Tag Archives: struggles

Youthful hopes.

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The rubber strap wraps around my arm.

“This will be tight, I’ll loosen it as soon as I can…”

I’ve heard Melissa use that exact sentence probably dozens of times as she starts an IV on someone in the prep room. Melissa is tall and slim, with chin length wavy silver hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. I can’t help but ask- “So how many times do you think you’ve said that?”

She smiles. “That’s something that I’m gonna ask God when I see him. My husband wants to ask what’s the closest he’s ever been in proximity to buried treasure.”

I smile and take a deep breath as she warns me “Little poke…”

She fiddles with the tape and looks at me before she asks “If you could ask God one question, and he had to give you a straight answer, no comparisons, no parables, just something you could completely understand, what would it be?”

I try to come up with something clever but the phrase “Why me?” pounds through my head over and over, eventually leaking out my tear ducts and my lips.

Her face melts with empathy. “You mean with the struggles you’ve had to deal with?” She asks me my age and tells me that when she was my age she struggled a lot too. “You know, a friend once told me something that I found to be true. There’s people that struggle when they are young, and there’s people that experience their struggles when they get older. You’re just getting yours out of the way. Things will get better.”

Saline drips down my arm. “I sure hope so.”

“I wouldn’t have believed me when I was your age either. But know that there’s hope.”

They wheeled me into the treatment room for my weekly seizure, the ones that feel like hope.

Enough.

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Near the end of tonight’s session at Celebrate Recovery, we did an exercise where we were supposed to write down the things that we were struggling with, our baggage, or in denial about. It wasn’t particularly difficult for me to fill up the index card. I had scribbled down an “A” before the leader even finished giving us instructions. I’m perfectly willing to share my list because I am not ashamed of my struggles. They are a weakness that will allow me to grow in strength.

My list was as follows:
Alcohol has a hold on me.
I take my relationships for granted.
I am unappreciative.
I am lazy.
I am cruel.
I take advantage of people.
My suicidal tendencies are so deeply ingrained that I worry I can never change.

The segments of these that are mind sets are already a work in progress. And I am grateful to say that I currently have a week of sobriety under my belt(I know, not that impressive, but hey, you have to start somewhere.)

Early in the session we got a reminder that one cannot find self worth based on what others think.
That’s important for me to remember. I also like to remind myself that although these are truths about me now, they do not always have to be. There are also a multitude of other truths about me, ones that can qualify as affirmations.

Truths like:
I am creative.
I am intelligent.
I am good with animals.
I am quality driven.
I am skilled with my hands.
I am analytical.
I have a good eye.
I am witty.

Now, my abysmal self esteem is preventing me from coming up with too many more, but for once I’m actually pretty convinced there are some.

Also, despite that fact that I am currently going through some grief and heartache, I still find that I am improving. Smiles seem to come a little easier, a little more naturally. Some of my suicidal tendencies are starting to feel a tad absurd, for the first time. The buzzing tension that my body holds is there to teach me that as long as my heart beats, there is hope.

And that’s enough for now.