well...
this is going to be interesting. i haven't had regular access to a computer since i moved to dothan in november. november 5th to be exact. i used to make sure this entire journal was grammatically correct, i used punctuation the way i was taught, spelled things right, and used my caps properly. but now that i've torn down so many walls that used to hold my image of life up, that just doesn't seem as important as what the words say. i love writing...i don't know if i've ever really told anyone that. i know it's not great, i know the paragraphs aren't "real" paragraphs, but this has helped me more over the years to mark my progression into who i've become than anything. i've had this journal since june 20th of 2001. i also haven't updated it in 39 weeks according to livejournal.
my last post was september 27th. that was 9 months ago. it was really the ending stages of the end. my clean date is november 1st, 2008. for some reason halloween was too scrumptious a holiday to pass up clean, but it wasn't all that great. really disappointing actually. my world crumbled that week. my sister said, after i called her and sobbed to her about everything and nothing in particular (well, nothing that made sense, really) , that if this wasn't a bottom, she didn't know what was. and she was absolutely correct. it still took me a few days to get to the point where i knew what i wanted to do about it, but i finally made a decision to move.
like the resourceful person i considered myself, i put an ad on craigslist. it was really funny who showed up to take me to dothan for free. i won't say how i knew him on here, but it was someone who wanted to help me before, but i didn't want it. so i packed up as much as i thought i really needed and we left. i haven't talked to him except for one time around christmas. i moved down here to live with my biological father and grandmother who i never really got to know growing up. i didn't get to know edwin because he was in prison basically my whole life and had just gotten out the may before i showed up. and my grandmother just lived too far away, but my mother still stayed in close contact with her. i knew her as aunt jeanette. she is the sweetest, most jesus-centered, generous, and loving individual i have ever come in contact with. she has congestive heart failure and is almost constantly sick now, though. that doesn't get to her at all. she loves to say she's going to live until she dies, she guesses. heh.
so the night i moved down here and got settled in my room, i went to my first NA meeting in fucking 2 and a half years. and i wanted to go. badly. i knew that if something didn't change, nothing would ever change. and i was right. my self-will had run riot so much that i lost control of everything. and i came to find out i never really had control at all. that realization came with working the second step: "we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." there has always been a power greater than myself looking out for me, who i credit with never being arrested, seriously hurt, or killed. believing that he could do all that for me really helped me grasp that he could also help with my insatiable appetite for self-sabotage.
it all started when i surrendered. i surrendered to this way of life because i finally believed i didn't have all the answers and that they weren't coming to me any faster with a pipe in my mouth. i admitted my powerlessness, and truly accepted it. with acceptance comes action, and i felt obligated to myself to try something that looked like it was working for others who were just like me. i always put myself to the side as "special" or "different." i could have saved myself from so much heartache, withdrawals, bad people, everything if i just stopped focusing on the differences and honed in on the similarities. but if i didn't go through all the things i went through, i might not be here today.
i'll be 8 months clean next week. on july 1st. i moved out of jeanette's house after personalities clashed with ed, lived with someone in AA with 22 years under their belt, worked at arby's just for gas and cigarette money, then moved in with casey. he just turned 22 at the end of april and he'll have a year clean on july 8th. i moved in february 27th as an addict accepting help from another addict. i slept on the couch for a month, then he collaborated with ed to get me a mattress. i slept on that for another month and a half. and it was awesome. there were no expectations, no awkward moments, just fun times and recovery. there were finally some circumstances that led us to realize we truly cared for eachother, so we decided to see where we could take this. while some character defects outshine others, the person i loved in that NA way is definitely still the person who's there today, loving me while i love myself more and more everyday. and he's cute. very much a "catch," as you might say.
:) i'm sitting at an area-wide pool party which is also a fundraiser for a halloween party we throw every year. god willing i'll make it another 4 months, and maybe celebrate my year clean at midnight that night. but i'm only promised today. i will only ever have today. and i cherish it more than i ever have in my entire life. i always thought i'd be filled with misery and disgust and regret, but i've jumped into this recovery thing head-first, and i love it. i would never trade what i've gained for the finest, purest, most potent 8 million tons of dope. i'm no longer a hopeless dope fiend. i'm most definitely a dopeless hope fiend.
as for evan and i...we will be together again. i'm finally on the right track to being a real mother, and i have to give myself that much credit. i did finally get my bassoon back. i've been thinking of teaching a couple of lessons a week if there are students around who need it, and putting that money away for him. i've been throwing a lot of ideas about him around in my head. the cost of living is so much more affordable for me, and i actually have a decent job at the nicest, most popular restaurant in dothan, so things are definitely looking up. i'm not running everything into the ground anymore. at least i try not to, but i am still an addict. still sick. but getting better. it's definitely still just one day at a time. that one foot in front of the other.
i miss all you who might read this. i have a feeling, judging from the posts i've seen, only a couple of you are still out there. i needed to write this for myself, though. i needed a marker in time to look back on. a good one, finally.
god, grant me the serenity...
my last post was september 27th. that was 9 months ago. it was really the ending stages of the end. my clean date is november 1st, 2008. for some reason halloween was too scrumptious a holiday to pass up clean, but it wasn't all that great. really disappointing actually. my world crumbled that week. my sister said, after i called her and sobbed to her about everything and nothing in particular (well, nothing that made sense, really) , that if this wasn't a bottom, she didn't know what was. and she was absolutely correct. it still took me a few days to get to the point where i knew what i wanted to do about it, but i finally made a decision to move.
like the resourceful person i considered myself, i put an ad on craigslist. it was really funny who showed up to take me to dothan for free. i won't say how i knew him on here, but it was someone who wanted to help me before, but i didn't want it. so i packed up as much as i thought i really needed and we left. i haven't talked to him except for one time around christmas. i moved down here to live with my biological father and grandmother who i never really got to know growing up. i didn't get to know edwin because he was in prison basically my whole life and had just gotten out the may before i showed up. and my grandmother just lived too far away, but my mother still stayed in close contact with her. i knew her as aunt jeanette. she is the sweetest, most jesus-centered, generous, and loving individual i have ever come in contact with. she has congestive heart failure and is almost constantly sick now, though. that doesn't get to her at all. she loves to say she's going to live until she dies, she guesses. heh.
so the night i moved down here and got settled in my room, i went to my first NA meeting in fucking 2 and a half years. and i wanted to go. badly. i knew that if something didn't change, nothing would ever change. and i was right. my self-will had run riot so much that i lost control of everything. and i came to find out i never really had control at all. that realization came with working the second step: "we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." there has always been a power greater than myself looking out for me, who i credit with never being arrested, seriously hurt, or killed. believing that he could do all that for me really helped me grasp that he could also help with my insatiable appetite for self-sabotage.
it all started when i surrendered. i surrendered to this way of life because i finally believed i didn't have all the answers and that they weren't coming to me any faster with a pipe in my mouth. i admitted my powerlessness, and truly accepted it. with acceptance comes action, and i felt obligated to myself to try something that looked like it was working for others who were just like me. i always put myself to the side as "special" or "different." i could have saved myself from so much heartache, withdrawals, bad people, everything if i just stopped focusing on the differences and honed in on the similarities. but if i didn't go through all the things i went through, i might not be here today.
i'll be 8 months clean next week. on july 1st. i moved out of jeanette's house after personalities clashed with ed, lived with someone in AA with 22 years under their belt, worked at arby's just for gas and cigarette money, then moved in with casey. he just turned 22 at the end of april and he'll have a year clean on july 8th. i moved in february 27th as an addict accepting help from another addict. i slept on the couch for a month, then he collaborated with ed to get me a mattress. i slept on that for another month and a half. and it was awesome. there were no expectations, no awkward moments, just fun times and recovery. there were finally some circumstances that led us to realize we truly cared for eachother, so we decided to see where we could take this. while some character defects outshine others, the person i loved in that NA way is definitely still the person who's there today, loving me while i love myself more and more everyday. and he's cute. very much a "catch," as you might say.
:) i'm sitting at an area-wide pool party which is also a fundraiser for a halloween party we throw every year. god willing i'll make it another 4 months, and maybe celebrate my year clean at midnight that night. but i'm only promised today. i will only ever have today. and i cherish it more than i ever have in my entire life. i always thought i'd be filled with misery and disgust and regret, but i've jumped into this recovery thing head-first, and i love it. i would never trade what i've gained for the finest, purest, most potent 8 million tons of dope. i'm no longer a hopeless dope fiend. i'm most definitely a dopeless hope fiend.
as for evan and i...we will be together again. i'm finally on the right track to being a real mother, and i have to give myself that much credit. i did finally get my bassoon back. i've been thinking of teaching a couple of lessons a week if there are students around who need it, and putting that money away for him. i've been throwing a lot of ideas about him around in my head. the cost of living is so much more affordable for me, and i actually have a decent job at the nicest, most popular restaurant in dothan, so things are definitely looking up. i'm not running everything into the ground anymore. at least i try not to, but i am still an addict. still sick. but getting better. it's definitely still just one day at a time. that one foot in front of the other.
i miss all you who might read this. i have a feeling, judging from the posts i've seen, only a couple of you are still out there. i needed to write this for myself, though. i needed a marker in time to look back on. a good one, finally.
god, grant me the serenity...