Mundane Details

When I thought of writing about my life, I was concerned about what to put in print. First of all, I don't want to harm anyone with the truth. I think the truth is much more disarming than fiction. The truth also varies from day to day. Today, I may be deliriously happy being clean and sober. Tomorrow I may want to jump in front of the train rather than face all my responsibilities. Sometimes I like to hide in the bathtub. Not that I can't hear children fighting during snack time or feel my water slowly getting cold because I have to share my bath with a toddler. For a moment, I can slip into the water and be where ever my imagination takes me.

Another issue is the weight of my past. It carries a heavy burden like stones on my chest sucking the air out of me. My daughter wanted to be a junior Girl Scout. Explaining to total strangers past felony convictions and arrests for prostitution isn't a pleasant conversation. Something as simple as watching a character get shunned on PBS because they were a woman of ill virtue and desperate means.

The redemption carries it's own challenges. After the track marks fade, the abscess scars lessen, the cravings subside I am still left with a thread of commonality that doesn't exist. Six years of my life were one long day that ran together. I never saw that movie, didn't hear that song. No points of reference that didn't involve narcotics.

I am overcoming. I am coping. I am thriving. I am surviving. These are all versions of the truth.

Comments

  1. SallyFebruary 12, 2013 at 6:34 PM

    I wish I had something more to say than Wow, but that post left me speechless. All i can think is that I am glad I know you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 2, 2013 at 8:13 AM

    I know that feeling. When people all talk about going to uni, or travelling overseas, going backpacking, all the partying they did when they graduated from school...I just have a big black void of smack and streets and spoons...no stories to tell anyone in the 'real world'

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJune 24, 2014 at 3:13 PM

    As a steady home mommy of four, i get it. I'm also a recovering addict. Mine was pills, all pills. Looking back I've been an addict since i was a pre teen and got my first script of vicodin. I went to detox a couple times but always went back, PAWS. Is Hell with four babies who need you to get up. I do have a sub doctor now and other than that, I'm almost twelve months clean. Don't have much of a support system, only hubby, so i don't have help, couldn't go to rehab, can't even go to meetings because there's no one to watch my kids. As i write this, i am in the tub. It is my break. I take a bath every day and that's MY time. My only time. I'm sorry, i watched BTH when it first came out. I was seventeen. I already had issues and i really felt for all of you. Many of us, we watch that doc, its so gritty and real, we feel we know you all. I'm sorry some of your friends are gone and I'm so happy for the rest of you. I don't know how you did it. As the end i had been flirting with heroin (I'd been told its just a cheaper pain med). I believe I'll be a slave to subs till i did. Or at the very least another16 years when the baby is grow up enough... I don't know what I'm getting as. God bless you, Tracey, you're my hero.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Black Tar Heroin 10 questions answered

Image
I want to get this in one place. Here you go When was the film made? The film was made from Dec 1995 to Dec 1997. Originally the film was supposed to be for one year but I believe when HBO picked up the film they wanted two years. How were you picked for the film? Steven met a bunch of different people at the youth needle exchange. He wanted subjects that were slightly younger than me. He filmed a few other people  that never made it into the final film Were you paid for the film? No. I was not paid for the film. he bought me a hotel to stay in for a week and bought me lunch a few times. I think they left some money for me when I was in jail too. Documentary film makers, in general, don't pay their subjects. Was I friends with the other people from the film ? Sort of. I never knew Alice. I met Oreo when he was 15 or 16. He was VERY young when the film was made. His mom used to work the desk in one of the hotels I lived in. Jake and I used to hang out. At one point h...
Read more

Ben (revised)

Image
Ben was heroin addled fantasy from a time when I would rather be with someone that barely loved me than be alone. I had just been released from jail after six long months. I had been using in the jail up until the last 45 days. This is did not give me much time to construct any type of recovery. I had spent most my time of planning for things that would never happen. My first week in jail was spent recovering from surgery. When I was arrested, I had four large abcesses. An abcess is a place where bacteria gets under the skin and the flesh starts to rot. I had to have surgery on my arm. When I took of the bandage, I cried. Not because I was in the hospital, not because I was in jail. I cried because they had sliced open my tattoo! The horror of it all. I used to take a sterile needle and cut them open myself. Needless to say, my nickname was the abcess queen. When I was back on the streets, I felt hopeless. I gave up my homeless encampment living for a hotel with some financial ...
Read more

Jamie

   Being able to fall apart is a luxury many people don’t have. They carry their burdens until it breaks them.  Miss Jamie was one of the most aesthetically pleasing  women I had ever seen in my life. She simply glowed. When she entered a room, everyone had to stop to pay attention. She took that space over. Her smile was radiant. Her energy was infectious. She was a fireball of a human. Her petite frame was always draped with carefully selected skirts, dresses, and form fitting sweaters. She paired this with her signature plum lipstick and acrylics.  She always came late in the day, usually when I had the lowest energy. Yet, I never refused her entrance. I was happy to see her. Happy to listen to her while she held court in my desk area.      On this day, Jamie was wheeled into the clinic by a person I had never seen before. Instead of scrubs, he looked as if he had woken up on the streets. He looked left like a caretaker, more like a pe...
Read more