Day 5

“Walk the line”

Life here is becoming more normal to me and it seems my days are passing faster. I find myself losing track of reality behind these panes of glass and not in the “I feel like I’m going crazy” way (because that chicken already flew the coop), but more like how a kid feels while at camp. The gears of the world keep turning on the outside but it just doesn’t seem to matter much to me in here. Maybe it’s just that so much of my focus is turned inward trying to make sense of these puzzle pieces.

I hope to gain a sense of stability and conviction in my will to stay clean. They tell us that on the spectrum of addiction you don’t ever go back to reset. If you fall off the wagon, you will hit the substance just as hard as you were when you first stopped. I’m scared that if that ever happens, I won’t live through it. Like some shitty old game of Reaper Bingo, Mr. Grim was going to pull my number sooner or later. And now he waits for me spin the barrel one last time.

I watched a bit of “walk the line” tonight. Like I’m talking, maybe 5 minutes of it, and I got rattled. Honestly, I’m like a hormonal teenager with the feelings lately, it’s actually becoming a problem. A fucking bird rustles in the bushes outside and, BOOM tears. Coffee’s to hot? BOOM tears. Pizza place closes at 10pm instead of 10:30pm despite their ad saying clearly that they are open 10:30pm and we called at 9:55pm and BOOM, rage tears.  A part of me misses consistent numb but It feels stupid to say that, so it more than likely is. Anyways, It was the scene where john is trying to kick drugs with the help of June and his family. Just seeing how accurately it was displayed and how it mirrored my own story left me shaken. I’m not sure it was solely because of that though, or if there was a part of me that was mourning the loss of my addiction and the identity that goes with it. For a long time, it felt like it was all I had, all I was.

The memories that stream out of my subconscious now are so vivid and pure but do not come easy. Locked down beneath many layers, they reside under guarded watch. A mechanism set in place by my mind to save my heart the whip for as long as possible. For a long time I didn’t want to deal with it or truly feel anything. I was lost and wandering but didn’t know it. But now, I want it all. I want to sort out the problem and everyday for the rest of my life, feel. Truly feel, the good and the bad, the rain and the sun, the air and the earth, all of it. There is a real difference between living and surviving in my opinion. One where you are just trying not to die and the other where you are actively pursuing a life worthy of the miracle of every breath you draw into your lungs. I want to experience that miracle a little while longer and see the next page of my story.