insomnia

Ok. I. Can't. Sleep.

I only have 3 days of school left. I start my very first externship on Monday. I've never in my life worked in an office or for a doctor. Am I nervous? You betch-your-ass I am!

It's all coming down to the wire and I am really starting to freak out. I wanted this right? I mean isn't this what all that hard work and no sleep was for? Why am I suddenly so afraid to take this step? Do I possess the skills? Have I had enough training? Am I good enough? Or am I destined for a life of scraping by and waiting tables til I die?

No, of course not.

I am scared to death, but so excited at the same time! I really want to do well and impress this doctor and the office manager. I'd like to be able to learn some basic office skills and move on with my life. I feel a little bit like Mary Tyler Moore; you know when she makes it to the big city and flings her hat up into the Manhattan air! I want to do that but I will refrain.

Instead I think I'll do something dramatic to my hair. Something funky and fresh, something new and exciting to go with the mood of my changing life. It's a new start for me and I'd like to start the process off with a sense of confidence and what better way to do that than to get a whole new look? I think I have the cut in mind. It is a lot shorter than my hair has ever been, but that's okay. There's a lot of things different about me these days.

What this whole babbling post is about is fear of change and fear of falling back into old behaviors. That's my m.o. Just when things start to go good and things fall into place, I sabotage them. This is the time that I need to be extra vigilant about my recovery. It is just so easy to hide my fears in that needle.

As I was laying in bed, tossing and turning, a thought occurred to me about all those using dreams I've had lately. No wonder. My life is showing signs of success and what better way to demolish it but by doing the most "natural" thing in the world to a junkie like me. You see that's what we do, we drug addicts. We hide. We run. We don't face scary things; even if they are good things. It's change that we hate so much. Anything new is terribly frightening. And then the big question is "what if I actually am good at this new career, then what? Will my life actually change and will I have to really stay clean for the rest of my life? That's what its boiling down to for me anyway.

A whole life without my love of obliteration. When I started school I said to myself, "just get through with the next year and a half, stay on track at the methadone clinic, and then we'll see". Maybe it was wrong and I'm sure if N.A. was still a part of my life I'd have a sponsor beating down my door right now. But it is what it is and now it almost feels like I'm betraying myself. Like I promised myself that once it was all said and done we could get back down to business. We could just slam one more time, one more time, one more time.

The funny thing is: I don't really want to use. I for once want to walk through this fear just to see what's on the other side of the fence for me. I can do this. And I. Will. Do. This.