This is what I tell myself daily. It’s true. I never learn. I could have written four new books, sewn a quilt, and made a thousand recipes from scratch with the time I wasted on apps. Sigh. I’m the screenager. Not my kids. It’s me.

I grew up the youngest child in a household with an alcoholic father, an anxious mother, and two much older siblings. My sister was out of the house by the time I was 8 and my brother was just old enough that we had none of the same interests. The built in playmates feature was non existent. On top of that, my parents decided a strategy to keep the younger two off drugs would be to bus us thirty mins from our house to go to Catholic School. We were neither raised Catholic nor did I have any classmates that lived remotely close to me. So much of my formative years were spent listening to music in my room or watching the newly invented cable television where I first learned about many of the substances I would try later in life.

Community was foreign to me as I was raised in the suburbs, immersed in the propaganda of rugged individualism during the Reagan years. My first inkling of what it felt to feel a part of a larger community came at punk rock shows. I would hide my changes of clothes in the bottom of my backpack when my parents would drop me off at the mall so I could catch the one and only bus that went to downtown Cincinnati. For the first time in my life, I began to make friends that weren’t selected for me by proximity or familial ties. This was around the same time the neighbor boy showed me his dick completely unprompted. Needless to say, the suburbs kinda sucked.

Unfortunately for me, the freedom I found in alternative music circles also lead to me to curiosity about the kind of substances that were being consumed by my idols. I hate to say that I truly solidified the idea that I wanted to try heroin when I saw the Syd and Nancy movie but it’s the truth. The rest was history.

The next time I felt that sense of community was the year I lived outside in a ragtag homeless community that revolved around an empty lot that is now a Senior living facility. There was an older gay Mexican man with long hair and cracked teeth. There was two older alcoholics that sold flowers to make extra money when their VA checks ran out. There was my best friend Brian who was the first person to seriously talk to me about recovery. Finally, there was a long cast of characters that came and went daily. It’s hard to feel safe when you are sleeping outside but I will say, in that camp, I felt protected. The camp moved around according to the police and the complaints of the neighbors. At times the places became unruly, dirty, and a general nuisance. But I knew I was surrounded by people that cared in their limited capacity for feeling. That was enough,

That camp in the empty lot was the closest thing I felt to a family in a many years. The last time I would randomly get that same feeling would be when I went to 12 step meetings.

I have my own family now. And community that I have joined and those that I have built. But yes, there were times that being homeless was fun. I just would have preferred to be inside. Either way, I’m grateful to have a home now. I’m glad those people helped me stay alive.

My friends and I got together with two more experienced junkies to use bags of white powder that had been imported to Cincinnati from New York. The bags were stamped 666 and Poison. After using one single bag, my best friend’s boyfriend grabbed the desk he was sitting on in what I later came to know as the “death grip.” One last surge or energy before gravity pulled him towards the floor. We tried pain, we tried putting him in the shower, I suspect we may have tried ice on his balls. When his eyes finally fluttered open, everyone decided that maybe I should only use half a bag. No one ever said “we should not” or “this is a bad idea.” That was obvious. What I learned was overdose was part of the thing. Inextricably tied to the needle was the risk of dying.

I cannot remember which one of my friends was the first one to die from an overdose. I saved many from that fate- strangers, lovers, and using buddies got a dose of bad cpr and sloppy rescue breathing. The longest I spent reviving a young blonde stripper friend of mine was 25 mins. She had carefully omitted that she was chock full of benzos. When I turned around to ask her a question, she looked like she was already gone. Fast forward a bit and we were both tied to gurneys after the police instructed the paramedics to give us both narcan despite use both being awake. Luckily, this kind of barbaric misuse of the medication has changed as public understanding of addiction has increased.

I created a social media account at one point to capture all the folks I knew who had died but just the process of putting together the pictures and the stories tore my heart into pieces. The count is well into the hundreds now.

Overdose Awareness Day is a good chance for people to acknowledge their collective grief. Over a million individuals have died over overdoses since I got sober in 1998. We are all living in a world touched by deaths that could have, should have been prevented if only communities and individuals had the proper tools. Overdose is the end result of trauma, stigma, lack of housing, disconnect from social support, and substandard options for medical treatment. The frustration with systems felt by loved ones turns into guilt if we do not voice our collective struggles with a world that seemed not to care.

If I have any kind of legacy that lives on after I leave this Earthly plane, I hope it is my work around getting naloxone into the hands of people that need it. When I see naloxone in popular culture, vending machines that carry harm reduction supplies, and mutual aid projects that support their communities I would like to think that I sent out a spark that burns down the barriers and stigma. Maybe that is my ego talking. I hope not. I want all of this pain to mean something.

Cat sitting outtakes

On top of that, I got to take a pre surgical opioid for the first time in 15 years. I have to admit, I was pretty fucked up 😧. I was not sure what a Norco would actually do to me after all this time being abstinent. I was waiting for an oversized reaction like when I would shoot up. I was not sure if the pill was taking effect when I felt the strong need to scratch my nose. That’s how I knew- that old feeling was back.

Unfortunately, rather than a pleasant freelapse, I found the lack of control kind of annoying. I was trying to read when my eyes were closing involuntarily. I was itchy and sleepy vs euphoric and noddy if that makes any sense. I also felt like I had a hangover the next day.

So now that I don’t have cancer, they will have to figure out what is actually wrong with me. I strongly suspect it is a hormone imbalance. Getting older is quite the gut punch but at least I have one less thing to deal with.

My friend sent me this adorable pic of my dog Buster

The Dope Project in the early days was a bunch of highly educated, poorly dressed as work attire goes, punk adjacent misfits who wanted to make a difference. Every one of us had lost someone to overdose and soon we would lose one of fellows. We taught rescue breathing techniques in jails, SROs, syringe exchange hallways, and alleyways. We were poorly funded but full of jaded but youthful enthusiasm. And we were collecting reach to show that this model worked. Dan Bigg had the revolutionary idea that we should be armed with the same tools used by EMS- naloxone. By 2003, we were giving out this miracle drug to anyone willing to carry it and fill out surveys. (I am simplifying a few things here for brevity. Please be forgiving.)

Fast forward to my heavily pregnant ass, waddling out of the 6th Street syringe site for what was the last night of DOPE project trainings for me. My whole life was about to change. Not only was I just finishing my Masters Degree. I was about to have a baby AND start a new job. This job was going to take me from barely scrapping by in the city to maybe actually having money to survive. I would be running a program instead of working directly in the front lines but that would be okay. After a decade in the trenches, I was stocked with vicarious trauma. I began helping people get jobs, good jobs, jobs with benefits. It was a fresh start where I felt hopeful for this new thing.

But in the back of my mind, I wanted to find a way to benefit the community that gave me so much. When some people walk through the Tenderloin or South of Market, they see filth but I see faces of people I love. And people I love(d) were still dying. So I started giving out and carrying around naloxone in my travels. One muni, at the escalator at the BART, next to Rainbow grocery, wherever I went I brought extra naloxone. So I accumulated a little stash at my house.

Finally, I had my last of three kids in 2011. Because of whatever celebrity I had from the movie “Black Tar Heroin”, I got frequent messages from people still deep in the life. I got the idea to offer to mail them naloxone. Two vials in a rural area might be the difference between life or death.

A random person on Facebook asked me a few years later if I had ever read drug forums like r/opiates on Reddit or blue light. I quickly joined these sites using a variation of my real name traceyh415. I felt very early on it was extremely important to use my real name and my real location. I felt entering a community where people were frequently scammed and abused was going to demand a level of transparency from me that was beyond internet stranger. People were having to send me their home addresses. They were trusting me to warn them ahead of the packages arriving as to not be intercepted by roommates or family members. Some people sent donations. Most did not. I didn’t care. I sent these packages. The first six months or so of sending them, I sent them priority mail which in retrospect is crazy. I worried about being arrested every time I went to the post office. I struggled to have enough stamps or naloxone or syringes to keep going.

2013 was the launch but a few years later is when I really crashed hard into depression. I was mailing things but I also became FRIENDS with many of these people. I spent hours a day chatting with people on various apps. People were dying. Fent was popping up in everything and people were dying. The government sat on it’s hands as people died. I did interviews. I wrote articles. People were dying. Hundreds died in the course of a few years.

At one point, we developed a video chat where we would watch other people while they used to make sure no one died. I was not there the day a young man died on camera but the fact that people watched as the parents discovered his body haunts me to this day. He had declined to give out his address because he didn’t want them to kick him out on the streets.

I gave in to the wave of despair. I never QUIT but I did withdraw a lot. I am not healed.

I got this message today:

I'm glad to see you're still here. You sent me and u/OldRapGroup (he had a different username at the time, but that's the one he used when he died) rigs and narcan probably 15 years ago now. Definitely saved his life at least twice, so because of you he stuck around for longer than otherwise. Not sure if you remember me, but I still appreciate what you did and still do.

And this one:

Not to be a bummer either, but if you remember u/Zerebeski he passed in 2023 sadly. Him and I used to talk about you a bit when we'd hang out. Not sure if you and him ever talked but anyways he always appreciated your wisdom as well. You must go through waves of nostalgia for certain things too in waves. I notice being in my 30s, it happens quite a lot. Also. Funnily enough youre basically the same age as my mom!

There it is. That funny feeling….

What does this new chapter of my life look like? A chapter without abuse. A chapter without chaos. A chapter where I am well loved, decently fed, and get 7-8 hours of rest per night. What would it be like to enjoy my time on this Earth instead of constantly worrying about the next hit, the next terrible thing to happen, the next tragedy in my orbit.

It is not that I think things are perfect. One only has to look at the state of the World to amplify fears. But having lived in a constant state of anxiety for much of my twenties, I am forced to fundamentally believe things can change for the better.

I have completed two of three screenings. So far, no cancer. My biopsy is in two weeks. I am forcing myself to believe the universe would not have brought me this far to end me here.

Right after I found out my lump wasn’t breast cancer. A huge relief.

I am currently dealing with a few medical issues at the same time. I have a deep fear of hospitals and people in medical settings. Not like an anti vaccine weirdo that grasps at protections and calls them facts. My fear is based around the fact that in my experience during addiction, bad things happen in the hospital. Going to the hospital as an addict frequently means no return. If you do return, you might be missing a pound of flesh, a piece of finger, or anything else that might have gotten infected.

In my case, I was rushed into surgery while shackled to a gurney. It all started when I finally had the courage to walk my ass down to the local clinic to get seen for an abscess in the upper thigh. The amount of dope it took to get me to finally go was significant. Lots of hustling, lots of manipulation on my part to be high enough to let them cut on me. At the end of my appointment, I was given anti biotics and paper bag full of saline, gauze, and bandages to care for my wound.

Another junkie thought the bag must have been valuable if I kept it that close so of course, they stole it. Well fuck. I did take the antibiotics. I’m an expert at taking pills. But I never changed the bandage. Day after day after day after day. After weeks of this, I could smell my leg rotting. I knew it was happening but I felt powerless to do anything because I did not have the right combination of drugs and energy to drag myself there.

On the final day, THE DAY, I had planned on going to the hospital, I was arrested shooting the dope that was the means to get me there. You could smell me from a half a block away. I was taken directly into surgery. Not even for that wound. For a completely different wound that was even worse shape. Sigh. I had four different wounds from four different abscesses. When I would get them cleaned at wound care, the medical interns would each take one of my four limbs. I was not a person. I was a task. They would speak to each other while I sat in awkward positions still shackled to a gurney with a longer chain.

The doctors were nice enough. It’s the environment that gives me flashbacks. The therapist probed me for more information but I cannot explain what it feels like to be meat that needs to be scraped just like I feel now with my pending biopsy.

This guy is off to a raccoon colony where he will be with friends until he is old enough to be released.

Upon arrival, they asked to take my weight. I refused. I am having problems with my cooch. I don’t need to be fat shamed on top of that. Then they told me my blood pressure was elevated. Of course it is elevated. I am here to see if I have fucking breast cancer. I’m wired on caffeine and anxiety. “Just breathe deeply…” it came down after I realized I didn’t want to trigger more health visits.

They handed me a paper top and a paper skirt. I saw the medieval torture devices get put out on the metal stool. They said zero to me about any type of exam in my lead up discussions over the phone with the scheduler. Before I knew it, they were asking about performing a uterine biopsy “just to be safe.”

Within two minutes, I felt the worst pain I have felt since childbirth. I told them to STOP immediately. Absolutely fucking not. This was not a “pinch” or “a cramp.” This was searing pain. They then proceeded to list all the different types of pain medication and procedures they could use to mitigate my suffering. WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT FIRST!

Anyway, I’m going back in August. I’m going to take a Norco next time they prescribed me. Yes, I’m taking it. If you give me recovery shame about needing meds, I will curse you out. My uterus still hurts and it’s been three days. Shout out to all my IUD havers. I had no idea until now how bad it must have hurt. They ignore our pain. It is awful.

Until next week, Tracey

My coworkers

I am a wife.

I am an employee.

I am a volunteer.

I am mentally ill. I am exhausted.

Many times in both a family and in a community, there are invisible women piecing together the resources together to sustain life. Whether it be packing lunches, organizing mutual aid, coordinating calendars, or silently holding the emotions of those around her. As a person who has held out my arms to embrace the world for many decades I can firmly say my shoulders are now weary.

Where do the helpers turn when things get difficult? Psych meds, caffeine, doom scrolling, and sweet treats can only provide a limited supply of solace in a cruel world. I can’t absorb the generosity that nature provides me on a daily basis because I have to work. There are only so many self care activities to chose from because essentially I am putting a bandaid on a bullet hole. I am leaking emotionally. And truly perimenopause is not helping.

Did I mention I have some kind of lump in my breast? Yeah I’ve been ignoring that too. That and the fact I’ve been bleeding for like three months. I finally sucked it up and made a drs appointment for next week. No reason to let this body fall apart while I have a meltdown. More than likely it’s a cyst. I’ve had them before. But my overall apathy towards my physical self was somewhat alarming. So I’m fixing it like I do for others.

I love my life. I truly do. I just wish I could get more peace. Yay sobriety 🫠

Roughly one year ago, I jumped through significant insurance hoops to get on a GLP-1 through my HMOs weight management program. I had to go to a few classes, get labs, get weighed etc. My insurance has since moved me off that to just meds. I believe this was for their benefit not mine. My first dose of ozempic was late July of last year.

It was very weird injecting myself with something that did not get me high. I got an abscess very early on in this process that took three different trips to the wound care clinic to resolve. I began having fairly severe side effects almost immediately including problems with my blood sugar, nausea, and severe constipation. It’s been an uphill struggle for me to manage all the things necessary to keep from feeling miserable on these drugs.

It’s been a year of ups and downs. I do have less food cravings. I have less inflammation. I’ve lost just under 25 pounds total which was my goal. I want to lose 25 pounds the first year then 25 pounds the second year. I’m only on just over .50 and slowly titrating up. If things stall after this, I’m going to request another medication. On the whole, I see the progress. That’s what counts. I knew rapid weight loss would send me into a spiral of dysmorphia so I’m doing things in a way that works for me.

So that’s my update. I have had a few people ask so I thought I’d put my thoughts together.

Lake Tahoe last weekend

I have PTSD. It is easy for me to find an escape in any activity that gives me a little bit of serotonin or a little bit of attention. However, I am coming to the place in my journey of healing where I have discovered avoidance no longer is serving me. I am 56 now. I am fat from years of compulsive eating. I am isolated from years of pushing people away. I am anxious from decades of stuffing my feelings. Finally, I have detached myself from the rhythm of community. I need to slowly, incrementally, move towards the light.

I appreciate you so much for trying to get past all of the trials that life has shown you. Just by surviving, you have shown the world that love can not be extinguished even in the face of great challenges. I know dear reader you will find a way to easy your troubled mind today. Even if it was reading this for two minutes. You got a tiny respite here.

There are easily over ONE MILLION Americans in 2026 that will become homeless, be homeless, or be forced into subpar living situations such as shelters, a vehicle, on couches, or extended stay hotels. This number includes children, the elderly, individuals with disabilities, and veterans. Many school districts across the country have adapted bus routes to accommodate the increasing numbers of homeless children who stay in these precarious living situations. My own husband is a teacher who has described the challenges of families with multiple children living in a car on city streets.

These are not the folks that draw attention. It is the VISIBLE homeless. Folks that lived out in the open as I did in the 1990s. The folks that lay their heads down on park benches. The ones that scream to the unresponsive God of their choice as they shuffle down the street. They are the ones who drop their belongings in a nearby alley or gos forbid, sit down in a public space. These individuals are seen as the biggest threat to society by simply existing. It is nice to find a scapegoat. The mentally ill and the addicted make good cannon fodder for social media. “Look at these monsters…” meanwhile billionaires and greedy landlords slink away with the wealth they have extracted from our cities, our counties, and our rural areas. I have heard people say “you never see homeless people in x,y,z area.” Yes, that is because they put the poor people in jail. Which is where this nation is headed as places like Fremont California and the whole state of Louisiana pass vagrancy laws that make it easier to make poverty a crime.

I got arrested at least 5 different times for crimes related to “quality of life tickets.” I would get a ticket for something like “blocking the sidewalk.” Then I could not pay the ticket. Then I would get a warrant for not appearing in court and not paying the ticket. Then I would be getting a ticket again, they would run my name, then take me to jail. Rinse and repeat until they could escalate my case into one that where they could actually keep me. This is what your tax dollars support- then and now. Only it gets increasingly worse.

No one wants to see unhoused humans living in squalor. But the politicians want you to believe the solutions are MORE Policing, MORE jail, and MORE dehumanization. The solution to homelessness is actually affordable housing. But common sense approach investments are not cheap and not easy. We cannot vote our way out of this crisis.

At that moment, a bag was more important than whatever whispers I would have to process later. I was suicidal however I was not actively pursuing my exit. The drug was a padlock. The money held the only key.

Suicidal thoughts were constant conversations running in the background of my mind. I did not know what it meant to not exist. I did understand that the emotional pain I was experiencing never seemed to get its foot off my neck. Depression was like a long sleeved wool sweater with a few holes in the sleeves. It was familiar. It was slightly irritating. It had a tightness that pulled against my chest steeling me from any passing touch of an outside. It also kept me uncomfortable for days, weeks, and even months at a time as the sun wreaked havoc on my layer of second skin. Ah to be young and depressed is to be always out of step with your surroundings.

I took a bite of that apple. I gave in to the sins of the flesh. I was weak. So fucking what?! I coped the only way I knew how. I made it through. I clutch every tiny bit of happiness. I feel joy today because I made peace with shame.

West Chester made me into the person I am today. Behind closed doors, those split level homes had their secrets. At one time, I could walk for miles in any direction and never be sure where I would end up. White haired women in flowered aprons would offer me snacks as a traipsed through the worn trails in the back of their property. There were snakes. There were ticks. There were leeches in the creeks. But the green and brown hues were been replaced by bricks and steel. It was cornfields slowly torn away to make room for sprawling suburbs. The slow pace of rural America was losing the rising tide of frozen yogurt places and strip malls with Little Ceasars pizza pressed up against what used to be local business. Every bit of character was slowly stripped away by what they called progress.

I had always dreamed about getting out of the country. I could not have realized I was moving towards me at a glacial pace. It was so slow I could not see me slipping away.

I shivered as my ass stuck against my seat on the school bus. I was bundled up in my leggings, covered in thermal underwear, hastily tucked under my plaid uniform skirt. I had wool socks, waterproof boots, and layers upon layers over my sports bra. I had to be bussed into the city to attend an all girls Catholic school. This was their solution to keep my brother and I off drugs. The devils lettuce, a bit of the booger sugar, and legions of empty pill bottles plucked from a parents medicine cabinet had breezed through our quiet community. Unfortunately, a good amount of it had started a bit too close to home.

My first time I really remember getting high I was at seven years old. Some of my sister's friends decided it would be funny to get me high to get me to shut up. They were teenagers. They did not like having a kid around them. Who likes to get high with prying eyes? Not them, I guess. I put down my toy. I just wanted to fit in. I do remember the way the alcohol burned as it went down ripping a hole in the fabric of my childhood. I remember the way people laughed at me. Apparently, I wasn't getting high the right way. They wanted to show me. I slid down on the couch. I felt sleepy. This was not not the first time this went on, or even the last time. No need to worry about me. I will get out of your way.

The next time I remember getting drunk was at a wedding. Someone started pouring me drinks. How old was I- 10? I don't remember much except for seeing the world start to spin. The colors became hazy and felt as if I was melting into a chair. Sipping whiskey sours at wedding. I was 40 years old and 10 at the same time. Taking care of all the adults in my life. Monitoring their feelings. Making sure they laughed instead of getting angry. I was a little bartender. I was a little clown. I was anything except safe.

The next thing I knew, I was 22 years old with a needle hanging out of my arm. I finally made it out of West Chester.

"Tracey..." I felt someone shaking me before I heard the voice "Tracey we have to go."

I had ended up somewhere between two cars. I guess I had started nodding off right there in front of God and everybody. I saw the trail of crusted blood starting to form down my elbow as I peeped through my pirate eye.

"What were you thinking?!!!!!" he asked me. He starts to pull me to my feet.
I am starting to come back to my senses. I hear the sound of children playing. I look around- I have my back turned to a school yard. They must have let the children out for recess. They look like they are about seven years old.

I tell him in that garbled junkie voice. "How could people get a little kid high?" It felt comfortable to me, like nodding off in a sunny alley with no regard for anyone else or their feelings. He doesn’t understand what it was like to be back in Ohio. I was a little kid at the creek, holding up a salamander. For a brief moment, I was somewhere where I actually wanted to be. Not strung out and alone in the Tenderloin.

I wasn’t looking for anyone. There are junkies that like a “running partner” or a “crimey.” I am not one of them. I preferred to do my thing alone. My hustle was an intricate one that ate up most of my day. I was a middle man for various dealers. This one couldn’t know I was working for that one. That one couldn’t know I was working for this one. They all couldn’t know I spent my own money on a completely different guy I had deliver a 1/2 mile from my hotel. These customers, these were people on the street. They had absolutely zero patience. They were rolling up with runny noses, looking for a place to shit if they couldn’t get a hit in the next 30 minutes. They had no time to wait. Time and time again I would direct them to some crappy dealer, knowing the bags were short and stomped on. After I got my free bags, I would turn around and sell mine then take the money to my guy.

A man was always going to get in the way. A man was either lying in the bed crying about how he was sick. A man was in and out of jail right when I really needed him. A man was always trying to put restrictions on my use. The last one I dated only wanted me to use when he was around, as if I couldn’t handle myself. That, or he was insisting he “needed more” than me.

Everything bad had happened to me in the first six months after I got to San Francisco.
Raped? Check.
Overdose? Check.
Robbed? Check
Beaten up? Check.
Had someone try to kill me? Check.

I have lived and I have learned.

A man? No thank you.

“What are you looking at?” he asked me as I passed him fixing by the stairway of our pay by the day hotel.

I gave him the once over. The boldness surprised me. He could not even wait to get back into his room. He had a slightly chipped tooth in the front I would later find out was from when overdosed on cocaine. He hit the nightstand during a seizure and chipped it. He was a speedballer and overall hustler of the highest order.

“Not much...” I told him as I sprinted toward my room. I knew that would get under his skin much like the needle he had pointed at a new spot.
“....wait...” he told me as he tried to register.
I stopped and asked him “for what asshole?”
He finished his business and took a look at my face.
“You are a FEISTY one,” he declared as his cheeks started to flush from whatever he had pushed in.

“Whatever...” I told him as I turned back towards my room.
I heard a gurgling sound behind me.

“I’m dying....” he told me as he grabbed his chest and fell on the floor.

UGH fuck. For a split second, I think about leaving. The good person in me takes over.
This tar heroin in my bra in going to start melting in the cellophane if I don’t take care of this soon.
I sprint back down the stairs to the landing where he is halfway lying on the floor.
As I reach down to check his pulse, I see I have been tricked

“...I’m dying to know your name...” he tell me.
I kick his leg. “Fucking asshole,” yet I will admit he is clever.
He jumps up. “Well now that you know my name, what’s yours?” he asks again as he tries to follow me to my room. I slam the door in his face. A junkie fucking comedian. I laughed for the first time in weeks. I know he heard me.

He didn’t get my name that day but he pursued me in a way I found to be useful. We used the same connection in the building if we needed at midnight shot. If I needed someone to hit me, someone who knew what they fuck they were doing, he volunteered. I should have never let his unsteady hands come anywhere near my arms but of course, I did. I was desperate. After that, we were inseparable until we weren’t.

He was a smash and grab guy. He would walk miles and miles up and down the streets of San Francisco at night. He would hit the tourist district, the parking garages of the hotels. He would look for any high value item worth stealing. He would take a piece of platinum spark plug, throw it at the window, and have it silently shatter. From there, he would quietly take out the glass. He even popped the trunk in some cars. I have never, ever met such a brazen thief in my life. He had that THING that only a handful of men possess. He could provide me a feeling of safety just sitting next to me on his dirty mattress. It was not a sexual thing. Drugs were my sex. But he had a presence. Blue eyes, blond hair. Again, not my type. He had a remarkably muscular body for someone who used drugs every day. I am tall. He was around my height so when he spoke to me, he always looked me dead in my eyes. It was unnerving, as if he was seeing straight through me.

“Don’t you ever feel bad” I would ask him. “stealing their stuff?’
“That is a complicated question,” he would respond.
Yeah, so that means no. No time for empathy. No time for tears.

I was out all day. He was out all night. We would hang out right before the sun went down. I left when he would start carpet surfing. Or he would leave if it took me too long to get a hit.

He told me it made him sad to see me like that. Such a beautiful girl with blood crusted all over like a fucking ghoul.

One night he asked me “shouldn’t we be fucking?”
We laughed in unison. Such a preposterous idea.

I curled up next to him in bed as he hit the light.

October 28, 2015

“Do you know where you are…”I hear a disembodied voice attempt to get my attention.

Who is talking to me? I am not sure.

I feel a sting on my face. There is heat on my cheeks, the same type I would get when I would run into my crush in the hallway in seventh grade. Except those days are nothing but childhood memories. I went to a junior high that buttressed up against a corn field. We would go into the dried out stalks in the fall to escape from the cares of the day. I have found a different escape now. The person I have become seems a long distance from the chill of a fall breeze in rural Ohio. The cornfields are gone now. They have been replaced by sprawling suburbs where moms and dads retire to their couch at night to sip on wine over the evening news and tell each other lies in the bedroom. I was never destined for that life. I wanted more.

My legs feel like they have been poured into concrete. They are numb like I fell asleep with them both tucked underneath me. I feel heavy like stones weighing down on my chest. I am trapped inside my body. Am I Dreaming? Suddenly I see football on a tiny screen. Like that hand held video game I used to play under the covers in my room when my mother thought I was asleep. I see the green on the field. Is this an I formation? My vision is off.

As I scan the room, I feel a sting across my face. “Tracey...Tracey wake up...”

I reach up to stop the pain. That’s how he knew, he would tell me later. That’s how he knew I was not going to die. I reached up to touch the source of the pain. Then, I feel the weight of someone on top of me. I feel my shoulders being shaken. Then see a familiar face.

“Why are you slapping me?!” I ask, grabbing my cheek indignantly. We have a friend of friend violence situation going on here. Never in my life have I been manhandled like this. I feel the anger drawing up in my stomach. I try to push myself up but his full weight briefly falls on top of me while he takes a breath.

I feel pressure against my legs again. That’s good right? The blood is flowing again. I am alive. Why am I on the floor? I see the glass above my legs. I reach over to touch it. It has a smooth, round end. Wait...this is a table. Why am I under a table? This is embarrassing.

“Why am I under a table?” I ask this person I now recognize as my friend. I see his eyes are watery. His cheeks are also red and he is out of breath like he just ran around the block. He would never do that though. He smokes too much. menthols at that. He looks as if he ran up a flight of stairs. Yes. Like he ran to get away from his troubles. He pushes up his glasses as he grabs a cigarette with shaky hands.

“You ODed bitch,” he tells me in his loving way. Insulting me. That is his way of processing painful things. Anger. He pushes his hair out of his face as he lights up one his Newports.

I shake my head as if to say no.

“You fucking died bitch, believe that” he scolds me as he grabs my hand to help me up.

I pull myself out from under the table and on the couch.

“No fucking way,” I tell him. I don’t believe it. The last thing I remember was him pulling the needle out of my arm. We always use together. Our friends went to the liquor store so we had to be quick. We were not in the mood to share. I was NODDING, he is being dramatic. There was no bright light. No angels. Just football and numbness.

As my senses return, I feel a pain in my chest. I feels like someone punched me, kicked me. I rub between my boobs. He takes another drag of his cigarette, points at me, and tells me “Exactly!! I was doing CPR for 20 minutes. I was breathing for you. Don’t try to tell me, I was here.”

As I start to melt into the couch, I realize the drugs are about to hit me again. I push myself back into a fetal position. Overdose? This was only the second time I ever tried heroin. I couldn’t have overdosed. I curl up into an even tighter ball, drowning from my own ignorance.

The door flies open. Our friends have returned. They put down their quarry- a case of beer. His sister brushes the flakes of melting ice from her hair. “Did something happen? Why are you all red in the face?” She looks us over without fully understanding a crime was committed. He killed me then brought me back from the dead.

“NO” we both say at the same time. “I am just very sleepy…” as I stare at the frost on the windowpane. Drifting like the snow.

I don't have my glasses on. Shit, I don’t have MY glasses. I have glasses but they were passed along to me. Collateral damage from a car burglary. They aren’t my prescription but I can use them to see. I lost my contacts years ago after wearing a torn one for six excruciating months.

I had gone to "sleep" a few hours or a few days ago. It is hard to tell. Everything in my existence blurs together. Days are now nights. The night is my daytime. Sleep is elusive without one substance or another or a combination strong enough to make a rhino lay down at the zoo. Have you every had that feeling when you wake up and you are not sure exactly where you are or what the fuck happened? Yeah that was me.

Wait a minute- I have something in my mouth!?! What the fucking fuck. I fell asleep eating something- something sweet. I continue chewing this rough spackle. This is thick enough to caulk a bathtub. I feel the sugary paste on the corners of my mouth I must have been drooling. Oh well. I need the calories. If I get any thinner, I will need cushions to sit down. My bony ass hurts anytime it hits the concrete as I beg for change.

I try to lean up when I notice my arm has gone completely numb. I must have "slept" on it the wrong way. Fuck my life. Pins and needles. Needles and pins.

There is no daylight. No moonlight to guide my failing moral compass. Someone has covered the only window with cardboard. The room smells like sulfur, butane, and the faint smell of ass. That old fart smell. There is a light around here if I could only wake my arm up to grab my glasses off the nightstand. As I reach up to scratch my nose, I my glasses are on my face. Turns out I can't see because I am having trouble keeping my eyes open. Whoops. Fucking Klonopins.

I am bolted awake by an alarm. What the fuck is happening here. I hear it slam against the wall. No more alarm to worry about.

The light is on now, blasting into my face. He took the shade off the lamp, but I don't see him. I notice something in my mouth. The fucking cinnamon roll. I never did finish chewing it. God damn. Ugh. I see it now, smeared across my lap. I must have fell asleep half propped up, while I was eating the cinnamon roll. Everything is slowly coming into focus.

My eyes travel to the side of the bed. Ah ha. There is the culprit right there. I see the pill bottle and pick it up with the tingling arm. Whatever was in here is long gone. "May cause drowsiness". Ain't that the truth. Oh my. As my gaze gets adjusted I see the blood on my arm. It looks like I was hacking on my arm trying to get a hit while I was cross-eyed. I have a softball sized bruise near my elbow.

FUCK. The alarm goes off again. I thought it was broken?

"SHUT THAT OFFFFFFF!" he yells.

I heard a voice. Where is that coming from? I lean over to the other side of the bed. There he is. Above a torn piece of carpet, I see a sweaty man. He is around 2 years old with picked skin and darting eyes. His fingers are black. His shirt is off so I can see the greasy layer of ribs leading down to his chest covered with sinewy muscle. His blonde hair is stuck to his face making tiny ringlets at the corners. He’s fine by any measure of attractiveness. He is very crispy around his edges. I am not sure how long I have been sleeping but apparently my host never got any rest.

Without so much as giving me a sideways glance to break from his carpet surfing he hisses "Can you turn off that fucking alarm?"

I step over his back and slap the device. It is the least I can do.

I pat him gently on the shoulder "hey man, I guess that means you aren't going to make it to work this morning."

I crawl back into his bed. I am not sure why he invited me here if he was going to sleep on the floor. His room, his rules. I can survey my body and know I am untouched. “I won’t fuck with you…” he told me as he took a hard pull of his cigarette. That is the last thing I remember. He said it was because he didn't want to be alone. I can understand that. I can understand him if he’d stop farming the carpet for crack he never lost.

If I can get him off that floor, I might want to cuddle. In the meantime, I will catch a few moments of sleep. Soon, it will be check out time. I am not sure of he has any more money. We are living the dream, he and I. the dope fiend and the rock star.

He met my boyfriend at the hustler spot. I am not sure how they struck up a conversation but I can definitely understand why. My boyfriend was gorgeous. I would have wanted to fuck him myself. In fact I did (from time to time) when the drugs did not take my appetite away. Lately, the only thing getting action was the dirty spoon we kept on the nightstand.

Mr ethereal beauty and I had an arrangement. He was a hooker. I was a hooker. We pooled together all of our money and misery. We both had the same dos and don't- no kissing, no anal, do as little as humanly possible to get the most money. Every. single time. At night, we clung together. Our bodies were entwined as we were nodding off. We liked eating ice cream in bed while we watched Judge Judy. These people- they had problems. Not us. We were free with the exception of a crippling drug habit that got larger every single day. We were in our version of love- unashamed because we had each other.

There was a little problem. Jesus Jim fell in love with my boyfriend. Suddenly, there were three of us in the relationship (technically four if you count heroin). This man lived his whole life "in the closet". He was a youth minister, a pastor , or some other title that frowns on fucking boys off the street.

I’d admit it. He was mildly attractive. He was employed. He could have easily found a boyfriend in a perfect world. However, the world is not perfect. Jesus Jim was alone in his predilection and preferences. He liked my boyfriend to put lube between his legs while they were tightly crossed. He would hump the wet spot. This is also known as "trick sex". Many prostitutes have learned that straight men get so excited they don't even realize they have not entered the female. But this was two grown men in a painfully embarrassing embrace. He would give my boyfriend the blood money. A tribute for sacrificing his dignity.

Jesus Jim would hug my boyfriend for tolerating his needs. I was standing right there. Awkward. Were we all going to hold hands and pray together? Maybe that was his version of a threesome.

Jesus Jim wanted to be our friends like one big happy family. It made it easier for him that my boyfriend had a girlfriend. That was what HE wanted! If my boyfriend could do it, maybe he could too. There is nothing worse than a “normal” person coming around two junkies as he tried to work on his issues. The emotional labor was equally as taxing as the forced intimacy. Hello! I have issues of my own. I was dating my seventy year old sugar daddy at this time. My only saving grace was that Viagra had not yet been invented. That is a whole other set of embarrassing stories, I digress.

I am not sure what happened to Jesus Jim.

He took us to Disneyland. I am not sure if I am the only one that shot dope in the parking lot there or if it just feels like it. I am sure I will burn in hell for that one.

Anyway, we had to call the whole hooker thing off when we got on methadone. The tricks, our relationship. My boyfriend and I split soon after. When you do what some consider shameful things, it is hard to look at that person everyday. They are a constant reminder of what you were willing to do for drugs. It is what it is though. In that moment, I was like Jesus Jim. I wanted to hide a part of my self so others could like me.

Except now dear readers, you know the truth.

I come from a long line of ancestors with addiction, mental health issues, or both. I worried for years it was the only inheritance my children would ever receive. As corny as it may sound, the greatest gift the universe gave me after getting sober was my children. One had to come first (for me) to get to the other. The chaos of homelessness actually prepared me for motherhood because I realized I could survive in any environment. I never doubted my kids would flourish under my guidance. I had a lifetime of experience to tell me what NOT to do with them.

Now that my first one is living just outside my field of vision, this has been a hard transition for me. Not her though- she is having the time of her life with her new found freedom. I appreciate that about her. She is a smart young woman who is fearless in her pursuit of what matters to her. Whether it is petting every cat she sees or checking UV rays for the perfect sun or getting the perfect Mission burrito, she knows how to enjoy life. It’s truly a testament to what existence can be when one grows up with love and support and the resources to thrive. This is one of my proudest achievements- that my child gets to be an age appropriate 18 year old. What a change to the family narrative. My mother would be proud of us.