It's Been Awhile...

Wow. It has been a long time since I have posted a blog. I have been so wrapped up in my own life that I have not had a moment to slow down and breath. I have been adjusting to my new job at a new company, which is always anxiety-provoking. Having to learn the meat and potatoes of an employment position is the easy part. The hard part comes in juggling the myriad of conflicting personalities and egos. And that is always exhausting for me.

My relationship with my partner has been crumbling, and that has taken it's toll on me as well. It is what it is. But it hurts and frustrates all the same. I won't talk much about that here though.

What I have realized these past few months though is that I have been using social media as an escape from life. I began to spend more and more time online after mom died and really ramped up after I got laid off 3 months later. I used social media as a place to find support. I used social media as a crutch, as a means to deal with the tornado of feelings inside of me. I felt lost, orphaned, useless. I felt dead. The posts I posted or the tweets I tweeted reflect that. I was all over the map with my feelings and emotions, like a leaf caught in a whirlwind, spinning around aimlessly and without direction.

During the past year I have lost who I am. I am still not sure who I am. Losing a parent is like being adrift at sea without an anchor, tossed around and at the mercy of an uncaring sea. In this case, my sea has been my reality. I have felt out of control, which is absolutely crazy because no matter what we lose in life, we always have choices. Sometimes it is all I can do to chose to get up and go to work in the morning. Sometimes the sum of my choices is to take my HIV and antidepressant medication consistently. But one thing that I know I chose with strength is the desire to live.

When I was tweaked out on meth and blind to my self-destruction I thought I was on control, which of course is a lie all addicts tell themselves. Drugs mean escape. Drugs for me meant numbing reality and putting it off. One choice I continue to make is the choice to feel things now, every day, the good and the bad. Oh, it sucks at times. It sucks ALOT at times, to feel without filters. But, for me, to feel is to acknowledge that you are reacting to something, that there is something tapping on my window trying to get attention. Where I falter though is that next step. I suck at taking action. Choices and action scare me because it creates an inertia. It creates a path you get swallowed in, kind of like being strapped into a roller coaster, unable to steer things the way you want them to go, or unable to get off the ride. Intellectually I know this is a horrible analogy because, unlike a roller coaster, we are indeed able to stop things, steer things, change things. I just wish I can talk the rest of me into believing that.