One day everything is fine and you’re carrying on and the next day the world implodes and you’re living in a hotel. That’s how it happened. I swear to God. I did the best I could and I assure you it wasn’t enough.
I asked for help but the truth is that people didn’t listen to me when I said “no, this is an emergency I’m losing my mind I need help,” I didn’t get the kind of help I needed in time, and here I am. There are a lot of people to blame, all of them pedophiles and rapists who deliberately intervened in my life and blew it up, over and over again. I blame every last one of those men.
But on the other side, I also have a lot of help. People are trying to find me an apartment, and I’m still working on Loud Mouth Brown Girl, it’s a lot but I can handle it, because no one who is where I want to be, is someone who didn’t end up houseless at one point or another.
It hurts me when I realize how many people think of me as a failure, not because I care they think I’m a failure, but because they can’t see the bigger picture.
They can’t see what comes next, but I can. A new beginning and a new start, a new journey, and new experiences in a new home. With new and old friends coming together to help me celebrate all the newness.
It’s been too long since we’ve had that newness, and we deserve it very much. I never thought I’d be the kind of person who had so many amends to make but I do. My doctors did a lot for me and for years all I did was complain about the things they didn’t do. I’m really lucky that we caught it in time because things could be so much worse.
I could have taken a different path and started drinking instead of smoking weed and things would be much darker than they are now, but thankfully I just didn’t catch that bug. Some people do, and they can’t shake it. It can take years or decades to obliterate the need for drugs and alcohol in some folks.
I’ve seen it be beautiful for people, and I’ve seen it be really ugly for people, I’ve seen both for myself, so I know how things can be, and I know I can bring back the beautiful to Surrey again. I know I can bring back the volunteers and the flowers, I just need some more time to heal up and get strong, because that was a lot of work the first time and I had help.
Loud Mouth Brown Girl and whatever it turns out to be is something I am working on alone, and so it’s a bit harder, a little more difficult, a little more confusing. Where I had a team of students to do things for me before, I now have to do them for myself and it’s been a long time since I’ve done things for myself.
I haven’t had to, and I forgot for a while how to use the skills I used when I was growing up, not just my survival skills, but my helping others skills. I forgot what it was like to have to hunt up an apartment because I haven’t done it in so long, but I’m learning again and my brain is starting to wake up again.
I feel like I’ve acknowledged as much of the shadow work as I want to up to this point and I’m ready to say it happened and to move on. I haven’t felt like this in a really long time and I think it’s because all this is happening right around spring.
It’s a lot of changes all at once, and that can be overwhelming and scary, but I’m trying to remain calm, trying not to let my anxiety get the better of me, acknowledging when I need more support, and saying what I need out loud instead of just whispering it in my head hoping someone can hear me.
So much has happened in 40 years and to be honest with you I wasn’t certain I’d make it this far, but I have and I’m a little afraid of myself. If I can get to 40 after everything I’ve been through then I only have two questions…
- What’s next?
- Holy shit, what’s next?
I don’t know if this means my life is about to get easier or harder, but I certainly believe it’s about to get more interesting.
Also…I miss my cats. God damn, I have to put that here in hopes someone finds them soon.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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