Out of Alignment (OoA)

Photo by Michelle Herrick

I am thirty years old and I do not feel like I am thriving what-so-ever. Since turning thirty years old I have been in a crisis intervention center (fancy word for hospital emergency room), in a behavioral health hospital, had countless fights with my family, stayed in a homeless shelteer in New York City, and moved to New Jersey. It feels like 30 is the year of "fuck it, what else could happen?" because everytime I try something new it doesnt seem to go right, or I lose my cool and have a mental breakdown. Honestly, I think I'm Out of Alignment (OoA) for Gods plan for my life. I'm not saying that life doesn't go well, but I believe that when you are Out of Alignment, everything crumbles like dust. In my experience, when you are in alignment for Gods plan for your life everything will flow effortlessly and opportunities that you love and hope for will fall right into your lap. Yes, this always will take work on your part, you've got to meet God halfway. The biggest part of this plan (the part that I'm having the biggest trouble with) is being honest with yourself about what you want. At this moment I am trying to understand what I want out of life now, why the person that I used to be is no longer who I am, and be entirely honest about it. This tangent is going to come back around so just stick with me here... You see before I moved back to the east coast I was living a life full of parties, constant flowing alcohol, drugs, and working in strip clubs. That was my life for years, I had fun and I made a living out of being the life of the party. The issue for me was that it was only a matter of time before that lifestyle wore me down, and the ghost of addiction that haunted most of the people in my family came to haunt me. I was addicted to the fast life: the alcohol, the drugs, the money definitely, the attention. All the things that come with a timelimit. Your body can only handle so much before these substances begin to change you, and boy did it change me. I was still the same giving, loving, helpful person I always was.. but in my head everything began to shift. I wasn't simply happy with enough, I always needed more. I needed more money even though I had plenty, I got cosmetic surgery to make myself feel like more of a woman and prove to myself that I was just as attention-getting as the woman next to me (even though I knew that everyone was different for a reason), I needed to be at the biggest parties, have everyone love me... But on the inside I didnt love myself the way I should have. I had a GREAT time; like, a really really really good time. I'm not gonna lie to you, those days were a blur of illicit substances, laughter, tequila shots, music, and sunshine.

However when the party was over, the sun was coming up at 5 a.m, and the birds were chirping I realized that the glimmer had dimmed. I was no longer full of life, instead I was sad, crying, or just tossing and turning in bed trying to get to sleep with a massive headache and the blacked out memories of the past 24 hours flooding back into my head and keeping me from drifting off to sleep. Since then I've taken medicine that helped me stop drinking every day (a path that took about a year and a half to complete), went to rehab to stop smoking weed because I couldn't do it on my own, and removed myself from every enviornment that triggers me into the person I used to be. I'm doing my best to meet God more than half way, more like 78%. So maybe I'm not Out of Alignment, maybe I'm rght where I need to be to get to where I'm going: sober, happy, and in love with life without having to alter my mind.

Love, Brooklynn V