Change . . . Turn it Up!

Change - something I've never handled very well. Good or bad. Right or wrong. Always just wanted to leave things where they are. I like to stay put. Mentally, physically, emotionally. For the most part. Being familiar is all good to me. Up until . . . NOW!

Being lost in my addiction, I'm known to run around looking for a family to call my own. Acceptance, love, understanding, openness. My birth mom's been in addiction her whole life -- minus about 9 1/2 years. Well . . . this time when I relapsed it was after finding my mom's stuff. I wasn't strong enough to walk away from the pain from finding it. Knowing the meth would numb me from feeling (also knowing it's temporary). It only took once to feel the pain, guilt, shame, lonely, sadness, scared to take a stand for Nichole. Ask for what I needed.

Through a series of bad decisions in just a matter of weeks, my mom and I were using meth together. We've had a struggling relationship my whole life. For once we had a connection where we could talk, laugh. Any connection seemed like a good one. So like I said, I'm known to run around looking for my own family. This time I ran with mine. Harder and faster I ran from all the good I had in my life. Seconds from running from the people using with me that had seen and or met me before I relapsed. That were telling me, begging me to stop and go home. Lost, scared, worried, the pain of knowing I've lied, betrayed, ran from "the good life," that I gave up on myself again. I found myself running to prison AGAIN!

I got a card from Anakha last week. Inside she wrote " . . . You matter and what you choose moment to moment matters and impacts all of us . .. Crystal, David, Gene, Tim, Isaiah, your sister . . ." Believing and knowing I matter is only part of what I'm working on. I'm truly amazed at the impact my decisions have made on everyone. Even those I don't know. On a daily basis, I have to remind myself not to dwell on what I could have done different. But to stay Present in the Present Moment. Sometimes, I don't want to. Looking around, seeing all our clothes with a bright orange "inmate" stamp on our clothes, watching the girls go straight to miminum with their 13-month sentences. I have to remember I'm healing, changing, and breathing. Just stopping.

Now's the time to choose Nichole, to choose a new life, to choose change, to be demanding of your needs being met. My boyfriend Tim told me in a letter while I was awaiting to get sentenced, "spark up some of that fire I got in me."

We all have a fire in us. When are we going to turn it up?