Happy Saturday. I’ve been pretty productive this morning, prepping all of my belongings for the upcoming move to Queens Village. I know that I have only a few hours of focus in the morning before my brain turns to mush, so I was going to use it to pack up as opposed to the usual 1 to 2 blog posts that I usually use it for. I actually got a satisfactory amount of shit done, and I don’t like skipping writing practice if I can avoid it, so here we are.
I can’t remember which post it was from yesterday but it was one of them. I was talking about all of this hope I have for how it’s going to be when I don’t live in South Side, Jamaica, Queens anymore. It occurred to me later that the main problem that I wasn’t acknowledging was that i’m still going there. wherever I go, there I am, right? it’s not like i’m not going to be someone else when I get out of this neighborhood. of course I like to be optimistic, but not at the cost of being realistic. of course, I woke up to a similarly realistic (but not pessimistic) string of messages from one of my most attentive readers, who’s opinions I value a great deal given her training and history of working with a population of people who share some of my issues with substance abuse, mental illness and homelessness.
here’s what i’m thinking, though: I wont even go downtown in Jamaica to have a stroll, it’s hazardous for me to even be near the kind of crack dealing activities that are so common and blatant down there, especially if I have any money. so, i’m just hiding in my house, only going to my bodega for supplies now and then. living like that totally sucks, and is not the way I want to live, I like to have at least a small downtown area where I can grab a cup of coffee or a slice of pizza, just to get out. from what i’m seeing in my research, and one visit to the area i’m moving to i’ll have a little downtown to go stroll in. the weather is getting nicer, and the sun is up later which I suspect is doing as much for my mood as the medications i’m on are.
I also have to also step out of my comfort zone with the dedication to finding some kind of community to be a part of, because Jamaica, Queens didn’t force me to smoke crack, but emotions like depression and the feeling of isolation 100% did. I have to ignore my skepticism about the whole 12 step thing, and remember that the longest stretch of successful recovery that i’ve ever had was the direct result of my involvement with 12 step groups and my adherence to the program as outlined in their text. do I like it? no, not particularly, and it’s never been a strength of mine to have the fortitude to do things I don’t like doing, but i’m shaking the shit out of myself and my inner voice is telling me to shut the fuck up. I've gotta hand it to people in my life that have been watching me avoid doing the things I did when I had that stretch of recovery time between 2014–2018, they have patience, more than I think I would have with someone like me.
now, what to do with the rest of my day. I had someone support me on ko-fi yesterday when I was writing about not being able to even afford to go to Manhattan to walk around, she commented that I should send pictures of the park I like to go to. I was thinking i’d try to knock out a bit more packing today, and go to the city tomorrow, which also happens to be the day there’s a little social club type thing at the program where I spent such a long time doing creative things and working on my self esteem, if nothing else. well, my calendar reminded me that tomorrow is St. Patrick day, and trust me the Irish are some of my favorite people in the world, but publicly drunk Americans on the biggest drinking day of the year are not. I often can’t believe I would go to the legendarily notorious South Boston st.patricks day parade in my early 20’s for fun, that sounds like a total nightmare to me, now. I don't like crowds, and I don’t drink, add those 2 things up and multiply them by 100 and that’s what I imagine the city is going to be like tomorrow. no thank you.
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