Purely rambling...

I feel like I need to start doing those writing exercises where you just write/type everything that pops into your head for an allotted amount of time.

I've never felt so.. emptied of words, but full of SOMETHING that I have to get out.

Ha, ha, I know there are people out there with messed up minds like me that are going to laugh at that. But seriously.

I've been thinking a lot about the similarities and differences between ME... and between my life now, and my life a year ago.

A year ago, I probably weighed about 13 lbs less. Yup, that's right. And I kind of was enjoying it, even though it was extraordinarily unhealthy. I was unhappy, drinking heavily, and not eating. I had bleeding intestinal ulcers that I left untreated and that was when I started taking massive doses of my benzodiazapenes and narcotic painkillers .. you know, to kill the "pain" (mainly the emotional pain). Smart of me.

I planned out my own death, to be carried out on New Years Eve...
I also began a spiritual journey that has changed my life. It has been difficult, in many ways, and in the beginning, I thought that my first "epiphany" would fix everything. That I'd finally be happy and attract all the things I wanted into my life, magically...

Like most journeys, it's been a lot longer than I expected. With more speed-bumps.
And clearly, I didn't die on New Years Eve. I spent it with the man I loved, which is exactly what I wanted to do.
And probably a week later, we got in a fight and didn't speak again for several weeks (not that this is an anomaly in our relationship).

A year ago, many people walked out of my life. It was the beginning of something like a mass exodus.. people realizing that they couldn't fix me, they couldn't even make me feel better. I had made up my mind.
A select few stayed. Like those who sit at the bed of a hopelessly comatose patient, holding their hand, speaking words that may or may not be heard, and just waiting. Knowing the end could come, but staying anyway.

Those few people, I have developed such an immense love and respect for, I couldn't possibly put it into words.

The rest, I don't blame. Some have come back into my life. Others have shut and locked the door to revisiting friendship.

For a moment, during this period of time, I found a profound sense of childlike joy, in the discovery and acceptance of a spiritual path that has probably been calling to me for years.
From mid-November til shortly after New Years, I was quite happy, despite many losses in my life. I had hope for the year to come. Things weren't perfect, not by any means, but... I saw the man I love frequently, I had my own place for Christmas, I decorated it with the kids.. I found a new sense of direction and hope.

When Dan and I "split up" again, it hit me hard, as it always does, but I managed to get on with life, as I always do. I got my tax return and planned many things.. to re-do the floor in my living room, to take Sophia to disneyland for her birthday, finally... to take a vacation on my own.

Then, in March, my car got totalled. Cue me, slowly but surely falling into a pit of depression. I had no job, no transportation.. was stuck at home almost constantly with two children.. Eli was, as always, a huge challenge, and I was very lonely. Dan came back into my life, but in the enigmatic, flighty way that he does at times when he's even further from "sure" than normal.
In May, I lost it completely. Dan vacated, and for good reason, but not without leaving some scars that will always be .. present.

I waited, I made phone calls, I pushed for a settlement on my car. I needed a car, and then things would be ok. I overdosed a couple times. I found it hard to breathe, to move, to be awake or to be asleep. I just wanted it to be over. I was alone. I couldn't even perform the one job that meant anything to me in this world -- being my kids' mom.

When I finally got my settlement (in June), 2 weeks later, the 2nd week of July, I set off for California with Sophia, to take the trip I'd promised her for 3 long years. Disneyland, and a chance to get to know her "Dad" a little bit.

truth? It was hell for me. She had a great time, and I'm glad we did it.

And I came back to an email from Dan. a simple, one-sentence email that silently gave the invitation to revisit.. whatever we were. To be friends again. That said.. "I still care."

I had a month of ... happy. I went to American Idol auditions, and auditions for The Voice. Didn't get anywhere with either, which was depressing. And then ... other things transpired... bad luck after bad choice after bad luck ... I managed to get a DUI when I wasn't even drunk. I managed to get Dan in trouble at work while trying to keep things from blowing up. I managed to get EVERYTHING taken away from me. Everything except my children, and as it has been, I've barely been hanging onto them. Hanging on for dear life.. selfishly.. they are all I have had to hold onto.

And I look back on a year ago when I really had... the world in my hands. And I wasn't grateful. I wanted to end my life. I was impatient, petulant, childish.
And I think.. had I been more grateful, would things be different now?

and as I sit with my second drink of the night in hand... having been sleeping on my parents' floor for 3 months now... having taken my allotment of pills for the night... wishing that pure oblivion could BE an option, I wonder...

if I were more grateful NOW.... what could change? Could I avoid falling deeper into this pit?
What if I said... yes, tomorrow I start a job in a factory line, which sounds primitive to me. I'll be working 13 hr swing shifts.
Yes, I still have no car and no driver's license.
Yes, the man I love is now living 7 hours away, and soon will be living a world away.

But do I have the world in my hands?
Didn't I have the world in my hands earlier tonight, when I held my 2 yr old's hand and jumped on the bed? I don't remember the last time I jumped on the bed.... but his laughter is addictive. His happiness... contagious.
Didn't I have the world in my hands when my daughter hugged me for no reason and said she loved me? (which is a rarity in her "grown up" 6 yr old world.)

By being grateful, I can't get my license back. I can't get a better job, yet. I can't make someone decide to make a commitment to me that would ease the ache in my heart that never quite lets up.

Technically, all it would change is how I view things....
And perhaps that's all that really matters, in the end. Because if I could go back to a year ago, knowing what I know now, I'd be deliriously happy.
I didn't know anything then.
Perhaps I know nothing know.
I just don't want to look back in a year and say "god, I wish I had been grateful then, for what I had."