You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone...

Thank you, Joni Mitchell....I didn't realize what I had until I faced losing it...

Oh my Oh my this has not been an easy week. I am no stranger to emotional pain but I am a real baby when it comes to physical pain. I was out of commision for 120 hours...and within those 120 hours - my world actually fell apart for a good 20 hours. Can you imagine? I had every ailment known to mankind (short of cancer) for the last five to seven days. I was on every medication you can think of...fighting all these diseases...meanwhile my mind was having its own meltdown. And my heart was going ignored.

So when I lost my health, I realized the value & fragility of health. There is no quality of life without a body and mind that is intact. Unfortunately, having lost my health was not enough torture for me (apparently). Because I decided I needed to take a break from my relationship which has been slowly but surely developing into something serious. It is hard to deny how much it has flourished in a matter of a couple months. For God's sake we are at the stage of saying those three coveted words that all lovers yearn to say to one another....you know - I love you. The first time I heard him say that to me I was speechless - I responded with "I love hearing that." The second time I did no better and responded with "thank you."

like, thank you for loving me, that's all i've got to say. oye.

Anyhow, so I decided to take a break from this textbook-perfect, fairytale-bliss relationship ... because ... well, I don't know. I just thought, you know, it is what needed to happen. As if I had to complete the old saying "when it rains, it MUST pour." So I poured on myself...i downpoured all over my sick self.

It was the most painful conversation. Oh it hurt. It broke my heart in a million pieces. Afterward, I couldn't leave the parking lot because the pain was paralyzing. It felt like a part of my soul had died. I drove home crying...hard. I felt sick, alone, depressed, and broken. I wanted to just cry the pain away. But to no avail. I woke up feeling emptier than the night before.

I followed through with my usual Sunday morning plans....but in despair. I cried in my car, i cried outside the coffeeshop, i cried while ordering my food...there was no shame. only sadness and tears. lots of tears. and at some point during my crying - it occurred to me - I think I've fallen in love with this guy.

To picture going on without him by my side was too much to endure - hence my tears. hence my heartache. At this point I came to realize that I was taking a break from the best thing the universe has presented to me. What was I thinking? I knew I had made a horrible mistake.


tobecontinued


With Love,
ElyVas

Chasing Love

Nights like this would be the nights I would be on my third martini, sixth xanax, and sauntering into the second wine lounge....(it is only one am...the night is young).  Because nights like these I feel my heart being set on fire. In that second wine lounge I would search for new strangers, fresh faces to shake hands with...to divulge my deepest fears, darkest secrets, and most intimate feelings. Afterall, strangers make the best confidantes.

But tonight I do not have the luxury of martinis and xanax and lounges and strangers. I have only myself. And to say I feel unsettled would be an understatement. I cannot sleep. I am shaken. I am happy but I feel sad. I am in pain and I feel troubled. I'm falling and I'm vulnerable and it's terrifying.

Feelings are foreign to me. My mind reacts to them with self-defense to protect what it perceives as a foreign attack, guerrilla style. I'm exhausted from feeling so many emotions.

This would all be so much easier to process if I were drunk on vodka pineapple and dancing in a nightclub with my favorite gay bestie. Things just make real sense at three am...with kanye & young jeezy rapping sweet nothings in the background.

Like, you know what I mean though? For real, riiiight?

praying for inner peace & outer answers

ElyVas

Bondsman of the Bourgeoisie

The world does not agree with my 24/7 revelry...treating me like a bondsman of the bourgeoisie. But I am more than just a reckless abandon. Because I went from being a slum out of Camden to living large, owning villas in the Hamptons...the definition of  a well-trained stallion.  So it doesn't matter to me if the people don't approve of my fast-life attitude and planned-out chess moves. Happiness is my truth. There is nothing more I have got to prove.

People will talk until the day I die. I can't change them. I do pity them but I can't save them. No matter what they say - my mission does not change for anyone.

It is essential for me not to allow my thirst for better, my hunger for greatness, my drive to success become distractions to my ultimate goal: eternal peace. My humility is lost amidst achievements. The reality of my mortality is forgotten amidst praise. My vision is blinded amidst the glory. It took losing all the glitz and glam for me to gain perspective. For me to understand the impermanence of it all. I had to fall from grace to appreciate that I am human, that I am vulnerable to loss. No, nothing lasts forever but purity transcends to the afterlife.

God is my greatest asset. God is my closest ally. I must remember that all glory and praise is due to God. I am but a single avenue for goodness. May God bless me with a purpose that carries His message and serves Him well.

Drunk on (holy) Spirits,
ElyVas

No but really...

I am pissed tonight. My happy-go-lucky buzz from a few hours ago was killed when I got home to world-war-III happening in my kitchen. My mother is a lunatic. She micromanages like a dictator on expired-acid. Her mood is as labile as an unmedicated manic with borderline personality disorder. 

She keeps firing the maids. She hates the gardener (and between you and me, she thinks he ought to be deported back to Mexico...he isn't even Mexican! he's fucking American!). She thinks the mailman is stealing our mail. Worst of all - she thinks I look fat today. Unacceptable. Nothing makes an ex-anorexic & addict crave drugs more than being told she looks fat. Thanks, mother! 

(Dialing 1-800-drug-dealer now)

So I stepped outside and chain-smoked half a pack of marlboros. My lungs are destroyed. When I came back inside the house, naturally, I reeked of nicotine. I didn't even try to hide it because I am beyond filters tonight. My mother asked me if I just smoked because I smelled like cigarettes...do you want to know what i said? I told her no. I point blank lied, "No, I didn't!" That is the insanity of our household. Lies pervade. Lies are believed for our own safety and protection. To be ignorant is better than to deal with the truth.  

The neighbors are having a party tonight and I am ready to party. I need a drink or two or seven. I need attention. I need to starve myself for the next six weeks. I "need" a lot tonight. But what I have is a loaf of simple-carbohydrates and half-a-dozen eggs....Omelettes, anyone? Fuck omelettes, I want a goddamn manhattan. 

I could go on with my endless list of frustrations but who has the time and I don't have the tears. So i'll spare you fools. I love you, anyway.

Until the Next (Pity) Party - xoxo,
ElyVas

Let Go & Let God

I have this idea that if a man gives me any sort of attention, I need to be ever so grateful and appease his every request. This idea originated years ago…before I was able to reason with my mind.

I didn’t have a traumatic childhood during which time I was abused, neglected, abandoned. But in my adult life I often find myself acting like a girl with daddy issues. I love my father. He has been the outstanding father figure that every girl dreams of having. My dad has also spent my entire childhood working. He has been physically missing but emotionally available if and when I have ever needed him. What I’m trying to explain is that I have no justifiable reason to feel like I need a man (an older man) to complete me.

Yet, I am drawn to older men. Often a decade older than me. I am drawn to their maturity, their intellect, their air of wisdom that I think I lack. It is something about how older men compliment women that appeals to me. They tell me I am beautiful not hot. They say I’ve got an attractive physique not a sexy body. They seduce me with their words not their aggression. And to that I am drawn. I love subtlety, I love attention, I love being desired.

The problem occurs when I am shown attention, I am desired – I become uncomfortable. I withdraw as if it is something I wasn’t asking for. I resist and act coy. This disconnect needs to be resolved. Because I have lost many a good dates to this “tease-like” behavior. Men are simple creatures yet I can’t grasp how to control them the way I see fit.

Perhaps my need to control is the true problem? Let go and let God. So says my sponsor. But more of that in another post. Until next time…Keep it real, my loves.

xoxo
elyvas

Surrender

I surrendered months before I got sober. I surrendered to the idea that I cannot keep going the way I have been for the last 10 years. It has been a self-will run riot. I thought I knew but I've got not a clue. Life has been painful at best and intolerably unlivable at worst. The sick twist of addiction is the fantasy that drugs will make it better somehow...because one time, many years ago, they did.

I discovered drugs at a low point - they felt like a savior, a knight in shining armor, a band-aid for my bruised ego.... I felt so small inside and they gave me the strength I needed to compete with the rest of the world. At the time, I didn't realize that pain and struggle indicated growth. If I only allowed myself to experience the sadness, the discomfort, the "growing pains" - I would've survived through them and become a better person for it.

Alas, I was simply petrified of feeling any sort of pain and drugs allowed me to avoid/delay/surpass the pain temporarily. Deep down I knew it was a temporary fix for a problem greater than I could fathom. I got what I wanted in that moment - I never looked back. So years later when the effects of addiction began to turn on me - I was dumbfounded. I was knee deep in a vicious cycle of dependence and denial. The clarity I had been praised for in youth had become foggy & distorted, my mind drowning in delusion. As my problems grew, as the consequences mounted - I could never point at the drugs as the source of my suffering.

It was the desk job I had that made me unhappy. It was my family who misunderstood me.  It was the lack of friends I had that left me isolated. It was the relationship I had with a married man that left me broken. It was my dying grandmother who I was grieving. It was my crippling anxiety that I needed to self-medicate.

It was all these circumstances that were fucking with me. I was the common denominator but I couldn't possibly be the problem...because if I were the problem - then I would have to change. And change was not an option... Because change involved self-reflection, change meant I had to address the elephant in every room I walked into.... I was a raging drug addict who had not yet surrendered. I didn't know there was a way out other than to end my life.

In the earlier years of my active addiction I still experienced fleeting moments of a high - a rush from the drugs. Because of these moments I felt like I could keep using and I would figure out how to stop .... Later, tomorrow, next week, once I started my next job, once I got into a new relationship.... Anytime but now. However as my addiction progressed the good moments became fewer and farther between. I gradually became more miserable and less willing to change. I didn't want to live and I didn't know how to die. It was the intolerable in between. My existence was torturous. Yet I didn't know how to make it any other way. I thought I had signed a contract to exist until I died. Eventually I got to the point in which i couldn't wait to die from external causes. Death felt like the only relief I had - I wanted to die and I spent the better part of everyday envisioning how I could end this existence without hurting my family. I was constantly brainstorming ways to die conveniently...as usual, without pain. Because pain was scary. Little did I realize I was inflicting pain and suffering on myself… every single day. But that pain was familiar and manageable. Anything new or unfamiliar was not an option.

I found myself wavering between begging for help and clamming up in denial of my problem. In the last few weeks of my active addiction I was in and out of ERs and crisis centers - voluntarily going in during moments of God given courage. Then, walking out as I took my will back ... I wasn't ready to give that up just yet. I thought I had a better way ... I was scared to forfeit.... I thought surrendering meant admitting defeat, exposing my weakness and vulnerability.

It was a full-time job to keep up with my drug use. The problem was I already had a full-time job - my day job which I despised. I also despised being a drug addict. I couldn't stand being an alcoholic. I just couldn't bear the thought of existing for another day at a time. I was sick and tired of being sick & tired. So on a fateful day in the spring - I drove myself to a rehab center. I was waiting at the front desk when I felt a familiar fear. I panicked and started walking out. Then this intake secretary asked me to follow her back to her office. I told her "No thanks I made a wrong turn... I won't be staying." As if it was a hotel. She urged me to come back to her office. I followed her. Out of courtesy. I didn't want to appear as if I was out of control or that I actually needed help. Midway through her intake I excused myself to use the bathroom. I swallowed a few tabs of xanax and a couple oxycontins. It was stressful getting interviewed. That's what my life had become. I needed a substance just to make it through a conversation. I returned and she asked me, "Okay when's the last time you drank?" I gladly, with pride, told her "a week ago!" Thinking "See, I don't have a problem - I haven't drank in a fucking week!.... I am in control." She then asked me, "When's the last time you used Xanax? Oxycontin?Adderall? Cocaine?"... "Umm, 5 minutes ago, 5 minutes ago, an hour ago, two hours ago..."

I spent two days at that rehab. Then I decided I needed a different rehab...I also really needed a drink. I politely thanked them for their care and requested my car keys. What I got in return was a lot of resistance. Briefly, in my deluded state - I considered leaving them a horrible review. Again, as if it was a hotel. I refused to think I was institutionalized. I was a psychiatric facilitator. I helped crazy people for a living. I myself was not crazy. I needed my keys back and I needed them now.

A condensed version of this event goes something like this - I demanded to use a telephone. I was given one phone call - since when was I in jail? I begged my therapist to come pick me up. She showed me tough love. I was devastated. I tried reasoning with the staff, to no avail. I spoke to the psychiatrist on call who threatened to out me for a bunch of shit. This spun me into rage. I swore at him, I reminded him that he was a dumb fuck and that I knew my rights and that he will most certainly go to jail once I find a way out of this shithole.

I was told I would be 302-d. That it was the only option at this time. I panicked. I ran around the facility searching for a phone. In a frenzied, fight or flight, live or die mode I found a phone - called my boyfriend who I had been too afraid to tell in person about my problem and had left him a voicemail a few days ago. I begged him to come get me. He told me not to worry he'd be right there.  As I waited for him to arrive... I told every person at that rehab how fucked up and sick they were for trying to lock me up against my will. The ambulance pulled up to take me... And 30 seconds later my boyfriend pulled in. I bolted for the door, nearly flying out of the building. I was prepared to jump out of a window if I needed. He rescued me in my moment of greatest need. I was a damsel in distress and he was my prince charming. In that moment I felt an incredible deep unspeakable gratitude. I have to say it was the most powerful feeling I have ever felt. He saved me from my own self. I knew in that moment how little my own will had done for me. I was on my way to complete surrender.

Until next time...Keep it real, my loves.

xoxo
ElyVas

Candle of Wax

I'm in love with what we had. Nothing makes my heart beat faster than a flashing memory of us. You melt me like a candle of wax. Who would imagine a feeling can permeate this deep?

Love songs still touch my soul with memories of you. No man has been able to make me feel the way you did. I breathe deep hoping I'll find what we had. I'm holding my breath but I can't sustain this love alone. It's burning and painful .... I surrender to the truth. I'm still in love with you.

I was alive with you. I felt strength more powerful than a drug. I must be insane to feel so much from what was so long ago. I know that I cannot settle for anything less than how I felt with you. A lesson learned from a heartbreak I barely endured.

Oh love is such a crockpot of bullshit....I've lost my marbles in fairytale bliss. I've been romanticizing about old love affairs all afternoon - conveniently ignoring the wreckage they caused me. My judgment about who to love and when to fall in love has been skewed my entire life. I mean why else would I think a bottle would serve as a great lover? Take my word for it, I've been kind of a hot mess. When I say "kind of" - I mean "very much so." And when I say hot mess, I mean batshit crazy/(but still really hot). Rigorous honesty is the name of my new game. So lemme just say... I am single and I am loving it. 

Dance the night away, you fools.

xoxo

Yours Truly

Spiritual Renaissance

Dear darlings,

Things are good right now. Guerlain terracotta bronzer good. The spring has come and gone - but I've been undone and arisen anew. I attribute this revolution to spirituality. Although I was near-close to firing my astrologer - despite him being a direct descendant of Johannes Kepler - I have chosen to keep him around for he predicted this sort of Spring Renaissance, particularly in a sheep year - go figure. 

In the spirit of my newfound love for life, I will leave you with a thought for the day: I do not know what's best for me. I have limited awareness of what I think is best. I can simply do my best in this moment. With the grace of God I will reach a destination grander than I could ever have envisioned. For this happiness, I surrender.  

Until next time,

Yours Truly

When Ely met Izzy met Sid

So it's true I'm a neurotic overly-anxious, potentially crazy, excessively private girl from a pseudo-hood and I've got  multiple personalities.

Things are not good. I'm like "fuck this" - throw my hands in the air, let's just be honest for a second.

I am an incredibly wasted person right now. The truth is and this is truly, truly the truth of the matter: My situation is desperate ... I feel like I'm going nowhere. I feel like I have no future. I'm literally driving around town stuffing my face with a nasty shit brownie cookie from the gas station and chugging skim milk from a half pint bottle. At least I have that - I am drinking skim milk. But honestly, this day has been symbolic of what my life has become.

I was on a dvt-inducing six hours train ride from Boston. Before I reached Philly I called a taxi. Okay I lied, I got an uberX not a taxi...because I have a fucking problem trying to always get personalized customized bitch ass people who are willing to be my personal assistants. What I need is a goddamn indentured servant. That's right I said it. Equality is not my luxury.

I get into the UberX... the guy is middle-aged but he's hot and that's all I thought. That's the extent of my thought. He is also kind of aggressive. So naturally - as I attract the weirdos of this goddamn society - he starts, you know, chatting. 

But I definitely egged him on by venting about my own issues. First, I asked him about how much he gets paid...inappropriate, I know. Then, I told him I quit my job and I still can't believe I did. He asked me what I did. I was like "oh I'm you know a resident... Like a doctor but in training ." 

I know what that sounds like to the rest of the world, I do. Forgive me for sounding god damn conceited but it feels like a million bucks saying, "Oh I'm a doctor." And yet it's all a goddamn act. It's just a mirage. I have no money, I'm in a sick amount of debt. I hate my job. Most nights, I am suicidal. The thought, the mere thought of returning to work gives me so much anxiety and fear of my potential for suicidal ideation ... that I just want to jump off a goddamn bridge. 

So anyway I tell him I am a doctor and I quit my job and he goes off on me. He tells me "you got to go back. You're making a huge mistake! What could you possibly do that pays better than being a doctor?" He says my misery and suffering are short-lived, I should push through.

I just can't express what it is I'm going through to other people. It wouldn't be fair for me to expect them to really understand. Who will help me through this I don't know. 

So this guy quickly gets to the topic of his life and why he's strongly telling me to go back to work. He says he's 55 and he's been through it all, he's been through the ringer twice. And he knows something about what it takes to survive in this world. I stared waiting for an explanation...so he continued "I'm 55 years old, catholic, twice divorced, recovering alcoholic and I got three children I've got to take care of." God damn, life just got real, huh? I don't have any children...in fact, I don't have anyone, actually. He asks me who I've got. I must have someone - I must have a guy, a boyfriend, fiancé, husband. 

"No I am single. I am very much single." 

He thinks this is an invitation perhaps? So I back off. I become reserved. I tell him "I'm not that girl. I can't give you anything."

He offers to take me out to dinner. Then he begs. He begs me to go to dinner with him. You know - in  the desperate place I am in right now, I had no good reason to say no. So I gave him my number and I said "hell let's do it."

He texts me, he calls me on the dot when he said he would. I was still seeing my therapist ... I had mentioned I had an appointment. I was losing my shit in that appointment: crying, panicking just about to reveal how suicidal I feel but I caught myself. 

I left my appointment. I texted him "I'm fine I'm good thanks." He tells me he can't stop thinking about me. Now shit just got weird. this is very weird. I don't understand these people. Where do I live? which society am I a part of? 

I can't find a goddamn normal man to commit to me. I can't even FIND a decent man. But somehow I have impacted these strange men who are not only strangers but they're fucking strange in the brief interactions I've had with them. It's all a game. 

I'm seriously worried about my life. I've got  a serious drug problem. I'm so dependent it hurts. If I didn't have any Xanax this evening I would've gone out and fucking drink my sorrows like a goddamn fish. But I don't drink alcohol. No I do not drink any alcohol. I take Xanax and tell myself it's not as bad. 

Denial catches up to you. Whether that's physically or subconsciously. Truth is a bitch and it never goes away. The sooner you deal the better.

Confessional 101 courtesy of the truth serum,

ElyVas on a truth campaign 

Forfeit or Checkmate

They got me...I think they won this imaginary game. "They" meaning my internal demons.

Human beings are gifted (or cursed, depending on how you perceive it) with the capacity to fake a lot of things. We can put on a real theatrical show...temporarily. We can fool ourselves into believing the lies. We live by the mantra "fake it till you make it" as if it were sacred biblical text.

While I agree there are many parts of life we can mask ... I am more intrigued by the few parts that cannot be faked - what are those pure truths? Passion from purpose, contentment with life, to love and be loved. No, you cannot fake those truths.

I started drowning in this ocean of lies many years ago. I have been staying afloat at the cost of my own sanity. In pursuit of maintaining a "balance" between all my lies, I have alienated myself from the people who want to salvage what's left of me. As my resistance grows, my resilience has waned - I am conflicted by what I think I need and what I feel I want. I have grown fatigued by this daily struggle. My spirit is broken from the civil war in my own mind.

I kept holding onto some ancient idea that suffering was part of the deal...to struggle, fail, repeat, and never stop to re-assess. But the last few weeks have thrown me into a serious dread... my last string of strength is cut. I'm crushed...I'm vulnerable...and I'm afraid.

I want to walk away from it all. The hope for meaning and the will to live are lost.