A reality check

I have not been myself lately. For the past semester I have found it hard to be passionate, rested, and driven. And I know that sometimes when there is just nothing you can do to fix that hole God will step in....and last night God really opened my eyes. I was sitting in my room at midnight, about to take my medicine and go to bed when one of my dearest friends walked in my room, her mascara was smeared across her face and I could tell that her heart was hurting. She came in to get paint....but I just had to ask her what was wrong. She broke down right in front of me....told me that the guy she had been casually dating...in all the wrong ways, left at 11:00pm to get his backpack. At 11:45 she got a text message asking her to let let him into room 213....his own room. He was hauled into the room by two of his buddies...they said they found him in the stairwell, and they left him with her. She watched him...rock back and forth....not speaking. He left with his shirt on looking for his backpack....he came back shirtless....no backpack. She watched him and she waited for him to speak....but he was not home. He left as our friend, he came back a shell of a man. She looked into his eyes and she told me, "He was not home anymore". As she continued to tell me his symptoms....she told me she searched his phone for numbers to call for help. What she found broke her heart....that the one she had been involved with was not just involved with her. It was vulgar...abrasive....crass. And she was so so broken. But her first and foremost concern was that when she left him he would not wake up. He couldn't even stand....or talk. We argued for hours about whether to call for help...and when we finally did Will was unshakeable. We checked his heart rate. We checked his breathing....but Will wouldn't wake up no matter how hard we tried. We waited impatiently for our RD to call the ambulance. When we finally saw the flashing blue and red lights out of my dorm room window...we quickly put on shoes and got ready to go to the hospital. We got on the elevator and were met by a stretcher....carrying a very, very sick unconscious boy. It was so disturbing to see him....so gone and so destroyed. And as I was holding my poor, distraught Hannah....I remembered....why I was in school....why I was called to help addicts....because that boy will never be the same.
             We sat in the waiting room until 5am when they finally told us that they believed he had taken some sort of morhpine, probably with alcohol. He would be asleep anywhere from 4 to 12 hours. But he was going to make it.
             I realize that Will will never be the same. And that he might continue using...and because of that I know....I will never be the same either. Neither will Hannah. Because our lives have been changed under the worse conditions....for the better.
            "Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping...waiting...and through unwanted...unbidden...it will stir...open its jaws and howl." -Joss Whedon

Ponderings....

Sometimes I wonder....if the person I'm always fighting, is actually the person I naturally am. I wonder if the expectations I have for myself are realistic and necessary. I mean...if I'm going to be honest I will say that I have been sucked into everything I don't believe in. And at the same time, I have little desire to fight it anymore, I have little fight left to battle the rebellion inside of me that wants to just destroy my life and forget about it. And I know this is supposed to be a natural process in growing up....But for me it's kind of like watching a  movie...seeing myself do everything I fight, and as I do all of these things, forgetting where I am or what I'm doing....I'm reacting and telling myself, " What in the world are you doing?"....but still going farther....telling myself more is better.

Twelve Steps She Never Took

  I saw her. Sitting on the corner of 5th and James. My eyes met hers and I saw her.....fully clothed, yet completely naked. Desolate and drained of any possible remaining piece of hope. They called her worthless....she believed it. Her body; brazen and bruised was broken in such a way that no man alone could have made her like this. Remnants of what used to be her bright blue eyes sparkle out of sunken in eye sockets, purple and black.
   She wring her hands in contemplation,"What a mine field!, is my mind, filled with thoughts of temporary release and hope that soon these thoughts will cease".  She sits on the sidewalk. I can see her body...contorted with anguish over what seems to be a hopeless struggle. Her muscles are rigid, as the intensity of her addiction sits heavily on her shoulders, her chest heaving and gasping for just one unrestricted breath. From her hollow eyes streams one continuous tear of numbness.
    I can see her, as hundreds of people have, all. day. long. She says nothing and I hear her screams. She makes no movement, I see her running, fleeing, flinching, under the weight of so many endless nights. She pulls away, but I see her reaching. Searching.
   How many times will we pass her. How many times will we say, "She's really screwed up." How many this, how many that . She could help herself if she wanted help, she wastes her money on drugs, she runs from things that law enforcement could take care of. But.....but.....also.....How many people will we kill before we realize....Our indifference towards her pain is just as bad as injecting the heroine for her. 
  And all the others like her will keep our arrogance in mind. We are the track marks on her arms. We are the bottle in his hands. We are the gashes across the wrists, the light to the crack pipe, the seal on the label, the needle, the gun.  We are....the twelve steps she never took. Thank yourself, for the help you never offered.

Uncomfortable

Today I cannot handle my own. My heart feels as though it's constantly on the verge of exploding from my chest in all it's gruesomeness. I can feel the extremity in my lungs. Logically, I know it's okay to feel this way. Physiologically, I am completely out of control. My body is screaming at me to do something destructive. My mind is screaming, you're one step away from "good". But that's just it.....I'm always just one step away. Never actually there. I feel like I'm on the edge, I'm always on the edge. The thing is...sometimes I don't know which direction is the right one....step off the edge? or run away..... I feel like I'm stuck in a perpetual state of anxiety, there's always something that needs to be done. It's easier to free-fall into the unknown, than to run into the uncomfortable. But what if.....what if there's something on the other side of the uncomfortable...on the other side of this wall holding me back from "good" and "okay".

When everything's made to be broken....I just want you to know who I am.

I'm starting to realize now that the more often people in your life leave, the easier it gets to let them go. After a while....I'm finally realizing that if someone wants to go, there's no use in holding on to them. Better to let go easily, then to tear and rip. I like to dream about not having to gain and lose. I suppose I'd still be the same person I was 5 years ago if that were the case. "Before I run far away, I need to take a holiday. Maybe it's a fall from grace, I gotta find a new place....a holiday. I'll set off on a new chase. I gotta see a new face. I need to take a holiday." ~Boys Like Girls I know....a lot of time I run from hurt. I know, this is me wimping out. I guess I just have to hope someday I gain some sort of new courage that can't be destroyed by people. If there is such a thing.