I was a dormant volcano, surviving in 'cryonic freeze'.
I'd never lived before that day, nor had I ever found courage enough to produce thoughts, beliefs or will of my own, nor had I ever known what it was to face the nightmare around me - until the Summer of 2001.
My younger sister, point-blank asks me a question as we're out having lunch. "But are you getting what YOU need?" Feeling angry, offended, frustrated and hurt... my own reaction erupted from my lips -
"I'm FINE!"
It woke me like the jolt from a defibrillator, I was not fine.
I felt my pulse...pounding within my chest. That was it... for the first time in 31 years, I began exploring my own feelings and opinions, making choices regardless of any opposing views, such as those I had been ingrained with my whole life. That very moment became my paradigm shift. I was now 31 going on 18; exploring, experimenting and doing all those things most do in youth entering into adulthood.
After returning from the East Coast in 2005, I hit my breaking point with organized church and all the memories it evoked from growing up at home with 'the biological one'. I began to have a knee-jerk reaction to being around church and around him, feelings that began surfacing because for the first time I was starting to seriously date… that’s when relationship triggers began showing up in spades. I pushed everyone and my own sensibilities back and began to swing to the far end of the pendulum.
I gave Culinary School a go but couldn’t afford to support myself and take the FT course load. I didn’t want to go back to my Admin job at the Hospital, I felt like to do so would be giving up on my pursuit of what dreams I had for all the things I was passionate about and could not stop pursuing what I love.
Feeling disillusioned, frustrated and disappointed at how my life had unfolded, I began taking on a ‘fuck it all’ attitude. That next year or 2 that followed, I dove into a self-medicating, indulgent lifestyle of exploration, swinging to the other end of the spectrum and let all caution and restrictions to the wind, Experimenting in drugs, drinking, sex, partying.
Needless to say, by 2008 I had hit a wall in my town and I knew I needed to get out.
I could see I'd made a bit of a mess of myself and now needed to get away from all people of negative influence (partners in crime, dealers, enablers) that I had come to know in the lifestyle I had crawled into. I seemed to keep running into them no matter how hard I tried to avoid them. Break ties and a start fresh was the only way to gain back my life careening out of control;
I made the decision to move to LA. I wanted to see my Mama and to pursue music and other creative outlets while I was down there.
My confidence in the ease of securing another job was a driving factor in foolishly giving in to the advice "just come on down". So completely oblivious was I to the disaster ahead. The economy crashed at that very time coupled with an even worse environment to the very situation I sought to get away from . I found myself again trying to escape an unhealthy environment but with no other back up plan was leaning toward drastic measures.... measures that scared the hell out of me, but going to a homeless shelter seemed the only real way out until I was offered help from a friend. Little did I know what his 'help' really entailed and the nightmare which awaited me.
After two unimaginably horrific years of my life spent homeless in LA due to ugly addictions around me that had begun spiraling beyond my control... (I'll share more on that as I blog)
As a Skeptical Idealist, I've spent all those childhood and teenage years on autopilot; watching, journaling, reading books, studying and observing behavior and what not to do... I've learned that observing doesn't always mean 'seeing'. I can honestly say because of the shit I've gotten myself into by poor choices or just plain being naive, and the holes I've crawled out of... people are to me, the most unpredictable element.
No one and nothing is for certain. Not even ourselves...that's human nature for ya. I've seen myself do things and take certain roads, make choices I would never in a million years have thought or expected to have made. So much change in values can occur - between life and death, a rock and a hard place, prosperity and poverty, good intentions and human nature, denial and sobriety. victim, abuser, revenge and forgiveness.
People in history are great not because they did what everyone thought was attainable but because they chose to go after the impossible. If others can overcome the odds, why not me??!! Thomas Edison 'failed' how many times before he invented the light bulb... don't know about you, but I'm glad he kept at it.
Someday I hope people will say it about me too.
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