The good, the bad, and the addiction

Finding any words to post lately has felt hard. I have settled into my new apartment, I’m healing from my breakup, and I’m starting to feel a bit better after beginning some new medication. Yet, I feel strangely like I’m stuck in someone else’s life. I love my apartment, my animals, my small group of friends, but this seems like the beginning of something new and I have no idea what’s next. I feel empty. Things in my old life are falling away and nothing new is replacing what is lost. No new people, no new habits, no new goals. I imagine it’s as if I’m viewing my life from above, not living in my body because feeling too much could set off a flare, and also because this view is familiar and easy. Working too hard could lead me to illness, because of my FND, but also because I have let myself use resources that are quick and don’t contribute to building up my well of good feelings… and of course, because productivity is the most important thing in capitalism and having to focus on upholding that “value” is literally killing me!!

It feels wrong to say things like, “I don’t want to live just to go to work”, and “I don’t want a job”, and “I want to be creative because that is who I am meant to be.” People can see you have talent, want you to continue, but also insist you keep that retail job so you can pay your bills!! Heaven, forbid you need to eat and have electricity!

“Those matcha’s aren’t necessary, those need to go! Creative people don’t deserve nice things! Their whole lives are magnificent already, I bet. They don’t need more!”

This is what I imagine people saying in their heads when they hear my cries for universal basic income or supporting cheap housing for artists. But my actual lived existence is not magnificent just because I am in it. As an artist, I envision the possibility of magnificent living and then take steps to make it so. That is the magic of an artist - to create wonder and awe where none existed before! Tell me, does this not deserve protecting? And just because I can create magic doesn’t mean I didn’t struggle to get there. My greatest success as an opera singer happened around the worst time in my life, as my abusive marriage was falling apart and I was afraid for my life.

And what about the hardships, the illnesses, the AuDHD that prevents me from focusing on my dreams? I have a creative spirit and stories to share because my life is actually quite hard. Multiple mental and physical illnesses, none of which I can control, make “regular” civilian life too challenging. So, creative endeavors are perfect for me. They just don’t pay enough for me to live off of. At least, not yet. Where is the gap coming from? Where am I leaving potential and art on the table? Well, for me, to find and seal the gap might just mean giving up the one thing I’ve identified as helping me the most over the last seven years - cannabis.

Cannabis has helped me find true rest, has given me a way to sleep through the night, and has helped me come down from extreme mental and physical distress. But not all good things are good forever. This is why I am challenging myself to get 100% sober from weed in the hopes it will bring me back to my desires, my hopes, my goals. Everything just feels fuzzy right now. I know what I want and how I want to do it, but I don’t because I’m choosing the wrong resource in times of distress. I’m getting high to survive the mental onslaught of being trans in America, to survive my day job of helping trans people find an authentic voice, to deal with the news of another murdered peer. Because it’s hard to be trans right now. Just because I have all of the skills and experience to do this important advocacy work doesn’t mean it isn’t burning me out.

Here are the current challenges keeping me from my goal of making art full time:

• I start smoking weed after work to come down, but it leaves me unable to write or draw, my two favorite forms of expression.

• I have a lot of ideas but have not organized them in the best way possible.

• I am not making enough money, which is causing me stress about working harder and more hours, further pulling me into burnout, hence the weed smoking.

• My chronic illness makes daily life hard and escaping from my body becomes a desire that is hard to refuse.

• I do not believe I am worthy of making money with my art.

Here are the new affirmations and statements that will get me to my goals

• I am a brilliant storyteller, and people want to pay me for my writing.

• I allow myself to have days where chronic illness takes the main focus and I do not need to escape my body to handle it.

• My community is devoted and loyal, gaining wisdom and laughs from my art, and paying me well for it.

• I am in charge of my time, and I can choose to do great things with it, despite my circumstances.

• I will share my story openly and willingly to anyone who will hear it.

• I have an insane gift that needs to be shared with the world.

So, here it is- my first foray into true sober living. The good, the bad and the addiction.

Join me as I journey into what it means to be sober, to be an artist and to find your true potential through true alignment.

I’ve written about my addiction before in my first zine, The Adventures of Squid Wit, Volume 1. Here is a quick preview: