So, there I was, back at home and worried sick about a girl whose life had become more important to me in a few short months, than anyone else's had in years.
Shortly after I got back from visiting her, I met, in person, another online friend, who, on the day I met her, became both flatmate and girlfriend. Long story, and yes, I am aware of the impulsive stupidity of my actions in those short couple of months. However, everything happens for a reason, and what's done is done.
In May, about a week after C moving in, we were up late. At 1:30 in the morning, I received a message from Elf asking me to call her. I did. And will be forever grateful that I did.
She was in the bathroom of her house, with a needle against her arm, about to overdose on heroin after having swallowed I don't know how many of her anti-depressant meds. She'd relapsed, badly, and now she wanted to die. Nothing was worth living for in her mind. Yet she'd still found the strength to send out a plea for help to the one person who hadn't yet let her down. Me.
Why she chose me, out of the dozens of other people who lived so much closer to her, I don't know, nor do I care. She did. And somehow, after four hours on the phone, I managed to talk her out of killing herself, and into getting on a bus to come and stay with me and C for a while. I was determined that I wasn't going to lose her. Not when she was so young. Not when she hadn't even begun to live yet.
Somehow, someway, I'd find a way to fix things for her, and give her a life worth living. I didn't tell her then, but I'd already decided she wasn't going back home. Home was no longer a safe place for her. It was too easy for her to get lost in the drugs; in the lack of support, and love that was 'home'. It was too easy for her to die at home. At least I could make it harder for her to kill herself. I could show her that at least one person cared for and loved her.
I don't think that I really knew what I was getting into. I mean, I knew that I was taking a huge risk letting a drug addict into my life the way I was. I knew it was a huge responsibility and that so many things could go wrong. I knew all of the logical stuff. I've always been a logical, practical thinker. But emotionally, I had no idea what I was in for. Because all my emotions were saying was that I was not just going to give up on her. I couldn't.
And when I saw her get off the bus a day and a half later, looking like death warmed up, high as a kite on a gale-force wind... I knew I'd made the right decision.
Elf had come home, and somehow we'd make it okay.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Of Old Dreams and New Beginnings - Part 1
Welcome to my blog. This is a new experience for me, so please bear with me while I unfurl my wings and learn to fly.
My life began on the 5th of September 2009. Or rather, it died. With the death of my reason for living. My mom. She was my best friend, my confidante, my sister, my mother, my everything. And my world crashed when we walked through the door and discovered that she'd left our world for a dream. She fell asleep in the morning, and she never woke up. She was tired. She wanted to rest. And I firmly believe that she is resting. She's having a really long holiday, and she deserves it. But she left my life in turmoil. I couldn't imagine going on without her.
I won't bore you with the details; suffice it to say, the next few months passed in a grief-induced blur. I was functioning on every level but the important ones. I was numb. I woke up, went to work, came home, ate (a lot), and slept even more. I can look back now and say with certainty that I was depressed. Not suicidal, but certainly not involved in life.
And then I met Elf online through a mutual online friend. And I realised, with a very hard knock on the head, that my life was pretty damn good. I was lucky. I had a job. I had my own place. I had friends. I had never, ever dreamed of even half the horrors that Elf had seen in her short eighteen years of life.
You see, it was Elf's first weekend in the real world for three months. She'd been in rehab for heroin, methamphetamine (or tik in this country); cocaine and goodness only knows what else. As I'd learn later, once she was released from rehab and we really started chatting; she'd been through eighteen years of abuse, and neglect. She started using drugs at the tender age of nine, when her mother tossed her out on the streets. And yet; she was positive that this time, she was going to stay clean and finish school and get a job and, and...
And then the girl she loved and trusted not to leave her; left her. And her mother once again backed out on her promises to enrol her in a correspondence course so she could finish school. And her old friends; nice people, but addicts nonetheless, did what addicts do... And she relapsed. Slowly at first.
She lived fourteen hours away from me by car. It's eighteen by bus. I know. I took the bus down to meet her and spent 10 days with her in April of 2010. It was an experience and a half, for a lot of reasons. I took a major risk. She could have been a serial killer for all I knew. But after months of feeling and acting like a zombie, I was ready for a bit of an adventure. Besides, my instincts were screaming at me to meet her, and I just... had a feeling. You know?
She'd already relapsed on tik by then. She tried to keep it hidden from me, but I knew. I knew her, from the hours of conversation we'd had online. For some reason, she felt comfortable sharing stuff with me, that she didn't share with others. And I was so grateful. Here was someone who needed me to be positive, to be a friend. Who needed me. I fell in love with that. I fell in love with being a 'hero' of sorts. I fell in love with her. It was easy. She's an amazing person when she wants to be. But after meeting her in person; I realised that what I thought I felt for her, was more than anything, a need to protect someone who was so tough and brutal on the outside, but who was dying inside. Dying to be loved, and protected, and just... cared for. She'd never really had that. She'd never had a real mother. Not like I had.
When I left to come back home after my holiday, I was afraid I'd never see her alive again. I knew she'd relapsed, even though she only had the courage to tell me online, where it wasn't too bad for her if I rejected her for it. And I knew she was sinking back into her old pattern of life, losing hope. I just didn't realise how quickly it was happening. And how it would change my world, my life.
I didn't realise how Elf would force me to start living again.
My life began on the 5th of September 2009. Or rather, it died. With the death of my reason for living. My mom. She was my best friend, my confidante, my sister, my mother, my everything. And my world crashed when we walked through the door and discovered that she'd left our world for a dream. She fell asleep in the morning, and she never woke up. She was tired. She wanted to rest. And I firmly believe that she is resting. She's having a really long holiday, and she deserves it. But she left my life in turmoil. I couldn't imagine going on without her.
I won't bore you with the details; suffice it to say, the next few months passed in a grief-induced blur. I was functioning on every level but the important ones. I was numb. I woke up, went to work, came home, ate (a lot), and slept even more. I can look back now and say with certainty that I was depressed. Not suicidal, but certainly not involved in life.
And then I met Elf online through a mutual online friend. And I realised, with a very hard knock on the head, that my life was pretty damn good. I was lucky. I had a job. I had my own place. I had friends. I had never, ever dreamed of even half the horrors that Elf had seen in her short eighteen years of life.
You see, it was Elf's first weekend in the real world for three months. She'd been in rehab for heroin, methamphetamine (or tik in this country); cocaine and goodness only knows what else. As I'd learn later, once she was released from rehab and we really started chatting; she'd been through eighteen years of abuse, and neglect. She started using drugs at the tender age of nine, when her mother tossed her out on the streets. And yet; she was positive that this time, she was going to stay clean and finish school and get a job and, and...
And then the girl she loved and trusted not to leave her; left her. And her mother once again backed out on her promises to enrol her in a correspondence course so she could finish school. And her old friends; nice people, but addicts nonetheless, did what addicts do... And she relapsed. Slowly at first.
She lived fourteen hours away from me by car. It's eighteen by bus. I know. I took the bus down to meet her and spent 10 days with her in April of 2010. It was an experience and a half, for a lot of reasons. I took a major risk. She could have been a serial killer for all I knew. But after months of feeling and acting like a zombie, I was ready for a bit of an adventure. Besides, my instincts were screaming at me to meet her, and I just... had a feeling. You know?
She'd already relapsed on tik by then. She tried to keep it hidden from me, but I knew. I knew her, from the hours of conversation we'd had online. For some reason, she felt comfortable sharing stuff with me, that she didn't share with others. And I was so grateful. Here was someone who needed me to be positive, to be a friend. Who needed me. I fell in love with that. I fell in love with being a 'hero' of sorts. I fell in love with her. It was easy. She's an amazing person when she wants to be. But after meeting her in person; I realised that what I thought I felt for her, was more than anything, a need to protect someone who was so tough and brutal on the outside, but who was dying inside. Dying to be loved, and protected, and just... cared for. She'd never really had that. She'd never had a real mother. Not like I had.
When I left to come back home after my holiday, I was afraid I'd never see her alive again. I knew she'd relapsed, even though she only had the courage to tell me online, where it wasn't too bad for her if I rejected her for it. And I knew she was sinking back into her old pattern of life, losing hope. I just didn't realise how quickly it was happening. And how it would change my world, my life.
I didn't realise how Elf would force me to start living again.
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