The problem with being a mother is that you have to do it all the time.

I need a part-time arrangement. Even ¾ time would work. But this round-the-clock, 365-day a year bullshit? Yeah. It ain’t workin’ for me.

And don’t even give me that “You could get a job out of the home to “get a break.”

THAT IS NOT A BREAK. That is not release from responsibility. That is not “letting go and relaxing.”

You know what that is? It’s Responsibility Rearrangement. The job doesn’t go away, it just gets moved to Saturdays and Sundays and between the hours of 6pm and midnight. The shit gets concentrated into a mind-numbing ball of “I AM THE QUEEN OF MEDIOCRITY” and “What the fuck is happening to my house?”

And “Yeah okay cool no big deal. I’ll just do SEVEN DAYS OF WORK in one afternoon, the only afternoon all week I have free. Yay!”

All day and all night every fucking week. These are subhuman conditions. There’s no “job” on the planet like this. There’s nothing in the world you can’t check out from, except this job.

You can’t call in sick. The bosses don’t care.

You can’t call in for a “mental health” day. (That may actually be a good thing cause God knows I’d be pulling those at least 2 days a month). You can’t “leave the workday” at home because the motherfucking workday is the home.

And unlike other jobs where everybody pretty much EXPECTS you to bitch about your boss and coworkers, this is the round-the-clock, must-be-infinitely-grateful job.

If you bitch about your bosses (manifesting in the form of tiny dictators calling you “mama”) running your life, you’re ungrateful. And they are some messed-up bosses. Taketaketaketaketaketake. Pay back in 5-second intervals of cuteness and strange motherly adoration.

Also an occasional cuddle and/or dimples in elbows.

If you bitch about your coworker (partner) you should shut the hell up because some people do this alone you know.

Oh bite me.

Sometimes I just want to check the fuck out of motherhood.

Bye bye. Ciao. I’m out.

BUT I CAN’T.

But I try.

I’ve been trying lately. I have spent the last week gauging the success of my day by how well I could get my kids to leave me the hell alone. My efforts have included (though this list is not inclusive): hiding in my bed with the fan on to drown out the sound of their voices; taking really, really long showers with the door locked; barricading myself on the couch with 19 piles of laundry so they can’t sit near me; sitting on the front porch while they flailed around in the house and I conscientiously pretended they weren’t there; plugged all three of them into Netflix much endlessly while I mess around on my iPhone in the furthest corner of the house.

THIS IS WHY I NEED A PART-TIME ARRANGEMENT, PEOPLE. This is not their fault. This is my fault. I need a break. This is the point at a desk job where you realize you’ve spent the first hour of every morning staring blankly at the wall of your cubicle and you’ve actually fantasized throwing the water cooler at the head of your closest work companion and every body and everything EVEN THE CARPET and you’re like “Oh dude. I need a vacation. Now.” And then you go and come back and it’s better.

I NEED THAT PEOPLE. The “go, come back and it’s better” part.

Instead, I get the same.

My tween’s attitude has reached catastrophic levels, and, like a super-mature specimen of motherhood, I recently yelled at her “Do you really think you’re gonna win the crazy dramatic female contest? Are we playing that game? Cause oh hell no kid YOU KNOW I’M WINNING. I will always win that one dude. ASK YOUR FATHER!!!”

And then I threw a small flowered purse stuffed with clay at the door. It was one of my shining parenting moments.

We’re supposed to be moving in 2 to 3 weeks so this is what my house looks like.

My toddler has decided she needs to wake up sometime between 12am and 3am to PEE. Fucking PEE. I tried putting her back in a diaper but she looked at me like “Oh hell no bitch I’m not into regression. Why don’t you shove that pull-up up your ass? Mmmkay?”

Then, she wants to sleep in our bed, with her feet on my breasts. When she wakes up she declares “Mama your nipples are like little mountains I can walk on!”

When they get home from school, I make them do chores to spite them.

My boy is alright, except he’s 8. He’s a boy and he’s 8. DO I NEED TO SAY MORE?

And let’s talk about my coworker. He’s been working 6 days/week, often staying out of town. Yeah, that’s right. So I’m alone. The other night he called me and he was like “Dude this motel is so bad I had to wait for people to hit the meth pipe before I walked up the stairs to my room.”

So then I tell him in my most supportive voice that he better not bring home motherfucking bedbugs. And then I get my head on straight and realize “OhMyGod he could get murdered by a tweaker who thinks he’s the CIA agent who’s been hiding in the microwave (probably on account of that damn pornstache my husband insists upon) and I’m gonna be left here with the three dictators from hell and a house to pack and a hallway that looks like this.

I fucking quit.

I’m done.

I need to just walk away from motherhood for like 2 days. No kids. No home. No contact with reality.

But I can’t. Neither can you.

We’re in this for the long haul, baby.

This is the forever job. The forever fucking job. And the worst part is, when I’m in my finest moment seething in self-pity and SURE my life will never resemble something actually livable, some broad tells me in the grocery store: “Oh honey they grow up so fast.”

And I’m like “Define ‘fast,’ bitch. I’ve got 3 kids spaced apart in such a manner than I’ve been doing this job for 12 years and I’ll be doing it for 15 more, which means for 27 years I’ll be working my motherfucking ass off day in and day out on a full-time basis 365 days a years, sick or well, into it or over it, mentally sound or totally off my damn rocker, and you’re gonna sit here and tell me it’s over ‘fast?!’”

Douchebag jar!

Except that I know she’s right, which just pisses me off more, and adds some fucking overtime to my day job as I lie there at night wondering how much of my dismissal that day the little dictators will remember when they’re 20 or 30 or 40.

GOD DAMNIT all to hell.

Let’s go to the fucking zoo so I can feel like a good mom and get re-engaged in my job. I promise I won’t play Candy Crush the whole time.

I had a nice vacation. It was fun while it lasted. In my head.

Look kids! A bear! Look at this bear and forget how I treated you all week!

I recently encountered a mother who won’t let her teenager read mythology because it violates “God’s word.” A friend of mine, a preschool teacher, told me about a family that forbade their child from participating in yoga, because it wasn’t Christian. We all know families that allow only the music, books, media, etc. that reinforce their religion, creating a little silo of existence, separate from the evil outside world threatening to contaminate their child.

This is a bad plan. This is a very bad plan. You know why? Because it’s illogical.

Why does God hate logic? Does God hate logic? I don’t see why he or she should hate logic. Logic is some totally solid stuff. Logic is da bomb.

I can’t believe I just said that. I really am a nerd.

Anyway, let’s get one thing clear: I am not a God-hater. I am not a religion hater. I am not even an atheist. I used to be an atheist. I used to be one of those people waltzing around announcing with an almost palpable arrogance: “I am an atheist. I am a ‘free-thinker.’” But then I heard a loud “pop” as my head was removed from my ass and I realized I had simply chosen a new God. Namely, Science and Humanity. I had determined that the only valid “way of knowing” is found in that which we can “see” or “prove.” And I thought this made me a “free-thinker.”

Bullshit.

A real free-thinker recognizes that “seeing” and “proving” are slippery at best, and there are many, many forms of ontological knowledge (ways of knowing). A real free-thinker recognizes that the human brain is finite and conditioned and rather pathetic when held against the mystery of our existence. The vastness of eternity, the cosmos, the universe – whether we like to admit it or not- is impossible to grasp by our feeble brains, so the brain-created assertion that “THERE IS NO GOD” is as “simple-minded” and “small” as the assertion that there’s a white dude up in the sky running this show. It is merely a NEW form of comforting oneself. Some are comforted by “There is a God.” Others are comforted by “There is no God. Science is God.” What’s the freaking difference?

Why can’t we just keep our minds open and accepting to god and no-god and creator and non-creator, based on the truth or our existences, as they evolve and unfold in whatever messy directions they may take?

Clearly I have some strong opinions on this topic, but it’s another piece of writing. Let’s stick with the whole sheltering-your-kids discussion.

This plan, though it sounds sort of good in theory (kids won’t be exposed to “impure” things that will lead them to trouble), fails in execution. It may not fail with every kid, but I promise you it will fail with many, if not most.

First of all, it isn’t sustainable. Haven’t you ever thought about that? Unless you plan on homeschooling your kid for the rest of her life, or locking her in a basement, which I think is like totally illegal, your child will at some point, LEAVE YOUR FOLD. She will walk off, into the world, where sex and drugs and liberals live (sorry, I couldn’t resist.).

Also gay people.

Your child will live in the world. Period.

So how is it logical to prepare your child for a life IN THE WORLD by sheltering her FROM THE WORLD? See? Illogical.

Further, do you really have so little faith in your kid’s judgment? Think about what you’re saying: “Hey kid, since you’re clearly incapable of choosing for yourself that which is moral/immoral, good/bad, spiritually uplifting or draining, I have decided to POLICE EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE on your behalf even though some day you will have to make these decisions on your own.”

To prepare you for those decisions, I’m going to never let you make those decisions.

No really dude I don’t get this. This makes no sense.

And check this out: Do you or do you not want to empower your child to carry with him the connection with God you’ve fostered? Do you or do you not want your child to develop a real, sustaining belief?

If you want that, why would you take it upon yourself to create, nurture and sustain that relationship? Are you God? Because it sounds to me like you’re trying to be God.

And if you are policing every area of your kids’ lives, making sure it all complements your religion, then you are effectively erasing any REAL experience your child may have that would in fact foster a faith in whatever it is you’re trying to instill.

In other words, God either is or isn’t. Your God is small or your God is big. PICK ONE.

If your God cannot sustain the evil of the world, if your God cannot stand face to face with the crap of humanity, well what’s the point of having a God in the first place?

If the only way you can have a relationship with your God is to never encounter that which goes against him, well then, wow. Creator of the universe? Huh. No. Sounds pretty weak sauce to me.

Plus, if your child chooses another path, if your child is exposed to yoga and Greek mythology and suddenly “goes astray,” isn’t that better than a FAKE EXISTENCE BASED ON YOUR TEMPORARY POLICING?

How little interest do you have, really, in the individuality of your child? I don’t let my kids do and watch whatever they feel like. In fact, we don’t even have a television. I won’t let my daughter read the Hunger Games, but not because it’s “immoral,” but rather because I don’t think she’s mature enough to handle the immorality. Murder. Too much for this kid at 11-years-old. My kids also don’t watch horror movies. I’m not talking about making reasonable decisions based on a child’s maturity. I’m talking about BLOCKING age-appropriate material because it doesn’t align with your religious beliefs. I’m talking about forbidding certain things because it doesn’t reinforce your own religious stance, even if the child has an interest in such things.

Isn’t it better to just tell kids the truth?

Hey kid, yeah, watch this TV show, but notice the way the women are objectified, acting like fools to gain the attention of men.

Hey kids, go ahead and drink, but know your mama’s an alcoholic and you’re playing with fire.

Hey daughter, yep. Fine. Have sex before marriage, but let’s talk about unwanted pregnancies and all that entails.

Sure, get hooked up with kids who are stealing and doing drugs, but know that the depth of pain in your heart as you try to look at yourself in the mirror each morning will be immeasurable. Also you might go to prison.

Wow, listen to that song, kids, the way it makes life seem like nothing more than the endless pursuit of material goods.

Hold what gives you peace. Hold what gives you meaning.

But by God let your kids find the same.

Let them find the power they need.

Let them find the faith that withstands all attempts to shake it. Whatever that looks like. Truth becomes truth when it is LIVED, not when it is TOLD.

This is where the freedom lies. And really, in the end, isn’t that all we want for our kids?

Joy, and the freedom to live it.

Or at least the chance to find it.

I agree with this dude who said parents need to calm the fuck down.

I would like to add that people need to grow the fuck up. From this point forward, we shall use the acronym GTFU. Sometimes, that’s the simple answer. Calm the fuck down, GTFU.

Personally, I’m pretty tired of people walking around as if they’re grown up, only to commit some fatal juvenile act outta the damn blue, signaling a formerly unknown, totally unmanageable well of immaturity. It’s actually rather disturbing. You’re hanging out with somebody all chill and shit thinking “Yeah, look at us, two adults.” And then boom! It happens and you’re all “Oh, wow. I was wrong. You’re my tween.” Possibly my toddler.

I mean come ON, I’m immature. But even I have figured out a few things during my years, and my bar is low I assure you. Some things just aren’t right, and whether we want to or not, at some point, in some areas, we simply must GTFU.

So in the interest of helpfulness (not really, I actually have no interest in being helpful at all), I have compiled a list of behaviors that really signal a need to GTFU.

This list is not comprehensive.

15 SIGNS YOU NEED TO GTFU

1. Finding yourself disturbed for more than 12 seconds by something you read on The Twitter. Check this out: There’s real life and there’s social media.Twitter falls into the category of “social media.” Social media is known to be the gathering ground of all idiots of the world, because not only are they idiots, they are INVISIBLE IDIOTS, which empowers the shit outta them. So, since it surpasses standard dumb exponentially via the blessing of anonymity, social media weirdness needn’t compel serious introspection or offense, but rather one thought and one thought only: What the hell is wrong with these people? And then you get back into real life.

2. Getting unfriended on Facebook results in days of thought and emotional turmoil. If you’re pissing people off, you’re doing it right. Well, usually. Unless you’re Rush Limbaugh or a proponent of this website, which promotes the equal treatment of white people (because that’s obviously always been a problem). There’s no way anybody on that website is doing it right.

3. Involving yourself in every corner of your kids’ lives, telling yourself it’s “for their good.” Look, the rest of the world knows you need to GTFU, because really, it’s all about you. You have not realized your childhood is over. Ship fully sailed. Please stop controlling your kids to bolster the value and meaning of your own existence. We are now in grown-up mode, where we reflect on past mistakes with a mix of nostalgia and horror as opposed to attempt to FIX them through innocent children. Get with the program!

4. You are offended/disturbed/made to feel funny by women breastfeeding in public without a cover. Masturbate, watch porn, move to Denmark. DO WHAT IT TAKES TO FIX YOURSELF.

5. You are in your 30s and think it’s acceptable to smoke weed and play video games all day while your partner goes to work.

6. You are the partner of number 5 and defend him(her?) to your parents by saying things like “But we’re in love.”

7. U write all correspondence like ur texting.

8. You play Candy Crush. Dude I’m totally joking. Just got addicted to that shit last week. However, if you play Candy Crush and send repeated requests for it, you may need to GTFU, realizing that most people with brains do not play stupid candy games on their iPhones. And if they do, they deny the shit out of it. So deny your shit like the rest of us! (for real though, lately, my house is so messy I choose to sit on the couch and wait for more Candy Crush lives as a new form of denial.)

9. When you’re angry at a friend, you prefer The Passive-Aggressive Unfollow rather than an actual conversation. Look. Good old face-to-face conversations tend to be more effective than a silent click and seething disdain. While I can get behind the “unfriend” as joyfully as the next guy, if you are going to remain a fixture in my life for reasons beyond my control, can we just talk about our issues directly rather than dance around “follow” lists?

10. Wearing sweatpants with words on the rear.

No wait. Actually I’m not done with the Passive-Aggressive Unfollow thing. You see here’s what makes your move childish and infuriating: YOU KNOW THE UNFOLLOW WILL IGNITE A CONVERSATION so it isn’t that you don’t want to talk, it’s that you want to poke me and prod me until I say “Okay, FINE, what is it. Why are you mad? How can I make this better?”

Newsflash: That’s what kids do. GTFU.

11. Yelling at check-out people instead of managers. Everybody knows it’s not their fault. We’re all watching you yell at the pimply faced 18-year-old Target check-out-guy nursing a hangover and general malaise are thinking one thing: “What sort of asshat thinks it’s this kid’s fault the headphones were marked on clearance and now they’re not?” GTFU.

12. You have a beard like this guy.

I’m kidding. If you have a beard like this guy, you have reached the pinnacle of manhood. You have no further to go. Stop now while you’re ahead. YOU WILL NEVER GET MORE GROWN UP.

13. Judging people’s maturity by their facial hair. OH FUCK YOU. It’s a reliable maturity indicator.

14. Making duck face in photographs, seriously. 

15. Dismissing entire pieces of writing on account of one typo. Grown-ups have been the asshole, probably on more than one occasion, who suddenly for absolutely no apparent reason emails “there” coworkers and gets a reply from them, reads it, notices the typo in shock and horror, requesting immediately that those same coworkers hold her head in a full toilet bowl until she stops squirming.

Life is no longer worth living.

Okay if you think grammatical errors or looking like a douchebag signals the end of the world, you should probably GTFU, because actual grown-ups have realized we’re all douchebags who do the wrong thing, piss people off, and people piss us off.

And rather than pout and freak out and unfollow each other, we can just talk about it, like big people.

Or we can write about it on our blogs, sure the offenders won’t see anyway, CAUSE THEY’VE ALL UNFOLLOWED YOU.

OMG

I need to GTFU.

Leave me alone. I’m need to go play Candy Crush in my sweatpants with words on them while I unfollow people who were mean to me on Twitter.

And then I’m going to try to follow my own advice, which would be way easier if I didn’t hate advice like a fucking 16-year old.

No but really. The passive-aggressive unfollow thing is super uncool. I stand by that one with every shred of my immature heart.

So I actually wrote this on Sunday night, making the “this week” title logical, but then my computer died and the charger was in the car and I was like “Oh hell no,” so now I’m publishing it on Monday, making it “last week,” but I’m not changing it because I don’t want to. I’m the boss of my own self, as my BFF says. SO THERE.

1. First of all, please add “Tween Years” to the list of Shit I’m Not Equipped to Handle but Must Because I’m a Mother. Okay thanks.
2. No for real, what the fuck? She hates me. Then she loves me. Then she hates me again but loves me and then she’s 8 and then she’s 16 and she wants my approval but doesn’t but does and I’m both wonderful and horrid and she wants me around while wishing me dead.
3. Clear? Good. Oh, people. Tweens make the toddler years seem simple like, um, I don’t know. Something simple. I’m not in the mood for metaphors. This is HARD, people. A new type of hard.  A new level of hard. Fuck.
4. On the plus side, this week sucked less than last week. Of course the bar was rather low, but whatever. Also, we have a plan. We’ve decided to sell our house. We’ll fix it up a bit and sell it. Then we’re going to move. Where?
5. YEAH I DON’T KNOW STOP RUSHING ME One thing at a time.
6. But the other thing we’re doing is purging the shit out of everything we own. Something about having my most valuable possessions stolen made me realize I don’t give a crap about anything else. They already took the best, the stuff that matters, so somehow I can just let go of the rest without a thought.
7. Clothes, games, books, tchotchkes I thought I’d die without. To Goodwill, bitches. Shoes, kitchen stuff, kids’ toys, sentimental whatever the fuck. Get outta my house! Nobody wants you!
8. Sorry. I’m a little off my rocker. But seriously, when the items that really mean something to you are gone, the lack of meaning of all other items stands in stark contrast and it’s like way easy to let it go. We’ve taken at least 2 truckloads to the Goodwill. I feel no pain. I feel joy. I feel freer by the box. You should totally try it. Just go through every single thing – pick it up, look at it – and if there’s a question of whether or not you need it, the answer is YOU DO NOT NEED IT. For real. Try it. You’ll fill up boxes by the hour. Or maybe we’re just hoarders.
9. We may or may not end up living at my mom’s house for a while. I may or may not feel like a TOTAL WINNER being 34 years old and moving back in with my mom. Score! If that happens, we’ll be all five of us in two bedrooms. Weeeeeeeee!
10. Actually, I’m just glad to have my mom, and a place to stay, and a life to live with people I love. And I’m happy to have a plan.

Things are lookin’ up, friends. It’s good to know what the next move is.

Have a great week.

Here are a few shots from the past week…you’ll note they’re just shots of us AT HOME. yeah, that’s because when you’re broke, you stay home. And when you’re moving, you PACK (at home). So we’ve been home, a lot.

Also, Georgie started preschool. Gah! Love!

She walked in and said “Hi, I’m Georgia and this is my big boy flame shirt and this is my teddy, Georgia.”

I thought Georgie was eating dog food, turns out it was a small vitamin. Also Rocket needs a haircut.

Here’s the face she makes when you say something she finds idiotic. For example, “Did you go to the park today?” And she didn’t. DUH.

Here’s the face she makes when her favorite songs come on…

Ava and me. We’ll be okay. We’ve got no other choice.

This is a post I wrote and shared in a live-streaming event sponsored by The Partnership at Drugfree.org and Listen to Your Mother in an effort to end Teen Medicine Abuse. You can watch my reading here (Part 2) of the show, and the other readers (who were amazing) here  (Part 1) and here (Part 3, Ms. Rosas). If you prefer to read the posts, here are links to the other writers:

Brandi Jeter – http://mamaknowsitall.com
Sherri Kuhn – http://oldtweener.com
Heather King – http://www.extraordinary-ordinary.net
Lyz Lenz – http://www.lyzlenz.com/
Judy Miller – http://judymmiller.com 
Lisa Page Rosenberg – http://www.smacksy.com
Alexandra Rosas – http://www.gooddayregularpeople.com
Ellie Schoenberger – http://www.onecraftymother.com
Zakary Watson – http://www.raisingcolorado.com
Melisa Wells – http://suburbanscrawl.com

I am honored to have been a part of this event. Telling my story somehow, trying to help even one other person, makes the damage I caused myself and my family worth something. It gives those years meaning.

I hope you share the work of these amazing women with your teenagers.

With love,

Janelle

************

I could tell you that I started just like you, like every other partying kid in high school, with marijuana and Peppermint Schnapps and good times.

I could tell you how I was a smart, capable “high-potential” kid but a daily drinker by age 18 and how I went to a good university anyway and was in honors programs and studied abroad in Spain.

I could tell you how I had a husband and kid by the time I was 22 and no idea how I got there, because I was drunk, pretty much all the time. It was the only time I felt alive. It was the only time I felt okay.

I could tell you how I tried to control my drinking and discovered I could not, and how I spent years trying to decipher what exactly was wrong with me, why I drank every night even though every morning I swore to myself I would not, and I could tell you how sometimes when I would drink I would buy cocaine and then I would get hooked on cocaine.

And cocaine takes you down fast.

I could tell you how I went to psychiatrists and psychologists to get better, to quit drinking, to clean up my act, to be the wife and mother and woman I wanted to be, but could not. I could tell you how I had a second child to try to clean up, but could not. And I could tell you how my mom came one Saturday morning and said she was taking my kids to the park, and how I knew she was lying because it was February and 7am and raining. And I could tell you how I let them go because I wanted to go back to bed.

I could tell you that they were 16 months and 5 years old, and I lost them and my job and my husband, and how I spent the next two years in and out of rehabs trying desperately to get sober, and how one day I woke up alone in the ER on a respirator with a bracelet on my wrist that said “Jane Doe, female, age unknown” and I thought to myself “But I have two babies, a husband, and parents.”

I had been erased.

I could tell you how the doctor thought I was attempting suicide because there were so many substances in my body and how I looked him in the eyes and explained quite honestly “Oh no, doctor, I’m not trying to die. I do this every day.”

I could tell you how I was sure that experience would fix me, how I went to rehab for 30 days, again, got out, went home and was drunk 7 days later, again.

I could tell you I was that woman, that mother, the one who missed kindergarten graduation – the dirtbag drug-addicted trash whose daughter kept a wooden box by her bed with pictures and notes and cards from the very woman who abandoned her. I could tell you my daughter still has that box, and in it still sit the letters I wrote her from wherever I was, asking how she was doing, drawing her pictures of flowers and houses and the beautiful things I wanted for her but could not provide.

I could tell you I never meant to be that woman, how I was more than that – I was always going to be more than that, but by the time I realized I couldn’t stop I had a brain as obsessed and addicted as my body and I could no longer tell the true from the false. My life seemed the only option, and it was only in the dark gray haze of those mornings, when I would lie shaking and sweating coming off whatever binge I had been on, as my mind cleared for the first time in days and the truth of my existence crept in like a cold evening fog…I was a drunk. A failure. I would have given anything in those moments to change my life, to be free, to stand with my children as a real mother and among the people like a real human – to be a daughter and a friend and an employee, just a person capable of living a real life on this earth.

But I always seemed to drink again.

I always seemed to drink again.

Until one day, out of ideas and people to blame (they were all gone), I saw the truth of myself: I am the problem. I am an alcoholic. I will die a useless drunk and I’m powerless to change it.

The bottle killed me that morning – not my body, but my self, everything I was or ever imagined myself to be. It ate me away and left me for dead. From that space of utter desperation other alcoholics were able to teach me what alcoholism is, and I finally understood that I have a different mind and body, and can never consume alcohol safely in any form.

I could tell you I am a terrible example of alcoholism, because most of us end up in jails or institutions or dead, but by some miracle I’m sitting here talking to you, and I sit at tee-ball games and back-to-school night like any old mom that ever existed.

I could tell you all this, my friend, I could tell you every gory detail and I could tell you how my past sits like a seething wound in the middle of my gut and how I have memories so dark that when they come I shake my head like a crazy person to make them go. I could tell you all this but you won’t see. You won’t see because you’re young and you think you’re like everybody else and you’re partying and having fun and better and smarter, but nobody knows they’ve got this disease until it’s too late.

I could tell you, but you won’t understand, unless you’re lucky enough to survive and come out on the other side, and look back and try to tell young people not to do what you did, to make a choice while they still have one, to live a little more life, a little more freely.

I could tell you all this, and I have, and you probably won’t see, but my God I must try, because something’s gotta make those years worth living.

This post is sponsored by The Partnership at Drugfree.org as part of a blog tour with listentoyourmothershow.com in an effort to #EndMedicineAbuse.