It's Been a While

Sorry I have not written in so long. I have been very busy and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I wish my therapist Dr Gordon were still alive but he died in 2007. A week or 2 before my niece was born and a month or 2 before I was married. He helped me so much, in so many ways. One thing in particular that he did was give my life the direction that I so desperately needed. I was a bit of a delinquent in high school and a bit of a slacker through college and beyond. When I was 25 years old I gave up smoking pot, alcohol and cigarettes which was all that remained from my adolescent indiscretions. There was a time in high school, Sophomore year when I was doing pot a few times a week, drinking once or twice a week and doing acid or mescalin about once a month. The following year I gave up acid for mushroom and an abusive relationship for no relationship. I hit the harder stuff in college or after which culminated in the end of it all circa memorial day weekend 2003.
At that time I was hopelessly enamored with a white rapper who shall remain nameless. He was absolutely uninteresting but for some reason I neglected to see this. Except for a couple brief encounters we shared very little. Nearly 2 years later I had not been able to get over my feelings for him. I had at that point written numerous unrequited love songs for him which had yet to have seen the light of day. He was there the evening I decided to go straight. He had begun a relationship with a friend of mine and their love affair had given me a catalyst with which to continue torturing myself. I used every opportunity I could to see him and every dysfunctional turn their relationship took I relished. He would give me just enough to keep me hanging on as some men are so good at doing. It was a rough time. I was so starved for his touch or the touch of anyone for that matter that on this particular night the situation came to a head as they say. I had learned of his relationship with my friend in the spring of 2002. Less than a year after our encounter and when the hope of a reunion was still painfully real in my mind and yet I took the news quite well. I was in some ways thrilled by the coincidence of yet another love triangle emerging in my life. I was also aroused by the possibility that the object of my affection all the sudden been restored to a real position in my life-boyfriend of friend. Every interaction between us after the news was vague, ambiguous, hard to pin down. The alcohol and marijuana did not help to clarify things in the least. I was very confused and still very much in love with him and my friend and I lost a lot of our intimacy in the process and that's why I decided to quit dope so I could see clearly again .
My friend left for Korea in August of 2003 and that was the last time I saw her. Six months later I orchestrated a couple meeting with the rapper fella. I eventually built up the courage to confess my feelings to him which culminated in the inevitable rejection, but ultimately allowed me to have some peace and closure regarding the situation. 4 1/2 months later I met my husband. I had begun playing shows in small venues in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn with a friend. She was a friend of my future husband's who was also a musician. We met one night playing a show together at the CB's Gallery and a few weeks later he came to see me perform there. All the songs that I had written about my unrequited love had finally come to fruition.
Now I am happily married but the obsession that drives me is my career or lack there of. As you can imagine during my years of inebriation I was not exactly making the most of my potential. I had always been good with kids and had a lot of experience working with children so an obvious choice was to go into teaching and I credit teaching with in part getting me clean. I was responsible for little children and I had to act that way in order to keep my job but more importantly in order to earn the trust and respect of the little one's in my care. Now I am 8 years in to my profession as early childhood educator. I am receiving my master's degree at Columbia University. You could say I am a success story and that I have turned my life around and that would all be true, the only trouble is I have no interest in continuing in this field per Se. I enjoy children but I have realized that spending my days with toddlers has become increasingly unpleasant and I am ready for a change. I have spent the past couple years grappling with this issue and have yet to take the plunge in to the unknown. There are practicalities holding me back. I want to finish my degree and my job is currently paying my tuition. I plan to take the plunge at the end of this school year if the economic crisis does not interfere. I think it will be an exciting chapter in my life and I can't wait to begin it. I hope I can achieve my goals in time to start a family. Thanks for listening.