I leave the restaurant and put my headphones in. Turn the music up loud and the melody climbs down my spine, cradling my bones. The bass moves my legs and I fall in step with it. But the sound remains muffled, like listening to it through a tunnel. No matter how much I increase the volume, it can’t get through the glass I’m standing under.
On my walk I touch every piece of plant matter I pass. I caress fresh leaves between finger tips, feel their veins pulsing. The fog collects on the collar of my jacket and shimmies down the back of my neck, cold and wet. I drag my fists along the concrete walls until my knuckles bloody, but my hands do not belong to me. Someone far away must be feeling these things.
At night my husband lays his head on the hollow of my chest where my shoulder and torso connect. My breath falls in rhythm with his slowly. Comfortable and quiet, almost nonexistent. His smell is safe and familiar, but distant. An old shirt he left here weeks ago, not him.
Floating on the ceiling, I watch us lying in bed. And I wonder if I’ll ever find my way back into that body again.
It’s close to a year since my first post on this blog. I can’t believe how fortunate I am to have met so many wonderful people through this endeavor. Thank you so much for taking time out of your lives to read about my life, my struggles, my accomplishments. Your messages, comments, and sharing of my work have had such an impact on my life. Every day I lean on that connection, on your support, love, and validation to continue moving forward. I promise I will work hard to continue to provide the same support and compassion to you over the next year.
To celebrate our anniversary I’m publishing my first book. Unrailed is a collection of fifteen short creative nonficton pieces and six poems. You may recognize many of the pieces from this blog, but they have all been revised and thoroughly edited, each one more haunting and beautiful than before. It’s a powerful collection, a stunning representation of the kind of writing I do and the kind of hard work we all do.
Unrailed will launch on November 3rd and is available for pre-order now. I hope that you take the time to read it and reflect on how far we’ve come together. It’s been a rough year, I know. But we made it through intact. We now have a better understanding of who we are and what we’re capable of.
I couldn’t have done this without your love and support. Both the release of Unrailed and the year in general. You have all taught me so much about vulnerability, about strength, about belief. I hope that this book serves as a valuable reminder that you have the same power I do. That you’re worth the fight.
There’s a patch of grass above the freeway near my house. The fence around it has several “No Trespassing” signs tacked to it. But the fence is easy to bend back and sneak in. So the homeless population sets up camp there. Today on my way home I saw city workers repairing the fence. They do this every month or so. Go in, evict the residents, clear out all the trash and cardboard boxes that have accumulated, and repair the fence. Double it up this time, maybe. Make it a bit taller, the wire a bit thicker. As if that is going to take care of the problem. As if that is going to put people in houses and off the streets. As if that is going to take needles out of arms. The city workers will always find a new way to reinforce the fence and the homeless will always find a way back in.
It occured to me that this is exactly the same as my substance abuse issues. Stop drinking and start smoking more. Stop smoking and start eating more. There’s always something that comes in to take the place of unaddressed emotions. The difficult problems. The things that are not easy to sit with. The feelings I don’t know how to feel. Something always slides in to take it’s place until I take care of the problem. Lately it’s disappearing into bowls of pasta, bags of potato chips, pints of ice cream. A hunger that has nothing to do with food and everything to do with drowning out feeling. Just like bourbon used to. Just like cocaine. It reminds me how much of a process this is. How far ahead I can be, but how far I have to go still.
I think about what I was like five years ago. Going through the motions of getting help, but never committing to it fully. I’d show up to my 10 AM therapy appointments still high on coke from the night before and not say a word about it. Only partially brave enough to face the things happening inside my head.
I think about what I was like two years ago. Just starting to re-admit that I need help. Finding myself sitting in my therapist’s office with lots of “I don’t knows” dripping from my lips. Never dropping in words like “worthless” and “suicide” and “desperation”. Refusing to admit that maybe I needed more support than I thought I did. Than I wanted to admit. That this thing is bigger than I’m equipped to deal with.
Only three months ago I finally started talking about how bad it’d gotten. It wasn’t the first time I was that scared. Wasn’t the first time I started investigating ways to end my life. But it was the first time I reached out to anybody. And I reached out to everybody. I told my therapist, I found a psychiatrist, talked to my medical doctor about it, lined up a DBT program. I told my family. My readers. It felt like unzipping my skin, standing up all tissue and bones. Terrified.
But that shows me that my capacity is growing. That I’m moving toward something more stable. So even when I feel like this isn’t working and I’m never going to make it. I just have to remember that I already am. I’m taking steps to address the problem, not the fence.
Ruby Pipes 