I’m going to show up.

I have been stuck in hiding and unsure of how I even feel. I would choose bed over anything because the cold honest truth is I feel like I am so close to the darkness that I don’t even have any words.

I spent the week at my parents house 3 hours from home and I just couldn’t manage to shake the feeling that something just destroying me from the inside out. I couldn’t find any sort of balance inside of me. I was exhausted the entire time and I thought maybe I was just in relaxation mode – but deep down I knew exactly what was happening.

Depression is creeping back in and I can see it this time. I am standing here on this dock and I have been watching the waves roll in for so long and I have been ignoring them. The truth is that I don’t really think I am ok. And now I’m still standing here on this dock but I’m watching a tsunami roll in.

Run.

But then there is another truth in that I have no idea if this is how normal people feel, because the only times I have ever felt this calm before in my life, was during the darkest times. The calm usually acts as a warning.

Stay.

I don’t know who I am as a person without my addictions, or mental illness. I feel so lost in my own truth that I don’t feel like I know anything anymore. Like my entire truth has been erased and now I need to relearn it. Ever day that I further into my sobriety time I feel like I am changing but I don’t know how to even deal with it. I don’t know how to even act around people as the person I have become. I still carry around this damn label of alcoholic and addict like I’m wearing it like a badge. I know what I am not just my past so what am I having such a hard time becoming the person that I actually am?

My mind is spinning. I wish I had gone to a meeting today but I napped instead. This is a slippery slope and I can’t go back.

I’m getting up early tomorrow. I’m setting my alarm. I’m doing my hair. Putting on a face. Heading to the noon meeting. I may not understand what it is I am experiencing, but that should not stop me from seeking help from my support system. Maybe I don’t have any words to explain what I am going through, but how will I know if someone else does, if I don’t even show up?

Tomorrow I am going to show up, because for some reason I am not ok.

Why me?

3 years ago to this day I drank my last drink. At the very moment 3 years ago I was sitting in a hospital bed. I was at the end of my rope. I didn’t want to live. I didn’t know how to live without substances in my body. But for the most part I couldn’t see a life without alcohol in it.

My story is a complicated one and right now I feel almost too tired to tell it. It’s exhausting to go back to that place. I can feel the pressure right now of my past and I shouldn’t be caught in that place. I should celebrate where I am, and the past should not weigh so heavy on me. I can’t regret the things I have done, or the people I have lost. Because if I had not experienced everything that I had, I would not be the person I am today.

Tomorrow I celebrate 3 years clean and sober and for that simple fact I am grateful and proud.

But all the things that have come along with my recovery are the true celebration. Sometimes when I stop to think about where I actually am, I feel so far away from myself. Everything feels different still. I often feel like a fraud because this new life is still so new, and I have only ever known myself as someone else. Someone not to trust. A thief. Someone who fails at everything. A half asser. Someone who is sick. Always high. Someone who is addicted. Can’t stop. Someone who has no hope. Why bother?

But that’s all different now. I am not that person anymore, but I often find myself feeling like there is no actual seperation between then and now. That somehow I just floated from one dimension to another so effortlessly. I was there and now I am here.

But I find myself wondering why? Why was I so lucky to make it out alive and thriving, when so many others have not?

Why me?

Something different.

There is a quietness within me that doesn’t want to talk, write, think or even feel anything that is happening in and around me. There is so much to talk about. So many things to update this blog with, but it just feels like it matters less now.

I started writing here because I felt like I was spilling over with the thoughts in my mind. That if I didn’t put them down somewhere then surely I would explode. I would find myself posting entry after entry. Even in my darkest times I was unable the slow the words just dumping out of my mind. Things had to be said. And now, it’s so different.

I feel like things have quieted since I published my book. Now wasn’t that the purpose? To have my story out there so that it could be understood. Maybe I can help one person by reading my story. Maybe that one person was me all along?

My book was released in store locally at Chapters yesterday. As soon as I checked the status on their website for the first time I saw that it was there. I was so excited, but I felt paralyzed in bed. The exhaustion from life is catching up to me. I was excited, but it felt different.

I put on my face, and I went to Chapters to visit my books. As I walked in to the store I was met with a table of extraordinary women’s books. I walked around the table and I looked for my book. Don’t they know where I have been? Why am I not here? I laughed at myself. I am not famous. I am not a celebrity. That’s why I am not on this table. It took some time and help from an associate to locate my books, as they were not yet brought to the floor. The associate put them in a temporary location which he referred to as the homeless books, because 40% of the stores books were removed for the next 6 months due to renovations. But my books were there.

They are there. And in about an hour I am going to go pick up my boyfriend and we are going to go visit my books.

Everything feels so different. It’s fuzzy and yet so clear. It feels like I’m dreaming the most phenomenal dream. Ever since the day I gave up on life which was 3 years ago, a week from today. Everything has changed. I am something else now.

I am something different.

I am grateful.

The past few days I have spent brewing and stewing, in the best way possible. I have been trying to accept that I will finish school in a year because I cannot financially afford it. But I won’t accept that.

I plan to live up to my potential of becoming an actual social worker and at this point I don’t know what that road will look like.

I will count pennies if I have to, because I have over a year to save for at least my first semester once I am done my diploma. I don’t even know how many tries it will take for me to get into the degree program. The future is so unknown at this point, but I do know where I was. I remember those feelings of complete and utter despair.

I didn’t think I would ever recover from not only the addictions I was caught in, but also the state of mind I was in. But here I am, alive and well.

The thoughts that have been running through my mind were about how I wish I had saved money from my past. I wish this, I wish that. And it dawned on me that right now I have the opportunity to save money so that years down the road I’m not sitting with a diploma in my hand crying to myself that I wish I had done things different so I could get my degree.

In one day I saved $50 towards my goal. I don’t need to buy tea at school. I don’t need to go out for dinner. I don’t need fancy stuff in my bath. I don’t need to go thrifting just because it makes me feel better. I don’t need to spend money because I have it.

Today I am reframing my mind and I am going to do whatever it takes to become a social worker. I will not feel sorry for my past. I will not let myself ruin my future. I will not regret all the time lost.

I understand the universe and it’s plan for me. I am not trying to run the show but I do know that in order for me to get to that end goal – I need to work harder than ever before.

I am grateful.

Victories.

Right now in my life I am living through little victories. There is nothing that feels major enough for me to even write about, because the feeling of drowning is an ever present thing. I am still finding myself trying to normalize to this new life that I have found myself in. Learning who I am as a professional and also as a person. Everyday still feels strange, and I found myself sitting in stats class today wanting to throw my hands in the air and walk out. But I can’t because I’m not willing to go back to where I was.

I have come to far to give up.

But I am also learning that the path I want to take might not be the path that I recently decided. I originally planned for getting the social services diploma and I was happy with this. Until a teacher told me I should go for the degree and made me feel like the diploma was like going to school to become a plumber, but only getting a certificate to become a plumbers helper. He changed how I felt about the choice I made for school. Not only that I couldn’t afford to go to school after my sponsorship ended. But with a little more encouragement and the possibility of assistance financially I made the decision that I would go forward with the degree.

But things have changed now and that new plan might not be possible afterall. I am battling with myself in my head every second of every day because I want to go back to being happy about getting the diploma. I want to be proud. I want to know that it’s good enough. That I will have an excellent career. I want to be grateful like I was before I was pushed into the direction of getting the degree.

I am trying to trust in the universe but I know that I need to prepare for the possibility that my education might end in a year. That should be good enough. I won’t get to call myself a social worker, but do I really need that title to be able to help people?

I am swimming right now, but sometimes it feels like drowning. I couldn’t have ever imagined that my life as a student would be harder than my life as a drug addict but in some strange way it is. I gotta keep pulling myself back up to the surface and reminding myself where I came from. It would be easy to go back, but I don’t want to.

There is a purpose for me that is still unknown and when I think about that – then I know I have found today’s small victory.