The sweetest, most breathtaking truth that can be tasted is the one that I tell myself to believe.
The first bite. All five senses react with excitement. When I delicately pierce the fruit, a citrus spark flares at the corners of my mouth, and it gives my brain a light zing that releases dopamine, and it’s like I can hear the faint crackle of the fruit’s skin. My eyes close as if I’m about to kiss someone mysterious and refreshing; I do, and I take another delicious bite.
“Although all addicts are basically the same in kind, we do, as individuals, differ in degree of sickness and rate of recovery.”
Narcotics Anonymous, Basic Text page 77
Since deciding to get clean again, I’ve noticed small, intricate details woven into my psyche. Details that have been in my brain as extra puzzle pieces from my upbringing. Whether these puzzle pieces are important or not, it doesn’t matter, because what does matter is how I’ve grown up and decided to become this adult, or this puzzle piece of a brain, which is a miserable carbon copy of almost each and every one who put their dirty, grubby sausage-like fingers into me. Granted, I forced these extra puzzle pieces together because, well, that’s just what you do when something doesn’t fit. You make it fit; by changing your perception, being very charming, maybe get a little “hehe haha”, throw a little self incrimination in there, and viola! It’s like this singular puzzle piece of 10000000 pieces is suppose to go there. Because it is.
It didn’t and doesn’t matter how the lives of those around me look like. Because no matter how much I wanted my life to emulate a soapy, dramatic, coming of age romcom – there was one thing that would be true; is that Prince Charming does not come running up the football stands, grab my arm and tell me they were wrong to deny me the entire time, that I was the one for them (in real life I didn’t even know the captain of the football team), but it made sense in my head because that’s what happens in A Cinderella Story starring Hilary Duff.
It didn’t fit. But I made it fit. Well, I tried. I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at a ‘finished’ puzzle set, that had protruding and awkward pieces forced into the picture that had taken years to finish. At first glance, you’re proud. You’re actually relieved and feel like you can breathe but the more you look at it the more you see that the pieces you forced are not actually staying in place. And now you’re getting upset because you put them in place, and maybe you even put some tape on the back to make sure it stayed secure, but it’s just not staying. And even though from afar the puzzle set looks complete, when you walk up close, the puzzle pieces you forced don’t actually complete the picture. It just looks complete.
I’m eight days clean and I’m 32 years old. I wanted to die on my birthday. I didn’t want to be alive and I didn’t see any reason to continue with my “beautiful and clean” life. Being in recovery is so daunting and it’s so real and I hate it. I hate it to it’s core because I can’t force anything that doesn’t fit. I can’t force everyone else’s recovery onto mine and just because I choose to whatever amount of stuff for my recovery in maybe a certain amount of time, it doesn’t mean I’m gong to be healed that much faster. If anything, it might even stall my healing. And I can’t heal with this finished puzzle piece of a life, or brain.
But I don’t know if I’ll like the actual finished puzzle piece with the correct pieces in place. And I’ve talked about this before. Maybe. I’m not sure. But it feels redundant. It feels like dejavu and a little performative. Like I’ve told myself this before and I was gung ho at making these mentally and seemingly puzzle piece like changes. But did I remove the correct incorrect puzzle piece that didn’t belong? Or should I just fucking jumble it all together and start over.
That’s how it feels right now. I don’t want to be alive but I don’t want to die. I just want to jumble it all up and start over with a new strategy. But don’t look at me because I’ll mess up or overthink and put the wrong piece in a different spot and then I’ll be all fucked up again. Fuck maybe I just need to stop. I’m tired. My brain is tired.
