what am

I? This year has changed me, turned me almost unrecognizable. Looking into the mirror I find a woman deeply cut, and a woman confronted with change, a woman, finally. No longer a girl, foolishly believing in her righteousness, investing in false senses of good through pleasure and instant gratification.

Practically speaking, I'm not an alcoholic anymore. I'm not the sex addict I was. I'm not looking for that feeling anylonger, partially because my search for it humiliated me in the end.

To be honest, in this new strange phase of commitment, I still miss the one who got all caught up in himself. And the one that pretended that what we had was insignificant. And the freedom to find possibility in any person I came across. I still have that feedom, yes, in some senses, but no longer in the one big romantic way.

Who am I? I remember the brash woman I was when I left Portland. I was a woman on a quest for big things. Looking to fulfill big aspirations. Instead, I found reality in its most gritty and humbling form. Economic, relationship, personal- I've been hit every damn way you could imagine. I hit myself, and I got hit by others.

Along the way, somehow, I managed to find some truth. I found out what love really is. I heard the worst a woman can hear and survived it.

I am here, still. I am more aware than I ever have been before. I am. I suppose for right now that has to be enough.