Everybody Loves a Monkey

So I think that it's a shame I didn't have that cliche tucked into my back pocket when I was younger. It does sound cheesy and almost as if I don't give a hoot about what's going on around me. Not true. It's for those things that can't be changed no matter how hard I try to put my super powers into motion, no matter what my actions are, no matter how much I "care". It is what it is.

*sidenote... I just would like to say that my hand is completely numb and the amount of rambling that is about to take place is going to make it worse... this could take time. Backspace is my friend.

Shoulda coulda woulda. Damn. If I could only turn back time and change just a few things. I was just thinking about this the other day. boy would it make me happy to go back and grab that one thing and put it over there so I'd never lose it...
But in doing that, I'd change everything that ever happened to me. Fate. I believe in it. Not in a religious way... but in a fate-ish way. Fate, gives us the tools to create the person we "grow up" to be. Change that? Uh.. Not worth it... I love where I am right now. I know you do too.

*fate is also one of those words that if you say it over and over, it doesn't make sense anymore.

E. That's what we'll call her. I met her through a friend I went to Jr High with and we became pretty close friends. She was the wild child. I wasn't. I'd like to think I "evened" her out a bit. Maybe I was wild, but not to the point of stupid... I dunno. Anyway, I pretty much lived with her sister. (she's a whole nuther story, unrelated). So E, turned out to be a pretty jealous gal. Younger than me, but always seeming to want to outdo me. I don't know why, I adored her and looked at her as a sister and a bff. She was the first to smoke, the first to drink, the first to have sex, the first for everything, always wanting to do more than the next person, especially me and her sister.
I moved out of her sisters apartment. She fell apart. Moved to Wisconsin to live with her "Papa". She got in just as much trouble there. Smokin weed, drinking, doin stupid crap. Her dad sent her back to her mom's here by me where she got into the Rave scene. Underground parties that included X and acid and various other drugs like mushrooms..etc. I tried to be there for her as much as I could. The last time I remember picking her up from some old barn Rave. She was afraid to come out because a shadow that was cast from a door looked like a demon and she thought he was going to kill her. I had to move the door AND the lighting to get her to run out and jump into my car.
Broke my heart. She was a mess. And that mess took herself to Chicago to the big Raves. Where she met a guy that introduced her to meth. Yep, you heard me, Meth. She moved in with him after 2 days of knowing him. She wasn't quite 18 and her mom tried to make her come home once... where she stole $40 from her 6 yr old nephews piggy bank and a melon baller and then ran away again. Yes, a melon baller. I don't know.
She ran back to this guy, lived in this apartment where her sister would visit her and give her money and support her as much as she could. And every time, she would use the money to buy meth. E got pregnant. On meth. Had a stilborn baby. Her boyfriend hung himself...she found him... tough love? Supporting the habit? No one could get her cleaned up but herself. Her daughter who lived for 6 minutes... maybe she had something to do with that. She went to the meth clinic, got on Methadone, and slowly... SLOWLY got off the meth. Took years. She's 27 now. She has a son that she never sees. She's still a mess and not the person that I befriended 15 years ago.

There's nothing I could have done to change the outcome. It is what it is. That's hard to swallow, but it's true.

In other non-drug related news, my mother... I love her like a BFF and a mother. Not to sound heavy headed or anything, but the life I was dealt, probably wouldn't have been received as well had I been any other kid. I know this. I'm not bragging or proud or ashamed. I just, am. You got me thinking of personal effects... I'm jealous of you. I still have my mother. I have a relationship with her that I don't think you had with yours, mostly because I'm 31... you were what, 18? But I'm still jealous.
I have no baby pictures. Nothing to remind me of who I was as a kid. That cookoo clock I wanted to have some day as my own... it's gone too. Toys? What are those? Birthday cards? Na, those are gone too. Throughout the many many moves in my life, the personal effects have been thinned to almost nothing, but I still thought I had "enough". But those went up in smoke. Literally. House fire. My mom's house burned to the ground and so did all of those memories. I consider you lucky. I'll never be able to show my son what I looked like at his age when he's 5. Or 10. When the unthinkable happens to my world, and my mother is no longer here, I'll have the new life that she built in TN, memories that were made without me or anyone I'm familiar with in this life. I can't comment too much on this because it will most certainly put me into a funk for the day.
And you said not to say it but you are probably the furthest from being a horrible person than I have ever met. See, I don't "play" with horrible people. Period. You are human, and you have feelings like the rest of us. And there is absolutely nothing in the world wrong with that. Shoulda coulda woulda... You woulda changed your life for good? For what, peace of mind that you tried to change a meth-head's life, which you would have failed at miserably? Sure, your BFF and if we don't reach out to those we love, what kind of person does that make us? Well you did... You reached out with the love of a BFF, with the love and appreciation of a niece and unconditional love. So don't sit there and say you've done nothing or you shoulda done more. Because when it comes to that drug, there's nothing you coulda done.
*you've officially pissed me off*

My Baby shower friend - has a daughter. She's 37. She's also in jail for stealing checks from a "friend/roommate" and cashing them so she could buy crack. She's also pregnant. She's also drained her mother of all the energy she possibly has to help this kid. There's nothing left of her. She's officially out of the "helping game". Can't do it. Now she has to walk away from her kid because the past 12 years of trying to get her on her feet...she's failed. She's got nothing left for her except hope that she'll hit rock bottom and try to pick herself up. She's come to the realization that the only person that can help this kid is HERSELF. It is what it is.

It ain't easy...but it is what it is.

I could go on.........