January 7, 2009

• Step Up to the Plate – Challenge Pt. 1

  “Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.” -John Jakes  

  From a rec I visited SoAnonyMiss‘s blog. She offered a challenge to her 12th grade students and challenged the rest of xanga to do it too. The details of the challenge can be found HERE. In short, you copy this quote to the top of your blog then you write about yourself in the most open and honest form about the things that are relevant to you. Your fears, strengths, whatever you want. When you finish your challenge, tag her to it so she can find it….and if you don’t mind…tag me too….Well… here’s BlueRebel’s and here’s Larry’s.

  Now here’s mine:

  Shenee – The Unrated Version

  Now I am taking this blog in a different direction, kinda. I want everyone who reads to know that the basis of this blog is to be brutally honest with myself. so I will do that and it will open wounds. it may hurt. it may shock you, it may open thoughts that are similar for you. it may make you look at me differently, but personally… if I am to be brutally honest… I really dont care how YOU feel about ME. I have enough troubles dealing with how I feel about ME, dealing with how you may feel about me… is really low on my list of concerns. But I do care how YOU feel about ME (just not with what this blog deals with). This is me, brutally honest and real, with me. So if your job is to judge me, be prepared to be removed from my friends list!

  You think you know…. But you have no idea…  I have lived a very fast life. I couldn’t tell you what happened the years of 2005 or 2006 or really 2007. I only know what’s in my journal, because it’s in my journal. I remember some things, but not the entire events of the years because I was a drug and liquor addict. I drank to forget. I drank to have “fun”. I drank because my friends were doing it and I didn’t want to be the oddball. I drank because? DAMMIT the liquor TASTED so good. I smoked marijuana because it was an easy escape. It gave me the power to run from real life and live in the high. The option to forget the wrong I was doing and embrace the “right”. Or so I thought then. I did more than smoke marijuana. I had problems that I ran from. I didn’t accept me, I didn’t believe in me. I didn’t LIKE me.  I took ecstacy and snorted cocaine as well. I loved being high. And I never admitted to anyone that I was an addict until just now, with this blog. It is the first time I have said it, the first time I can look back at myself and agree with the possibility. And it’s true. Don’t confuse it, I wasn’t the “leave my babies at home, while I go buy some drugs” addict. I was the “had an 8-5 job I worked faithfully everyday, paid bills regularly, went to church on Sundays, no one ever knew” addict. Because NO ONE KNEW (except those that were involved with me in the activities). But I was an addict and technically that makes me still an addict.  They say you never get over the addiction, you just grow away from it, you lose the taste for it. Yet, you still wake up some mornings thinking… “I wonder if“… and it’s true but one day, I just stopped. I stopped and I haven’t really looked back.

  It took me months to understand why I was living the way I was and some days I still wonder what pushed me over the edge… but what I’m learning pushed me over the edge wasn’t one single act. It wasn’t a chain of things. It was living everyday, waking up every morning feeling like I could no longer handle living. Like my life should be entirely different than it was and it was my fault that it was rolling down the path it was on. And the snowball was beginning to be bigger than I could control. Top that all off with the revelation that I have an addictive personality. Whatever I am going to do, I do it incessantly. Until I tire from it, until it gets exhausting to think about it. Drinking, smoking, popping pills, snorting cocaine all fell into that addictive personality and combined to make me… an addict. I felt my heart slowing and it was funny. I felt my heat draining and it was normal. I wanted to die then. I felt no will to live. I felt no want to continue, nothing to strive for. And even now… on my worst days, those feelings come back. I had to evaluate my friends and family members. Were they serving me a purpose? Was I gaining anything from being their friend? And in the end… I had a lot more no’s than I had yes’. It sucked. It hurt. It made me wonder how low were my standards.

  So I shut down. I stopped wanting friends, stopped trusting the ones I did have. I stopped trusting me. Until I found me again. Which didn’t happen until about 6 months ago and the adventure is FAR from over. I’m learning everyday. I’m accepting myself more every day.  I have been blessed to meet some of the most inspirational people in the last 6 months. I am so very glad I came back. Seeing their lives and reading their experiences make me understand that I am not alone, I have something better to strive for. Something more to do. They make me want to live. They make me want to push a little harder, they make me feel welcome, like failure is not an option. They believe in me, which helps me believe in me when I start to falter.But the ledge still exists and I wonder how long I will linger between wanting to fall off again and feeling like my life will be better if I keep pushing…

  But I keep pushing if not only for me, but for the people who stand behind me – accepting me for me as I am learning to do myself. I am an addict, I am human, I’ve made mistakes, I am growing, I am learning how to love me even when I feel like I don’t deserve it. I’ve been up, I’ve been down. I’ve hated myself, I’ve loved myself, I’d forgotten how to love myself, I’m finding that love again.

  Now I’m somewhere in the middle and I accept that because I know where I have been and I’m still wanting to love… me.

  (I guess you do too now.)

  • 5:26 pm
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