day one, or a step into normalcy

Having a "regular" blog is just a step into normalcy, as my life has been anything since for the past... well, long time. They call me Shelly. In the past I've been everything from "Dan's girl" to "that one girl who sells the pills" to "junkie" to "the bald girl... no, not the lesbian, the other one." I've not only been at the top of the mountain and the bottom of the abyss, but I've been in all the little towns and valleys in between. I don't know where I'm at now, but I know I don't even see mountains. I can't see anything past the blackness and void. I'm 21 going on 50, as Shane likes to say about me. Everyone says that about me. What is it about me that, until one gets a visual, makes me seem much older than I really am? When people hear about me or read my writings, they find it hard to believe I'm only 21. Once they see my face, on the other hand, no one believes I have made it to 21. I get carded every day of my life, and that's just buying cigarettes. But regardless of appearence or experience, I am 21 years of age. I should be enjoying myself much more than I have been, I think, while some might argue that I've been enjoying myself far too much.

Rewind 8 years. 13 years old, and already a punk kid. Wore all black just for the shock value of it. Got wasted at punk rock shows. Hung with older guys. Carried an air of superiority and insanity around other girls my age; after all, I could chug a bottle of Jack Daniels to the head while they sipped on half-flat beers liberated from the Shell station's back room. Age 14: Discovered cocaine and then heroin. Age 15: Discovered the needle and got sent away, to live in Christian boarding school. Age 17: Graduated from said boarding school and met long-time boyfriend Micheal. Age 18: Discovered crack cocaine, ran with that for a few months, then got as far away from it as I could. Discovered that men would pay good money (crack money?) just to spend a short while with a blond 18-year-old woman. Age 19: Re-discovered Lady Heroin and her instruments of destruction. Before you could say, "every junkie's just a setting sun" I was eyeball-deep in the dope and the dope lifestyle. Age 21: Got arrested for the 10th time and was separated from Micheal, I have been trying to put it back together with him since then with very little luck.

Well, what's new in my world? I'm not on the hammer, for one thing. It's been over 24 hours now, I suppose I should be really patting my ass for this "accomplishment" but I have a feeling that my body is plotting how to get one last bag into me without involving my brain. And hell, it might succeed. My brain has set precedent for letting actions slip by that you'd think a brain would be able to catch. Heroin addiction has nothing to do with the brain. It starts there, but soon it's taken over your entire body and you can't get rid of it. No matter what. I could never touch hammer again, I could live to be 100 years old, and I will still lay in bed night after night and wish I had just one little bag to help me sleep. It doesn't happen with any other drug. When I was on coke, I knew there were certain times and places where it was completely inappropriate to be geeked out. With marijuana, you sleep and you eat and you watch TV but not much else happens. With speed and pills, you use them as medication when you need a sudden burst of energy or a blast in the opposite direction. But with heroin, life passes right in front of you and you can't understand how you didn't realize it. Bedtime? I need a shot to help me sleep. Mealtime? A bag will bring back my appetite. Morning? I can't function without a wake-up shot. Work? I wouldn't think of facing it sober. After work? No better way to kick back than with a bag of dope. And it's a slow progression, you don't even realize it, but suddenly you need heroin to do ANYTHING. From watching a movie to tying your shoes to walking to the gas station for a pack of cigarettes, a needle has to be involved. I get dressed to go to Burger King for some fries, spend 30 minutes struggling with a blood-filled apparatus and suddenly it smacks (no pun intended) me right in the face.

"Why do I have to numb myself in order to go get french fries?"

"Shut the fuck up and do what you have to do."

And so for a while, I did. Or so I thought. In reality I was doing exactly the opposite. I didn't do anything that I HAD to do, but rather everything that I wanted to do. And that's how life goes to shit. Pursuit of pleasure, pursuit of oblivion, pursuit of money to obtain oblivion. There isn't room for much else when those are your first priorities. And your only priorities. So, I decided to quit the hammer. With pharmaceuticals and some good weed to help me, how can I fail? Let me count the ways...