Killing time

So I went to the Container Store today to get some magazine holders and shelves for the dining room and started organizing all my school books and papers and such.

I found a notebook.

I found the big yellow notebook I used for my poetry class in the fall of 1998 at Ball State. It was set up to be a journal. We had to write every day, and make observations about things that we saw in our every day lives.

Some were funny. A two page description of Cheerios.

Some were written when I was stoned or drunk. Some I can barely read.

Some had my short term girlfriend's writing in them.

But most were so dark. They were dripping with deep sorrow and pain. Pain that I had never felt up until that time. Looking back, I can't help but feel sorrow for that girl who would lock herself in her apartment and cry all day long. The girl who would try to lose herself in television shows because they made her forget just what she felt.

I will never downplay the pain and sorrow that was there. My first 'real' relationship ended, my grandfathers were losing the battle with life, and I was still struggling with grief from some deaths I hadn't dealt with. A girl that I met for a brief time killed herself three days after I met her. I compared her to myself, feeling superior because I kicked all of my bad habits and she hadn't. I felt sorry for her but superior. I tried to ignore her because I saw myself in her pain and obvious cries for help. I thought, "I got through it, so will she." I had changed myself in the year prior to those entries, but I was still a far cry from who I wanted to be.

But I'm glad I can reread those entries and remember who that girl was, and stand up and look at the woman I have become. These are the reasons I would never change anything in my past. They led me to who I am.

I was a very dark, depressed person for so long.

And those journal entries, full of angst and pain, were written mere months before the real damage was done. The last journal entry was written in the beginning of December. The end of that same month the world would start to fall apart.

There is a part of me that wants to go back and warn that girl of what was to come. And show her a picture of me now, to let her know it would all be alright. But I had to live it. And I'm so glad I had to write about it for my poetry class. Those kinds of records are priceless.

I almost burned all my things from Ball State when I left. I wanted to completely start over, and felt like those things were weighing me down. But I didn't burn my notebooks. The things that held all the evidence of that life.

And I'm so glad I have them now. It makes me realize just how strong I am, how strong my family is.

I truly thank the drugs, Hillarie, Tanya from the coffee shop, the spider in my bathroom and all that occured during those times. It makes great writing material. And it serves as a wonderful reminder that things do get better. Things do change. Things can turn around and become what they need to be.

Grief will never leave me. As long as I am alive those that I love will pass on. It's a fact that most of us don't ever want to think about. But the important thing is for those of us still living to remember that we are living. It's something that, many times, is lost in our day to day schedules.

I feel like reading those entries breathed life into me again. I took those years and turned them into something wonderful....a past that I am content to leave behind but juicy enough to make good conversations out of.

I remember being that girl. Sitting in that dark, basement apartment with Patty on one side and Ethel on the other, writing and listening to Tori or Mazzy or Sarah and crying, hoping that it would all just go away. Not eating because I would get sick if I did. Shaving my head in an attempt to feel free. It seems like another lifetime ago. Yet it is still so close in my mind.

I remember very little from the end of 1996 to the end of 1997, and then from 1999 to about 2001. The first was due to too many drugs and too much alcohol. The latter from too many deaths and too much violation. But I feel it is my responsibility, as an adult, to remember as much as I can.

I feel like an adult. For the first time in that way. Sure, I felt like one when I got married. When I moved in with Steve. When I lived by myself for the first time in Chicago. But going back and facing demons that have barely been buried, and being able to see them for what they were--learning experiences--makes me feel a bit more grown up. My emotional side has caught up with my physical and mental side.....and I feel like an adult.

I finally, truly feel that I have something to offer. I've lived many lives in this one, and damnit, I am finally okay with all of them.

Thank god for organizing the dining room. It's amazing the things you find when you are clearing garbage out. And the once garbage that becomes just the jewel you are looking for.