Writing not smoking

It’s almost anticlimactic, being here now. In a funny way, I can’t imagine ever wanting to smoke cannabis again – not after knowing how my body feels here compared to back then.

I’ve spent most of my life in active addiction – weed, alcohol, sex, and the love of other addicts – and all the while, I wrote aimlessly into the void about everything except my own experience.

Now I’m looking down the barrel of my twenties with less regret and more empathy. I just didn’t have the tools back then – the ones I’m only now learning to use, slowly unfurling the patterns that once defined me.

Because I’ve just moved countries and spent nearly a week in transit, writing and job-hunting have taken a back seat. Honestly, I’d love to write for a living, but it feels out of reach from this fragile stage I’m in.

It’s not that I’m weak, I’m just vulnerable. The toxic relationships are in the bin, the drugs are behind me, MA meetings are steady, and accountability — oh, fucking accountability — has my nervous system suspended in a kind of limbo.

Where did the chaos go? The panic, the survival mode, the manic laughter that followed every collapse? Who am I without panic? What happens when my body finally believes it’s safe?

This is where I’m at today: fifty-two days clean, pregnant, living with my parents again, surrounded by quiet. It feels strange. I’m not used to peace.

But maybe that’s the work now – learning how to sit still without needing to be saved from it. Maybe peace isn’t something that arrives; maybe it’s something I stop running from.

And maybe this is what recovery really looks like: not fireworks, not chaos – just the slow, steady becoming of someone who can finally breathe.