what I wanted anyways. Most of the time I was doing both.

Then one day I woke up . I was homeless at this point. My boyfriend had moved out of the state to escape me. I had drained his savings and pawned the things he loved the most. My family members had systematically kicked me out after I robbed them all one by one. So I woke up this one particular day and  looked around the run down drug house I was currently crashing at. I had nothing. No job, no home, and no one who loved me for any reason other then what I could provide them. I was living there with a 50 something year old drug addict, her boyfriend, and his four year old daughter. I was supporting the whole house and all of our addictions through a plethora of illegal behavior. But when I woke up that morning and saw this sweet innocent little girl playing with her dolls. Completely oblivious to the fact that there was a rows of needles sitting on the television right over her head. Well either oblivious or immune to it at that point. I knew I had to change.

This couldn’t be my life. I wouldn’t let myself die leaving nothing but bitter memories in the minds of the people I loved the most. That day I convinced my (ex) boyfriend (now husband) that I was sober and that he should let me come down to Florida. Yes, I am sure that restarting everything with yet another lie was not the best idea I have ever had but it was my only hope. I convinced my step-father to buy me a plane ticket to Florida. He was reluctant. He was convinced he was sending me to my death.  Truth be told I wasn’t quite sure he wasn’t.

The week leading up to my flight, I used more then I ever had.  I almost overdosed in an apartment complex parking lot.  I collapsed one of my veins and had to start shooting in my hands and feet. I knew that it was do or die time. I wasn’t sure which I was hoping for. The day before my flight I managed to buy three Suboxen.

I arrived in Florida December 19th 2011. My boyfriend was under the impression that I was clean. That I had been clean for a few months . I spent that Christmas in a flea bag motel breaking my suboxen into the smallest of pieces and trying to act like I wasn’t going through the worst withdrawal of my life. I didn’t get it a hundred percent from that exact moment. It is the defining moment though. The beginning of the path that saved my life.  Everyday I try to make the right choices.  I falter along the way. I am constantly trying to self destruct, because as an addict I know where that will lead me. But I persevere. I know that I am better then the life I would have if I returned to the drug. No matter how enticing and easy it may seem at times. But I won’t lie and say that the drug won’t always be a devious mistress whispering sweet promises of easy outs in my ears. I just choose to ignore her now.

The lost definition of normal.

I have come through the fire and am standing before you ashen and scorched. Everyone else stares at me as though I am shiny and new. But I can feel it. The soot that has settled into the depths of my ears. I can smell the singed hair in my nostrils. After you come out of the fire and you are standing there in sunlight. Nothing looks the same, ever again. The worst part though is no one else can see your burns. The scars that you know are there. That you know have destroyed your soul, body, and brain. They are invisible to everyone else. So at this point you must figure out how to move forward. How do you move on with your life when you aren’t even sure what life is suppose to be like without the fire?

There is a saying in recovery. “Fake it till you make it”. Now I do not participate in recovery. Nor do I normally tote their slogans. But this one I live by. Everyday I am here faking it. I faked my way out of heroin addiction. I faked my way into a life. With a small business and a part time office job. I faked my way into getting this amazing man who loves me more then I think anyone has ever loved anyone to marry me. But here I am standing before the mirror. Missing the flames. Missing the smell of my scorched skin and the pain that only ever seems to be alleviated by the tonics society frowns upon.

I feel so lost. I know that everything I have is what people who were in the boat I have been in would kill for. So then why do I seem so hell bent on destroying it? Why do I seem to constantly be stopping myself from throwing myself off this cliff back into the dark abyss I faked so hard to remove myself from? Normal, a word that people throw around as if it the holy grail to life. Normal the one thing you are convinced from birth you want. Normal, the white picket fence 2.5 kids and a dog. Normal, the one thing that no matter how hard I have fought for. I am never certain it is actually the thing I want. I enjoy the flames. I am comfortable with the pain and the struggle and the tears. I can count my scars and at least know I lived. But here I sit. Drowning in my normal.

From the age of eight.

I knew I was going to be a junkie from the time I was maybe 8 years old. I was being raised in an environment where the only attention that was any attention was negative attention. My mom had been so ill my whole life and everything that was wrong with her garnered all the attention that anyone could provide. So when my uncle was rushed away right before Easter one year only to be returned right before the holiday dinner with bandages on his arms. I was intrigued. More then intrigued. I was so enamored by the watery eyed stares and quiet sympathetic whispers he was getting that I had to figure out what was going. Luckily my uncle was always willing to treat me like an adult. While all the other kids were getting this milk and cookie version of how Uncle Johnny had an accident at work. (Which I knew was laughable because he had never been able to hold down any kind of job). My uncle took me to the side and filled me in on the real situation.

My uncle always treated me differently. Later on in life it would start to be almost incestuous the way he spoke to me and talked to me.  He took me down the hallway at my grandparents house to the tiny room in the back of the house that he sometimes inhabited. When he could be found anyways. I remember the little mary janes I had on clicking so loudly as we approached his room. I just kept thinking it had to be the loudest sound in the world.  Once we entered his room he lifted me up smiling spun me around in my frilly little Easter dress and sat me down onto his dirty twin sized bed.  He looked at me like I was an adult. He spoke to me like I was an adult. He started unwrapping his bandages, just as if I was an adult. More like a doctor really.

“I shoot heroin, bean. I am very sick and I stick needles in my arms sometimes to feel better. But this time I missed the vein. It blew up under my skin and caused a really bad infection.”

I stared at the black puss filled dent on his arm. It was so red and so swollen. He looked proud though. I still don’t understand that. But he was. I clacked the bottoms of my shoes together. I was staring so hard at the shiny reflective leather that covered my toes. I didn’t want to see the place where pink flesh no longer lived on my uncles arm.

“What is it like?” I needed to know.

“Well it doesn’t hurt and they are giving me antibiotics.” My uncle again looked proud.

“No, not that. What is heroin like?” I knew right then that I could obtain all the attention I was missing by becoming the victim. You see up until this very moment I thought I could save all the sick people in my family. At the meager age of right I thought I would be able to solve everything and bandage up the wounds that were so much deeper then I could even begin to fathom.

“Oh heroin? Well you won’t ever need to know that bean. You are a better person then that.  But it’s like standing under a waterfall. While the pressure of the water is washing you clean it is also roaring so loudly in your ears you forget the world exists.” Sitting next to me staring straight into my eyes as he said this. I knew. Right then at that very moment. I would become everything he was but more. I needed that roar in my ears. I needed the water washing away the sins I was already starting to acquire saving the souls of the broken ones in my family.

I was called out of that room before I could really respond. I ate dinner with my family. Staring at the newly applied bandages no one wanted to talk about. After we eat we opened our baskets. I had gotten sixty dollars in mine. Sixty dollars that I immediately snuck down the hall and slipped under my uncles door. I didn’t exactly understand what heroin was. But I knew that he needed to feel that feeling. Because it was the only thing I would think about feeling for almost the rest of my life.