Stay Gold, Ponyboy

I’m lying in my bed at with a billion different thoughts running through my mind. First, why the hell do I have to listen to my housemate’s stupid TV blaring “Family Guy” at 2AM? Why is she so thoughtless? Why can’t she do her chores on time? Why can’t she buy the correct carbon monoxide detectors after I printed out the right ones and then, when she forgot to take the printouts with her, texted her the models? How can they still not be the plug-in ones and why did she spend a billion dollars too much? And how the hell am I going to get out of work on time tomorrow as we’re packing up to move and I have to get to treatment by 5:45PM to UA or it’s a probation violation? What about the plumber coming for the stinking, leaking toilet downstairs and whether the landlord is coming, too, which means are the stupid carbon monoxide detectors up and visible? And what about those 200+ pages of “Ulysses” I need to finish by 2PM Saturday? Huh, when?

I can tell you a few things that aren’t running through my mind: can I make it until the pharmacy opens to pick up another forged prescription? Will I get arrested this time? Will my parents bail me out? Will I go to prison? Will my family speak to me ever again? Will I have another seizure in front of my mom or my 14-year-old niece from drug withdrawal? Will my husband divorce me? (Ha! Can only do it once!)

Nope, nope, nope. Buckets full of nope crashing into a sea of nope. That’s what is not going through my head. My life is SRSLY golden. I am excruciatingly lucky to live in a house in the Alberta Arts District, one of the most fun neighborhoods in Portland. It’s a great house filled with strong, beautiful women all struggling, successfully, with the same disease I do: addiction. Every day I get to look at myself with wise eyes and decide if I’m making the right choices in all things, not just regarding whether to use. Whether I’m being honest with myself and others, whether I’m being responsible, whether I’m being a perfectionist, whether I’m a good, trustworthy employee, whether I can hold dear to the once 14-year-old who is now a 17-year-old and make living amends for the terror I must have put her (and my mommy) through. Whether I’m capable of being an open, loving, honest partner to the man I love. All those things are choices and require thought and vigilance, constant vigilance.

Today is one year clean for me. I can’t believe I just got to experience a loud, barky Thanksgiving with all my favorite Garcias (sans one) when I am not sure whether I was even invited last year. I know last Fall, my brother couldn’t bear to be in the same room with me, could not look at me without disgust. Now, he picks me up nearly every Saturday to go to our “Ulysses” Book Club where I get to marvel at how smart I actually am and gain confidence that I can trust my brain a little more each day. That while it does lie to me about my ability to use drugs, I can tame those thoughts and keep them at bay with consistent attention to doing the right things, for the right reasons.



I get to have a wonderful, supportive relationship with my second cousin and revel in the joy her family brings me. Her delightful kids have never seen me using and awful. They just think of me as goofy Wendy who takes them to OMSI and teaches them to say, "See you tamale!"

I get to experience an intimate, loving relationship with someone I respect and adore and also want to kick sometimes. But that’s okay. ‘Cuz I get to laugh with him more than ever. There is no one I trust more. I get to be a strong, powerful woman. I get to be a goofball. I get to be an employee that people trust and can count on. I get to be the co-worker that makes things a little easier by being positive and trying to lift people up. By always trying to be better, accepting constructive criticism and being willing to do things differently. By not being an asshole. Though I can still be an asshole. Now I can apologize and actually mean it.

I understand I’ll never completely have this under control. One of my housemates described her addiction perfectly: “It’s like a pet. I know it will be with me forever and I’ll always have to take care of it. But now I feed it differently.” Like with honesty, acceptance, willingness, love, ownership, thoughtfulness and constant vigilance.