I want to start off by saying that I can't stop crying.I did it.I'm 30 years old.I've had a baby, I've finally figured out why I've been using drugs and treating myself and others the way I have for the past 15 years, and I faced the moment in my life that changed everything.I had been refusing to think about, talk about or relive it since it happened.
I don't feel like celebrating my birthday this year.I'm exhausted. I'm drained.I'm a single mom working as a waitress, and did I mention that I'm exhausted? I woke up with a feeling of dread and that I am not good enough.I woke up feeling like I've done nothing with my life but sit around and party.I woke up feeling so much shame and so much guilt, I was paralyzed with fear.
I couldn't move my body.I couldn't open my eyes.I wanted everything to just go away.I wanted to lay in bed forever.
Then like a clear sign from somewhere, I feel two little feet kick my head.I hear Joey start to chatter to herself.I hear her little voice start to ooh and ahhh and chuckle to herself, and just like that, I'm mom.I'm forced to snap out of my self pity, guilt and shame and I'm forced to buck up, strap on my mom boots and march forward;to the kitchen and make us breakfast.
I haven't really had a chance to heal.I've had brief moments where I get to lay by myself and feel everything I've done and try to move through it and make sense of it all.But these days I'm usually kicked in the head, farts in my face and cleaning pee off the floor.
Life.All of this screams life to me now.I'm 30.Sober almost 2 years and I'm barely breathing most of the time.
In this moment I feel numb.My body likes to do this to me.It likes to go into survival mode and make me not feel anything.I have to force myself to feel.
So that's what I promised myself.I promised myself for my 30th birthday I'd go back.I'd go back to where I think my life went to sh*t. I'd go back to where I lost view of my path and where my car sped off the highway and onto an unknown dark road.
I went back to where I was rapped.When I would think of this place I pictured this dark, lonely, dewy park where there was nobody.All I could see in this park was my black Victoria Secret wired bra and my pants around my ankles.
You see, I've been peeling away the layers of this experience.It's been 15 years of drugs and alcohol painted on top of one another, waiting to be peeled off one at a time.So I went back.I consider this park one of the first layers.This is where the incident occurred.
I brought a trusted friend with me.Someone I knew who could sit with my pain and let me be.Someone who would let me revisit my experience of being rapped and not try and save me from it.
I knew from memory which street it was.I could tell it was the right one because my body started to tense.Memories started flooding back.I used to hang out on this street with my friends.It used to be a happy place for me.It used to represent innocence and freedom.Now all I felt driving down this street was shame and horror.
We parked at the end of the street where the park was located.At this point I wanted to get back in my car and drive away, far away.I keep trying to convince myself that I'm okay and that I'm already healed.This is a sign that I am most definitely not healed.This is my body being scared and not wanting me to feel.My body is trying to survive by hiding.This is what drugs and alcohol did for me.They helped me hide.
I walk down the walkway to the entrance of the park.To my surprise there are children and families everywhere.Kids are running by me laughing and panting from playing so hard."This place feels so.. nice" I thought to myself.The sun was starting to set.The lighting around me was filled with reads and oranges.The park looked so inviting, so not scary.
My friend and I kept walking.I felt this gravitational pull towards the baseball field."I think this is where it happened", I said to my friend.We then sat on the bleachers and watched the softball game that was in action.
I replayed the whole night to my friend and he just sat and listened, asking questions a long the way.Old memories kept resurfacing that I had forgotten.So many of them were so tragic, so confusing."You are such a strong person, Molly".These words that my friend said rang so true.I feel them now.I feel stronger.I feel.I've always associated feeling with weakness.I think that's why I've gotten into so much trouble all these years.
What surprised me, sitting at the park, was not the incident itself.The part that hurt the most was being blamed and made fun of it for it by my classmates afterwards.Sitting at the park I sat there and still I couldn't figure out why people blamed me for being rapped.I sat there and I realized that I have been blaming myself all these years.I truly felt it was my fault.That I somehow wanted it and that I somehow deserved it.Knowing this, I felt a great sense of peace wash over me.I felt my shoulders relax and my heart rate slow down.I blame myself.There it is, my answer.
What I need now is to heal.To not blame myself.My job is to sit here and feel.I'm allowed this.I wish I had a little more time to myself.I feel a little bad saying this but having a baby, working and trying to have a social life has been hard for me.I feel there isn't enough time for myself.Then I think back and I realize how much time I spent wrapped in a blanket of fog sitting on a stool at bar or holding a tightly wrapped dollar bill in a cramped bathroom trying to sober up with a line of co*ke. THAT was time wasted.That was me wishing and praying that none of this ever happened.But it did.
The time I have now feels so much harder.I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders everyday.I can't help but think that this is time well spent.This is time worth living for.
Now when I think of the place that I was rapped, all I see is children playing.All I see is sunshine lighting everyone's faces as they run around on the grass.All I see is me sitting on the bleachers retracing where it all went wrong.All I see is me doing my best to heal from it all.All I see is my true self finally making an appearance for the world to see.
This is what I love about being 30; feeling the weight of the world, seeing myself as normal and not blaming myself for being human.
