So I’ve spent roughly a year and a half not blogging on this
site. Why? Because I’ve had writers block. I’ve been able to write for other
things (like my magazine) but not for myself. Geeze it has sucked. So how have I ended up in this hole and
more importantly how did I get out? Well, as most of you know I had quite the
eventful fall of 2011. My Aunt lost our battle with Leukemia. I say our because
it really was all of ours. I think everyone fought equally as hard for her
survival. She might have been doing the physical work but my entire family was
in that battle. When she lost, I lost, and we all lost. At the same time I was
fighting a different battle with my baby brother. He was addicted to drugs. His
addiction was coming on full force and my family was still fighting a different
fight for my aunt. My aunt was always the person I spoke to about my brother’s
addiction so what was I to do with her gone? Meanwhile I spent all of fall 2011
wondering if my brother was going to choose life or death. It is one thing to
deal with Leukemia. My aunt had her cards dealt to her. One could strongly
argue that addiction is a disease but from my point of view it’s not so cut and
dry. My brother did not have a choice in his disease but he sure did have a
choice in his treatment. My aunt did not. So while I am walking on this
tightrope for trying to find balance in my life everyone else around me is
going through equally as catastrophic extremes. My aunt passed and I was still
fighting to keep that balance on that tightrope. One small step in the wrong
direction and it would have been a disaster. I mean, really. I shouldn’t have
had to deal with how I was going to skype my brother and father in from his
detox center to the funeral. I should have been worrying about more trivial
things like which mascara was going to be the best choice for crying my soul
out.
Stick with me… I promise this will make sense. So I’m
totally like this 14-year-old girl who loves all things girly and
glittery. Like for example, vampire
TV shows. I love watching Vampire Diaries. So the vampires on that show can
choose to turn off their humanity and just become full vampire. Basically not
caring for much and in return not having to feel human emotions. On some level
I did that. I turned off my emotions in some sort of survival mode. Of course I
still felt things. I’m NOT a vampire on that TV show. I just didn’t feel the
really heavy things like my aunt’s death or my brother’s rehabilitation. That
is a lot for a person to process at once. Thus by shutting off how I felt I
shut off my ability to write for myself.
So how did I make it out of that rabbit hole I fell into off
of my tightrope? I worked my ass off. If you know me, you know I am fucking
determined and driven. If there is something I don’t like about myself I’m
going to change it. I’m lucky enough where once something has been processed I
am able to put it into effect immediately. So step one was to make myself feel
again. That was kinda like opening a floodgate that has been closed for a year
and a half. Once I was able to cognitively realize that I shut off emotions I
was able to turn them back on and begin to process them. Ok, so I parent my
parents. That would explain why I felt like such a failure when my brother
became a drug addict. I basically raised him and you fucktards sat back and
watched as he injected his life away. My aunt, who was my ally in the multiple
yearlong battles with my parents over my brother’s addiction, was not in denial
like the rest of the authoritative figures in my life but there was only so
much she could do. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to convince
everyone my brother needed help but there is only so much screaming you can do
in a soundproof glass room before your lungs get tired. Once that motherfucker
leukemia yanked my aunt from my soundproof glass room it was not just my lungs
that were exhausted but my mind was as well. So it was my time to rest. I
needed to spend a year and a half being crazy selfish. I needed to take care of
myself.
After about a year of “turning off my humanity” I was
brought back to life again. I allowed myself to really feel again. My transformation was not very subtle.
Most of my observant friends can tell I’m much happier now. I believe it
started around the morning that I just woke up and decided to get a tattoo and
it hasn’t stopped since. It has taken a while to get to the point of writing
for myself. It’s one thing dealing with the floodgates, tightropes, and
soundproof rooms. It’s another thing to deal with it on paper in such a way
that other’s can relate. My sad attempts at writing for myself were not any
good because there was no emotion behind it. Ernest Hemingway once said, "There is nothing to writing.
All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." And I believe that is
what I have done today my friends. Stay tuned for my more upbeat adventures in
taking on NYC this summer.
