Your Heroin(e)

“Heroin enters the brain very quickly. This effect makes it very addictive. And each time you use heroin, the more you need to get high. One of the greatest risks with this drug is how extremely easy it is to become dependent.”

- http://www.abovetheinfluence.com/facts/drugsheroin

As we lay in the bed that you tumbled into almost an hour ago, shaking and sweating, I cradle your head in my arms with your face against my stomach. I’m sitting with my back against your undecorated, cold, bare wall, literally and figuratively. I run my fingers delicately through your hair, which by the way is getting longer than I’m used to seeing. I can tell that you haven’t had it cut in quite a while; just another reminder of how you no longer care about anything, especially yourself. I glance around your tiny room that used to be a utility closet. You haven’t lived here for long, but as you put it, it’s somewhere you can lay your head at night. There aren’t any photographs or anything personal to let someone know that a living, breathing human being lives in here. It makes me think of your old room; the one where we spent long days and even longer nights loving each other desperately. That room had life; you would find photographs and posters on the wall, love notes strewn across your dresser, various movies that we had “watched” but had never actually seen because we were too busy watching each other, and a box full of nostalgic treasures underneath your bed. That room had a heartbeat. The room we are in now is an empty, dead corpse.

When you called me, my heart dropped down to my stomach, then slowly liquefied, oozing down to the ends of my toes. We hadn’t spoken in months. Of course, I kept up with you through mutual friends and the double-edged sword known as social media (Myspace, at the time). I knew you had moved and found a new set of friends, a new job, and, more importantly, drugs. You had essentially morphed into a completely different person. I can’t say, looking back, that it surprises me. We were both teenagers, trying on different personalities to see which one fit the best, just as a girl at a retail store might do when trying on a new dress. However, I never imagined that you would go down this path.

“I need you. I know we haven’t talked and you don’t love me anymore, but please. I need you.”

Within minutes, I was in my beat-up thunderbird, driving like a maniac to get to you. I didn’t know why you needed me. I didn’t know what to expect when I pulled up in your driveway. I just knew that you needed me. That’s all it took for me to drop everything and run to you.

When I got there, you were standing in the driveway. You looked so different. You resembled a ghost, your skin white and lifeless. You forced a half-smile as you watched me slowly climb out of my car, making eye contact the entire time. As I slowly walked towards you, your features became more prominent. You had lost weight. Your eyes were somewhat sunken in and underneath them were the faintest of dark circles. I think it was then that my heart broke into a thousand pieces, never to be fully put back together again.

“I’ve gone cold turkey. And the withdrawals are a bitch.”

At that, I had to giggle to myself. You always were so blunt and direct. That was one of the many different things I loved about you. I immediately wrapped my arms around your thin neck and rested my head on your chest. You released a long breath, one that seemed to have been held for months. Your body seemed to crumble at my touch, as you collapsed into me. It caused me to realize how much the roles had reversed. You used to be my soft place to land when I was spinning out of control with my self-destructive ways. But now, you acted as if you had finally lain down in your comfortable (and much longed for) bed after a painful and exhausting journey. I was your home.

Looking down at you, you looked so small. You were miniature; a smaller and generic replica of the boy I used to love. I wanted to scoop you up and put you in a locked jewelry box, to protect you from this cruel and horrible world, to protect you from yourself. You seemed so fragile, so frail. I ran my fingers along your arms, hesitating at the markings, as if looking at artwork that told a depressing and heartbreaking story. There were some red dots, some bruising. I wanted to kiss each and every coloration, as if that would somehow make them disappear.

You turned your head so that your face was peering up into mine. Your deep brown eyes met my sea-green ones. Your eyes that had been so empty when I first arrived were now filled with pain, regret, and fear.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I just need a fix.”

“No, I’m here. I will be here until you don’t need me anymore. We will see this through together.”

“I will always need you though. I have always needed you.”

My phone rang. You asked if it was him, the guy who had been occupying my heart, the place where you used to be. I lied. I slowly slid out from underneath your head and rose, walking over to your nightstand, the only other piece of furniture in your room. I turned my phone off and came back over to the bed, sitting at the edge of your feet. I lightly put my hand on top of yours.

“I knew you’d come. I knew you would save me.”

“You’re my Heroine.”

You used to tell me that you were addicted to me; I was your drug. At the time, as an angsty and naïve teenager in love, those were the most romantic words you could have ever said to me. I was intoxicating to you. You couldn’t get enough of me. In my 16-year-old mind, that is what true love was: wanting to spend every waking moment together, indulging in each other and forgetting that the rest of the world existed.

Reflecting back on our tumultuous relationship, I realize now that we were in a toxic and unhealthy co-dependent relationship. I think that even at 16, I realized that. That is why I did everything I could to sabotage it, even though I loved you madly. I chalked it up to self-destruction and being a typical teenager, yet I think that I subconsciously knew that we could never live happily ever after. You made me feel wanted and needed; something I had never felt before I met you. I felt that because you loved me, I was worth something.

You loved me intensely. Maybe you loved me too much. When we were together, we didn’t do drugs, other than a couple of Xanax here and there because we loved the calm feeling we’d get after taking them; we were always running on a higher energy level than everyone else, almost in a manic state of mind, when we were together. We didn’t even drink that much except for when we were with friends and wanted to be “cool”. Maybe that’s why it took me by surprise when I found out that you had dove head-first into the drug world, almost immediately after we broke up.

I realize now that you were only trying to get back that feeling; the feeling that only I could provide for you, and vice versa. I remember the sleepless nights and the emptiness I felt in your absence, when I finally pushed you far enough away. I know that feeling of wanting the “high” again. I understand that even though we didn’t smoke weed or snort crack or drink until we felt invincible, we were on drugs. We had an addiction, on the verge of obsession with one another, and didn’t even realize it. You were mine, and I was yours. When I finally kicked the habit and forced you to do the same, you had to find something else to fill that void.

“You’re my heroin.”

The same sentence, two completely different meanings. Which one did you mean, my love? I was trying to save you, while in turn trying to save myself. I know that in the end, I could have never saved you. Saving you meant that I would have to love you again, but you are no longer that 18-year-old boy from down the street, nor am I the 16-year-old girl-next-door.

Was I your Heroine? Did I help you grow into a decent and loving man, no longer jaded and scarred? Or was I your crippling addiction? Your heroin? Was I your gateway drug that led you down the destructive path that you continued to travel even after I left you for good?

I guess I will never know, as that was the last night we ever spent together. I hope that I was your Heroine. I wanted so badly to save you from yourself.

The Fixer

When something's broke, I wanna put a bit of fixin on it.

When something's bored, I wanna put a little exciting on it.

If something's low, I wanna put a little high on it.

When something's lost, I wanna fight to get it back again.

- Pearl Jam

“The Fixer” is a person who looks at something broken and makes it their mission to not only repair it, but to also enhance it. They see the potential in something or someone and they become obsessed with building it from the ground up. Once they set their sights on a pile of scrap and remnants, they immediately picture the beauty that they can create from it. The Fixer spends all of their time and energy on their little projects and they don’t stop until they are complete. They slave away, brainstorming and planning, trying to figure out how they are going to create this work of art.  Not only do they focus on the end result and how it will look in the end, but they enjoy (and even relish) in the entire process. Having a project to work on gives them fulfillment. Honestly, it becomes their reason for breathing. Some people look at a Fixer and think how wonderful they are; here is this person that wants to help people and put their energy into making this world a better place. And maybe if you aren’t a Fixer, you might wish that you were more like them, able to look at a hopeless situation and swish their wand a few times and voila, they’ve turned that mess into something beautiful.

However, the problem with Fixers is that not only do they use the scrap materials that they found in the beginning, but they also chip away at parts of themselves. They take a chisel and they scrape off various pieces of themselves one by one and add them to the masterpiece that they are building. It takes a toll on them and if they aren’t careful, they leave themselves with a hole. Or they chip off a piece that they can never get back. At the time, they say “it’s worth it” because of course, look at the masterpiece they are creating! They are pouring their heart and soul into this venture and in the end, they will have something to show for it. Nothing else matters but the project; they don’t care about the sleepless nights and the energy they have emptied into it. That is why many artists and writers forego sleep, money, and social interaction – for the simple purpose of their creation.

But what happens when you finish? What happens when you created exactly what you wanted and you watched, right before your very own eyes, this desperate thing transform into the vision that you originally had from the very beginning?

I’ll tell you what happens, speaking from 22 years of experience.

After the initial feeling of accomplishment and success, you collapse. Maybe from exhaustion, maybe from the utter relief that you could actually do this. You had a vision and you made it happen; it came to life. But after the satisfied fog wears off, you are left feeling empty. There is nothing left for you to fix. You can try to give it some touchups and of course there’s always a little bit of maintenance here and there, but you no longer have something to consume you. It’s like coming off a high from a really amazing drug – you want that feeling back. You would do anything to go back to the beginning just to go through the same motions and to have that sensation again. And not only do they feel empty because of the absence of that feeling, but they are also left with less of themselves than they had before. After chiseling away at their own parts and adding it to their newly created masterpiece, they have holes in places that were not there before.

When it comes to relationships, being a Fixer means that there will always be an expiration date. When the Fixer finds someone that they want to spend the time molding and creating in order for that person to reach their full potential, they cling to them. They become so attached to this person and feel that this attachment is synonymous with being in love with them. They fool themselves into thinking that “this time is different” and even when their new love (i.e. project) reaches their maximum potential, the Fixer will still love them and want to stay with them. However, that is never the case. While their intentions are always good, when the Fixer finishes their project and the person has become exactly what they envisioned they would be, they soon start itching for a new project, a new person to spend all their time and energy on. The Fixer travels from relationship to relationship, fixing and mending. They will never be satisfied staying with someone whom they have already fixed, with no alterations left to make.

As a chronic Fixer, I’m sorry to all of you who have been in my destructive path. I say “destructive” because while at the time I was improving your life and situation, I essentially may have destroyed everything I spent my time and energy on in the end. I’m sorry that my need for fixing things kept me from being able to honestly love you. I’m sorry that you felt like a project that I only wanted to complete and then move on from. I’m trying to change. I’m trying to eliminate that crippling obsession and trying to instead appreciate the beauty in the broken. Not everything is meant to be fixed; sometimes it’s better left untouched, in its purest form.

While I may have moved on to other “projects”, my mind still wanders to you every so often, just to admire the masterpiece that you are, and the light trace of a smile can be seen on my face, knowing that I may have played some small part in it.

How To Never Get Over Someone

“They broke up.”

I wish I could say that it was those three words that changed everything. If your friend had told me this a week ago, my heart would have done back flips and forward flips, practically bursting through the wall of my chest like a sledgehammer through drywall, shattering my bones into a million little fragments. But when those words came out of his mouth, I felt nothing. One would think that this was progress; a sign that my heart was progressively healing and my happiness was no longer contingent on whether or not you loved me. Unfortunately for me, this was not the case.

I think that I felt nothing that day because I was simply in shock. Although I had known that it was only a matter of time before he came back into my life and theoretically was “ready” to handle it, nothing can really prepare you for that kind of situation. You can sit there and watch movies in your head – words coming out of his mouth that you have ached to hear for the longest time, stringing them together into perfectly articulated sentences like pearls on a necklace, until all of them, together, completed this beautiful piece of jewelry that you just wanted to wear all the time, feeling extraordinary and proud. You can even visualize what you would say in response and, depending on the amount of alcohol you had consumed that night and what song was playing on your iPod, you would either eloquently tell him to go fuck himself or you would tell him about how every day that passed since you last spoke was lifeless and dismal and you were subconsciously going through the motions until he made that grand entrance back into your life. It was always one or the other, never somewhere in between those two extremes. Lately, I had been imagining the prior scenario every time and felt proud, as if I had been meticulously studying and practicing an art, and finally had something to show for it. However, I realize now that if I had truly been making progress, I would be out sleeping with a guy who thought I walked on water instead of staying home, drinking a bottle of wine every night while lying in bed, and thinking about the one who got away.

We talked that night. It was only for a brief few minutes and other than you telling me about your breakup (I pretended that I had no clue), we didn’t talk about anything substantial. I didn’t hang on every word and I most certainly didn’t melt when you laughed at something I said (one of my life goals used to be making you laugh every minute of every day). When we hung up, I didn’t feel that pang of emptiness I usually felt every time you’d say goodbye and I didn’t look at my phone, ready to call you back just to bask in the delicate sound of your voice and the whimsical way in which you express your thoughts. I put my shoes on, grabbed my keys, and left any residual thoughts of you behind the door of my bedroom.

I can’t pinpoint the moment when my feelings decided to reappear and slap me hard in the face. All I know is that once it happened, there was no hope for me. You might as well have signed the death certificate for my good judgment and wrote “fell completely and inexplicably in love” as the cause of death. The thing about letting someone who you once loved (and reluctantly still do) come back into your life, is that one of two things could happen. You could realize that it will never be the same. You two are so jaded and exhausted and all that’s left is the skeleton of a beautiful thing. You decide that it is best to leave it where it should be: in the past. Or, you could realize that it will never be the same. But, you neither acknowledge it, nor do you care, and you are willing to put all your efforts into rebuilding it into something even better, the same way one might try to rebuild their home after a life-changing and massively destructive hurricane. You have all these broken pieces in one giant, heaping pile and although it may be immensely overwhelming, you can’t wait to methodically put the pieces back together. You can’t wait to spend the time making sure that all of the parts go back in the exact place that they once were. You can’t wait to complete each room, one by one, spending the time to not only complete the basic frames, but to do the sweeping and the scrubbing, cleaning the floors and the walls until they look shiny and new once again. You can’t wait to make sure that the foundation is stronger than before, so that the house will be able to weather even the strongest of storms and to provide you with a safe haven while you are waiting for the storm to pass.

I can see the pieces lying in different piles, scattered. I walk over to the first pile, full of inside jokes and memories of the nights we spent laughing until it hurt. I glance at another pile, which contains the hurtful things that we said to one another and the despair that my heart felt in your absence once you finally left. The next pile is overflowing with the treasured words that would flow from your mouth into the early hours of morning, making my heart smile. I bend over to pick one of them up.

“Why am I so attached to you?”

I remember the night you said that to me – who I was with, what I was wearing, how it made me feel. All of these piles remind me of the house that we used to be. I haven’t forgotten one single piece; they are all here. Is this all it takes to rebuild? What other parts do I need to make this stronger, more reliable? If I just rebuild from this point, won’t it still be destroyed once the storm comes through again? Logically, it would be a waste of time to build this house from the ground up again for just a few moments, days, weeks, of happiness and safety. Am I just wasting my time?

Yes.

Am I still going to rebuild?

Yes, I am.