...But This is Now

I find it hard to admit that a part of my psyche still perceives me as a mistake. When you are a relatively successful mother with almost 18-years of sobriety, you should be “well,” or at least better.  However, for the past several years my life has been unraveling. Slowly, my self-esteem began to tank, my relationship with God began to fade, and I found myself another drone in the American Dream rat race.

A family member committed suicide, my health has declined, work has been stressful, and life has seemed like one blow after another of bad luck. All those many years ago, when I climbed out of the gutter there was a feeling that propelled me, a feeling that I was meant for greater things, that I had to pull myself up and overcome the odds because God had better plans.

Now I am here, living right in the middle of God’s plan for me. On the outside, I have all the trappings of a successful American life and I should be so very grateful. I am grateful. I will repeat...I am very grateful.

There are moments that I cannot believe that the girl who came from the ghetto, ran the streets as a teenage runaway, and finished her teen years as a ward of the State of California, is now living in a quiet gated-community with her two blond gorgeous children, her silver SUV, and her successful job.

My laundry hasn’t been put away in a week and is in a pile in my bedroom floor. I chain smoke like a junkie.  The dishes are piled in my kitchen sink. I wake up each morning and trudge through the day, and fall to sleep each night exhausted. I have an unpaid parking ticket and blood-work I’ve put off for a month. For each of these shortcomings I feel ashamed, afraid to let people come over to see my messy house, afraid I’ll be pulled over and my car towed for my unpaid ticket, afraid that blood work will come back with a diagnosis of imminent death.

Yet I do nothing. I am busy, I say. I am stressed, I say. I am broke, I say.

The truth is I am stuck. I am lost. I keep searching every house only to have the inhabitants say, “She’s not here. The woman you’re looking for isn’t here.”