Girl Just Wanna Write

 I just wanna write.

That’s all I really wanna do.

Cause my other addictions don’t seem to be working for me.

My mother is a bit worried about all the coffee I drink: “Do you know what all that coffee will do to you? (Major exclamation point).” She acts as if I was mixing ammonia and bleach, and assumes I’m pounding Red Bulls on top of the Joe. Nooo, but I’m an addict, and everybody knows we lie (and since I’m a woman I am inherently diabolical).

I think as a recovering alcoholic it’s my right to consume as many cups of coffee as I so desire (and my right as a writer to make you read this shit), because to me AA actually condones that kind of caffeine abuse, and because what else can I do? …and that mindset is the problem. As a drunk, the only logical thing to do was drink, even though there are other worthwhile activities, which are not fun if you’re not a little more than buzzed (a semi sloppy energetic kind of drunk)…talk about tunnel vision with drunk goggles and Double Vision. Phew.

I’m just waiting to see if she’s right, if I have the heart attack “from hell” (thank you, Richard Lewis) that at least proves I have a heart, as black and deranged as my lungs and the espresso I sometimes shoot like whiskey. But damn, I don’t want that, even though I could use a good near death experience. 

My dad is in a long term acute care facility near Tampa, due to a respiratory failure “incident” (the proper term: hypoxia. Although I think he was just trying to take a snooze), and I know he’s jonesing for a cigarette this minute (and the children from hell sent him clear across the state. I know we’re gonna pay for that later. My dad is a “broken down pig farmer” (his words not mine), but he’ll rewrite that Will so fast it’ll time travel to 1980). I think he’s “a termite that’s choking on the splinters” (that’s from Loser by Beck), and the album would be ‘Somebody Get Me a Doctor’…And a Menthol! God, help us (I think I need another deity, one specializing in substance abuse).

Anyways, we don’t always do what’s good for us. And we pay the price. Or the toll across the river Styx (or play some Styx. I do got too much time on my hands). 

I met a guy on the street once, seems like not that long ago, and I was sober, and he told me he tried to kill himself so he started walking from Virginia to Florida (for real), I assume so he could find himself and put the past behind him, and here he was down south, his feet killing him, and since that near death he could see spirit now. And what did my spirit say to him? “You just like to have fun, don’t you?” Yeah, he saw right through me (with a twinkle in his eye). I think Cindy Lauper was singing about all girls, but about me specifically (I’ll let the alcoholism speak for itself). But I hope my spirit says more than that. I wonder what else that dude could have told me if I’d talked to him long enough. I’m into people like that (I like a good spiritual conversation).

I’m into enjoying my coffee break, even if that break is all day long, even if it’s the only buzz I’ll ever have for the rest of my life (if I could be so lucky). 

And I’m into this gig. 

And honest to god, I don’t know how it happens (the writing). Or how I got here (to Sobriety. Can I stay here?). Grace is obviously a free thing, albeit mysterious (kind of like air). God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. All I know is I think of it like picking a lock, which I’ve never done before (but once I broke into my car with a coat hanger), but I assume it involves blindly jimmying a Bobby pin into a hole and clicking around until bam…you’re in (is that how you get into heaven? “Let’s ask can we stay…”(Creed)). And that’s what it’s like. It’s moody and has to be rubbed like a genie in a bottle. And yeah, it’s work. But I like it.

And because im an ingrate millennial, I never properly thank the gods for this manna from heaven. But I have taped a photo from National Geographic to my lamp, Michelangelo’s Pieta, to further inspire me (or intimidate me). John said he read a book about Michelangelo, and that guy was really mistreated; all he wanted to do was sculpt marble, and the church made him paint the Sistine Chapel, which he hated doing, the poor man. Talk about passion and talent. Dolores Cannon said something like “you find what you’re here for, what you’re really supposed to do…you don’t get sick, you don’t age, and you don’t die.” Well, I don’t know about that. But life is hard, and sometimes you gotta paint a church ceiling.

All I know is that I’m winging it. I think most of us are. Although I tend to think other people know exactly what they’re doing and where they’re going and doing exactly the things they need to do to get there. I am not quite as responsible or ambitious. I might be a “low achiever.” 

And I don’t have wings, but I have words, and I might be confusing writing for flying, but it’s the only thing that gets me off the ground (or maybe I do make my coffee too strong). I hope one day it takes me someplace. 

I wanted this to be a really long spiel, but oh well. I seem to be chemically challenged, and I can’t find my genie. I think I scared her back into her bottle. Some girls just wanna have rum.