Current mood:
nostalgic Category: Life
At the age of 21 I was burnt out, partied out, depressed and semi-homeless after a couple years of self destruction.Something had to change .My life was so bleak that I thought there was no hope. Looking back its just ridiculous to think at the age of 21 I had no future. Thats what an addictive personality and a lust for a chemical rush will do to you.
A few random moments changed everything. One of those random life changers was a temporary nurse at work whose name I can't even remember. I was working as the 6pm-6am nurses aid in a geriatric psych unit at a job I truly loved and was good at. My charge nurse and friend Maude who was an incredible partner in the crazy world of the locked psych unit for two years had just left and I was suddenly being tormented by her replacement, a Nurse Ratchett wannabe. (she probably wasn't that bad..but thats how it felt at the time.)
I would work an exhausting 12hour shift with her then try to find a way back to the unheated tiny trailer I was staying in, which was located in a cow pasture on the property of my aunts boyfriend's invalid mother. Since my aunt was away in rehab I usually had to hitchhike home at 6 in the morning. It probably would have been more depressing if I stopped to think about it, but the only thing on my mind at all times was the never ending task of feeding my addiction and still hitchhiking back to work on time.
At about the time when I was realizing that I couldn't keep this up, I worked for about a week with a new nurse who was filling in for Nurse Ratchett. This girl was very cool. She was a plain looking, short Asian girl, close to my age, but she had a beautiful personality. Her Romanian husband who picked her up some times was too fucking die for supermodel hot, by the way.
We had a lot of time to talk during the night and I was fascinated with the trip she took to Europe during college. I had just read a book from the late 60's about two girls who hitchhiked around Europe from adventure to adventure and I was starting to get a hunger to do the same thing.
Something about her stories fanned the flames of my newfound European obsession and soon I was determined. That determination was what I needed to find the strength in me to fight crank and take my life back.
It could have been anything maybe, but with Europe as my goal I was finally able to say fuck you to the meth monster I had given control of my life too. There was no way I could afford to go if I was using and I wanted to stop. My best friend since high school, Jennifer, was adament that I come and live with her family and get clean. Living with Jenn and not being around the users and dealers I had surrounded myself with was key to my taking my life back.I thank the Goddess for Jenn's friendship and that nurse whose name I can't remember for igniting the fighter in me who had been lying in a fetal position for too damn long. It wasn't easy, but once I was determined it really wasn't that hard.
Unfortunately when your body doesn't have the chemical energy it had gotten used to it was harder than hell to stay awake all night at work. When I was high I was super aid. I did my regular duties as well as organized residents closets, charted their horoscopes, decorated for holidays, fought for their rights, etc. etc. Now suddenly I couldn't even stay awake. I was actually told " your just not doing the work you used to." After Nurse Ratchett caught me sleeping in an empty bed one to many times it was over for me at that job.
That was ok, because I was going to Europe! Now! In March I left my new nursing home job, bought a one way ticket to Amsterdam with the full intention of hitchhiking around Europe for a few years and got on a plane with less than $500 dollars in my pocket. Obviously my brain was still a little fried from the chemicals, because I look back now and think...what the fuck?
What happened after I got off the plane halfway across the world from everyone and everything I knew is for another blog. Now that the setup is out of the way I will tell that story real soon
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