Life is Hard. Easy.

I'm usually ok.

I've been doing this recovery business long enough to know myself .. knowing myself is vital. I may even get another tattoo one day, that says "KNOW THYSELF" in cool swirly letters or some shit. Just to remind me.

However lately, I've been on the down and down. I'm not actually sure when it started, or even why. Maybe it's because I haven't liked where I live for a few years now. Or Rocco back to his old tricks of getting up seven times a night. Maybe it's that I can't get a crap job at the moment to save my life. Perhaps it started at the cancer? Or the self-hatred I felt at feeling like I hated my baby? I want his babyhood back ... sometimes my mind screams at me.

Sometimes my mind tells me dreadful, shameful things. Reminds me of all the bad I have done in my life ... reminds me of the pain I carry around, it is just so heavy. I think about certain things at 2am and blush. My sisters agree ... it's hard, this head of mine. I swear it tries to plot my downfall, if I am not careful. The price to freedom is eternal vigilance.

I have a friend, who I've know for almost ten years. She has gone back to her Old Ways. She has four children ... four hostages. I recently bumped into her in the street. Her eyes, black and flashing and angry. Screaming and rageful in the middle of the street and everybody was watching but I stayed calm and I did not give a SHIT about the people watching. I told her I was sorry I had been avoiding her ... that this past year was brutal and I had to keep myself safe. That I was worried Dave would not make it ... and so if I chose to go back to my Old Ways, then I would be abandoning my children and I couldn't do that. (How the call was strong, this past year! Surely I can have just a little something, take the edge off? Surely people would understand. Surely God Himself would understand?)

But I continued on, doing the right thing. Slogging it out, and ignoring the motherfucking red wine in the cupboard (spaghetti bolognaise). Ignoring the codeine underneath Daves jumpers (pain relief for his tumours).

Instead, I ate a fucking truckload of chocolate, drank seventy gallons of coffee.

My friends mother died, then her auntie died. Two big fat excuses masquerading as tragedies. She did not keep slogging and she strayed off the path. She hugged me close and stank of unwashed and cigarettes but I hugged her tighter and told her that I don't want her to die. And she walked off with the shifty people who I didn't know, yet knew so well. In search of more drugs. How easily I could slip in, with that crowd! How I used to be such a chameleon! I was so good at being spectacularly fucked up. You would not recognise who I used to be. Am I still her? Who is she? Where did she go?

Lately, everywhere I go I feel like a fake.

I came here just now to write the most hilarious post, you really would have laughed ... but it just did not feel honest. Like I'm lying by omission. "Hey ... I wish I was dead so I couldn't feel anything, but you should really see the cute way the boys covered over the hole in the wall in Rocco's room!!"

Every day I have been filled with this terrible Sad that won't go away. Deep weeping has occurred. Everything is just so STUPID.

So today, I give up. Not on life, or recovery ... just on trying to hold myself together. Fuck it. Fuck you, terrible thoughts.

You may have won this battle, but I am winning this motherfucking war.