Change is good.

One thing that I have learned about myself over the years is that I am very clearly not the best decision maker in the world.

I mean, don’t get me wrong; I know everybody makes mistakes. People are always making mistakes. But lately it’s been brought up to me that I never learn from mine.

I constantly make the same mistakes over and over, and I started to think that I was never going to learn from any of them. I was just going to have to accept myself the way I was. I tried to convince myself: this is who I am; this is who I’m always going to be. I’m always going to be this stupid little girl that plays games and tricks and always gets her way until it all blows up in her face. I would never change, so I would have to be okay with who I was.

But the thing I’ve come to realize is that it’s not that I can’t change. It definitely wasn’t that. The fact of the matter is that I wasn’t ready to change. I liked who I was, I liked the life I was leading. I didn’t want to change who I was.

And then, at the best possible time in my life I met the person that made me want to change. I wanted to change who I was to make myself better for her. But it wasn’t just for her, I wanted to change who I was to be better for myself. So I could become a person that I respected, and that I could be proud of.

All of a sudden I found myself hating the life I was living. I didn’t want to keep living my life for me and me only.

All of a sudden I was no longer the center of my universe, she was. And making her happy made me ecstatic. It completely lit up my life.

Suddenly I found myself having hopes and dreams for the future. All my life I never saw past today. Sure, I had those natural goals: someday I’ll have my own home. Maybe someday I’ll have children. I’m going to go to school for psychology. I’m going to get somewhere with my art.

All of those goals were mine. They were mine and mine only, and didn’t involve anybody else. I found myself making plans with her alongside me, we started making plans together. Suddenly it became we’re going to have a place of our own. We’re going to get a Shih Tzu puppy in August. We’re going to have children someday, and this is how we’re going to raise our kids. We were going to spend the rest of our lives- together in pure bliss.

I had this infinite hope. My newfound optimism was noticable by everyone around me. Nobody could recall ever seeing me so happy and so excited. Everyone saw me changing right before their eyes, I was changing into someone I could love, and they loved me for it. They were proud of who I was becoming.

I found myself so excited. I was making progress in my life, I was moving into the right direction. I never knew I was capable of being so happy.

And then overnight I found myself flying solo. The same person that made me so unbelievably happy made me more depressed than I ever thought was possible. I was a complete wreck for weeks. The same people who saw me at the pinacle of happiness were now trying to pick me up off of the floor, because I was at the lowest of lows. In all the years of knowing me they had never seen me so distraught, I had never sunk so low into depression.

I thought my life was over. I was so in love, and felt so completely full. I had everything I ever wanted, and overnight it was all drained out. All the life had been taken out of me. I turned into an empty shell of the girl who used to be looking forward.

I found myself dealing with the newfound feelings of depression in the worst possible ways. I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. I drank myself into oblivion. I turned to the worst of my old friends, cocaine. And that old, terrible friend brought me and the razor back together. My body shrank in size. I turned fragile and frail and pale, and the next thing I knew I was fifteen pounds lighter. I was in the darkest pit I had ever been in. As I poured all of these harmful substances into my body I cut into my skin, aching to feel something, to feel anything; I was so numb.

And I watched myself from the outside, from above: I saw this sad, pathetic little girl laying on the floor with wrists that wouldn’t stop bleeding, a stomach full of nothing but vodka and a brain taken over by cocaine. It was the first time I saw the person I used to be years ago in a long, long time. I saw myself back in the pit that once took me so much drive to crawl out of, only this time I had actually hit rock bottom and remained there for weeks.

But in spite of my lack of romantic partner I found myself surrounded with more love than ever. In those weeks I was reminded of one of the most important things in the world. The universe reminded me who my real friends were and who I could really count on.

And those were the people who helped me out of that pit. They saw me at the bottom and didn’t leave me there and wave from the top. They formed a ladder to help me out. They cleaned up and bandaged my bloody arms. No matter how much I begged and claimed I needed it, they wouldn’t help me get my coke fix. If I was drinking they drank with me to make sure I didn’t overdo it, or do something stupid. They went walking and talking with me to help me try to get out the frustration by exercising. They saw me shrinking and made sure I ate. They had me make promises to them, and they didn’t give up on me when I slipped up and broke them. They never left my side, because if they left me alone they were afraid they’d lose me for good. They loved me and comforted me and spent hours talking to me even though all I could do was repeat the same bullshit that was in my head. These amazing, wonderful people never gave up on me.

After spending weeks with a mind plagued with thoughts of suicide, my friends held my hands and helped me pull myself out. And I had never been so thankful.

In spite of everything that had happened to me, as down in the dumps as I was I felt this new sort of rebirth. It was almost as cliche as a phoenix rising from the ashes. In the midst of all the wreckage, as I laid in the middle of the ruins of what used to be my life I was able to get back on my feet with the help of the people I love.

In all my life I had never experienced that type of unconditional love and support from anyone and it was absolutely amazing. The love I felt from my friends reminded me to believe in magic, and to believe in miracles.

This last month has literally been the worst I’ve ever experienced. It was the darkest time in my life. But when I was stuck in the dark, thinking I’d be there forever my friends handed me a flashlight and showed me the way.

I fucked up. I fucked things up with the love of my life simply because of my refusal to change. I made the wrong choices, I made the wrong decisions like I always have. But this time I’m learning. I’ve learned from the mistakes I’ve made, and even though I had to learn them the hard way I’m still incredibly grateful.
I’ve finally picked myself up of the floor. I flipped the light switch to ‘on’ in the darkest of rooms and walked out of there in style.

And now? I’m ready to change, but for myself. I’m ready to be the person that I want to be.

I’m finally ready to live again.

I’m Xelia. I’m living and loving and learning. Welcome to my world.