Let's see how far we go

If you reading this you should be listening to matchbox “Let’s see how far we go.”

I woke up crying like three years ago and I haven’t been able to stop. I guess it all caught up to me. My best friend died when I was 23. I graduated college. I wasn’t happy. I looked like I was happy but I wasn’t happy. It seemed like I missed something.

And then recently, I got into with my boyfriend. I’ve been attending AA for the last two months. I have been trying to get sober or sanity. I was trying to prove that I could look that picture I painted when I lived in Chicago. I had the apartment. I had the clothes. I had the Volkswagen. I had the big job in the big city and fucking miserable. It was like I was a fraud. And it bothered the hell out of me. I was so pretending. And the shit I was doing at night. Waking up on the weekends in crack houses. I was in supposedly great relationship, but I was cheating on him like everyday. I slept with all his friends. And when he would get home his face would light up. He was so fucking in love and I hated his fucking guts. I hated that he was happy. I hated that he was in love and I knew I was never going to feel it like how he looked at me. So I did what I knew how to do best, I self destructed. It was the only thing I knew. It was my entire life. I watch my father self destruct until he got a bullet in the back of his head. I watch my mother do until it she was homeless on the streets sucking dick for cigarettes. I saw my grandmother do it with liquor until she ruined her liver and died alone in her room. I saw every aunt do it with a man, until one beat them or one tried to kill them. I saw my uncles do it, each and every last one ending up in prison. I did what I knew best. Now my sisters and I are doing it. My older sisters is so damn fat but she want recognize the problem. My middle sister got sober but still go with men that beat her in front of her children. And I keep quitting myself. I sometimes feel so damn fragile like i'm tissue or rice paper, the slightest breeze tears me apart. I constantly suicidal that the hotline is on my speed dial. But how do we get stronger? I'm trying.

But lately I’ve been telling myself that my story is not going to end up like the script said. I was to never be shit. I know that. If I just disappeared it ain’t going to mean shit. If I die tomorrow I will be a John Doe. There’s no sending my body anywhere. I die where I stand. I don’t have a home. And there was nothing ever really special about me. And when people used to tell me to keep a good attitude I wanted to fucking hit them in their jaw. I know the fucking truth. And I heard the story so many fucking times, niggas and their promises when they don’t really understand what it means to be alone, I mean really alone, no family, no real friends, just pity or somebody's boredom and it all ends up the same. I just belong to the system. A fucking orphan so loving me aint easy and i don't love easy, i hurt easy, so i've learned to hurt other easy, because love don't come easy for me. I mean alone when you’re raped at 12 but can’t tell anybody because nobody is listening. are you listening. have i bored or depressed you. would you rather i fucking smile and pretend when i'm plotting your death when you're alseep. they always say, he seemed so normal, but what the fuck is normal when they really should say i never asked him i just assumed because i'm just pretending like the rest of the fuckign world.

my sister says i'm angry, i say at least i'm feeling something, finally. it's like sex for me for so damn long was about nothing. everythign was about nothing but the just the clown in his make-up trying not to appear sad.

And I’m beginning to understand that’s what some have hated most about me, because I’m upfront with it, I don’t bullshit it, because I know at the end of the day, I’m the one who will have to deal with it. I’m not pretending it’s easy, and I have to know people’s intentions and they hate that about me. i ask and when they don't give the answer, i listen and watch and when i tell them what i see, they wrestle with it in their mind and tell me i'm angry or noncompliant, insurbordinate or some bullshit. a fucking rebel with a cause to keep motherfuckers from thinking i don't see thier bullshit.

It’s how I've survived. I aint giving it up. Call me the con man. call me the hustler. Call me a thief. I ain't giving it up because i know if i live long enough, shit, i become the teacher.

Funny, now that I’m getting sober, the other day my boyfriend tripped out. I haven’t been doing it that is getting drunk and having my moments, so the house was really quiet for two weeks. I think it bothered him. I think he was waiting for me to go back to my old ways. I never thought me getting sober would be such a problem with others. I thought me “acting right” would be welcomed. I thought not having the police come to the house, not fighting, not yelling, not causing unnecessary drama would be welcomed. Yet, I didn’t realize that had been my role in other people lives and if I changed, they knew they would have to change.

A quick story, before I got to DC I stayed with this guy named Charles, and one night before we went out I had him stop by the grocery store to get me a bottle of wine so that I wouldn’t have to spend a lot of money at the club. He went in the store and got the wine but as I poured it in my Big Gulp cup, he started yelling at me. He called me a drunk, trifling, sad, and pathetic and I sat sipping my cheap wine hoping it would drown the bastard out. But what I didn’t realize at the time, I played that role in his life. He yelling at me actually made him feel better about the fact he was a borderline pedophile, gambler and fraud. And when I tried to stop playing the role, I remember how he would try to tempt me like give me money or give me the car. It was as if he needed me to play the “fuck up” in his life. And at the time in my life I needed to play the role myself because I was trying to act out childhood pain. I wasn’t trying to heal. But I never thought I would get typecast in my own damn life.

This brings me back to my current relationship. Tom and I have been together on and off the last nine years. I feel as if I put him through all kinds of hell. I cheated on him. He has bailed me out of jail at least five times. He has sat by me through three suicide attempts. He’s been there after I quit many jobs. He’s taken care of me. He has sent for me when I found myself in cities I didn’t know how I was going to get out of. When I started AA and therapy, I thought in the back of my mind it was attempt for me to save our relationship. I hadn’t thought about my role. After two weeks of sobriety the house was quiet and then one day Tom came home and exploded. There were three dirty dishes in the sink. I had just gotten home from getting a new job, so I didn’t understand the problem. He started yelling and throwing things around. I sat and watched him calmly. I was trying to figure out exactly what was the problem. And then I realized, he was playing my role. He was doing what I would normally do and I suddenly became him, trying to get him to calm the fuck down. It disturbed me. It was as if even sober our relationship was the same. It was as this guy said in AA, you can take the rum out the fruit cake, but you still got the fruit cake.
Getting sober wasn’t just the issue. It was the first time in my life I knew the relationship had to end. Tom needed to be the savior and I didn’t want to play the drunk fuck up anymore. I knew the relationship had to end because he wasn’t going to change. He didn’t even feel as if he didn’t need to change. I asked him to go to a friends and family of alcoholics meeting and he refused. I knew I couldn’t be healthy with him, not in the long run. I knew I would go back to playing the role and I didn’t want to do that. Of course, the next day feeling guilt I decided to take a drink. I acted out. We had sex that night and I felt so stupid. He was suddenly happy again and I was fucking miserable.
I’m still figuring it out. One day I think I’m I got the answer? The next day I lose it. I also feel as if I’m needlessly stressing myself out. I guess it’s the 4 As, acceptance, approval, applause and appreciation.
Now I’m wondering what my life means. I have found a way to be happy but it means the world I knew is burning to the ground. But I want to see how far it’s going to go. I’m not afraid anymore. It’s the first time in my life I’m being honest and sending the world to hell.

It always seemed forced, change. Birth, didn’t even ask me if I was ready, nine months of gestation and then eviction. We all supposed to come into this world screaming. It’s the only the world know we are alive. Can’t go back. And there’s sucking on the tittie. The first food. I don’t even remember the taste. Was it good? It stopped around age two. Or when mama got tired of the selfishness. And then they stop picking me up. Make the baby walk. Take pictures. No more being held in arms and carried no matter how much I cried. Change, it always seemed forced. The diapers had to come off to be a big boy. Then it came about approval. I want to be a big boy. I want to please. Then kindergarten. Then middle school. Then high school. Soon you’re graduated. Supposed to go off to college. Grandpa told me a happy life was a good Christian girl, the fear of god and a good job to get a good house and work a hard life. I had different plans. I wanted to runaway to New York. I wanted to dance. I wanted to kiss men. I didn’t ever want to grow up. But change it always forced. Youth is a lie. Don’t learn that until it’s gone. Re-birth, didn’t even ask me if I was ready, thirty years of aimlessly searching and now its time to grow the fuck up. I didn’t know wanting to be happy was so damn selfish.

Read it again.