The Introduction

well, I will say, I wish I could make a more elaborate page, but I'm one: too lazy to learn how to make a page better looking, and two: even if I did know, I wouldn't do it anyway.

So, that's out of the way. There- that's what I look like so the vanity part of everything can be taken away. It's been a while since I've tried to do something online other than fiction. The idea of publicly journaling my life is interesting to me- to share the thoughts of my day with the rest of the world, to play the opposite of the voyeur, wondering if that grants me the right to play the voyeur, somehow gives me strength to write down the things in my head that I usually lead to myself.

I'll tell you right now that, that I'm stuck in the south. I live in San Antonio, Texas, and it's not bad. I spent half my life in College Station, Texas, and if there's any town in Texas I miss, it's College Station. Really, though, I miss the Midwest. I miss, Ann Arbor, which used to be home, where I initially went to college. I miss Chicago where I lived before Texas. I also miss New England and New York. I miss the snow and the clouds and the biting wind and the autumn and changes that reminds me that no matter how fast or slow that life moves on, I'll always have the dependable colors to rely upon.

It's been four years since I've seen that view. And while I don't regret leaving, or at least now, I don't regret leaving, I do feel a nostalgia for it. I was thinking, the other day, about what got me here, to where I am today, and I think about what a catalyst Michigan was in my life.

What I mean is that Michigan is where my drug addiction blew up. My friends will tell you that where I am now is a completely different place then where I was in 2003 and 2004. When I moved back to College Station, I was homeless and covering up bruises on my arm, and afraid of being touched. I'm not saying this to receive pity, but because I believe at some point, I'll find some other addict or alcohol out there, that's my age that can relate.

It's a strange thing, at 22 years of age, and having to admit to being powerless under a thing like heroin, cocaine, and alcohol. Having to realize, as I did 13 months ago, crying on my father's lap, that there's something inherently wrong with me. And the funny thing is, I'd already gone to two rehabs and a psych ward. Of course, wait was in front of me then was another stint in rehab and another time in an institution (hopefully, my last for both). I cried on my father's lap because I knew he wasn't going to let me get a drink from his cabinet and I knew he wasn't going to let me leave the house to get high and I realized poignancy of that idea. How strange it was that I was confined to a prison of my own making and that's when I really realized that I was an addict, but an addict beyond saying, hey, I'm sketch and I'm an addict like i've done so many times before in my life.

But it's a strange thing, I've thought about recently, as I've begun college life again here in San Antonio again for the first time in many years, living in an apartment complex surrounded by college students, it's a strange thing to not drink, party, get fucked up, and even stranger to not have the desire any more to want to. It's not a matter of will power, and I didn't get smarter or more mature, that's for sure, I just became free. I took some work, the 12 steps, and a miracle of a higher power gracing my life. It sounds so strange sometimes to think about it, but sometimes, I'll look at my arm, and I can see tiny scars, and I'll want to cry, and I don't even know why. Is it because I'm still alive, not in prison, because I'm no longer homeless, or is it because of my police record, and I've been homeless, or because I've seen life through the eyes of an addict, which no matter how shitty a movie or book can make it seem, just like I'll never understand what it will be like to be a veteran of a war, addiction takes a collateral of your life that sometimes seems excessive and undeserving.

But I'm here now. I've lived in San Antonio for only a few months, and spend most of my time to myself. When I'm not in meetings or in class, I'm in my efficiency studying, reading, writing, or playing guitar. My closest friends are scattered, my closest being in College Station, one in Korea, and some in Kerrville, where I got sober. I like the solitude, though. I wouldn't call myself a loner, as some people here have called me, it's just I don't like the pissing contests that tend to go on when a group of people meet.

But... that's the introduction. Basically, what I hope will come out of this will be a place for me to just ramble about whatever is on my mind, I just wanted to give anyone who reads this an idea of what my mind is.

deuces.