I can tell you the exact moment in which I changed from the "me" I was to the "me" I am. It was at the height of my downward spiral.
California meant changing everything about myself, everything I was too afraid to change in Kansas City. California meant shedding suffocating relationships and forgiving myself for being human.California meant accepting that there are some things that can't be changed and many things that can.
Arriving in California is my happiest memory because I was free to be anything my imagination could conjure. I chose from the best lot of options initially. I chose to be the free spirit. I chose to be the leader. I chose to be what I was convinced for years I was incapable of being- self sufficient.
And then I chose to be a drug addict.
And a liar.
And a cheater.
There was a moment when I was sitting on the patio of a local coffee shop and I felt myself completely die inside and I equate it now to the way Adam & Eve must've felt when God banished them from the Garden of Eden. Absolute terrifying uncertainty.
I was strung out and devastated by a series of bad decisions. My relationship with Bri had ended because, like all relationships built upon false pretenses, it was only a matter of time. I was convinced I was in love until I realized I was in fear.
I was in fear of being alone.
I was in fear because despite only carrying 3 suitcases cross-country, Ryan brought with him a lifetime of baggage; both his and mine, and I didn't want anything to do with the past. I was in fear because I wasn't on speaking terms with the love of my life, and the final blow to the relationship had been my heavy-handed judgment on how things between us "ought to be."
I was in fear because it was easy to fake connections and relationships with day to day people when they were within reach, but so far away from everyone I'd ever depended upon, it occurred to me that they didn't really need me and suddenly, I very much needed them.
I was just sitting there on that patio...cross-legged, high as ever, waiting for a beautiful surfer who teased me with the potential of a relationship, made love to my mind, fucked my soul, and acted as if she didn't know me in the morning.
I was sitting there waiting for her to get off work, to confuse my mind even more so with her trecherous self-misunderstandings projected onto me as my own.
I was sitting there when Ryan demanded via text message that I travel to the city and experience San Francisco Pride at its fullest.
But my response was, in summary, that I could not go because I didn't believe in love anymore.
I couldn't celebrate being a twisted bundle of broken promises. There was no pride in the way I'd loved for years. My love had been selfish in every way possible. Relationship after relationship had failed because I had heaped massive expectations upon one lover and then the next- I needed them to fix me. To make me into what they saw when they looked at me. I wanted to believe their words: that I am brave, talented, beautiful, intelligent. I wanted them to make me believe because I didn't have the strength to do it myself.
But just as I was incapable of fixing them, they too were incapable of fixing me.
Sitting there on that patio...the surfer emerged for a momentary break, veins full of heroin, her mind in a constant battle to be sober and gay and happy as she is in her truest form- or to continue lying to everyone, especially herself.
She demanded that I go to Pride with her once her shift ended and I hoped for just a moment that what she really meant to say was "I believe love is possible." But I knew better.
And once I realized I knew better, my soul broke apart as deeply at the first continent-shattering earthquake.
Who I was until that moment separated from the woman I am right now.
The woman I became in that desolate moment of pitch black emotional despair is a woman who will never again look for definitions outside her own skin. No matter your religion or spiritual beliefs, each of us knows that our species is connected by an unseen energy that radiates the emotions of the beholder.
It's that feeling of uniting after a national tragedy, or in the height of the Star Spangled Banner before a baseball game. It's the panic and anger in a shouting match. It's the way the man at market smiles at you as he hands you an extra bundle of dahlia's for free.
We are united in our unspoken elements and it is that force, and only that force, that defines each of us equally.
So when my soul splintered, it revealed me to a truth I'd been ignorant of prior.
It revealed to me that I am brave and talented, beautiful and intelligent. But more importantly, I am the sole provider of my happiness and to maintain happiness, a person has no choice but to make the hardest choices.
That's when I got sober.
You might be amazed at how painfully difficult it is to say goodbye to the comfort of misery, but I know most of you aren't surprised at all. Misery is masked by its smooth trails and open horizons, but it's a circular path, never leading anywhere.
I have since chosen to no longer excuse bad behavior, afflicted attitudes and indignation from myself or others. Our very existence's are statistical miracles. Our thriving or drowning- entirely our choice. Our mental, emotional and physical dispositions- solely our responsibilities. And I, as with us all, am entirely responsible for the way I treat others and the way I allow them to treat me.
This has forced me to apologize when I didn't want to, to forgive people I'd begrudged for years, and to end friendships and relationships with individuals who consciously choose toxicity.
That feeling I had of my soul opening up and releasing a new me...that was the metamorphosis of real change. Change brought on by no longer being able to maintain my sub-par status quo. Change brought on by accepting my tremendously powerful unseen energy and the affect it has.
When I radiate sincerity and goodness, my life is filled with such things and when I expel bitter discontentment with the world around me, such is my life.
I am what people see in me- so my main priority is to nurture the good and weed out the slow and silent killers as soon as I spot them.
I am a garden all my own and despite the pain of unavoidable choices and damage reversal, I am flourishing like never before.
I recognize that happiness is uniquely mailable to the beholder and love is possible when it emanates from the core of your being.
That's why I believe the Garden of Eden will never be found, because it was a representation of unity between the Creating Energy and the Human Species and when Adam and Eve found reasons to be discontent, Eden was dissolved and they were ejected into the disconnected reality of seeking happiness outside one's self.
The only reality is what's within you...the rest of this is an illusion.
So if you're looking for me, I'll be in my garden, writing Frances and learning to play the piano; taking long walks down the pier and sleeping til noon whenever I so choose. I'll be loving as sincerely as ever and guiltless in my own skin. It contains all the happiness I'll ever need and is only willing to be touched by the enriching energies of equally content souls.
Love.
is.
Possible.
