people of the internet, this is a celebration! I just got my weekly e-mail from Medium with the audience stats, at just shy of 250 views, the highest number for a week that doesn’t contain a flaming train wreck of events that could only happen to a bi-polar internet kid with a penchant for substance abuse and inappropriately manic oversharing. i’m not even resentful that negative things get more eyes on them, anymore, everyone knows that when it bleeds it leads. also, my cell phone bill was covered by the audience of this blog today, with a couple bucks left over for some ice cream and a trip to the city (not sure when i’m going to go). i’d say this kind of positive response is a reason to celebrate and spread some more love around ‘ol medium.com, and must thank anyone who pays any attention to what i do over here. my average post comes out at a 3–4 minute read, often there are a string of 2 minute reads in a row but all of this week’s articles are longer than average, and in my opinion better than they have been since I moved out here to queens, at least they were a lot more enjoyable to write. i may have committed to this writing thing at a deeper level as the result of what came out this past week and the response it generated, and I think i’m going to be even more fearless and honest going forward, and might not even apologize for all of the self promotion that I do, anymore. shit, people flex their talents all over the place, why shouldn’t I? so what. if I could lift heavy things, for instance, i’m sure i’d be all over Facebook lifting them.
sure, there are a lot of things I could complain about, but I didn’t want to go there right now because I like to look at small victories as often as I can, because life is hard as fuck and could definitely make you lose faith, but we can’t have that.
I may have relapsed shortly after getting out of residential treatment, or arguably never even got clean there in the first place (hello, Adderall) but recovery really isn't linear and I definitely gained a lot of gems that i’m making good use of in my life now. I think of some of the sessions with my last counselor in the program where I was where she would tell me that i’m talented, charismatic and definitely not human garbage, and how i’d just choke up from it because I just never had a positive view of myself in any sense. it reminds me of a birthday gift I got from a girl I was dating years ago, it was a video montage of all of these people from my life saying what a good person I was and how they were glad I was in their life. first of all, that’s a very thoughtful birthday gift, secondly I was overwhelmed with emotion because that’s how I take compliments, like I had just won an academy award.
I hope this doesn't come off as bragging or some self serving ego wank off. I know that i’m a deeply troubled individual with some serious personality flaws and a history of really fucked up actions. trust me, guilt consumes me, sometimes. i’m just saying, another important thing I walked away from the lower east side with was a willingness to challenge my all or nothing thinking, so I can be a lot of good things while also having really glaring flaws. I can be trashy while not being complete trash.
I have a friend who I always at least email at those various times when i’ve come back from a new level of misery out on the street being an active addict, her name is Liz and if you’ve been reading for a while you’ll be familiar with the name from when I wrote that story “Here’s to Us” that so many random people I haven't seen since high school told me they enjoyed, god, even my high school guidance counselor messaged me. I emailed Liz from the iPad I was able to use in yet another rehab, and I said “i don’t know why you’d still be my friend” because I honestly didn’t know, to which she replied “i’m always going to be your friend” which elicited a strong emotional reaction from me at a time where I needed that kind of reassurance. if the people closest to me can forgive me, it would be nice if I could forgive myself, finally. I think it’s a process rather than a choice you can just make.
there are a lot of perfectly logical reasons why someone would have an inherently shameful view of themselves, to get into them right now would turn a perfectly joyful blog post into a bummer. i’d prefer to keep this one upbeat, as it is Friday (not that it matters to me, i’m your unemployed friend). Therefore, i’m going to stop here.
HEY, it’s a technological miracle that you can support (mostly) positive content like this, and you’ll have positive feelings for doing it, look at that…everyone wins. someone bought me a few coffees just this morning, and they feel wonderful:
https://ko-fi.com/evr0ck17
