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Dear Emily,
You were so vibrant and full of life.
Your sense of humor was one that made so many people laugh, even on their worst days.
Your style was one of a kind. I mean, who else had a purple mohawk?
You finally figured out who you were after struggling for so many years.
You were young, reckless, and irresponsible.
I hated you.
I loved you.
I miss you.
5 years later I look back on your pictures.
I read your old Facebook post.
It breaks my heart that I lost you.
I killed you.
The young woman you were becoming was lost in a world she knew nothing about.
I left you behind in the dark where I took your place.
It kills me that I will never know who you would be today.
I hope that you would have been a good mother, a good girlfriend or wife.
I hope that you would have learned to become someone amazing.
I'm sorry I let you down.
I try to bring you back to life, but I know I must move on.
I want you to know that you became a wonderful mother.
You married an incredible man that brought you out of the depths of hell I left you in.
Life has been hard, but you never went back once we left.. Once I left you behind.
I took the broken foundation you left behind and created a beautiful new world.
I wish you could see it.
I think you'd be proud.
I'm sorry for everything.
I'm so sorry...
I look back on my old Facebook every time I write to make sure my timeline adds up. Every time I get lost reading over old post and looking at pictures I posted. It doesn't even seem like me. Most of the things I posted outside of the dope game I don't even remember.
When you do meth, you sign over your soul. Seriously. You lose everything you ever were. Everything that made you, you.
It's hard to cope with the loss of who I used to be. I've struggled to find myself ever since. I've had to relearn how to talk to people and hold conversations. I didn't master that until about a year ago. People would think I was rude or mean because I didn't talk to anyone. Truth is, I didn't know how. I knew how to talk of course, but interactions were hard and awkward for me. Sometimes they still are.
I feel so disconnected from who I was and who I'm meant to be. I'm still learning my personality and likes & dislikes. I truly had to start all over again. It was even harder for me since I got pregnant right after I got clean. Even more emotions took over and I felt more lost than ever.
When people come back into the real world after a binge on drugs, it's so damn hard. Not only are you dealing with withdrawals, but you are also dealing with shame, guilt, confusion, and figuring out who the hell you are.
Before I used, I was a confident, bad ass, punk rock young adult trying to figure out how to be a real adult. While I was using, I became some monster who had no feelings, carried guns and knives, stole, and generally fucked shit up. Now that I'm clean, I'm just a mom with a shitty minimum wage, dead end job.
I feel like a nobody.
I don't feel like Emily anymore. I feel like I'm just existing, and it kills me. I don't know if I can ever forgive myself for what I did, but I'm trying. I'm trying so, so hard...
I've been thinking about writing a note to my old self for a while now. It was just hard to do. I hope it can bring some healing or something. If anything, maybe it will give some insight on what an addict goes through after recovery.