hope….hype….and heart

jesse and i are  getting our things together to make the big move to upstate ny with a few very good friends of ours who are not of the junk variety. we have done two seperate detoxes, and although we cannot claim complete apstainance, we can say with whole hearts that we are looking forward to a new beginning together.  who know the kid i started getting high with would be the man i want to spend the rest of my life with.

we are not new to this, we know a change of address is not a cure for addiction.  we are looking forward to getting active in new york na/aa.  i know the run down, and we will raise our hands at our first newcomers meeing (which will be redundant, cus one sylable of our boston accent and we will not need to introduce ourselves as newcomers ha.  but we will get numbers, temporary sponsers, and put it out there that we are new, we are together, and we have chosen to be that small fraction of couples that get sober together. because statistics mean shit…all that matters is us, the effort we put in, and the faith we put in god to run our life better than we did.

i am a firm believer that things, all things happen for a reason…and we have been staying at this house until our move to boston, and i couldn’t see why, because our “friend”that set us up here has been nothing but lying and cheating and being a dick…..but come to find out, the woman he lives with, that has been nice enough to open her house to a pair of unknow drug addicts….is a woman who is carrying her teenage daughter through a rape crisis, which i have been very helpful with, and also a novice on the path of the Wiccan Way, which i am just preparing myself for a dedication ceremony myself.

so if i ever have to wonder what the god of my understanding has for me, i can stand sure there is a plan, and i am part of it, and grateful to be.  as my husband to be sleeps on the couch next to me, and the friend i have just made copies herbs that will protect her daughter from a book, and for the first time in the longest time i feel loved and needed, and not empty inside, it is goodl.

don’t get me wrong, little junky knows she has only begun to fight..but i have been fighting since 2-10-82 for the simple right to live my life, walking with the Goddess, giving and receieving love.  and i will continue to do so……today was just a reminder why it is worth it.

pack it up pack it in….

final confirmation….we are on our way out ha. out to  upstate ny.  our beautiful, wonderful, accomadating friend beth has invited us up there, to either rent the 4th bedroom in their house, or squat there until we have a place of our own. thank god. it is time for us to get out of here.  don’t get me wrong, i am grateful to sandy for letting us stay here….but you can only be comfortable on a twin mattress on the floor for so long.  and i long for something new. i want me and jesse to have a chance to start over.  i’ve been looking into aa meetings out there, and once we can get new york health insurance, i wanted us both to start IOP (intensive outpatient program)  once the drugs are gone, i have to sweep up all the wreckage of my past.  i am hopeful again, and looking forward to this alot.

the town our friend beth lives in is so incredibly beautiful….mountains and trees, little brooks and rolling meadows.  i love massachusetts, and nothing will ever compare to home, but upstate ny is nothing to sneeze at.   it will be a wonderful place to celebrate the harvest, jesse’s birthday, winter holiday’s and my own birthday.  just him and i, far away from all the bullshit….and a season away from our feuding families, away from the drugs…hopefully involved with new friends in the program, and beth and her friends….maybe even in our own place by new years.  a true new beginning.

i am so ready for this.

bleed it out

i am always happy to receive feedback on my blog…and i am sorry i have been letting you all down for so long. but i don’t write stories with happy endings, and if i can’t get clean for me, i’m not going to do it for readers, no matter how much i respect your opinions or love your love for me. i do take it to heart, good and bad, and i’m quite hopeful you’re wrong when you say i’ll be dead soon, waste of life and talent.

i don’t write for fans, to make friends, or to attract readers. i write the truth because i like to write, and the truth is always better than fiction writing to me is catharsis….therapy….it leaves me content and quiet inside, like a good yoga class, or a xanax. ha. writing has been my outlet since i could first form words, and if i had had more faith in myself during my formative years, i could have done alot more than i did.

i do not blame my childhood for my failures entirely….but it was a contributing factor. i don’t mean the childhood abuse, or the relationship abuse, or sexual assaults, or early introduction to drugs….what i look back on and see as the time it all went wrong was the day i was told i had no future.

point blank…..in no uncertain terms…i was going nowhere. i don’t think she meant it to do as much damage as it did, she’s not equipped to look that deep into her words or actions. my mom just happens to be the most depressed, hopeless, faithless, sad sad woman i have ever known. now that i’m older, i understand it’s all her baggage, and it has little to do with me most times. but when i was , i still thought she would get better if i was a better daughter, i still thought we would catch up on the bills and live a normal life, i still thought my mom and step dad would take care of me like parents should….someday.

but one day mom sat me down and explained it all to me…almost like the day after her mother died and she told me there was no God, and we were all alone in the universe, me, my brother, and her. i was five.

“kaia, you better cut the shit and start working your ass off at school, because if you don’t get a full ride scholarship, there is no college for you. we can’t help, we still have your brothers to raise, we are behind on all our bills, and it’s just not an option to send you to school.” by this time i was just falling in with my drug buddies, and my grades were not the best. school and the work came very easy to me, i was just never there. i was teetering on the edge. a word either way from her could’ve turned me. and so i said fuck it.

the next couple of years in school were strange….i love learning, but the curriculum was not challenging, and the drugs were tempting, and with the idea that i had no future solid in my head was all the excuse i needed to do as i pleased. acting like i didn’t care made it easier to accept. most of my friends dropped out, and sometimes i wondered why i even bothered, if it was going to do me no good. but i didn’t want to…school was fun for me, creative writing, ceramics, history, all for free for the last time.

as i watched my school friends getting accepted to school after school, knowing i could’ve done it, but i couldn’t afford it, it stung a bit.

“kaia, it is a little late to even try to work for a full ride. you were suspended for SATs and it’s a little late to take the test, although not impossible. there are some scolarships for children of divorce, and some essay contests you can enter, as well as the latin exam. but it’s all alot of work, and you just don’t seem to have the initiative to pull it off in such short notice. grades are good, some are great. you even have extra curricluars….the girl with the second worst attendence record all year. ha.  but, kaia, even with that, a four year school if out of the question without your own monitary commitment, you are uneligable for state or federal student aid, because your stepfather is in arrears on his taxes.  you can’t get any help.”

that was the second time i was told there was no options for me.  i regret not having that experience, four years, dorm life, college friends from all over the country.  but instead i put myself through 31/2 years of community college down the street from my mothers house. it was like “high school part 2″ and it was a breeze academically, but yet again, attendence was lacking. i was not going to school for anything that would make me happy….i was working toward a degree that would pay the bills, so my heart wasn’t in it.  i was desperate to be able to keep up on my bills….since my parents had always been in debt, losing electricity and heat, getting evicted.

when i was in school, and money got tight, my mom told me sacrificing dreams was par for the course, for poor people with no options. so i got a full time job and school was out.

all my life my mom has been preparing me for disappointment…always trying to let me down easy. but it seems like all that has done has kept me down.  i know she just wanted me to know, we were broke and there was not many options for me in life.  she made me believe i had no chance, no matter what.

now that i look back on it, i don’t even know if it would’ve made a difference or not, but i can say that it would have been nice for my mom to tell me i could be somebody.  it would’ve been really nice for my mom to tell me that life is not a losing game.  i would’ve like to hear that options were open for me, and that it was worth the struggle to follow my dreams.  i could’ve been a writer.

and i can still do that….i can still get published. (if i don’t die of course) and i need to remind myself that my life has unfolded the way it has for a reason, and i need to take a look at myself and see why, what lessons i’ve yet to learn, and what i can do from here. i need to bleed out this fucking poison and that void left behind can be filled with the love of the Goddess, and i can serve a purpose in life, the one She has laid out for me.  mom was wrong, i don’t need tons of money to be someone in life.  it won’t be free, litterally or figuratively, but i want it, and i am willing to pay the price.

the drugs…..the fucking drugs…..the one thing between me and my first step of recovery…..we have been doing better.  any drugs is bad drugs, but considering where we’ve come from, i am pleased with the progress.  we are leaving to go back to new york in a couple days….toting our methadone and a deep desire to kick it for good this time. a little space between us and our dope, some friends who don’t use, the love that we share, (we are rocking and old school betrothal, as in engaged to be engaged) he doesn’t want to make it official until we are clean for a year, and i agree.  we have been going to meetings, but not enough.  we have been getting on our knees everyday and everynight….and i have been putting alot of effort into my spirituality.  finding the path of the Old Way has filled me with a new faith and desire to walk with the Goddess, and i cannot do that without being clean.  i have even gotten jesse to start reading the big book and the blue book with me.  my spiritual faith may be in the Goddess, but my sobriety faith is rooted deeply in the program.  i miss the program like i miss my relationship with my higher power. i need the steps.  i want to do service work.  wicca and aa go hand in hand….principles and policies. hehehe.

so maybe  my mom put a wrench in my works when i was younger, putting it in my head that my options were nil…but i’ve learned on my own that i can now do what will truly make me happy, instead of what would’ve made me money all those years ago.  i have to bleed out the infection i’ve had for so long…doubt, lack of faith, hopelessness, and self-deprication. i am so close to getting it….i can feel it like a not so distant storm…and i will do it.  i have no doubt, i will do it. and i will be happy, and hopefully my mom will be happy for me….but who knows.

painfully slow forward motion

in a aggrivating yet familiar situation….having nowhere to go and nothing really to do about it. we are waiting on an confirmation on an invite to stay in new york we got from a good frirend….we just left a two week stay @ an aquaintance’s house, which was bearable.  i am eternally grateful to mary and cj for letting us stay with them, but you know how it is when you stay @ some else’s house (which is all i’ve done for so long) we’d bring home food for the house….and they want white bread, we bring wheat. they want whole milk, we can only stomach 2%.  they told us all they wanted was 50 bucks for a week of shelter, and food if needed.  what they meant without saying was they wanted us to get them high everyday.  some days we stayed clean, and they were irritated. on days we did get high, we hid it from them.  they we’re doing us any favors on that front either….2bucks a piece for benzo’s, and through the roof prices on methadone if we were sick. so we were desperate to get out of there, friends or not. besides, try being the only car owner in a house of seven ppl. ha. bring to work this, drop @ the mall that, grocery shopping and doctors appointments, jail visits…etc. so we went back to detox, hoping to clean up the tiny habit we have and make our way to new york.  that didn’t work out either. we ended up at this detox that does an evaluation for 36 hours….they want to be sure you are a dope addict. their urines dont come back for two days, and in that span of time they dose you 2.5 to 5 mg every 6 hours. the nurse says they want to see us dead on the floor sick, to make sure we warrent treatment at all.  i was dumbfounded. who goes to detox med seeking? but i guess it had to have happened for them to introduce such a protocol.  so 20 or so hours into it, i’ve had two shots in my ass to stop the puking, i am sicker than i’ve ever been on the outside or at any other institution.  the nurse laughs and says i qualify, but i still get 2.5 and if i sleep through dose time (like i’m going to sleep,) no dose.  i know, i’m a baby, but i was in real rough shape. i was crying and puking, fluids coming out both ends.  i felt like i had been thrown down a flight of stairs, and my anxiety, (which has been dorman for some time) reared his ugly head. i was in full on panic attack. my heart was pounding out of my chest, my lips and fingertips were numb, my racing thoughts were tourture to my weak little mind. “this is it, you are gonna crack, you are gonna die this is it its all over”

i had to get the fuck out of there. good idea or not.

but i’m @ panera and i am out of time…so this will remain a story for another day.

hope you all are doing good.

god help us….please

in april i mentioned our friend benny, that jesse met in jail….he stayed with us @ my mom’s house for a few vdays, and we ran some hustles over the summer. we haven’t heard from him in a while, and we got the call the other day (we get it every month or so)

“hey ben, where you been?”  i asked, answering the phone, smile on my face.

“jail, babydoll.” he laughed. that was the standard answer. benny is always in jail, on warrents or shoplifting charges, or a section 35….but it was good to hear his voice. “lets hook up and get high.”  so we picked him up that day, and with a big hug and some string pulling, we parked our asses in a hotel room and spent a long night watching pay per view movies and shooting coke….same pathetic bullshit. around four am, when the needle can’t find the vein no matter how good you stick, we started to feel like assholes (which we are) and the same conversation crept into my heart, because it’s always there, throbbing, living, waiting. my regret, my pain, my sadness…which we all share….and my hope.

“we need to cut the shit.” jesse said, clicking between movies. “i just want to be happy, marry my girl, and get her pregnant.” he kissed my forhead and i couldn’t help but smile.

“i want it more everytime around. it gets harder to detox, we get older and more tired, and i hate myself a little more.  there won’t be time for kids, if i ever even love myself enough to love a baby.” tears filled my eyes.

“i already have a lil guy, that i never see, a girl that won’t speak  to me, and i’m looking at more jail time.” benny said, scratching at a miss on his arm.  that was the end of the talk for the night, the dope came out, and all thought of any kind was done.

that was the last time we saw benny. he had been calling, but since we’ve been trying to keep good, we don’t pick up.  we’ve been taking methadone, getting high maybe once a day, not even.  but we got a call monday night around eight, and let it ring.

tuesday morning jesse called the number back “i just wanna see if he’s okay, it’s been a while since we’ve talked…..hi, is benny still there. what do you mean? you can’t be serious. when? how? oh my god. thanks.” before jesse hung up the phone i knew the  deal. benny was dead.

“he overdosed.” like he needed to tell me that. “last night or this morning.”

“we just talked to him.” tears filled my eyes.

“it could’ve been you.” jesse said, i knew he was thinking about me going out…three times in days a month ago.  thank god for the narcane inhalers from the needle exchange. but just like that, i’m here and he’s dead.

god help us stay clean. keep benny in your care, and i’ll keep him in my heart. amen.

bloody, beaten, broken…..and blissful

i am at a point in my life….and have been for a long time now. (eight years, give or take) i am in limbo, the state of unbalenced empty exsistance for lost souls. I am standing at a crossroads, like countless other lost little girls all over the world i’ll try to keep it on the “reality” level here, and not get too “out there” but the best way to explain it is this…humans don’t have the mental, emotional or spiritual capacity to understand life, god, and the part we play in it all. it’s so simple we cant get it. we overcomplicate what just is. and what is is this….to me, anyway. there is no life, death, heaven, hell, limbo, god or people. these are all just parts of a whole. coincidences and kismist….tragic accidents and miracles unexplained. all pieces of this jigsaw earth the goddess pieces together with love and affection for us…little pawns crisscrossing the gameboard in blissful, inherantly human ignorance. people are contradictions in endless ways….and it amuses me to no end. we want to belong so bad, that to “belong” to one group, we push all others away. we feel closer to our own kind by seperating from all other kinds. we love and want to be loved, we want to be good to each other, we want to be prosperous and generous and teach our children these things.

but we are human, and unfortunatly we are our worst and only enemy, carelessly fiddling with our singlar, precise, and fatal, fear. fear is the virus that kills all of our good intentions. it is the seed that all evil grows from. burried deep in the center of our collective soul, the barrier that must be traverst before we can be One with Her. it is a part of us all just as much as God herself is, or my foot, or my sense of humor. it cannot be lost, but it can be contained.

my state of limbo i find myself in, can–like all my other problems—be attributed to my fear. i do not possess the knowlege or understanding to explain what i know in my heart…yet. i have not learned enough with my human brain to explain with words what i know with my spiritual heart. but i can give you this much….life and death are illusions, as well as heavan and hell and limbo here. ways for our simple minds to process the unfathomable….the evolution of a soul. like using storybooks to explain everyday tasks to children.

the cycle of life and death is endless and each time we learn and grow more. each time you grow closer to god….which is not actually getting closer to Her at all, it’s discovering that She and you have been one all along. (but that is another class for another day)

the issue at hand is the state of limbo. it is not a voodoo black hole waistland for unbaptised babies and suicides. it is a point in life where you are handed a lesson you refuse to learn. when you are ready to grow emotionally, and you choose not to. when it’s time to let go of someone or something and you refuse. that is limbo. not only does it keep you from moving on in your “life”, moving forward in relationships or at work, advancing socially, but it keeps you from advancing spiritually. you are given lessons or tests in life, and you are given free will, the chance to learn and grow, or to repeat your mistakes or maybe fuck up in new and interesting ways. either way, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. and you will be victim of these habitual debacles until your stubborn ass submits, admits defeat and learns the damn lesson at all.

i am in a most painful predicaments, because i KNOW enough to be much happier, healthier, and farther down my spiral path that leads me to the inevidable…God. i am in posession of the knowledge necessary to move forward in every sense of the word, but i am human, and i choose not to. because i am afraid.

of what?

pick something.

i am afraid of change. i am afraid of failure. i am afraid of losing, being lost, feeling lost. i am afraid of being alone. i am afraid of sucess, of being hated, of being talked about. i am afraid of making you mad. i’m afraid of making you sad. i’m afraid of looking stupid, i’m afraid of people laughing at me. i’m afraid of being afraid. i’m afraid of being nothing, or of being something and never knowing. i’m afraid of getting hurt, of hurting you. i’m afraid of what you think. i’m afraid of nightmares, i’m afraid of myself. most of all i am afraid of my fears. because they keep me here in limbo.

i may never cross the bridge this time….i may live and die this life a junky, never living he lesson i know in my heart already, that there is a beautiful, blissful, contented life, just on the otherside of the looking glass, if only i wil walk through. i believe in my heart this is not my first rodeo that i have walked life’s path time and again, and my steps are worn with my blood, sweat and tears of lives and deaths, lessons hard-learned. but i stand at this crossroads….that godforsaken bridge in front of me. i’ve stood on this side for how many lifetimes? how many times have i come yet again to this bridge…to struggle and cry and fight myself and everyone around me, to let that life go one more time, on the banks of of the river, uncrossed. again.

i do not want that. i cannot do that. this is the time. now is the time. this is the only moment that ever was, is or will be. if not now, when? i have been given many gifts by the Mother Goddess, and i have squandered them like a spoiled child, but i cannot do that any longer. this is the trip around the spiral that i finally cross the bridge. i am learning the lesson i have denied so long…that i am a holy vessel, the Mother Goddess lives within me, and good life does exsist. i do not have to feed the habitual cycles of cowering abused women and alcholic men with quick fists and quicker tempers. i am not destined to antidepressants fits of bulimea. i am not doomed to be a detox rockstar. there is more. and i deserve it.

as i stand poised on the riverbank, frozen with fear…that seed of hope warms me from within. all those painful memories are just that, thoughts, they only have the power i give them. the fears i have for the future may not ever happen, they only exist in my paranoid agonized heart. this moment now is all that is real, and now i have nothing to fear. the power of that is unmeasurable. the problem is you cannot hold it. bliss…..contentment….enlightnment……nirvana…..heavan…..love……now…..god……is is always here, she is unnamable, without sex or form, she is everything good and everthing bad…..he is christ, she is mary….he is alla, buddha, shiva, diana…kaia. all that is and all that ever was….and all that will ever be. knowing that with all your heart, and feeling at one with her and the whole of exsistence, that is bliss. but the moment you have it, you fear losing it, and once you have fear in your heart again, you tumble out of the hand of god and back to the cycle of human toil. the trick to ending the cycle is not death, that’s just a reoccuring part of the game…..the trick is to learn your lessons and walk your spiral path toward Mother Goddess…..perhaps you cannot hold bliss forever, but you can make the moments between it better, do good with the time in between, and savor the peace you are afforded through your lovingkindness.

i know this has been a rambling post that seemingly came out of nowhere, but this summer has been a trial of my soul, i have wandered a lonely trail of tears, that has tested my faith, my relationship, and my character.  i needed this purging desperatly, and now that it’s out, it has no more power over me. i stand at the edge of the bridge….on this side is my disfuntional family, my addiction, my self hatred, my nightmares, and all the men that i’ve lived and died for, who have never failed to leave me broken……and across the way there is my next step, the path that has patiently waited for me.  i do not know where it leads, but i do have faith that i can walk it with Her.  or i can try to the old one again….the one that leads to western mass, to heroin and hangovers, where everyone already has their opinions, and none of them are good.  i am done doing the same insane things expecting different results.  i am ready for the unknown. because i will not walk alone.

so i get on  my knees and i call out to Her “sweet mother of this lush green earth beneith me, i am broken, please help me.  help me to let go, help me be unafraid, help me move on, help me” with my head low in humble surrender.  there is no better feeling than the relief you feel after a whole hearted, honest, purging surrender.  when your sweet Mother lifts you out of the sludge and holds you to her breast, and you see, for that one moment, it is, always was, and always will be okay.

that is where i am, on my knees. i am ready. i DO NOT WANT THIS LIFE.  this is not what God has planned for me….i can spare myself a bit of shame and agony and get it now…..or i can try it my way one more time, and end up here again….on my knees in front of the bridge, begging my Mother to save me again.  there is no pain like the pain of an unwilling addict.  i don’t want to want it anymore. but i cannot cry victim, because i do have a choice.

god knows i paid the toll.

now it’s time to cross the bridge