I'm not a smoker. That cigarette I just finished, it was my last. What's that...you say you've heard that before? Probably because I have said it a thousand times. But if you knew my story, maybe you would understand.
I was always the good kid. The overachiever. Everyone's friend. The teenager whose parents could leave her unsupervised for an entire weekend and come home to find everything in its place. Not because I am really good at cleaning up beer cans and crushed Doritos in the living room. Because I was a good kid. Until I turned 18, that is. On my 18th birthday I found myself nursing a terrible breakup, lonely and miserable. I should celebrate, I thought, sitting by my lonesome on a lounge chair the day before my high school graduation. I can buy cigarettes now! And so began my descent into self loathing and the search for truth.
I went away to college like all good kids do. What a disaster. After receiving straight A's for my entire academic career to that point, I flunked my first class. My first 2 years of college were a cocktail of substance, failure and disillusionment. What a stark contrast from the multiple merit scholarship awards I had been offered my senior year of high school. I transferred home and halfheartedly enrolled in community college. I was lost, depressed and in serious need of a miracle.
I'd like to say things got better at this point. But it really just got worse from here. A series of bad relationships, partying with my restaurant coworkers and increasingly frequent blowouts with my parents took me further and further down the rabbit hole of despair. On the surface, I appeared to have things together. After all, I had had about 20 years of practice at this point. But on the inside I was cracking at the seems.
By now I was a pack a day smoker, spending all of my money at the bar, in a terrible relationship that centered around smoking weed and fighting with my parents more than ever. I broke. One busy night right in the middle of the kitchen I all but had a nervous breakdown. I darted out of the Chili's I had been working at since coming home from school. I landed right in the middle of the parking lot. On hands and knees I started a delicious mixture of puking and sobbing. I cried out to God for the first time since my childhood church going days. I can remember the blackness of the sky punctuated by the distant stars. I remember feeling so small, so alone, so helpless. Curled up in a ball in the middle of that parking lot I cried out "God, if you are real, give me strength. Please just give me strength!"
The next day I woke up. Probably some time around 3 in the afternoon (not unusual for this phase of my life). I got dressed. I went to work. Then I went out. And I kept it going like this for a while longer. I was still in a crappy relationship. Still partying. Still lost. Actually, things got worse before they got better. A month probably went by before anything changed at all.
A family getaway on a cruise to the Caribbean is where the real rock bottom happened. I will spare you the details, but the last night of the cruise culminated in me sobbing. This time to my real father. A blubbery mix of guilt, shame, embarrassment and something like feeling sorry for myself. But that trip gave me clarity. The day I got home from the trip I broke up with the guy I had been seeing. That night I went out with the girls. I know that's not cliche at all... but a girls night was in order. After all, I was heartbroken.
I will never forget the summertime thunderstorm that night. The lightening was so ferocious that even I, a huge fan of extreme weather, was trembling. As I made my way to pick up some friends I huddled over the steering wheel, as if that could somehow keep me safe from Heaven's wrath.
The girls hopped in the car and after some small talk they asked me how I was doing. I paused and gave it some thought. I responded "stronger than ever." The moment the words hit my lips the little hairs on my arms stood on end. My brain immediately went back to the desperate way I had cried out to God for strength just a month ago. By the time we got to the bar the rain had subsided. I stepped out of the car and looked up at the sky. The stars looked so close. And then, a force that I cannot describe threw me down to my knees. Did God really just answer my prayer?
The next morning, as I sat with my mom drinking coffee I recounted the experience to her. She looked at me kind of funny and said "that's weird." Immediately I began to get defensive and frustrated. Of course you would judge me when I am actually trying to open up to you. She must have been able to read the look of disgust on my face because she quickly added "no sweety, it's just that, yesterday was the anniversary of your baptism." Once again I began to tremble. Coincidence? No. It couldn't be. Or could it?
One would think that this experience alone would lead a person to the light of truth and bliss and all things perfect and holy. But I was a mess. I was a broken down hot mess. Wound up tight from years of mental and physical self abuse. The Buddha has said "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." In my case, the journey has been a winding staircase with cliffs and ledges and mountaintops and hillsides. And it feels more like one million steps. But I am still walking. Meandering on my search for peace. Even if I am #theuptightyogi
I was always the good kid. The overachiever. Everyone's friend. The teenager whose parents could leave her unsupervised for an entire weekend and come home to find everything in its place. Not because I am really good at cleaning up beer cans and crushed Doritos in the living room. Because I was a good kid. Until I turned 18, that is. On my 18th birthday I found myself nursing a terrible breakup, lonely and miserable. I should celebrate, I thought, sitting by my lonesome on a lounge chair the day before my high school graduation. I can buy cigarettes now! And so began my descent into self loathing and the search for truth.
I went away to college like all good kids do. What a disaster. After receiving straight A's for my entire academic career to that point, I flunked my first class. My first 2 years of college were a cocktail of substance, failure and disillusionment. What a stark contrast from the multiple merit scholarship awards I had been offered my senior year of high school. I transferred home and halfheartedly enrolled in community college. I was lost, depressed and in serious need of a miracle.
I'd like to say things got better at this point. But it really just got worse from here. A series of bad relationships, partying with my restaurant coworkers and increasingly frequent blowouts with my parents took me further and further down the rabbit hole of despair. On the surface, I appeared to have things together. After all, I had had about 20 years of practice at this point. But on the inside I was cracking at the seems.
By now I was a pack a day smoker, spending all of my money at the bar, in a terrible relationship that centered around smoking weed and fighting with my parents more than ever. I broke. One busy night right in the middle of the kitchen I all but had a nervous breakdown. I darted out of the Chili's I had been working at since coming home from school. I landed right in the middle of the parking lot. On hands and knees I started a delicious mixture of puking and sobbing. I cried out to God for the first time since my childhood church going days. I can remember the blackness of the sky punctuated by the distant stars. I remember feeling so small, so alone, so helpless. Curled up in a ball in the middle of that parking lot I cried out "God, if you are real, give me strength. Please just give me strength!"
The next day I woke up. Probably some time around 3 in the afternoon (not unusual for this phase of my life). I got dressed. I went to work. Then I went out. And I kept it going like this for a while longer. I was still in a crappy relationship. Still partying. Still lost. Actually, things got worse before they got better. A month probably went by before anything changed at all.
A family getaway on a cruise to the Caribbean is where the real rock bottom happened. I will spare you the details, but the last night of the cruise culminated in me sobbing. This time to my real father. A blubbery mix of guilt, shame, embarrassment and something like feeling sorry for myself. But that trip gave me clarity. The day I got home from the trip I broke up with the guy I had been seeing. That night I went out with the girls. I know that's not cliche at all... but a girls night was in order. After all, I was heartbroken.
I will never forget the summertime thunderstorm that night. The lightening was so ferocious that even I, a huge fan of extreme weather, was trembling. As I made my way to pick up some friends I huddled over the steering wheel, as if that could somehow keep me safe from Heaven's wrath.
The girls hopped in the car and after some small talk they asked me how I was doing. I paused and gave it some thought. I responded "stronger than ever." The moment the words hit my lips the little hairs on my arms stood on end. My brain immediately went back to the desperate way I had cried out to God for strength just a month ago. By the time we got to the bar the rain had subsided. I stepped out of the car and looked up at the sky. The stars looked so close. And then, a force that I cannot describe threw me down to my knees. Did God really just answer my prayer?
The next morning, as I sat with my mom drinking coffee I recounted the experience to her. She looked at me kind of funny and said "that's weird." Immediately I began to get defensive and frustrated. Of course you would judge me when I am actually trying to open up to you. She must have been able to read the look of disgust on my face because she quickly added "no sweety, it's just that, yesterday was the anniversary of your baptism." Once again I began to tremble. Coincidence? No. It couldn't be. Or could it?
One would think that this experience alone would lead a person to the light of truth and bliss and all things perfect and holy. But I was a mess. I was a broken down hot mess. Wound up tight from years of mental and physical self abuse. The Buddha has said "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." In my case, the journey has been a winding staircase with cliffs and ledges and mountaintops and hillsides. And it feels more like one million steps. But I am still walking. Meandering on my search for peace. Even if I am #theuptightyogi