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.