Missing Memories

I’m not sure that my life was ever really on track. I didn’t have a female role model for most of my life and my dad worked so much my brother and I were often left alone. My childhood was never really that great and full of confusion, frustration, and a sense of uneasiness. Though my brother and I grew up in the same environment with all the same opportunities, our outside appearances to the world seem completely different. My brother chose the path that let drugs and alcohol run his life and make choices for him. On the other hand, I managed to make it through high school and college while continuing with my ramped drinking that was increasingly growing out of control. As I have been described more than once, I’m a functioning alcoholic. 

I remember the feeling that I got the first time I was buzzed. That was the beginning of the end for me in so many ways. Some of the times in my life that were supposed to be my best memories that I would make, I only remember from seeing pictures. A couple examples would be my high school prom, all 4 times I went, my high school graduation and my first graduation from college. At the time no one could tell me anything, I was at that age where partying was what I was supposed to be doing. I think deep down though I knew I had a problem but I just didn’t care because drinking is what took away all the pain and anger I held inside. 

Looking back at a lot of things that I have done I’m very lucky to be alive. At the time all these things were fun but they were not smart. I should have been pulled over more than once for driving drunk. I would wake up some mornings look out the window to see my car and wonder how the hell I drove home. My next step would be to examine my car to see if I hit anything, surprisingly never once did I hit anything. After checking over my car I would look for a beer or bottle of whatever was being drunk the night before and take a couple shots. I always did this to make sure I wouldn’t get a hangover or the shakes during the day until we started drinking again later that night. 

I’m missing chunks of my life that I will never get back, the only thing I can do is piece things together from pictures that were taken in those moments.

The Cover doesn't Define the Book

Though we are told time and time again not to judge a book by its cover, it seems as though society as embedded it into our minds to do just that. Most of us will look at someone we pass on the street and think the stereotypical thought that society has embedded into our mind to think of how that person looks or dresses. In so many, if not all cases, that person is nothing like what society has pushed into our minds to think. There is always so much more to a person than what is on the outside and what that person wants the world to see. 

I am viewed by my friends, and I am sure many people that I have been around over the years as a party girl, life of the party, bubbly, fun, always happy and more. I’m not these things. At almost 22 years of age I have realize that what I have been portraying to people all these years is everything but what I really am or how I really feel. Though there always use to be a party where ever I was, I wasn’t at the party to have fun and do the normal college thing. I was there (or even hosted parties) for the main goal to get drunk, blackout drunk. I drank every night, literally and I figured that if other people were with me while I drank then that made it okay. For many years I denied that I had any kind of problem with drinking, even though I don’t remember much of the past 8 years of my life. People thought I was happy and that was what I wanted them to think. 

I’m almost 22 years old and I have no idea who I really am because I have been hiding all these years. My best memories of my life are from when I was so drunk that the only reason I remember is from pictures. It looked like I was having fun, so I must have been. I’m coming to terms with the fact that I really don’t like who I am, who I have been. I drank to numb that feeling. When I drank everything was fine, I would forget what happened that day, all the pain I hold inside would just drift away. I have never dealt with any feelings emotionally that I have ever had, all I have done is bottle them up inside. If I wouldn’t have met my boyfriend a year ago, I don’t think that I would be alive right now or anywhere close to where I am at. I owe a lot to him and I don’t think he even realizes it.

At 22 I am starting a journey with a goal that I will find myself and learn to love who I am with the hopes that my boyfriend will stick by my side through the ups and downs and still love me for who I really am.