hey. thanks for that.

I fancy myself a pretty together person.  I look the part.  I have the career, the education, I tend to know my shit or can fake it really well.  But sometimes, I lose it.  And for a while there, I was unraveling... and fast.

Last Friday, I went out with a bunch of people and I stayed out way too long.  I can't put my finger on which drink exactly it was that put me over the edge, but baby, I was over the edge and there was no coming back.  So, I did what I am really good at doing in those instances:  I turned away from the crowd I was with and stormed out the door without any warning or so much as a "goodbye."  I walked and walked for many blocks until I realized that I was lost.  I looked at the time and it was nearly 5am.  I teetered around until I found something familiar and eventually, found my way home.  When I got home, I was in my head so deep, I was unreachable.  I had been broken.  The strange and truly scary thing is ... nothing really happened to make me this upset.  In fact, after I picked myself up off the floor, dried my tears and put myself to sleep, I knew that I was the one who had put myself in this prison from which I was clueless on how to escape.

But the thing is, you can't escape from your escapes.  For many years of my life, I had been escaping in various forms.  I escape through movies and television and food and smoking and drinking and people and shopping.  So, to be in this place of escape and it's a nightmare, well you see the dilemma?  When I woke up the next morning, I decided I didn't want to escape anymore.  I wanted to live my life and be present.  And this whole week has been just that.  I've been present.  I've been watching and listening and noticing, rather than judging and self-obsessing and withdrawing.  And it's been working.

They say you've got to break a person in order to put her back together and I believe that is what happened.  I am so humbled and thankful.  Friends have shown up and I won't take that for granted.  Instead of running from people, I am looking them in the eye and believing that they have good intentions.  I feel like I woke up from a weird dream and I don't need to escape anymore.  As a friend of mine said today, "every day you can walk out your door and believe that the world is either a bad place where good things happen occasionally or the world is a good place where bad things happen occasionally.  It's your choice."  I want to believe the latter.  And I do.  At least right now, in this moment, I really do.