Letters from Limbo

Soon i’m writing a eulogy for you in my class

Dear Grandma,

I looked up your name to see what it means and baby names dot com was just as vague as everyone else is when I ask about you.  “Little girl” that’s what your name means, but that tells me so little.

My dad says you liked horses, you were a tomboy and once he told me a story about you riding on the back of my grandpa’s motorcycle when he decided to race someone and he revved so hard the end of the bike came off the ground and you just stepped off of it nonchalantly without him having to say a word to you or cater to your femininity.  Pardon my French, but I bet you were a bad ass chick.

I miss you, and I never met you.

I get told that I look like you sometimes but the only pictures I’ve seen of you are when you were no older than 12 or 13.  That’s one other thing I know about you, you didn’t like getting your picture taken.  Plus by the time you were 19 or so you were so swallowed up in drugs that no one wanted to take your picture anymore.

You were gone long before I was born.  I have your homicidal boyfriend who doled out drugs to you, convinced you to leave my grandpa, and abused my dad, aunt, and uncle in ways I can’t even imagine to thank for that.  I don’t think even my dad admits everything that happened; he sure as hell barely ever talks about it.  My mom told me how you died when I was about 9 or 10 and wanted to know where my nice grandma was.  In my mind you’ll always be that what if grandma. What if you had fought your addiction? What if you were alive? What if I had grown up with a grandma that wasn’t completely fucking insane and abusive?  What if I followed your path, would I be left untalked about too?  I always feel so alone and ignored by my family, I wonder if that’s because I’m so much like you… or if it’s just that the people who can’t repress are ignored by my dad’s side.   On the other side… my mom’s side, emotions are a tool to control people with.

There’s a hole there in my life.  Maybe it sounds silly because people talk about there being a hole when they never knew their mother or father.  But my mother is usually swallowed in depression and never has the energy to go and do anything self destructive, she self destructs by inaction.  My father doesn’t let himself feel emotions and he treats compassion and passion as weaknesses.  I always felt like maybe there was something inside you that I could relate to.  Maybe you are the one family member who could be on my level.  But now I’ll never really know.

I’ve never told anyone this, and I’m not Christian but sometimes I feel you with me like some sort of guardian angel to remind me what path my mental illness can take me down, to remind me of what drugs and booze can do to me.  Not only what they can do to me… but what they will to do me if I don’t fight the pain inside and the addiction every single second of every single day.  I don’t know if you’re really there guiding me, or if this feeling is my own conscious forming a persona I trust more than myself; in the end it doesn’t matter which is true. 

I love you even if no one really tells me who you were… there’s some sort of connection there.  You’ll never be forgotten, at least as long as I’m around.

Yours,

Me

(Source: lettersfromlimbo)

What A Pretty Engagement Ring!

Dear one-who-got-away,

You’re getting married

to a boy with a trashy guido swag

and a women should be barefoot and pregnant attitude.

It took twenty long minutes for the realization to come crashing down.

That change from in a relationship to engaged

means every hidden hope for a magic reunion someday, is crumbled

up note paper with rejected scribbles

burning in a trash can.

I thought that I had felt heartbreak before but

nothing in my love life has made my chest throb

so exquisitely.    Regret keeps shouting over and over;

it should have been me.    Self hatred digs it’s way from a fresh grave

to yell; you did this to yourself.

Love(still), 

Me

(Source: lettersfromlimbo)

Step One – Hitting Rock Bottom

Dear Sponser,

I don’t know exactly when I hit bottom I think that I must have hit it a couple times or I just kind of skipped along it like a rock along water.  

I feel like Sonya was the start of my bottom.

I had terrible things happen before her but I never thought bad things happening to me was bad for the longest time, I sincerely believe that I deserved everything I got and much, much more.  When I started leaving school early multiple times a week because I was too strung out on pills to function in class… I didn’t blame the drugs or my mental health; I just accepted that I was too stupid to do well in school.  When I had to drink a water bottle full of vodka throughout the school day to keep myself from cutting class or crying my eyes out, it never occurred to me that wasn’t normal or that it was bad.  I just told myself that it made me a “fun” person, in fact I was even proud of my capacity to drink large amounts and pop lots of pills while out and about.  

But back to Sonya…. I had just gotten out of a relationship with a guy, Aaron, who I had been with for a year and a half.  He was a pathological liar and I loved being around him despite that but I couldn’t understand why it didn’t feel right with him, why my love for him felt so platonic, why I felt like dirt every time we had sex.  I knew that I liked girls but I didn’t want to like them for more than a little fun.  I wasn’t gay, I love men… or so I repeated over and over to anyone who would listen.  One day Aaron wanted sex, we hadn’t done it in weeks because I just had absolutely no interest or inclination in doing it at that point.  But he kept bugging me for it so finally I gave in and I remember just lying there not moving, tears falling down my face, trying to imagine I was somewhere else.  After that I couldn’t touch him without feeling sick.  I couldn’t look at him or talk to him without an overwhelming sense of disgust at myself filling me.  I finally broke up with him.  I started spending all my time with Sonya.  We were friends only at first.  When we weren’t together, we texted constantly.   I felt something inside me blooming and there was no doubt in my mind that she felt it too.  I wooed her slowly, dedicating love songs to her at clubs, bringing her gifts, going on romantic dates, writing her poetry… the whole nine yards.  Seeing her smile made me feel warm inside.  We both drank a lot, prided ourselves on being party girls.  Both of us identified as bisexual and agreed that if we were ever together we’d be sexually active with guys on the side.  Well I threw a party one night and she left early.  But we had told each other “I love you” and it was the most “right” thing that I’d ever felt in my life.  It terrified me.  I didn’t want to be gay.  I wanted to feel that feeling of rightness with a guy.  So I downed a bottle of southern comfort and fucked my coworker John in front of everyone at the party where all my friends were, not once, not twice, but three times.  The next morning she texted me and told me that she had changed her mind, if we got together she didn’t want to have sex with anyone else… man or woman and that she couldn’t imagine me with anyone else either.  The feeling of relief and happiness was immediate but that feeling of fear that followed was so overwhelmingly strong.  I agreed with her and told her that I loved her.   Then I went over to John’s house downed some vodka, smoked some weed and spent the night having sex.  I continued my drunken liaisons with John while continuing to date Sonya.  The day after I asked Sonya to be my girlfriend, right at midnight on New Year’s eve after we kissed… I went to work drunk and fucked John in the back room at work.  Sonya came and visited me at work that day, she looked at the two of us and I knew that she knew.  She called me that night and told me she wasn’t mad, that she loved me and would forgive me if I promised right now to never do it again.  The words caught in my throat and I just sat there silently,.  I couldn’t promise her when I didn’t even remember most of the times having sex with John because I was so drunk.  I couldn’t promise it to her because I could see myself marrying her and adopting tons of babies and growing old with her.  I knew at that moment if it wasn’t John it’d be someone else that I’d find out the morning after that I’d fucked in a moment of self-hatred and not remember a moment of it the next day.  The two of us sat on the phone in complete silence disturbed only by my shallow breathing and her muffled crying.  It felt like hours that we sat there like that.  I got so drunk for the next month that to this day I don’t even remember who hung up first.  The month after that was a blurry one.  I spent every penny I had on whiskey and weed.  I fucked eight different guys(that I know of).  I was intoxicated at all times even in my college classes.  I did coke for the first time because a musician I was fucking gave me lines for free whenever I wanted.  I lost my place to live, none of my friends and family wanted or could take me because of my reckless behavior being such a constant in my life and because I had no money or job left.  So I hopped couches.  

In a moment of desperation I called my stepmom crying.  She begged me to move to New York.  (I was living in California at the time)  I begged her to buy the ticket for me and my cat.  So she did.  I wanted to tell them never mind so many times in the next week and a half before It was time to leave… so many, many times.  Telling my sister who I helped raise that I was leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done to date.  I told my best friend that I couldn’t bear to leave.  He told me yes I could and would.  So I did.  That was the closest he ever came to telling me to stop fucking up my life. Basically he told me if I didn’t get away from my hometown I’d die there sooner or later and probably sooner.  So  I numbed myself with everything I could get my hands on and I left.  As soon as I got to New York I began immediately putting my parents’ extensive liquor cabinet to “good” use and began a very turbulent and sexual relationship with a boy I met through the internet.  He had multiple other girls he was having sex with too but I didn’t care because I told myself that I was his favorite so it was ok.  Barely a month after I moved, I drank a bottle of Kahlua, took six or so shots of various liquors, a bottle of Excedrin, cut my wrists, and took a couple sips of anti-freeze, posted goodbye on tumblr to my female best friend (who stopped being my best friend after this) asking her to tell my sisters that I loved them when they were old enough, and then I laid down on the floor to die with my dad and sister asleep downstairs.  I woke up in the hospital.  I later found out that my friend had seen my post on tumblr and called 911 right away.  The moment that I realized that I was still alive was the most painful, devastating thing I have ever felt in my life.  I had tried to commit suicide before, but this time I had be so careful, I couldn’t handle the pain inside one second longer.  I ripped my IVs out causing blood to gush down my arms, ripped the oxygen mask off my face, and weakly stumbled to the bathroom.  I had to crawl the second half of the trip.  I locked myself in and heard people banging on the door, I was so scared they would make me stay alive.  It felt like the pain was expanding inside, it hurt so bad I was sure my chest would burst.  I clawed at my skin, at the cuts on my wrists and elbows, at my face while huddling in a ball rocking back and forth.  When I heard them unlocking the door I started banging my head against the sink screaming “leave me alone, just let me die.”  I was in the psychiatric ward for a while.  When I was in there, I found out that I had chlamydia and they gave me antibiotics to cure it.  I remember crying myself to sleep because I had wanted so badly to have aids so that I could die.  I remember thinking that I had tried so very hard to get aids… I hadn’t used any protection in months… and yet here I was still alive.  I remember praying for the first time in my life, not to any specific god… just to the universe and begging them/it/he/she to let me die.  After that I quickly start lying about feeling better so I could go home and die.  By the time I got out I was so numb from all the drugs they had me on that I didn’t want to die anymore, I just wanted to stop existing.  The next month or so I went to therapy every day and also drank every day… but this time I kept it more secret.  I still don’t know if the people around me knew I was drunk all the time or if they just assumed I was crazy.  Honestly, I was both.  When I got diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and anxiety… I just started popping the pills they gave me like candy and washing them down with whiskey.  Then I stopped getting therapy and meds, my parents insurance had become nonexistent and they refused to pay for anything out of pocket.  I think at that point they had given up on me and were ready for me to just stay upstairs in my room and be quite.  I’m sure at that point they were tired of paying for meds and taking me to therapy and to my job so I could come home drunk and/or high and be a nasty bitch to them and a suicidal self-injuring slut.  Somewhere in there I came out of the closest and started seeing a girl with schizophrenia and having promiscuous relations with women who would buy me booze and drugs.  Two days before I met the friend who took me to my first AA meeting I was arrested for shoplifting.  I was incredibly high on Ambien and had chugged a few beers right before it happened.   So I don’t know exactly where my bottom was.  I think maybe it started with Sonya and I stayed dwelling in the bottom until I looked at the pain in my dad’s eyes as he paid my bail. 

Much Love,

Me

(Source: letterfromlimbo)

A Letter To My Angel

Dear Perfect One, 

You are everything good in the world.

From the moment your father walked into the hospital hallway with you cradled in his arms, I knew that i’d do anything to see you smile.  Though the waiting room was crowded with family and friends eager to see you, fresh from the operating room after being neatly removed from your upside-down stance in our mom’s tummy, I pushed past them all in a daze.  I had enough thought to ask how mom was but besides that you were in my arms and the entire universe was gazing up at me from brilliant bright blue eyes.  You didn’t cry, your little pink lips just parted to let slobber run out and you watched me watch you.  Even the little pink beanie couldn’t contain all of your golden hair, a mess over your perfectly shaped head and pale, pale skin.  A drop of water plopped on your cheek, I realized that I was crying.  For the first time in my ten years of life, I knew what love really is.  

That complete over powering sense of awe hasn’t diminished one bit in the last nine years.  No one understands why I feel so strongly for my sister.  But that’s because they weren’t deserted by their father for his new wife and baby, ignored my their mother who suffered from depression so severe that it wasn’t unusual for her to stay in bed for days at a time molested and beaten by those they trusted and than sat on the floor with their cheerful little sister to play with toys and cling to her smile, the only joy in their life.  

For those first couple of years I was your main caregiver.  I didn’t go to school most days because my mom needed my help with you.  I changed more diapers, fed you more bottles, lathered you with soap more times than your father or our mother combined.  Later things got bad for me and better for mom and she started to take care of you more.  But neither mom or I will ever forget that you used to call me mom.  Even to this day mom refers to me as your “Mommy Number Two”.  I never resented a second of it, because you were a reason to not pressed any harder into my wrists with the knife than I already was, you were the reason not to cross the line between drunk and alcohol poisoning, you were the reason to not swallow a bottle of pills.  You still are.   Even though i’ve done all those things, you’re the reason I haven’t done it more, you’re the reason I fight those constant urges instead of giving in.

You’ve never hated anything in your life and i’ve found that I want to protect you from the cruelness in the world.  Moving across the country may seem a strange way to do that.  But I hope someday you understand that I have to get myself in a better situation or i’ll never be able to help you.  You’ll always be my angel. Always.  If I ever lost you i’d be nothing, the pain would boil inside me until it killed me.  I don’t want you to doubt that I think of you always, I don’t want you to doubt that I miss you with every inhale and exhale, I don’t want you to doubt that i’d catch each and every star from the sky and string them on a necklace for you to wear if I could.  Anything you need ever, that’s in my power… I will do.  Rather it’s one second from now or fifty years from now, it will always be true.  

There’s a little water fall that I like to go and sit by.  I spread out a blanket and color pictures of cartoon characters that you love.  I pretend that you’re there.  When the lonliness gets so bad that all I can do is hug my arms across my chest and press hard against my aching heart, I call you.  Only seconds later my stomach hurts from laughing over your story about pretending to be a news anchor with the dog.  

If I could change anything i’d want to erase every bad that that has happened or will happen to you.  I’d make it so I could be close to you now, so that I could steal you away from the sorrow and rage in the world.

Not even the sun can compare to you.

Love,

Your Big Sister

(Source: lettersfromlimbo)