Letters to Joey….6

Dear Joey,

It’s Halloween 2021. I’m kind of anxious because I’m starting to forget. Forget what we did on Halloween. Forgot if we dressed up or if I was even available at all or too busy smoking meth and avoiding your calls. I forgot if this was just another holiday I ruined for you. I’m also forgetting what it felt like to loose you. To feel that crazy. To feel that low. To feel like THAT.

You are 25 now I think? I wonder what your like. How you have changed. If maybe now you can understand why I tried to push you away from me when I would say I was “too old”. Dann said something about he thought you lived in Joliet with your boyfriend. If that’s the case, I hope you’re happy, but like I always say “When I was your age I needed to EXPLORE!” Then you, in turn, would remind me that not everyone needs to live the crazy life that I did. I do now, agree with you.

Time marches on and people heal. As much as I know I hurt you, you hurt me back probably harder. I am a better man because of it and you never chose to know the man I am today. You ignored me and I grew. Thank you. Still, I never wanted to forget because I thought clinging to that pain would somehow keep me from making mistakes again, kept me humble. It maybe worked for many years but it also had me feeling like I didn’t deserve anything good that was happening. Anytime I succeeded I always needed a day to convince myself that I was worth it. I have found something else to replace that pain that also keeps me moving forward and that is called LOVE. My husband has made it possible for me to stop feeling guilty for growing, for setting goals and getting what I need as well as what I want without feeling undeserving. I no long need the guilt to keep me grounded. I have moved past that. It’s different now.

Writing to you has proven to be theraputic by allowing me to really dig deep into myself for the meaning and purpose behind my addiction, mental illness, and recovery. I don’t understand why it was so necessary for me to make sure you knew I was suffering. Maybe so you saw I was miserable and I could say we were even and have closure. Everything we went through landed me right were I am today and I swear today I look around at my beautiful life and I can’t imagine being any where else.

Letters to Joey….5

Dear Joey,

It’s been almost two years since we have seen each other.  It’s time for some closure.  It’s been 1 year, 8 months and some change in fact.  All I ever wanted to know was if you were happy, if you were OK.  Screw being happy, I wanted to know that you were OK.  Happiness is an emotion and all emotions are temporary.  I know I say that all the time, but its true.

I don’t know why, but after a million failed attempts to contact you I still missed you.  I hate that it took me so long to realize that you were the best friend I ever had, and possibly ever will have.  When you finally answered back that you were doing great, I was in shock, obviously.  I didn’t expect to hear from you again after that, and as you know I didn’t.

Out of everything that I lost, you were the hardest to let go of.  Sometimes I think that you wouldn’t even recognize me, however I think you saw this guy long before I could imagined him to be possible.  You believed in something that I just could not see.

Now there is someone that has the best of me.  Someone I let in, although that’s something I never planned on.  I never wanted to give someone else the opportunity to hurt me and now I have. I love him.  It means I’m moving forward, and I’m starting to forget.  I never want to forget you, but forgetting how it felt to loose you has been beneficial.

Love Always, DD

 

Letters to Joey….4

Oh Joey,

Happy New Year.  You know what you did?  You set me up to have one hell of a 2016.  I even got a post about it calling it 2016. The Best year ever.  Thank you.  I know you did what you did so you could save yourself, but boy did you ever save me.  I can never loose the memory of what it felt like to loose you.  To loose EVERYTHING.  In rehab they taught us to “play the tape through”, meaning when you start to romanticize about how it felt to get high, be high, you play that tape through in your head all the way to the end.  My tape always ends with you.  I never want to feel like I felt when you closed the door on me that hot July day.

It’s CRAZY how far removed I feel from that crack head of a mess that lived at 413 Main St. It nuts how much someone can actually grow the fuck up when they sober up and stop doing drugs.  July 6 will mark 2 years since I gave up on the old me and started to become the man that everyone knows today.  I wish I could go back in time to prevent July 1, 2015 from ever happening, but it happened for the best.

I hear you got a boyfriend.  Dann likes to throw little “Joey” comments out there once in a while.  You know what an insensitive dick he can be sometimes.  I’m happy for you.  I hope its everything that I wanted you to find.  I knew you could find more then I ever was back then.  It still sucks and hurts a little that you won’t talk to me.  I wish you could see me today.  I bet I’m more then you could have imagined I could become, however a part of me believes that you always saw the potential that I had.  I also am dating someone.  It’s more then that.  I love him.  He has the same birthday as you.  He’s moving in and everything which is a huge step for me!  We adopted a cat named Mars and it was a little bittersweet because it of course reminded me of Chola and Sherwin and how quickly I was able to loose my “family” before, but I’m a different guy now.  I really feel like time works itself out and Anthony came into my life at the perfect time.

We both have back rounds in addiction.  He’s almost a year clean.  It scares me.  I don’t know how you put up with me.  Not only were you patient, but you believed that I could stop using Meth.  I mean, fuck, you didn’t even know what it was until you met me.  I am not sure at all how I would handle if Anthony went back out again.  That’s one of the scariest parts of this relationship.  I do, however, believe strongly in him.  I’m pretty intuitive and my gut tells me that it’s gonna be me and him for a long time.  It’s hard though knowing that the kind of trouble I got in, he did also.  I was so damn manipulative though, the worst human EVER.  I tattooed it on my arm even!  I get all quiet when something about drugs comes up in conversation.  It’s like I obviously know we did them, but I just can’t talk about it.  Not with him.  I don’t want to know who he was then.  I don’t want to think of him as that guy because he isn’t.  I’m not an idiot and can figure out on my own what kinda bullshit went down.  In fact, it gets me angry.  Maybe jealous.  Anger is a secondary emotion so maybe that’s what I’m feeling.  Regardless, its hard for me in general to talk about drugs with other users.

On my front door I still have my little blue key that you gave me.  That’s probably one of the most sentimental things that I have today.   I got a new car, and now that my apartment is about to become OUR apartment when he moves in, I’m going to move it to my car.  You keep me clean.  You still keep me sober.  You made me better for him.  I miss you everyday.  I hope this is the year I get to see you again.

Love Always,  DD

 

Letters to Joey….3

Hey Joey…

It’s your favorite time of the year, which of course is my least favorite time of the year.  Sooooo… I put up my Christmas tree this week and thought of you.  I remember you made a point to make sure I had a good Christmas the holiday we were together and you did.  I was nervous to put my tree up because the last time I had a tree up was our Christmas together and I knew there would be some keepsakes.  I came across the Chihuahua ornament.  Also was a photo card of you with your brothers.  There really are no words Joey.  I put the card on the tree.  You represent so much for me.   I  miss you so much.  I wanted to avoid the whole situation and leave the boxes all together in Dann’s attic, until Bonnie said to me “So you are telling me you are afraid of a box.”  When she put it that way, I had to face my anxiety to get over the situation.  Your memory keeps me going.  I hope that you saw the good in me and my potential because in the end, you are the one who brought it out in me.

 

Love Always, DD

Letters to Joey…..2

Dear Joey,

It’s been a little over 11 months since you have talked to me.  At this point, I have stopped trying to contact you.  I’m used to the fact that you’re gone, and having to speak to you again at this moment would only throw a wrench in my life.  Thar doesn’t mean that I don’t think about you still.  It seems like it’s a daily thing, for you to cross my mind, but it’s usually just a passing thought that isn’t made up out of fear or guilt.  I have not cried, nor have I felt empty without you near me in quite some time.  It seems at the moment, dare I say, that I have learned to let go in order to move forward.

You wouldn’t even recognize the man that I have become.  You helped push me to this point, but I did a lot of hard work on my own, and while some credit is yours for leaving me and opening my eyes to the reality of my addiction, most of the credit I take for myself.  It’s only through hard work and perseverance that I was able to succeed.

Today I write this letter as a cosmetology teacher.  I finished school at the top.  I didn’t miss a day, not an hour.  That right there would seem like a huge commitment but I knew that’s what I had to do, and while doing something that I loved, it seemed rather effortless.  I made such a big impression that the school I attended hired me on at their campus to teach the cosmetology program.  I have never felt more blessed then I have this past year.  I have received two pay checks so far, both more then any other paycheck I’ve received in my life.  On top of that, my company has given me a retirement fund, paid vacation and all the other benefits someone should have at my age.  I’m trying to keep Vera’s one day a week.  I can’t just yet let go of my clients or walk away from her.  She has been there for me through this whole process of losing you and re establishing my life.  It’s also time for me to save some money and move out of this house.  It’s almost been a year also since I moved in with my family to also help me escape the loss I felt over you and to give me an outlet to set the stage for my personal growth.  What I have accomplished in a year still makes me stop and shake my head in disbelief.

As long as I keep doing the next best thing for myself and the people around me, I’m going to be just fine.  My new career awards me with such satisfaction.  These kids really look up to me for the positive attitude I have and the experience I bring to the table.  I still see Bonnie once a week and she also validates me on the progress I have made.  I barley remember the boy that showed up to her office a year ago having a complete breakdown, just days before checking into rehab.  Also, there is a boy, that just might be the one.  I’m not going to let my fears sabotage this relationship like I have in the past.  It’s brand new, but after last night I really feel closer to the possibility of having a “boyfriend”.

I’ll never forget you Joey.  I’ll always thing about you.  I hope for my sake that we do hold off on seeing each other again.  This time I guess I need my space when not so long ago the obsession of seeing you one more time was all I could think about.  It’s hard to say, but I can’t see you again.  Not now.  I don’t want to anymore.  It has nothing to do with not loving you, it’s the fears of what emotions might be brought back up after all the hard work I’ve done to release those very emotions.  I just need you to know that I’ll love you forever.

Love Always and I mean that….

DD

 

Letters to Joey….1

Dear Joey,

It’s has taken me 7 months to be able to mention your name, to face reality instead of pretend that I never even met you.  It’s been 7 months and I can finally say your name without beginning to cry.  7 whole months since I’ve loved somebody with all my being, even though it seemed like I only loved myself.  I miss you.

Today is Valentines Day.  Last year I remember that you came over to my apartment and brought me over my big stuffed dog.  I named him “Jelly Bean”.  That over the top, enormous stuffed dog became my pillow, as you know, and I slept with that guy every night until the end.  After you left that day, I threw myself onto my bed and buried my face into Jelly Bean.  I held on to him so tight, as I screamed into him, hopefully muffling my voice from the neighbors all around me.  I have never cried so hard in my life.  It was more then crying, it really was screaming.  That dog absorbed more tears that night then I have produced all year.  I still have him.  To keep him in my room would have been a torturous reminder that you were gone, but i did put him in a large box, in my brothers attic.  The attic itself is hard enough to be in because of all the time we spent together there.  I was thinking today that I’m glad I still have him, just in case you do come back to me, he would represent a bridge connecting our past to out present, always reminding me of how much you mean to me.

Can you believe I have not worked on a single furniture project since July?  I’m serious.  I went into rehab 5 days after you left me.  I spent most of the summer learning about myself and how to show up to be the man that I want to be in the world.  I attended NA and became sober for the first time since I was 15.  I have to tell you, because I think you will die.  They told me that I checked in with the highest THC count they have ever seen.  isn’t that crazy?  It’s funny and embarrassing at the same time!  I lost control of reality along time ago and saw how I used drugs to completely avoid that reality for many years.  I did 101 days completely sober of everything, then decided I should be able to have a drink like a normal human being.  I have also smoked here and there, but never at the capacity I was capable of before.  I was diagnosed for having an extreme anxiety disorder, and that I was NOT bi-polar after all.  My awesome doctor there changed all my medications and It feels good to actually feel “normal” again.

I am 7 weeks away from graduating school.  I had to put it off twice because of rehab, but I’m so glad I did.  I have the best class, and the best teacher.  It also looks like there are a few positions available and I could be a teacher by April.  TEACHING BY APRIL?  Everything has happened so quickly.  I am so busy. I still work at Vera’s and she is still crazy.  I have a second job at the neighborhood chop shop (I’ll explain some other time), while managing school and student teaching.  Who am I, right??

Everything has changed, and its changed because of you.  I hope that I get to show you the man that I have become since you left me.  I swear I think about you EVERYDAY.  I miss you so bad it hurts.  I hope you will miss me someday and call.  I’m always waiting to hear your special ringtone go off.  Someday I will.  I know it.  I love you.

 

Love Always,

D.D.