fix

I had let my sadness from losing someone I loved define me. Then I let my mistakes pile up. My mistakes held hands with my using. My brain melting in to a smoke filled mess. A damp mold behind my skull. It stank. Toxic. Feeling rotten to my core. So damaged, so destroyed that the chaos was my comfort. The sadness was my blanket and I was wrapped up in all of it. Forgetting everything else around me. There is a sense of loss when I think back. A sadness that I am no longer in that. I know how strange that might sound. There was just a certain freedom in not caring at all for my life. Not caring because I felt I was totally beyond repair. The person who I was, no matter how dark and twisted, that was me. I was the girl who fucked up. The one who caused chaos with white dust and angry intoxication. The one who didn’t care. Not one little bit. Inside, of course, I cared deeply about the people around me. Loved with all my internal organs, but what is the point of love if it is only felt on the inside and never shared, not even with myself. I stuffed that love so far down to the ground it barely touched my toes.

Being in recovery has forced me to recreate myself. At first putting the blocks of my life back together was exciting, interesting. Searching and discovering the things that I like. Listening to music again. Reading books. Finding things. Reconnecting. But all of a sudden I feel like I’m searching in the dark. Like I’m totally lost. I can’t tell you who I am now. I feel like I’m blindly grasping at the air. Trying to feed my soul but only clutching my own empty hands. I’m trying on outfits and none of them seem to fit. Everything I try feels like that itchy jumper you get for Christmas; spiky, sharp. My skin doesn’t fit. I would like to fit again in my own skin.  Everything frightens me and leaves me lonely. And loneliness is so ugly. It’s bare and cold and no matter who stands ready to fight it, it doesn’t seem to leave till IT wants to. Each morning it clings to my shoulders, stuck to me. I must drag this gut retching maggot around with me. The maggot and my beast and all my sickening memories seem to thrive together. Like a virus. And my regrets are piled high. So much fuel. From the drunken stories that past my lips without a stop and think to friends who only deserved kindness. To walking away when I should have stayed. The people I’ve hurt.

Somewhere in this piece there is a realization. That to recreate myself, to be in comfort once again I must repair. So now recovery welcomes a new mission, a new fight. I must fix what I have broken outside of me to mend my insides. A battle I guess I knew I would always have to face.

six.

When I was six I danced in a white tutu. The vest part stained from my clumsy joy of food. My little round belly stretched out around my middle like a balloon. I wasn’t the most agile dancer but nothing would deter me from spreading my arms wide, stretching my chubby little legs, pointing my toes and bounding around the house haphazardly. To a classical CD that I’d plucked from my dad’s collection. I would dance just because it was exactly what I wanted to do and it made bubbles of joy tickle up my spine.

When I was six I would sneak outside and fight through jungles, ride horses through the Highlands of Scotland, make camp fires. Discover places where the creatures of dreams would tell me tales of worlds beyond my own. Digg with sticks to try and find the heat of Australia in rainy Bristol. Turn clouds into wales and dragons. Ride my bike across American highways.

 When I was six I wanted to unravel all the mystery’s in the world. Play every part. Fierce red head full of question and sharp determination. 

When I was six I would spin around in circles with my best friend. Laughter would pour from our lungs. The world would roll in circles so much faster than it had ever done before. With dizzy happiness. Adventures. That zest for life. That something you have when you're so brand new in the world.  

When I was six I’d climbed upstairs with sleep in my eyes but of course I did not want to sleep. My sisters and I caused chaos with cold feet and peppermint breath. Letting our world be our game, as all children do. When I was six I didn’t want to sleep for fear of wasting time. For fear of missing the grown up hours. For fear of not seeing what the world looked like when it turned black. I peeked through the banisters and drank in the sound of my parent’s whispers. Breathed in the almost silent ache of the house that had been so alive in the light. Crawled to the warmth of my bed with disappointed surrender at the end of it all. Tired and full.

Six months ago today a suitcase was put in my sister’s cars. We drove. To the place where I would spend a month healing. Where I would learn how pull apart the rattling poison behind my skull. Suck it out like a snake bite and spit it into the gutter. Where I would find my calm. Where I would meet some of the most wonderful people.  

I wanted to travel back to a different six to celebrate this one. A six that reminds me that I wasn't always an addict. I wasn't always troubled. By that reminding I have hope. I'm not sure how much sense that makes to you, but it helps me to see that there are a million different parts that make me who I am and being an addict is just a slice of that.  

Before rehab I never wanted to be clean and sober. I'd found a pattern in my life that almost felt comfortable. But it wasn't. I was slowly killing myself. I was forgetting the people around me. I was forgetting who I was. I was forgetting me at six.