addiction

she was twenty-one, for goodness' sake. she must be allowed to grow up. by the time they were her age, most of the heroines of literature had lived, loved and even died...if she wanted to be a heroine, it was time to start behaving like one.
- robyn sisman


i have had frightening thoughts, today. a candid conversation with a man who traveled down a dark path and somehow made his way back brought me to questioning what it is that fills me, what is my escape. what could be my escape.

and i don't entirely know.

for him, it was drugs and women. eventually, he sobered up. but his wife wasn't enough. his kids weren't enough, to keep him from away his addiction. 
he confessed in a deep whisper to me,"deep down you feel that you're not worth it. the drugs are your escape to happiness--a guaranteed feel-good. so you have to decide, on your own and for you, no one else, to come clean".
i don't have any addictions...besides grey's anatomy and thai food. and perhaps retail therapy. 
but it frightened me how similar to this man i felt, recovering from a dark time and in danger of relapse with a mere trigger, when i had taken a completely different road. 

a year ago, i was sad. for so many reasons.

and that sadness has evolved into a fear. i don't want to succumb to it's treachery again. when i come to a speed bump in the road i have that fear that i will lose control of the wheel to spiral into sadness. or rebellion. or some other form of reckless abandon. 
so this is me, deciding for myself, and no one else, to keep my hands at 10 and 2 to navigate the rough terrain of life.

i need to start behaving like the heroine in my life. 

and then this glorious thought revealed itself to me:

"perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."

- rilk

*quotes from the wild and wily ways of a brunette bombshell