Leaps of.........Faith?

Hey!  It's been a WHILE! I have SO many reasons and excuses as to why it has been so long....but that would take so much typing on my part and reading on yours.  Short and sweet.......Life.  Life gets hard, life gets good, life gets sad, and life gets amazing.    It never stays in one category.  Mine usually bounces back and forth between all of those very swiftly. Day by day, even.  Single mom living paycheck to paycheck.....you all know......right?  Most of you know, I am sure.
A lot has changed.   I am living my best life.  Right now.  To me that means I am succeeding in staying open minded, and am available to learn and to receive life's lessons.  People can have everything they wish for, but if they aren't teachable, they will never live their best life.  I have soooooo much to learn, but  I am happy with my view of life.

I work and I take care of my 3 year old daughter.  I don't hang out with friends and I don't date.  I HAVE friends and we talk often, but life is busy, man.  I am exhausted.  My career is not an easy one.  By the time my work day is over, I pick my daughter up from daycare, get home, make dinner, give her a bath, read a book, and put her in bed......there's nothing left.   I started painting about a year ago.   It is something I love and am very passionate about.  After my daughter goes to bed, I will spend an hour or two in the silence of my home and create.  It comes from my soul and I will never stop making art. I talk to the girls daily and see them as often as I can.  Collette is going to College and has the most beautiful 2 year old daughter.  Holly is in management at a company she works for and is getting ready to go on maternity leave.  Her son is almost 3 and her new son will be born any day.  Life is good.  Family is good.

That does not mean life is easy.  There are many days I am completely defeated.

Being clean for so many years......you would think I would be at some kind of point to where I am not affected by temptation.  I even thought that.....until I couldn't.   I have had many triggers, many break downs, and many angry, frustrated moments of wanting to throw in the towel for that one moment.  Sober life is hard.  You have to manage everything.  You can't......just....not.  When stress comes, in whatever form, you HAVE to keep being a grown up and find a solution.  You can't say "fuck it", throw your hands in the air and take a night off.  When things become SO stressful and everything has added up to the point to where you physically are incapable of putting your shoulders back down to where they belong, and your whole body hurts from being tense and you cannot figure out how you're going to pay your electric bill and your daughter has decided she is going to make you late for work AGAIN because she doesn't want you to put her pants on and she also doesn't want to put them on herself.....so she is on the floor kicking and screaming....... or whatever it may be....it is IMPOSSIBLE to get through those times without a thought of heroin popping up in my mind in one way or another. And I'm not saying that every time Jill throws a tantrum, or I'm short on rent I think....HEROIN.....I mean when shit has been happening for days and weeks, and the storm continues instead of slows down.  Sometimes it's cunning, and you don't even realize you're thinking about it, and other times it's right there....first and foremost in your brain.......and it sucks. I am at a point in my life to where I am happy.....but I am stressed the fuck out.   I have to be pretty careful with myself around writing this blog.  To have these memories so heavy on my brain WHILE I'm trying to find ways to practice self care and while I'm trying to find outlets to help me relax......it can become very tricky.  These memories are nothing but down time.   Whether we were hustling or not, the only "responsibility" I had was to find more drugs to feel better.  There were no bills, there was no mortgage, or anything like I am living today.   If I'm not careful, these memories start to sound good.   I can easily trick myself into thinking that numb is better than this stress.


I am going to dive back into my story, but I am going to change format.  I have written events in order as best as I could until now.   I can't remember what happens next.  I remember all of the things that happened, but I can't put them in order for the life of me.  Also, all of the feedback I get from readers is that the way my blog is set up is very difficult to read....BECAUSE.....they need to be in order.  From now on I am going to write parts of my story that are significant, but do not have to be read one after the other.

We left off with Christmas coming and I will tell you that it was the most sad Christmas in the history of Christmases in my little family.   I did not get presents.  I got heroin.  I did not spend Christmas with my girls.  I went to my moms house, empty handed, and stayed for maybe an hour and then left.   I cannot imagine what that did to the girls........I cannot.   I don’t have a whole lot to say about it because when I do think about it..... when the memory pops up.... I am completely filled with shame.  I remember the way they looked.  Pretending to be okay.  “It’s okay mom, we know you’re trying to get money for a house.” And “it’s not about presents anyway” .  Then I remember the look on both of their faces when I told them I had to leave.   Why did I have to leave?   I don’t know.  I wasn’t in the ‘go to family and hang out for holidays’ mode.  The disappointment from my parents was thick...and rightly so....but it gave me that reason to not stick around.  I was out of place.  I was in too deep.

I am going to write about another trip we took back up to Astoria.  We had lost the hotel....I was living with my parents again, and Ger was living where ever he could.   Again.   I had bought a brand new car.....while working at the Dr. Office.  But literally maybe one month after I bought the car, my office manager had decided to talk to me about her concerns.  She asked me one day, "Are you using drugs?"  I was very taken back.  I said "No".  She said "If you need help, we can help you.  We can send you through rehab and you can keep your job, Missy, let us help you."  I told her I did not need anyone's help and I never went back to that job again. Almost 10 years of medical assisting, and all of the extras I gained in that career......over.  I had only had my x-ray license for a few months. The Dr. I worked for had been there for me....through my abusive relationship with Damion, ending in the death of my daughter.  They knew my life was spiraling.  Which is why I believe they tried to hold on to me for so long.  They tried so hard to help me through .....all the shit.  So there I was.  No home, no job, brand new expensive car.  Addicted to heroin.  Turned down any and all offers for help.  I was in a phase of thinking that went something like this.  "I love heroin.  I want to use heroin.  I WILL continue to use heroin.  At all cost."  I did not understand that I was running so fast and hard from all of the things I was running from.  Maybe I did.  But it isn't the way my mind thought about it.
Ger and I decided the very best thing to do in this situation is to.......become massive drug dealers.  We took my last paycheck and bought I don't know how many oxys.  We were going to take them to Astoria and sell them and buy heroin and bring it back to sell and again and again until we had enough money to buy a house in Astoria. We were known in our home town.  People didn't like us.  Didn't trust us. Especially Ger.  I know that a lot of people blamed him for my spiral. He was a known junkie and I hadn't been.  It was not his fault.  I sought it out.  All of it.  When my daughter died, my soul died.  I know I have said this before, but it was suicide or numbness. We had been making a very bad name for ourselves, and the idea of starting over sounded happy.   My girls were still living with my mom and dad.  The plan was to go back and forth for a while until we had the money to get the girls and start over.  I told my mom the part of the plan about taking the girls and relocating them.  I could see the fear and worry in her eyes.   I told her that they were MY kids not hers.  I left.
First of all, Ger and I had injected nearly all of the oxys before we even left our county.  So that sort of gave us a rough start.( As far as selling them.....)   We didn't care though because ......high. The plan was to stay with Gers' Grandma and Grandpa for a while to get on our feet.  Ger was also going to try to get a logging job. When we arrived, his Grandparents were not home.  They had been on vacation or something.....so Ger broke into their RV that was parked outside. Ger had not told them we were coming.  There was hard feelings in his family....with his chosen life style.  Trust was not there.  Disappointment was.   I was so fucking high I remember just crawling into the bed, not knowing where we really were. I knew we had broken into a room to sleep in. I knew that Ger was in and out and then eventually laid down by me and we slept.  Maybe for days.  When we did wake up we had nothing.  We needed to get some heroin.  His Grandparents still weren't home....their house was locked up tight. Ger told me that he had some guns in the house that were his.  Maybe handed down and he was able to take them because they belonged to him. So now it was a matter of getting into the house.   He managed.  He got a gun and we went "to the hood", where his "family" lived.   The woman who helped raise him as a teenager, who I have written about before. We were happy to see everyone again, and of course, all the drugs that came with being present in that house.  Ger got the word out that he had a gun for sale and he sold it. Quickly.  (It was a magical place.....things always seemed to go our way when we were there. )   I don't know to who or any details about this.  I know he had money.  We took a trip with his "brother" and his girlfriend to somewhere in Washington and got the darkest, sickest, heroin ever.   Do a load, eyes rolling, body rushing, and fall asleep heroin.  We were driving in the dark and hard pouring rain down windy roads.  I remember his brother telling Ger from the back seat to drive smooth so his girlfriend could hit him in the neck.  Then, sleep again.
We stayed with his "family" for a while. I am not sure how long a while is.  I wrote the girls letters and mailed them. We would run out of money and Ger would go get another gun.   Sell it.  Get heroin.  When we weren't nodding out.....we were out looking for places to live and a job for Ger. (We were delusional.....I mean....really....We had nothing....stolen goods, a car about to be taken back by the bank, and a very drug induced vision.) Though delusional, it's all I wanted.  I REALLY wanted the life we were dreaming of.  I loved Ger.  I did.  I still love Ger.  I always will.  I will write more about that another time.  I just KNEW we could do it if we tried hard enough.  People do it all the time.  Make good money, take care of their families, and stay high.  As hard as I wished for this, I knew somewhere in the back of my mind....it wouldn't happen.  If it did, it wouldn't last.  I was the only one who had worked throughout our relationship.  Before we were together he had worked.....when he was married.  He had been a logger for a long time and took care of his family.  My guess is that he wasn't in as deep during that time period.  And together....we just wanted drugs so bad.   It was what kept us both numb.....i.e.......happy.  He had his trauma, and I had mine.  We understood each other on a deep unspoken level. We both wanted the life......we did.  We were not adults.  We didn't know it, though.  We didn't know we didn't have adult and life skills.  We knew we were junkies, but we knew nothing of what was missing in our brains.
  We visited with his old friends and family members.  One woman we visited had a large amount of pain medication sitting out in the open in her home.   Ger would take a couple of oxy 80s every time we visited.  We felt like we were on the high road.  Always had heroin AND pills.  Always had cash.  Astoria and surrounding areas are absolutely beautiful.   You have the ocean and forest.  I loved it there so much.  Plus, everyone loved Ger so much.....I was the trophy wife.....(You know.....when you're using drugs so heavily you THINK you look as amazing as you feel)....we had a bad ass sports car...(that we were two months behind on payments for).....it was a different life. A different crowd. We were the "high class" junkies. The cool ones.  We were missed and we were wanted and accepted.  Not like at home where everyone was sick of our shit.  Over us. I felt important.  I felt I had my shit together.....That, along with being loaded, were two of the best feelings I could feel.  Half of it, a fake reality.....delusional, even....the other half.....a very deep and dark sickness....pain that I did not allow myself to contemplate.
We went hard.  For a while.  Selling guns, selling pills, sticking needles into our veins probably 20 plus times per day.   I don't remember where we were, but I remember this moment very clearly. It was dark, so it was night. Someone walked up and told Ger and I that they had seen our faces on some sort of a paper......a flyer....? stating that we have been selling stolen guns and to call a number if anyone recognizes us.  So.......that caught my attention. Caught my attention, but consequences weren't a reality to me.   We did what we wanted.  We lived to feed our addiction.  Our addiction kept us so numb that the consequences we HAD faced, didn't register.  We were choosing this, right?  Ger said "no way.....there's no way this is true", because the guns aren't stolen....they were his.  However, at that point we stopped our activities.  We started new ones.   We ran out of money quickly with the news of our faces in print.   Ger had ideas. We drove to the city in Washington where the icky tar was located.  We went to the house and I stayed in the car while Ger went in and spoke with whoever was inside the house.  There were several big and mean dogs outside on long chains. The house was huge but run down with dirt all around it.....and things.  Things like mattresses, parts of cars, etc. The doors to on the house didn't look like doors.  They looked like thick solid pieces of wood had been hammered over the tops (making the doorways ......not doorways.) He walked in through a curtain.....sheet....on the lowest level.....that looked like it went down....into an underground room.  I sat in the car....watching the dogs pace back and forth...and I was scared.  I wanted Ger to come back out.  He did not emerge for about 3 hours.  I was furious, frightened, and at one point thought maybe he was dead.  We had never been there without his brother before.  It was a risk.  We took that risk.  When he surfaced, he was smiling.  That meant good things.  We went there empty handed......so I was super curious on what had just taken place. He got into the car and showed me the black.   We drove down the road a little and I learned that he had given his food card in exchange for heroin......with an understanding of cash......soon.  I did my load........my glorious, eyes rolling to the back of my head,  neck falling back, load and was more than ready to figure out our next move.  Ger already had it figured out.  He drove us to a big department store.  He told me to stay in the car.  I did.  About a half hour later he came out pushing a cart FULL of.....Pampers baby wipes, Huggies diapers, ......and I'm talking about the huge count boxes...and more.   Multiple boxes of the same items. The cart was heaping full to where he had to have his hand up on top of the boxes to keep it all from falling out.   He loaded up the trunk and the back of the car.  We drove to an apartment complex.  The parking lot was in the middle....as the apartments were shaped around us like the letter U.   He opened the trunk and the back car doors and went and knocked on an apartment door. A man looked out the door and around Ger and at my car.   His wife came to the door.  She went and knocked on a door a few doors down.  All of a sudden our car was surrounded and Ger was saying $10 for that box....$20 for this box....and it was all gone....and we had a lot of cash.  WTF just happened?!  How did that even work just now?   He got out of the store with a HUGE cart full of diapers without paying for any of it.  We sold every single item in under 10 minutes.  We drove back to the house with no doors.
Looking back at all this......it sounds SO risky and so scary.  In the moment.....it was just life.  We did what we did to avoid reality.  At all costs. Prison......not a concern.  We were invincible.  It was normal.  Hustling, surviving.
At some point we ended back up at the place we had been staying.  We headed back to his "brothers" bedroom, and some weird things were taking place...that we walked in on.  Videos were being made. Two men.....with the girlfriend behind the camera.  It was graphic, what we walked in on.   They made money this way to support their heroin habit.  They had a buyer.....a guy....who paid pretty well for these videos.  All consensual and adults.  Nothing wrong here.........right?  Today looking back it makes me deeply sad.....the things people do to feel well.  Including me.  The harder you go, the more you need, the more you need.......the more creative you get.

Ger and I made many more trips to Washington ....to the store....to the apartment complex.....to the house with no doors. We did not get caught.  I remember him coming back to the car one time and saying, "That's it."  He was done.  He had gotten away with it more times than he should have and felt his time was running out.  Pretty smart, really.....he knew when to stop. However, we were quickly running out of.......everything. 

We decided to go back to his grandparents for one last......try. We weren't ready to give up.   Again, they were not home.  We got into the house.......got a gun......sold it.  We got some black and decided to sleep at his grandparents house.  Inside.  Not in the RV.  That black was SO .......strong......smelling it almost made me sick.   We hit it ....and did HUGE loads.  Loads the size of......we might die and we might not".   I remember we were on the floor.....and it took us DOWN.   I woke up and it had been about 17 hours.   I wasn't even sure if I was awake....or dead or somewhere in between.   Ger was on the floor..... eyes closed....and in a very unnatural position.  I crawled over to him and tried to wake him.  He would not wake.  He wasn't cold.  He was breathing ...but very shallow.  I faded back out. We woke up......I don't know how much longer it had been.   It was night.  No one was home or had been home.   We did another load each.  He came over to me and wrapped his arms around me.   When he held me it felt like nothing I had felt before.  I couldn't get enough of his affection.   It didn't hurt like what I had been used to before him. We were so high.....and we wanted each other.  I asked him to hit me again.....and that was foreplay.   Licking the blood off my arm......and it went from there.  We were full on rough fucking on the living room floor when we heard a key.....a door unlock and open.  Grandparents were home.  He threw a blanket at me and jumped up with a pillow covering his dick.   "Grandma!  I'm sorry.....this is Miss....hold on.....I didn't know you were coming home..."  Jesus Christ.....am I high anymore or is it fucking gone......It felt gone. We got dressed.  He gave some spiel about coming to visit them and they weren't home so we let ourselves in....blah blah blah.   They were VERY concerned.  They weren't unkind, but it felt like my parents.  Un-trusting, sad, on guard. They gave us the guest room and said we could stay a night.  It ended quickly.  The next morning we were planning on bailing.  I started taking things out to my car.....and Ger......went to get ..... one....more...gun.   He had it in his hand and turned around....right into his Grandpa.   I don't remember if words were said.  Maybe "I'm sorry" quietly from Ger.   We left.   It makes me deeply sad to write this.  We hurt so many people. We had done this to my family, and now his.


We hadn't found jobs, or a house. We had been running hard.  For a long time. Brothers girlfriend told us that she knew of some vacation homes that were empty that we could stay in for a while....So, we packed up our car, took her with us.....and decided to see where this took us.  She wasn't lying.  She brought us to this big, beautiful vacation rental.  We got in, and made it home for a few days.  We had black...but not enough to last us very long.   She said she was empty handed and was planning on detoxing in the vacation home.  We knew she was lying, so when she fell asleep we ransacked her and her belongings.  We took all that she had.  We left.  Her there.  Sleeping, and headed back for home.   We stopped by his friends house on the way out.  The friend with the 80's.   Ger knocked on her door.  She was home.  He somehow managed to take her entire Rx right out from under her.   Enough to last the drive home.  Maybe a day or two more....if we could be satisfied with being well and not high.  Not likely.
There would be no moving to Astoria to start our lives over.  We got out of there without one or both of us going to prison and we were both grateful for that.  We had nothing to come back to.   Ger had no where to stay......
I was pissed.   Like, why didn't he just get a fucking job?  I WANTED to take the girls and move up there.  If he worked, we could have heroin every day and just be functioning....like I always was when he was in jail. Now it was going to go back to the same shit.....me looking for work, him staying with friends, me driving him around......and I was over it.  Not enough to leave, or get clean, but I was super annoyed.  Arriving back was a pretty harsh reality check.  My parents were not happy......I had to tell my girls we failed.....Ger was off doing who knows what.  I was about to break.  It had been such an amazing time.......endless drugs, people who liked being around us.....no responsibility.....and now......the same gross town....the same sick people.....not near as much opportunity.....and no money.  Also, my mom let me know that while we were gone, someone had shown up at her house several times looking for my car.  To reposes it.   That's fucking awesome.  Then I wouldn't even be able to look for work.  My frame of mind went dark fast.

I woke up at my parents house the next morning to sounds that were not familiar.   I heard yelling and .....what sounded like ...a big truck?  I ran downstairs and my dad was pissed and looking out the window.  There was a tow truck with my car hooked to the back and.....Ger....was out there yelling.  What was he doing here?   He was yelling "Let me get my things out!" to the tow truck driver and hitting the side of the car.   Well....he had came up late that night to sleep in the car and was awoken to it being pulled away and jumped out as it was moving.  I ran out there and started screaming.  At the tow truck driver....at Ger.  My dad came out and told me to come in the house and told Ger to leave.  I ran upstairs and started throwing shit around my room.....I was sick.  I had nothing.   I couldn't GO get anything now.....I was DONE.   I  ran downstairs and grabbed a kitchen knife.  My girls were there.  My dad was there.  My dad started yelling at me to knock it off...and I stood in the middle of the stairwell and held the knife up.  I yelled "I'M DONE. I"M FUCKING JUST.......DONE".  I took the knife and slit my wrist.  I either passed out or blacked out.   Next thing I knew the cops were there and they handcuffed me and put me in the back seat of their vehicle.   I watched my girls watching me as they pulled down the driveway with me chained up in the back.  I started banging my head against the window...HARD.  The last thing I remember is seeing blood dripping down the inside of the glass.

*****It's a strange experience for me to write about these times of my life.  From where I'm sitting now.  It flows easily......but as I read back on what I write....it startles me.   We were selling guns.  We were stealing and selling in a dangerous routine with people we didn't even know.....We were breaking into homes.....stealing from them and living in them, we were involved with some very dangerous people, We witnessed sex videos being made to be sold for drug money....I was losing my mind......it was deteriorating.   To the point of being unable to think clear enough to stop myself from cutting my arm open in front of my children. I am unable to even write everything in these blogs, because.....a lot of it....is too much.   I was along for the ride, and involved in doing these things with NO thought of .....maybe we shouldn't.   NONE.  We were on a fast ride that purposely didn't give time for consideration.  Our minds were doing several things at once.   Protecting ourselves from our trauma, disguising crime as harmless, and constantly working on our next hustle.  We lived under a delusion.  A delusion that we would win this fight.  We would get to keep up our life style, get married, raise our girls, and have everything we could possibly want.  It was going to happen. It was.