I've been busy preparing for school this past week or so. I went to my first (of three!) orientations for MCC on Monday and was finally able to register for classes after a run about to get a hold taken off my record by calling my doctor to fax over my immunization records. Thankfully the doctor's office was kind enough to fax them so I didn't have to a) go to Middletown to pick them up and b) wait even longer to sign up for classes. Thankfully I was able to get the schedule I wanted, and am at the moment trying to decide whether I want to take four or five classes. Right now I am enrolled in Intro To Law, Ethics and Responsibility, Legal Environment of Business, and State and Local Law. I am weighing the choice of adding on English 101 or waiting because it will be a heavy work load and I haven't been in school for at least four years.

I'm definitely going to be taking advantage of every program they offer. Free tutoring, adults in transit, help for students with mental health issues (if I meet the requirements, I need to talk to whoever is in charge and see what documents and proof they need, as I haven't been in therapy for some years, but have substantial evidence via my pediatrician of being on antidepressants, anti-anxieties, and other drugs of the same ilk.), and all the advising my adviser will put up with.

I'm getting excited, and also a bit nervous. I really don't want to fail and I'm terrified of doing so. At the same time, I'm older now, and know that this is not only what I want, but what I need to do. This is pretty much my last chance to make something of myself. I want to be successful. I'm so tired of wasting time and struggling. I think I'm mentally well enough to take something like this on, and as soon as I'm completely off my suboxens, there will be absolutely nothing standing in my way... at least at this point in time.

Truthfully, I have been enjoying my time off. I cut down my hours at work to go back to school, but because of the girl hired, I had to give up my hours sooner than I wished. Regardless, I have been loving the free time and lack of stress, and it's made going to work sort of pleasant... mostly. It is horrible not having money, especially since I am behind on things more than I would like. I owe emissions for my car, car insurance, money for my phone, and I need to schedule and pay for an appointment for my obgyn in the next week or so to get a refill on my birth control. Unfortunately, Paul got suspended from work during all this, and we have been short of money even more than expected. It's slowly falling back together, and this next week is going to be tight, but hopefully, manageable. I'm sincerely hoping that I can do this by only working Fridays, because I have a feeling that if I work Saturdays as well, I will become quickly overwhelmed and overtired and stressed. I want to have ample time to do all my school work AND have the necessary down time that my mind needs to be healthy, which is, unfortunately, a little more than most peoples.

I'm off to eat a late late dinner and watch some Deadwood, until next time <3

Projects I want to get a good chunk done during my little "vacation" before school starts.

1. Gather parts of my "memoirs" and turn into a semi-autobiographical novel.
2. Continue utilizing my sketchbook and practice my drawing.
3. Learn how to do something with my hands, whether knitting, latch hook, embroidery, etc.
4. Read read read.

And while this isn't really a project, I'm going to wean myself off of Suboxens before school starts, I'm sober a year this month and I think I'm ready to be done with Suboxens. I very rarely have cravings and feel that the Suboxens are hindering more than helping at this point, it's just a matter of getting off of them without being too sick. I have learned how to subdue my cravings with other things, such as reading, drawing, watching something uplifting, etc. I still get "triggered" by certain movies, songs, etc, and probably always will, but I think I'm strong enough now to move past it. I can't be on Suboxen the rest of my life, although I probably never would have gotten sober without them, and I don't want to have to rely on them for school. This is too important to me to let anything get in my way. I'm hoping it won't be too horrible. I'm only on 2mgs, where most people who have been on them as long as I have are on 8mgs or 16mgs a day, it's just a matter of doing what I did with what I did with Celexa. Take 2mgs one day, then go the next day for as long as I can until I start to feel too miserable and sick and then take 1mg, then go for as long as I can and take .5mgs, and so on and so forth. I'm hoping it takes me no more than a week or two.

Brand new Hello Kitty layout that I will probably keep for a while. It's simple enough to use regularly, but with that touch of cuddly cute that is Hello Kitty. I can't stop looking at it. I think I change my layout more than I update though.

The wind blew through the trees, spreading the smell of defeat and lilac through the air, permeating the nostrils of everyone within a 100 mile radius. The earth shook with terror, lighting hell fires that melted the pavement, turning the streets into rivers of hot tar. We ran, screaming from the destruction of this once beautiful world until we could run no more and faced only more chaos, more disaster. Where do we go from here? Where do we go from here? everyone asked, moaning with a fear they had never known possible. The smell of death mixed with the wind and you started to see the skin melt off of those standing farther away, then closer and closer. Water. Running water. We have to find a stream, cleanse ourselves with cold running water. Purify our intentions, wash away our sins. Let the world forgive us. Forgive ourselves. Look straight through the water to rock bottom and let ourselves lay on those shiny, cold, wet, clean pebbles. Pebbles that have lain at rock bottom for so long that they have become gemstones, ready to be picked up and made beautiful with a little loving care. Picked up from rock bottom, picked up from the pressure of all that clean, pure, perfectness running over them. Beauty can destroy as much as the ugly face of hate and crime. Beauty can push strength into weakness, fun into habit. The joy of being free, being happy, being alive can evolve into the turning of wheels stuck in the quicksand, and the more you struggle the harder it is to free yourself. Just one day, just one day. So we let the water run over us to protect us from the world that crashes and burns and smells of failure and defeat, choking in this pressure of purity and perfection, eroding us down into a smooth pebble coated with dirt and sand and sadness, until we are picked up from above and held, wiped clean, and made into something beautiful again. But we wouldn't have been here unless we had come so close to those rocks at the bottom, and that death in the air.

Labels: free writing, rambling, writing, writing practice

"To those few people (Mainly, my mother, Dem, and Paul) who love all of me, the good, the bad, the mistakes I've made... who were happy they knew me even at my worst, who believed I was worth something even when I didn't believe it myself, those people I will love and thank eternally, and I am forever sorry for how much I made you worry or how often I made you suffer... it was never intentional. For the few who want to be in my life for the good, and only the good, and tried to cut me down when I was suffering already, you aren't welcome to share my accomplishments. You had your chance, and I won't let you celebrate on my behalf when you belittled me on my journey to where I am today. I worked damn hard to get to where I am, and while I may not be perfect, I'm proud of how far I came and how far I am ready to go, but I can promise you, that if you only shared your negativity, judgement and shame, you are not to share my feeling of accomplishment with me. I don't respond well to people coming and going, trying to "help" me with sneakiness and lies. To only pop in to celebrate one small area of my life, and not know any other bit. Just because you know of what I went through doesn't mean you went through it with me. Doesn't mean you worried about me or helped me or struggled with me. You may be proud of me now, but it doesn't detract from you judging me back then. You expected me to trust and respect you for very silly reasons, and never took the time to get to know me, earn my trust or my respect, never mind my love. The fact that you not only made me feel bad for myself, but made me worry that I would lose the love of someone I truly, deeply care about and need in my life, that is disgusting. And yet you STILL think you are able to come in and be proud of me. What a superficial emotion that must be for you, although I feel your hypocrisy runs deep."

I posted that on facebook earlier today. It's mostly directed towards one person, and there have been multiple times when I wished I could say it directly to them, but for the sake of others, I don't. I have a very short fuse for people like this though, and it bothers me a lot when I have to deal with them in my life. I try not to hold grudges, but it's hard to let this one go, because it hurt me for a very long time. It's been a year now that I have been winning my struggle with addiction, and it's been a really difficult obstacle to overcome, mostly because I had to admit to myself that I had a problem and it took a big chunk of my pride away. I felt really stupid that I had let it get to that point and I was scared and ashamed and guilt ridden. I never intentionally hurt anyone, I never stole from anyone to support my habit, and I never fucked anyone over to get what I wanted, but it was still admitting a weakness to myself. I learned that my major problem was boredom and letting my mind wander and get the best of me. It's obvious that I have depression and anxiety issues and when I was doing drugs it honestly made me feel like a normal, functioning human being. I never felt particularly euphoric or stoned or however you want to describe it, but I did feel normal, happy, confident. To back this up (not to condone it, but just to explain), opiates have been proven to help people with severe depression who don't respond well to antidepressants, but they're not used because of the addictive quality. Anyway, I never knew if anyone could tell I was doing them, I think most people still don't realize how large my addiction was and to what extent I was dependent on drugs, or how hard it was to stop without rehab or a doctor, but I did it. It was extremely difficult, and I was already faced with terrible, crippling guilt and depression and this pain of addiction and this person came in like they owned the place, knew everything about me, and tried to make me feel even more ashamed, and even more like a failure, although they had never bothered to talk to me, and hardly ever bothered to be in my life. Though apparently, they had this savior complex like THEY were going to be the ones to whisk me away to soberland via some sneaky methods of deception. Fuck that. Then, because I refused to go, they belittled me and made me feel stupid for not knowing what to do in my life, not knowing stupid little facts that are bullshit anyway, and being all around obtrusive in their questioning when they have no fucking right to be asking me anything besides how I like the weather. And not to be petty, but all of these things screamed hypocrite for quite a few reasons. Because of this I was terrified that they were going to try and talk someone very important in my life out of sticking by me, and I literally cried for days because of this. And after all this, and repeated instances of me ignoring their existence, they still butt in to say how "proud" they are of me for going back to school and how they are happy to see me do something with my life. Well, fuck you, you don't have the right to say that, if it's even in true goodwill and not a way to feel self righteous. You stormed into my life trying to drag me to meetings and asking me questions AFTER I cleaned up. You weren't there for me, didn't have to worry about me, didn't have to wonder what to do with me or how to talk to me. You don't get to feel pride for anything I did. That's not your right. You can't be there for my good moments when you never for one second in your life had any pure intention to help me, to even talk to me without judgement. I wish with every fiber in my being that I would just tell you to fuck off and never speak to me again, but I hold my tongue because I have respect for the sole person we have in common.

If there is one thing I have learned in my life is that just because someone is in your life, it in no way means that you have to love them, respect them, and certainly never trust them. If someone does one nice thing for you, it doesn't immediately earn them your respect or loyalties, especially if this nice thing involves money, because that's the number one tool people like this use. I may be young, I may have made some mistakes in my life, but that in no way makes me a lesser person than anyone else, nor does it mean I have to kowtow to someone who feels superior to me. Don't do nice things for people because you want respect or something to hold over their heads. Do something nice to be there for someone or just to plain do something nice. Ulterior motives override any generosity. And if you want to get to know me talk to me, ask me questions, don't demand a damn thing, because you have no right. The only people who can demand anything from me, ask anything of me, are those that have earned respect, and been there by my side through it all, and on top of that, they still didn't judge me or think less of me. Those people are all better than you will ever hope to be.

I had to get that off my chest. I am enraged whenever I think about this and whenever I see their stupid comments. I'm sorry if anyone actually read that and had to re-read the same thing over and over again, but I just had to get it out.