Life’s moments

It’s the strum of the acoustic guitar that gives me a sense of calm, a sense that things in life no matter how dire they may seem will be okay. Eventually everything will come good again, some things just take time.

I love how this song, Moments by Aussie Hip Hop legends Bliss n Esso sings to me. It is a song that helps to remind me exactly of where I have been and exactly how far I have come.

It’s a funny way of explaining such a feeling from a simple sound of an instrument but maybe its a superpower. The superpower of the acoustic sound that has this grounding feeling of familiarity, of keeping things real and unplugged.

Grounding, that's how it feels.

It is the sound of this super power that eases me to relax, to set life to cruise control and with its' steady tempo it sings promises of momentum, hope and progress.

To put it simply, it gives me the warm and fuzzies after the dark and stormies.

I can’t help but feel sentimental when I hear this song, but then how can you not especially when that is exactly what it wants you to do. It forces you to take that trip down memory lane leaving you no choice but to get sentimental and I am a sucker for it - sentimentality that is.

I’ll be completely honest when I say that my biggest weakness is my sentamentality. I'm the type of girl who keeps boxes upon boxes of old restaurant menus, childhood Christmas and birthday cards and clippings of newspaper articles, I mean I’ll even go as far as seating arrangement name tags.

God help me.

I treasure memories as if my life depends on it, which is funny because quite frankly, life kind of does depend on it doesn’t it?

It’s what life is all about creating moments, collecting memories, boxing the favourites. It’s the only true treasure we own and the only true treasure we will never lose.

Memories are ours forever, and I like that.

Music in all its forms are like our own magical time machines. At any moment you may hear a song and it will transport you to place, a time, a decade, a moment in your life.

At any given moment you could be transported straight to your 1993 high school disco or maybe an old club classic puts you right in the middle of the dance floor at your 18th birthday party at the latest hip night club.

We all have that very specific playlist of our coming of age clubbing tracks when we boogied the nights away in our very first night clubs.

So where does 'Moments' transport me?

Read on.

I only heard this song about two years ago and when I hear this song today it takes me to two very significant times in my life.

“You know, growing up happened so fast

And you only get your first times once

Those moments were special, like

The first breath, first step, first chick, first kiss

First time in love, first time on drugs

The first time I heard Pac, the first time it's all new

The first time the earth stopped, the first time I saw you

Yeah, those moments I'll always hold onto

Forever stained in my brain in a golden hue”

When I first heard this song it was the lyrics that had me reminiscing of my younger teenage years.

Moments in life when everything becomes all so curious. They are our moments of testing the waters and pushing the boundaries. Moments overflowing with experimentation.

Forever the curious one, I experimented…a lot.

From booze and cigarettes to boys and petty theft.

Some things we grow old of, while some have stuck like glue.

Either way our memories have kept them all too true.

Before long, my experimental drug use in my early teens soon became recreational soon became a secret addiction well into my thirties.

By 17 years of age I had been there and done it all and when you have done it all, you tend to collect more than your fair share of first times and rites of passage.

“Those early days of the six-packs and stimulants

Before the demons came and kidnapped my innocence

Before life swept me up and I was hurled in

And I lost pieces of myself up in this whirlwind

But I had to find them again, 'cause they're the miracle

That took me from feeling invisible to invincible, yeah”

Drinking, smoking, working, partying and playing sport. It is hard to believe I ever found the time for studying.

But then again my amphetamine roster allowed me to keep up, keep thin, tick boxes, stay perfect.

Be everything, to everyone. As long as I could keep this schedule going, no one would ever notice, I could in fact stay perfectly in place and invisible.

With one exception, I could never, ever drop the ball.

"And finding ways to fly away was like my great escape"

Second trip down memory lane takes me to 2018 and at 34 years old I had given up my job as a chef for a family on their private luxury boat. My full time job now was taking care of my mum who had been battling her fourth year of terminal cancer.

Life as I knew came to a halt, life as I knew was beginning to fall apart.

Slowly but surely that inevitable day was coming.

Week by week mums health was deteriorating and little did I know at the time, but so was I.

My mundane responsibilities towards the inevitable were slowly chipping away at my everyday reality of nothingness and soon to be more nothingness.

My need to feel some kind of control on life and to keep myself from dealing with my own reality, had me perfecting my ever so increasing, ever so secret meth habit.

Leaving me in the safe grounds of my own denial.

Or so I thought.

I had a lot of bad habits keeping me from my reality of losing mum.

Nothing like curing boredom and responsibility with a good dose of addiction.

You name it, I ticked it. Meth, pot, cigarettes, alcohol, sex and gambling.

“Cause if your angel dies and your worlds crashing through your ceiling"

You guessed it.

The inevitable.

It’s been eighteen months since my mum, my angel, my best friend died.

It’s now been two years since I first heard this beautiful song and it will always remind me of these days with mum.

"And finding ways to fly away was like my great escape

An only child, a single mother, a small apartment

Didn't have that silver spoon, but we were always laughing

Staring at the clouds, chatting for hours"

So many moments, so many emotions, so many memories. As much as it is a sad story, it is also a beautiful one. This song reminds me of just that, the beauty of what life can really mean to you if you just take the time to reflect.

She was an amazing single mother to three awesome kids. With no silver in sight, we were always laughing, always making the best of anything and everything.

Mum was our leader.

“Yeah, I know I've been changing

Yeah, life's been rearranging”

The inevitable came and went and I was left with nothing really but hope and addiction.

Still living in my play pretend of denial it took about three weeks after mum had passed for this reality to finally hit home. Life was re-arranging way too fast for my liking and I couldn’t keep up. So I kept to my only constant and that was my addiction.

“Before life swept me up and I was hurled in

And I lost pieces of myself up in this whirlwind

But I had to find them again, 'cause they're the miracle”

Ultimately what I forgot to do is plan. Plan for life after mum. I got so caught up in taking care of everything and everyone that I forgot about me. I got lost.

There was never even a thought about the day after the inevitable. All mum and I were trying to do is survive until she couldn't.

But then what?

Well I ended up on my sister’s couch though I didn’t spend much time there. Instead I found comfort in the gaming rooms of pubs and bars.

I spent many lonely, waking moments mixing with strangers on smoking balconies outside poker machine rooms to all hours of the morning.

With no where to go, these places felt safe.

Sure I had options, I could do anything I wanted to. I only had myself to look after now, still I was paralysed. I was paralysed by the only constant that was still keeping me in my 'safety zone' which was nestled quite nicely within my addictions.

I wasn’t going anywhere.

Slowly over time, the ball I had kept a hold of so tightly for so many years had started to slip.

My life, this ball I speak of, was getting heavy and it started to drop, only this time my hands were tied in knots of drug induced paranoia.

People started noticing.

I wasn’t invisible any more. Slowly I was becoming un- invincible

To the point where my younger siblings were concerned and serious conversations started taking place.

I couldn’t do this anymore. I needed to get off this merry-go-round once and for all.

My shit was coming undone and I was beginning to lose my mind.

"Hopefully you know you own a map to your own freedom

Realize tears dry and it's a natural way of healing, yo”

We are all paving our own way through life’s moments, trials and tribulations. And while the universe and its' karma play a big hand in all our life’s’ ventures, it is our free will that demands our greatest trust.

It is our power of choice that is our map to freedom.

This we own.

As soon as my addiction and I started to become visible, I didn’t feel so invincible anymore.

I knew time had come for change, real change.

I had to start making some big decisions.

I had to leave the circles of people I was mixing in.

I had to get back to basics.

Ultimately, I had two choices.

Did I want to live this same life year after year?

Or did I want something different?

The power was in my map, the power was in my choice.

These lyrics give me hope that I own the choice of my own freedom from addiction.

The power is with me.

The ball may have slipped but it was still in my court.

So I took that shot.

“Yeah, I just wanna feel this way forever

How we did when we were young

Yeah, I know I've been changing

Yeah, life's been rearranging

Those times were golden, but I

I couldn't hold 'em all at once

I lost that moment

But now I got it back, yeah, I ain't gonna give it up

They say time is precious and there's no going back

Shit, if I could only unfreeze this photograph

And dive in the windows of my eyes to feel how I felt

Inside right in that moment in time, I'd bring it all back to life“

I chose.

I chose to get clean. For the first time since fifteen years of age I was ready. There has never been a time where I wanted to ever give meth up. I actually didn’t think I needed to.

For twenty years I was a highly functional meth addict and no one knew.

It wasn’t until my mum died and life hit me hard with that much needed wake up call.

And so it began, my journey of self love and self healing. It’s been 10 months now, life without meth and I ain’t never going to give that up.