Run, baby, run.

It's strange, to sit here quietly on my couch, close my eyes and relive a time in my life I've always just wanted to push away. That ten years of extreme intensity. The drugs, the crime, the people. Sometimes it feels  like a mirage of something that never existed. Like I'm a fly on the wall in someone else's story. It's heavy to realize, over and over again, that this story is my own. I have to be choosy now, with what I share, and when. The hole is getting deeper, and I need to wise up enough, not to let myself get lost in it. These are memories, not a novel I'm making up along the way. It could potentially be dangerous, not to process this all properly, and just type it out in a never-ending frenzy of expression. Which is so like me to do, because, I'm restless.
I've been thinking about where to go from here, my mind going right back to cold confines of the jail.  I want to talk about the stage leading up to my arrest. The life choices and circumstances that carried me to this place. I think it's more important then even being in jail, at all really. I will get back to the rest of my time in prison, but I want to stop and hang out here for a bit.
Jail, was an end. Life before it, was, a scary place.  This very small span of time, a few short months, in between rehab, and incarceration. Yes, I got out of rehab, and within months I was in jail. Classy stuff.
I never graduated the rehab program. I was stubborn as shit. I didn't like it, it was bullshit, that's all there was to it. Total tunnel vision. So, after eleven months of pushing back, they finally kicked me out. I was SO happy. All it took was a little scrap with one of the girls to get me there. Had I of known, I probably would have instigated it earlier. I was very mature, if you hadn't already noticed.
There was only one place that would accept me back, after my spit in the face. My old group home. I think I lasted there a few weeks, before I took off. This being nothing new, since I had over three hundred A.W.O.L's on my record by the time I was sixteen. Like I said, I'm restless and running away was an addiction stronger than any drug I've faced since. The staff even had to go so far, in the past, to lock up all my shoes in the staff office. Always. I don't know if I mentioned this before, me living in a group home,but I did. I don't really have much to say about it right now. Let's just move on from there. I left. With the clothes on my back and a nap sack filled with socks, underwear, and deodorant. Five dollars in my jean pocket, and a heart of pure stone. I just couldn't stay there. That house, instilled in me a kind of anxiety I just couldn't fight. Couldn't before, and certainly couldn't now.
It had been over a year since I had lived there last, and nothing had changed, except for the new load of way ward teen girls filling the rooms of the house. Apparently, I was so stoked to leave rehab, at the time, I didn't realize I would be walking right back to the same shit life I had entered rehab from. So, suffice to say, my being able to fight the urge for freedom was short lived. Making the choice to leave took a matter of seconds, like a drug relapse. I called a shelter downtown and just left. I remember sitting on the bus, knowing full well, I had just dug myself a deeper grave, but also knowing, that nothing was going to convince me to turn around and act on the sound advice to stay. Give it a chance. In my mind, no one gave me chances. No one actually gave a shit why I did the things I did. No one understood me. So, I HAD to go.  Nothing and no one could convince me that waiting out my time there was a proactive thing to do. Because I've always had severe tunnel vision, my options always seemed slim. There was no grey area with me. All or nothing, and since I couldn't give my all in that house, with those rotating staff, my only option was to give nothing. Just give up. That's exactly what I did. I ignored the pleas of the staff I'd known for years, fell victim to anxiety of sitting still, turned my back and walked away.
When I hit the front steps of the shelter, the weight of my choice felt all the more heavy. I don't know what I was expecting, I mean shelters aren't the effin' Four Seasons. I just didn't expect the smell. Rank, putrid and sticky. Everything about this place felt sinister. Dark. Sad. Hopeless. I knew immediately that yet again, I wouldn't be able to trust anyone here. It was likely I shouldn't be trusted either. Can't blame them, can't blame me. It's just the name of the game. I decided right then and there, I would only be staying here for as short a time as possible. Who wouldn't. That notion sticking in me deeper, as I was taken to my room. It was tiny, and I'd be sharing it with a three hundred pound woman, who did not shower. Good times. I was given a locker for my minimal amount of belongings, with no lock. I'd be carrying my stuff on me, here on in, you'd be surprised at what homeless people will steal, as in everything they can get their hands on. Everyone needs socks and pit stick. The smallest of things become luxury when your out on the street. I'd be learning this lesson, again, very soon. I cried myself to sleep that night, feeling the dread grow in my guts. Knowing I had made a bad choice, but was too stubborn and pissed off to change it. I stayed at the shelter a total of three nights, and was swiftly kicked out for threatening one of the girls, who had slept with a guy I was into. Who knew, a reasonably healthy treat would send me on my way. Zero-tolerance wasn't a statement I tended to listen to. She had ran right to the director, who had immediately called the police to have me removed. I'd say nothing to the cops, except and kindly screw you and let me go. I would then spend an entire week with nowhere to go, and nowhere to sleep, since I had officially burnt every bridge available to me. Except one. The Y. M.C.A.  That tall brown building, with rows upon rows of glass windows. Housing for a barrage of the down and out. From refugees, to abused women and children, to the elderly.
It was a cess pool of filth, poverty and drug abuse.
 A catalyst to my rash crime spree.

Stand.

 I feel like I've been walking around in a haze of numbing sickness for weeks. This morning, finally, rising out of the fog. My eyes blinking away the fever induced sleep. Rubbing away the itch and beginning to focus. Relieved to feel my brain functioning for the first time in days. Begin to process, without the thick weight of a migraine, never mind the ass kicking cold I got on top of it. Lame. The entire week all I wanted to do was feel better so I could write. When I found out about my Grandma's cancer, that feeling multiplied, and I stared at this screen for hours. Wanting it out, anything, please, so I can feel better. It didn't happen, and my fever just got worse. I had this nagging feeling that something was stirring, and once I found the words, it would all settle. I was right, except for one thing. It would only happen on God's watch. The shitty thing about that, was this. I was so wrapped up in my dread, sickness, and frustration that being open to God's word and help was impossible. All I could see was this laptop screen. All I could feel, was urgency to get better. This insatiable desire to be clean and out from under.As much as I'm a Christ Follower, I was still clinging to this instant gratification. Grabbing for it violently, selfishly. If He listened to me, like He says He does, then he'll help me feel better. He'll give me the word to soothe and guide me. Especially when I'm on my knees, desperate. When it doesn't happen, in my weakness, I'll become hardened, impatient. Hindering my trust in him all the more. Digging a deeper hole. Casting myself farther away. When I was younger, newer in my journey, I would just stay in that place. Abandoned, and deeply hurt. Truly believing that God left me there, from some fault of my own, that I could not overcome. Heart sick for Him, again. Never-ending. Like God and I, have this star-crossed lovers kind of relationship. Always chasing.
It's really sad actually, and I do imagine, other people feel this way too. So, this is what's up...what I learned AGAIN this week.
This lesson kinda sucks, honestly.
We are responsible for our own free will. If I come to God in frustration, and leave my heart untouched and closed, all I'm going to receive is just that. Frustration. I'm choosing to come from that place, and to project that on God, in turn, giving me back what I put out. Ya dig?
I used to think, that when I came to Him like this, broken, angry and torn, that it was His responsibility to set me right emotionally. I'm the weak, He's not. He should do something about this. I can't feel this way, I'm loosing my mind. I would plead with Him, and get only stillness. Only quiet. I fought, for a long time, the belief, that I had something concrete to do with this. I didn't want to accept it. This should be easier. Well, friggin' too bad for me, it's just not like that. You do have to take responsibility for the agreements you've made with yourself. With the circumstances your in. For the feelings inside of your chest, the weight surrounding you. You do have to come to God with a willing heart, no matter the case you're in. Why? free will. God never said, he'd remove your pain, or suffering, without being willing. To be willing, you must trust. To trust is to have faith, and through faith, you find freedom. You find healing. God can't just smash through your free will, and do for you what you need, unless you're willing. If he could, or would for that matter, who would we be? under Him? no one. A person made without the ability to choose, is no longer a person. Take away my free will, and I learn nothing. I experience nothing. I have no purpose, no pulse, no drive. No life. I 'm certain, when I plead out to Him like that, with a closed heart, using my own free will against myself. It breaks His enormous perfect heart. He wants to lift me up, but only if I let Him. It's like when my kid is sick,but won't take his medicine. No matter how much I tell Him it'll help, and that I'm here for him, he has to want it. He may want my comfort , but he's gotta get through that Buckley's first. Ya dig?
I guess for me it means, putting down my blazing guns, and giving Him a chance. Sounds so easy, when I read it here. It's not. Fear and pain have a way of twisting my heart until it deceives me. A way of planting awful seeds in my mind. Thoughts and agreements that stunt my growth. Severely. It took a lot of strength, prayer and self-awareness, after this week, to even get to a place where I can try and articulate this all to you. I just wanted you to understand, like I understand as of today, again, that God respects and honours the free will He gave us. So much so, that He cannot get between it and, us. It kills Him, but He loves us enough to do what's best for us. Meaning, even when we think it's in our best interests, and we're exhausted, He will still wait patiently until we decide to give it up. Period. Because that's just how it has to be. He's not some half-assed parent figuring it out along the way like the rest of us. He's the perfect parent. Hard to wrap your head around, I know. I may still get pissed off at Him in the future, I'm sure I will, it's me, ha ha....but, from now on, I want to keep in it clear in my own heart, that He leaves me there, when I won't choose leave. That's just the truth. I have to be wise enough to quiet the inner chaos, and just breathe for a minute. Take responsibility even when I feel like a victim, and give it up. Like I said, it's a shitty lesson, but all in all, it shows how much God values our freedom to choose..and be well, human.
Thank you Father, for honouring me. For letting me choose, even when that choice hurts me. For walking with me patiently, even when I'm hindering my growth and falling victim to my grief. For being there, still, when I wake up, brush the cobwebs from my weary eyes, and finally let go.....where you meet me, with outstretched arms, lavish me in safety and comfort. Proving, yet again, that to be free, I must always be in surrender to you. In this surrender, I can let out that winded sigh of relief.  The one I've been craving and chasing after all week...and, I can write again. With all that being said, Father, my request is this. This week, as I continue to wade through my past, and move on with my memoirs, show me Your path. Tell me what to say, because, these entries are more Yours, than they are mine. I'd like to keep it that way.

Hi God.

I don't have some crazy, sad story to tell today. To be honest, my past heartaches are the last thing I want to talk about right now. What I do want to do, is have a talk with God. Right here.

Father,
This week has been crazy hard. In that frenzy, I did that thing, I so often do. Where I forget. I forget to bring you my burdens. I forget that there is a place for them in you, and I carry them on my back. I carry them on my back until it breaks, and I'm left victimized and undone by them. Under all that weight, and in my blindness I begin to resent you. I'm so sorry for that Father. You deserve so much more . I know how much of a problem it still is, that I do this. How much it can hinder our relationship. I don't know why I allow myself to suffer with trying to control everything, when it's apparent it always leads me back to this place. This place where I have to pick my ass off the ground, through my faith in You, and set myself right again. To be willing enough to allow You to fix me, make me undivided. I know you don't want me to suffer with such weight Father, it's my pride that fights putting it down. I know that.
We come to this place so often,You and I, this whole trust thing. It's hard to rely you sometimes. I hate to even say it, but it's true. I live in a house full of pain, lately. My Grandma so often sick and crying. I hear her cries all day Father, I have woken up to them every single day this week alone, and it's starting to wear me down. The cancer recently found in her foot, adding to those tears. The news of that, creating this heavy static in the air. You know, I've witnessed what cancer can do to a family and I don't know how to speak to her with hope anymore Father, I need your wisdom and strength.I can't stand not having the perfect words for her to hear, to edify her. I hate to see her suffering.  I have so much to worry about, but, I know the truth of it, is, in You there are no worries. That's what I'm pulling on today Father. In my weakness and fear, that in You there is always hope. That greater is HE that is in me, then he that is in the world. It's hard to hold onto that fire when so much around  me seems hopeless. I'm counting on You Father. I need to lean on You today. Yesterday, I asked You what I need to do, and through my tears I heard you say..do not give into the chaos, but find peace in the eye of the storm.
That's what I'm going to do today Father. You are the eye of the storm. That small untouched place of hope, sitting on the inside of my churning gut. That quiet little spot. Surrounded by a tornado of fear, sadness and dread. I'll meet you there, and pull on that promise. I was not given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love and a sound mind. I cannot do this without you, or anything for that matter. Today, in this moment, I reaffirm my trust in You. I give my Grandmother over to you Father, and I will not give in to the fear of loosing her to cancer and dementia. Her time to go home, is in your hands, and who am I to judge, or condemn how that will play out. I will not stand here with anger or resentment, but will fall at your feet. Confident in my convictions. That all will be done by Your will and Your will alone, and in that, I can find great relief. I love you so much, and even though this week was a nightmare, I trust you'll make something beautiful from it. As you always do, because You are perfect and loving in all your ways. I confess that even as I finish off this prayer, my heart still aches, and my mind is still tired, but with each step I take towards you, all will be made right and whole in me again. For You are the way the truth and the life. God's Decree.
I love you...
I need You always in ALL WAYS.
Your daughter,
Angie

Time's Up.

I don't know how I feel about this. I really want to see her, but this is messed up. The last time I saw my Grandma was over dinner at a wholesome restaurant. Sharing bread sticks and talking about what I was going to do with my future. As always. My mind is racing as the male guard escorts me through to the visiting area. I don't even care that he's being rough about it either, I'm genuinely worried that right now she's probably in the building. Did they make her wait long? I hope they we're nice to her. Why did I say yes to this, I shouldn't have. This was a mistake.
The guard directs me through the last clanging door and locks it behind me. There is it. Like in all the movies. Like in all the HBO specials we pay good money to watch. That row of phones. The long, narrow hall of metal stools, and the plexi glass wall separating the dirt from the clean. I realize, I won't be giving my Grandma that painful, bony hug she always greets me with. The two sloppy wet kisses on both sides of my cheeks. For the first time, I'll crave it from her and it will break my heart.
I sit down on the metal stool, I can feel the coolness of it through my joggers. I wait.
There are other women here. Whispering through the receivers, putting their hands up against the glass, up against the hand that belongs to their lovers, husbands, their children. I try not to watch. Keep my eyes down. Even our most intimate and personal moments are kept on display here, and I won't be adding to that.
I hear the loud click of the metal door opening, and see my Grandmother come through it. She's asking the guard where to go. He just points forward and slams it shut. Slams it shut before any kind thank you or polite gesture. She's not used to this. I'm already raging. So, your a jaded jail house guard, please avoid your ignorance and treat my Grandmother with some respect. I'm picturing myself slamming his face into the wall and forcing him to apologize like I'm some Mobster hit man, but I'm just a thin, angry eighteen year old girl. There's nothing I can do.
I smile and wave to her as she looks over to me. Like I've been waiting for her outside in a lovely park on a beautiful sunny day. The concrete walls and plexi glass becoming all the more apparent and I feel the lie of it wash over my skin. I feel unclean. I don't even want to look her in the eye. She's always been good at denial, at ignoring the stinking fat elephant in the room. So, I figure maybe this won't be so bad. I'm doing my best anyways. I notice she's wearing her silver like rain jacket, the long trench one I've always liked so much. Still classy, even when sitting in in this dingy shit hole. We both reach for the receivers. I have that ethereal moment, where you feel like your standing on the outside of yourself. It's almost like it's just too heavy to even be in this situation, that you jump out and recoil for a second. I imagine this is what happens to people with multiple personality disorder. Just an observation.
She asks me the kind of questions a parent would ask their kid when visiting them in their first year of college. It's pointless and unnecessary.The food sucks, this place is the kind of place you should just forget and I'd like to you stop asking please.
The rest of our conversation consists of beating around the bush and hiding how we really feel. Pretty common family stuff if you ask me. Our visit lasts about thirty minutes and the guard yells time up. My heart slides into the pit of my stomach, as my Grandmas eyes turn sad. I can see the tears begin to whell up in her small, grey eyes. The lense of her glasses becoming slightly foggy. All I want to do is give her a hug. I wanna hold her hand and remind her I'm strong and I'll be home again. I can't, all I can do is reach up to the glass and tell her I love her. The guards have little patience with lolly gagging at the end of visits, and he yells again, louder this time, time up.
My Grandma is jolted by his bellowing and she stands up a little to quickly. Her jacket becomes caught on the stool beneath her and she loses her footing. Out of reaction, I shoot up and bound forward to catch her fall. My forehead hits the glass with a gut twisting thud as I watch her fall the the ground. I'm yelling at the guard to come help her, and he calmly, with no rush, comes to help her up. I'm stuck behind this piece of shit wall, while my Grandma struggles in her old age to pick herself up off the floor. I've never, ever felt more helpless and ashamed in my life. I'm leaning my face up against the glass, telling her I'm sorry as she catches her breath. It's alright my darling...she quietly says. Her hands are visibly shaking, and so are mine. She looks up at me and smiles one last time as I watch her walk away.Feeling the ache of her heart with each step. My Grandma's the type of woman who's constitution doesn't allow for this kind of thing. She deserves to be taken care of, to be assisted and soothed. I want to break free of this damn glass wall and run to her. Tell her something like this will never happen again. Tell her it's all my fault, and she won't ever have to visit me in a place like this ever again...but I don't know if that's true.
She leaves thirty dollars in my canteen, so I can buy magazines and snacks. I feel like I've used her and wish she'd take the money back. My head is still throbbing from the impact of the plexi glass, and I'll have a pretty gnarly bruise for the next few days. I'll hate to look in the mirror. What I see when I look at that purple and yellow mess, is how I didn't catch her. Is how I let my Grandmother bail in front of me, inside a grim, repugnant place she doesn't belong....
 It'll be this memory that keeps me out of jail, above anything else. Above any of the abominable tales that flow forth in these entries, it will be this. Never again, and for the first time in a very long time, it'll be the truth.

I'll be here.

I woke up this morning with a swollen, bleeding heart.
The emotions I swam in yesterday, for my entry D.N.A, are still beating inside me.
I'm hurting. I knew that it wasn't going to be a piece of cake, sharing all this past with you, but there is something to be said about recounting your most painful memories. In writing. Forcing yourself to climb into the rabbit hole of your past, dig around and search.A kind of sadistic treasure hunt. What you find down there, may leave a bad taste in your mouth. May cause your heart to quicken. Make you angry, ashamed and raw. Hits a nerve, one you may have been aware of, or not. Regardless, it's gonna cut you, on some level. I made a pact with myself that this blog was going to be real. That I wouldn't chump out and hide. So, Hi...this is Me...not hiding.
I was sixteen years old when I got arrested for the un-mentioned crime. I tell you all soon enough, but for that your just gonna have to wait.
 Sixteen years old. Just reading that messes with my head. Sixteen. A baby. Being twenty-seven now, with my own child, it hits a spot in my oversized heart. The place inside that boils over with empathy, with compassion. That kind of breaks your heart. If you allow yourself to feel it that deep. I wonder what I would have said to myself, if my younger me, and the me now, could stand face to face. I can't even think of anything, 'cause the me back then wouldn't have heard a word. The me back then, the sixteen year old Angie, would have stared at the ground, bypassing my words of sound advice, and taking it all as an act, of blowing smoke up my ass. She would have percieved my act of kindness as self-serving or false. I want to pick her up and slap her around. Remind her that life will prevail, and one day I'll look in the mirror and see myself for the first time. I realize that, the sixteen year old Angie still exists inside of me. Somewhere locked away, where she sits in the dark spots of my concious... crying. Punching things, and screaming obcenities. Half of me is walking in her shoes today. Half the twenty seven year old me , and half the her I was once was. It hurts, my heart beats an ache I'm more familiar with then I'd like to admit.  I want to take her shoes off and go back to my good life, but there are some things I have to say to her first. Here goes...

Angie,
You have every right to be angry that you spent almost three years in jail. Honey, I know what you did was very wrong. I know you feel remorse for that. I'm not going to sit here and force you to be held accountable, or own any of this. Because, I know you already have. It would be against your nature in all ways if you hadn't. I know you better then that, and because of that I'm going to let you put it all down now. I want you to know that I understand....I really do. A lot of people are going to point the finger at you now. They are going to tarnish you and knock you around. They are going to try very hard to convince you that you will never rise above this. That this moment is going to define you. Please baby...don't believe them. I know, you hate yourself in a way I cannot touch on. I know, that two weeks before you we're arrested, you thought very long and hard about when and how you were going to end your own life. The only reason why you didn't is because God stopped you. I'm very glad he did sweetheart. Honey, life for the next few years is going to be very hard for you. I want you know, how very wise and strong you really are. That you are going to make it...and not just make it...but rise above and over it in ways, that now, you cannot imagine. There is nothing I can do to stop what's coming...but I want you to know, you didn't deserve any of this. You are not a monster. Your choices we're the choices you had..slim pickins at a time such as this. Yes, you made the wrong one, and the damage done is irrevocable, but it will not go without purpose. No one has the right to judge you, unless they've walked in your shoes. No one has the right to define you, label you, or put you in a box. Please, baby, don't do that to yourself either. Don't fall victim to the harsh words and reactions. Beleive me when I tell you, you deserve honour. You deserve to have someone hold your hand through all of this, and even if no one comes, which they likely won't, I'll be there. Deep on the inside of you, a voice from your future...pressing on. Ignore the scars running jagged along your wrists, you won't be trying to kill yourself again, will you? no..you won't. Because my love, you have a future. There is a little boy up there with God, waiting for you to be his Mommy...a man out in the world, waiting to honour you and love you in ways you can't even comprehend right now. A family at home waiting for you to return, and fill their life with all the times lost to them. Times, they dream of, waiting for you to wake up to life for the first time. So, hold your breath sweetheart, and take the dive. This is gonna hurt like a bitch...but I'll be here. One day you'll look up and see ME in the mirror...and this will all make sense. I love you so much..and can't wait until we meet...absolve into eachother...and be whole for the first time. It's time to let you go babe...it's just time to let you go...
Sincerly and with all grace,
You.

D.N.A

The paddy wagon jarrs my body back and forth.The walls are covered in frantic sketching, names, gang slogans and dates of entries. Wikepedia of the jailed. Everyone wants to leave their mark. My hands are bound together by large metal chains, the cuffs wrapping 'round my wrists.So are my feet, the thick metal chain link,  I can feel it through my socks, as the cuff rubs up against the tender ankle bone. It hurts. Going to court sucks. I'd rather be back at the jail. These damn chains. Never mind the fact that I'm freezing my ass off in this metal boxed van, the wind whistling through the small openings of the doors. The doors vibrating and whining as the van drives through this blistery winter weather. They didn't even offer me a jacket. Bastards.
It smells like stale rolled cigarettes and bitter cold air in here. The knuckles of my hands turning white as I try and warm them, which is kind of impossible. I'll have to wait for a breath of warm air, hopefully the court house cells are warmer then last time. I'll know we've arrived when the light goes dark, and the wagon is covered by the shadow of the underground parking garage. I'll hear the raising of barred doors and the slamming of metal doors. I'll hear the cops say their friendly hello's to so and so, and roll my eyes. I'll sit patiently and wait for the sound of keys. I can't wait to get out of this tiny stifling box. I need to breathe. Stepping out of the wagon I may trip over my chains, and get the rough under arm grab to help steady me. He'll say something smart like, Haven't you gotten used to the cuffs yet?? harr..harr..asshole.The cop at the entrance way will recognize me as we pass through and into the holding area. Feels like I go to court every week, damn reprimands.
Last time I was here, I spent a total of 9 hours sitting in the cells. Alone. I'm not complaining, I know I deserve to be here, but it sucks. It sucks because it's so effing cold down here. The kind of cold you just can't get rid of. It sticks in your bones, making you ache and shiver. I hate it. I imagine all the other people upstairs. The people out on bail, sitting in the cafeteria, eating salad and egg sandwiches. Jealous. I picture them smoking outside with a coffee. Knowing, it's likely they will be going home today regardless. I won't be. I'll be going right back into the damn awful paddy wagon. Back to the dorm. To the women. To the community shower and strip searches.
The best part of being at the court house, is the sandwiches. Wow. Ain't that sad? The highlight of my day is a cheese sandwich. Butter and cheese. Amazing, I'll have to write home about this. Oh, wait, I don't HAVE one. I flash back to one year ago, flipping through memories.I'm here. I'm wearing a beige dress coat and a white colored shirt. I wore my glasses today, and the prosecuting lawyer will say I did it to look innocent, and call my bluff. Dick. I've been escorted from upstairs, to down here in the cells. I wasn't expecting it. I'll be waiting here for a few hours. The court house is like the hospital, in the sense that you'll be seen whenever somebody feels like it. As in, hey, sit here forever while I make you a non priority. Obviously, I'm a criminal. I've been sent down here for a very particular reason. DNA. They want mine.
The man who will do this for me is shocked when he sees me. Taking a long minute to stare into my face, and proceed to tell me I'm the first women he's seen in eight years. He'll tell me I'm beautiful and don't belong here, he'll go so far as to tell me he's very sorry when he pricks my finger for a blood sample. He seems almost shaken at this, and I begin to feel again. I'm reminded of my circumstances, but the tears won't come. I've learned to keep it simple, and keep it locked. I've learned that tears and feelings don't do you a damn good in a place like this. I've learned that, just because someone doesn't believe you should be here, you are. I've accepted, that I SHOULD be here. Take my blood, take my hair. Let me go. I don't care anymore. I really do not f**king care anymore. About anything. About me, about my life, about the people who claim to love me. I'm gone. Let me disappear. The only difference between this day, and the day I started this blog off with, is one thing. I became hard, callous. Built some damn thick concrete walls around this heart. Became anchored in my rage. Rooted in my numbness. It will take me years to destroy those ever raising walls. Most of them uniting to be healed by the words I publish in this blog. By sharing with you, by letting the secrets out. Giving them space to run around and find a place for themselves in this world. That I don't have to carry this anymore, but I can hand it out to each one of you, to do with it as you please. Thank you for accepting my patchy, fervent memoirs...
Another court date crossed of the list of many more to come, and the chains are back. Hi, chains. I hate you. It's hard not to feel like gutter trash when your feet and hands are tied together by clanging metal. As the cop places his hand over your pulled back hair, to help guide you back into that small suffocating, cold box. Where your ass freezes through the green track pants and you shove your aching hands in between your thighs in a pathetic attempt to keep warm. You hear the engine rev, and feel the tires begin to turn you towards your ever waking nightmare. Your body weaving back and forth. The sketchy self proclaimed graffiti on the inner walls of the wagon. Your toes freezing in the navy blue vans that you were assigned the day you arrived at the Concrete Motel...trendy. Another day knocked off the never ending calender of jail time.....
I really hope the man in black sentences me soon...I need an end.

Big Red Stamp.

When I think on my time in prison, I only remember it in increments. Certain events stand out, like violence, perversion, and drama. Put these events together, one after the other, and you have a full week of pure and utter insanity. Take them apart and leave the puzzle of it scattered and you have reality. The time in between these events, the dull droning of the buzzing florescent lights. The cards being shuffled by stiff hands. The boredom. The payphones hung along the wall, patiently waiting to be picked up and serviced by collect calls. The t.v, cheap and cracked, speakers old and worn, blaring out classic Bollywood movies. The weekly strip searches and bunk turn overs. The damn awful food. It's overwhelmingly monotonous, and the stillness of it can drive you to inner chaos. Honestly.
You keep yourself in check by holding onto the routine, patient, controlled. Knocking off each part of the day until night time arrives, and you've made it through unscathed. Hopefully.
Looking back, as I often do, if faced with my inner scars, as I am every time I sit down to write this blog. I think of the women. The gut wrenching tales I heard. The pain and hopelessness of it. That I had a future at that young age still, and many of them did not. That I was blessed, still, and that some of these women would die here. Honestly, never leave and see the day again like I would.The clouds and birds. The summer rain. An ice cream cone. That this is where their path would end, and that mine would continue on, like a young girls should.  That the slamming of those metal barred doors would be one of the last sounds they would ever hear. The damn awful clanging keys. Click, lock and slam. The end.
I touch on this now, for one reason.
This one women, forever walking around in my bloody beating heart. The women, who screamed cries of desperation every night in the dark until I left that cold, concrete jungle.
I remember the moment she arrived, it was at night, which was rare and often un seen due to guard shifts and schedules. A special case, it was supposed. She came in quiet as a mouse. Fragile, tender and shaking. Her hands cut up and beaten like an underground street fighter. Her hair matted and crazed. Her eyes surrounded by swollen, black bruises. An awful sight to take in. She was so tiny too, just a little thing. No questions were asked at the time, as she was in a state, a state only the severely damaged find familiar. Her eyes darting back and forth in terror and confusion. Like a Vietnam soldier carrying the burden of war and suffering post-traumatic stress. Suffice to say we left her alone. Everyone in the dorm room walking quietly as not to disturb her. Women are still women, even if they are in jail. Our natural desire to soothe will always come up to the surface. I'm telling you, just one quick gaze at this broken soul and you'd cripple your heart.
During the night I was snapped awake by her screams. The kind of scream that stops your heart and forces you to search for a breath. Your brain looking for reasoning before your eyes have even focused. She had no idea where she was. She was terrified. Tearing at her face and hair, repeating the same sentence over and over again.
He's dead. Where am I. He's dead. Where am I.
Being the person I am, I rushed over to her. Sliding on my knees to the base of her bed and reaching out my hands to soothe her. To touch her and bring her back. She could not reason, or even see my face. Let alone feel my hands on hers. She was away, re-living the storm that brought her to the steps of this cold hell. My heart wrenching as I look into her bulging eyes, the eyes re-playing a movie of horrors that was her reality. Her eyes like that of a deer about to be shot, knowing it's fate. That if it were to try to run, it would stumble and fall with the sound of the blazing rifle anyways. There was no place to reach her and pull her out. She was going to stay in that place until it was passed through her. I knew it, and was helpless. I sat there with her until she floated back to a fevered sleep. Holding her lashed and bruised hand in mine.
She slept late into the next day. I kept my eye on her, feeling a great responsibility to subdue her struggle. It was in this next day that we were able to figure out some of what had happened to her. The tale came in quips and pieces, never filling itself out in totality. To look at her was enough.
There we're few things she had the strength to tell us, but this is what I took from it. The police had found and arrested her in the evening. She was found in a pile of blood, laying in the middle of a dingy, nasty crack house, that was her home. Her boyfriend had been stabbed to death and his body lay not far from hers. When the police found her she was unconscious, and covered in his blood. This is all she remembers. The blood, the handcuffs, the judgement. Nothing else. The police will proceed to say she was being uncooperative due to confusion on her part. Due to trauma. Her time lines were way off, who's wouldn't be?
I'm not saying this woman was innocent, how could I know...but, what I saw of her, in this, was a woman who genuinely had no recollection of that night, and was being tried for a murder she had no memory of committing. She cried and wailed all day... all night. Shaking and sweating. Randomly screaming and tossing her tiny body in all directions, a person having a waking nightmare. Fighting against things we could not see. Completely broken. There was nothing to be said. Trying to make her feel better seemed ignorant and almost disrespectful.
That notion setting in real deep, when I found out, not only was she standing up against murder in the first degree, but she had AIDS. Not H.IV...full blown, take you down AIDS. That her trial would take at least two years at this point, and her doctor had given her only as much as a year left on this planet. It was likely she would curl up and die in this place before she could be proven innocent, or at least knocked down to man slaughter. Just the process of acceptance on her part, to even relay the events in greater detail would take months due to her state of trauma. That even if she had hopes to set herself clean under this damned system, her body would give out on her before she could. She had a child, of whom she would talk of with a glimmer in her eye, like all parents, understanding it was likely she would never see him again, and if she did, it would be with a huge red stamp on her forehead. Murderer.
We think we have issues....
My life seemed like the country fair in comparison with hers. I pray the grace of God found her there. I pray there was a light inside of her I never knew of. I pray she carried a secret of hope I could not see. I pray there are things about life that can be overturned, and that everyone finds peace at one point. But, I know better, and accept I'm trying to fool myself with those thoughts. Those high hopes. For some people, it all ends with suffering. I carry a small guilt in me, that I can wake up and breathe everyday. That for me, it was overturned and set right. That I'm one of the lucky ones, and that for many, it's just not the case. Please my friends, remember this. Don't let this sad, twisted tale go without purpose. She may have been a murderer, she may have deserved that title....but no one deserves that kind of end. Remember, please, that right now, there are people staring into an oblivion they cannot control or remedy. That their plight has been carved out for them, and they have no choice but to live out this horror story. Life to them, on the other side, the forgotten side, still beats.Peering out of a cage, eyes cast down in shame and abandon. You still have life waiting for you, spread out like a canvas of opportunity. The fact that you can even decide what your going to do this beautiful Sunday...that you have choices when so many do not. That those awful stories you see on the channel six news are a reality. That the only difference between you and them is a system of choices and circumstances. So, be joyful and go grab your life. Give honour to this story today by being grateful for your freedoms...because this woman may very well have been innocent...and sucked in her last breath, in a cold barren jail trying to redeem herself...
I wish I could have done more for you.
I personally, won't let your story, and impact on my life go wasted.
I'll always remember your voice.
Your eyes.
I honour you, innocent.....or not.

Yard: A Cigarette from the Devil..

She knocks me in the shoulder with her beat up slender hand. It`s that moment. That moment where your blood starts to pump faster. You can feel it...the rush of it flowing through your veins, and you get a little dizzy. Where thoughts run through super speed in your brain, and in a matter of seconds, your trying to figure out your game plan. Knock her out, say something smart, then throw her down,or, both. You can feel the eyes in the room, waiting in anticipation, adding to the already frantic state.
Remember I`m still holding on to the mattress. Clutching onto it like it`s some special stuffed animal I adore. I let go and it drops to the ground with a thud. At that very moment, I hear...
``Enough,`` My heart stops. I look for the voice. It`s bellowing from one of the bottom bunks on the right side of the dorm. She sitting crossed legged, lowering a paper back novel from her eyes and getting up.
`` Stop f**cking around. The kid just got here.``
Corn Rows proceeds to tell her she was just messing around for a laugh. Funny. I`m still shaking. I look towards my saviour, shes stone cold. Gives me a blank stare. You'd expect some kind of warmth, not in this place. It is what it is. Even though she just put out a blazing fire for me, there is no night in shining armour act here.
``Pick up your mattress, you can sleep in the back there.`` She points to the last row of bunks toward the back wall. They`re all full. I turn back to her.... I`m sure I looked like some lost little girl looking back to find her mother...she rolls her eyes.
``Hey You!! Out!!``she yells. I watch as the inmate scrambles to remove all her shit off the bottom bunk. The one in the back. As she struggles with her blanket, pillow and mattress. No one getting up to help her, not even me, the one who's about to steal her bed. Once it`s all clear, I walk over and drop this damn dirty mattress where hers was, not even two seconds ago. I realized in that moment... I just got hooked up. It might seem like a small thing, the back bunk. It would be on the outside. Not here.
Because the metal bunk beds are all in rows, the last bunk is the most sheltered. Also, the most comfortable being it`s up against a wall. It will bring me a very small comfort. But one, I appreciate none the less. I decide to stay there for the rest of the night and just keep my mouth shut. Little did anyone else know, what I really wanted to do was curl up in my single thin blanket, shove my face in the pillow and scream. I want a minute of solitude, to try and process this nightmare, but every time I lift my face I see a room filled with women I never want to be like.Women that I would`t even notice if I were walking down the streets of our city. The kind of women who act like men, who's hands have become thick and worn from years on the street. Women that have forgotten what beauty is, and have become hardened and stale. I look down at my hands, still soft and angular like a woman's should be, and promise myself, I`m never gonna be like them. I`m kind of a judgemental bitch.
Nighttime in jail, is the quietest place in the world.
Once the lights are out you find yourself wide awake, well I was anyways. I can tell you, that first full week in prison, I did not sleep. Like, at all. This kind of stress runs through your veins. It`s like a toxic poison, causing your body to ache and your head to create a fever. Where the pain, fear and anger takes on a life of it`s own, and has no where to go, so it just wrecks havoc on your body. I suppose it`s a process of transition, the acceptance that this is where you are. That your not going anywhere `till the man in black says you can. That yes, this is how it`s gonna be, and you`d better figure it out on the inside, if you know what`s good for you. I guess my body did that by not sleeping. `Cause one night, I just passed out, and could sleep from there on in. Had to get my feel about the place I suppose.
Mornings I was roused by the sound of the radio blasting. Back when The Bear was still around and hadn't prostituted itself to Virgin Radio. Most of the chicks would clean...I figured why bother, were in jail, but hey, seeing as most of these women were homeless prostitutes, maybe this place WAS better then their actual life outside. Let `em clean then.
 Breakfast consisted of Cream of Wheat and soggy toast. Oh, and a mini bag of milk...some of the women would stoosh this in the toilet water, yeah toilet water, to keep it cold so they could drink it later. I decided not so much, I don't care if it`s protected, that`s still toilet water man. Anyway, boring stuff, bla bla bla. I wanna get to a particular event that happened that day. Yard.
So, everyone who`s ever watched a jail movie, or was hooked on OZ like I once was, know one thing about yard. It`s kinda scary.
It`s probably the one place you could get stabbed or beat up, and it`ll take the guards a little bit longer to make it to you. In the movies, they always show that lone inmate walking around the yard nervous, sketchy and afraid. It comes with it`s own eerie soundtrack too. You see dude`s  lifting weights, and swaggering around looking for a scrap, or for someone to give them that look. The look that gives them the excuse to wreck your face. Thank God I`m a chick. Plus, I`m lucky man, the woman who saved my ass last night, has asked me to walk with her today. I`ll have back.
At one point she (well call her Bones)will tell me I remind her of her daughter, and everything will make sense. Not to mention the fact, that from the day I entered this world, God has gone to great and glorious lengths to keep my ass safe. All the glory to you Father. Bones walks with strength, her hands shoved into her pockets and she casually glides along beside me. She continuously looks over shoulder, makes sure the guards aren`t watching, and that no one else is coming up close behind us. In the middle of the basket ball court I see a sock, the sock is filled with a toilet paper roll. She tells me it`s our basket ball. I laugh.
Bones tells me to keep it on the down low, but she has someone she`s meeting between fences. The males high security dorm gets yard at the same time we do. High Security means the violent offenders, the guys that have killed people and aren't getting out until their two years is up here, and they will be sent to the Kingston Pen. We stop at the fence, there`s a small opening in between our side, and the high security side. Bones starts to quietly talk. I`m just standing there keeping watch for her. I`m not trying to listen to their conversation, but it`s kinda hard not to. To this day I wish I hadn't heard a damn thing they said. The man who`s talking to her has a voice like someone who`s been smoking crack and cigarettes for a couple decades. His throat wheezing and cracking as he tries to push out his words. He makes me nervous, and for good damn reason. Bones asks him how his morning has been. He proceeds to tell her it`s the best he`s had since he`s been here. You see, his cell mate had committed suicide the night before. Yes, killed himself. Crack Voice slowly spits out the gritty, disturbing details. How he watched as this broken man wrapped a sheet around his neck and hung himself from his bunk. How he had sipped on coffee while he witnessed  in quiet satisfaction as the breath disappeared from this man`s lungs. How his body had slowly turned blue and lost all life. That Crack Voice was well pleased with this display, and now was going to have a good memory for a while. Something to feed his rage and sick sick mind. I`m suddenly overwhelmingly grateful for the fence that separates us, and my eighteen year old mind is breaking. I`m literally one foot away from evil. REAL EVIL. This isn`t a Saturday night horror movie on channel 6. This is my morning walk. It`s in this moment I realize that Satan lives. That people can turn into verified monsters, and take pleasure in human suffering. That someone may even crave death, like I crave love....you should of heard the underlying emotion in this mans voice. The controlled excitement welling up in him as he stops to breath in the details that will fill his mind for months. Like a serial rapist who goes over photographs and panties of his victims. Sick, sick, sick...he`s left a bad taste in my mouth for eternity. I am forever cut by this dark and twisted monologue....
Bones tells me he`s a friend she keeps her eye on, `cause he owes her a favour. Shit man, I don`t wanna know. She hands me a tobacco stained rolled cigarette, I notice the smoke stained skin of her yellowed fingers....I reach for it and take a puff, as I realize Crack Voice was the supplier...I just took a rolled smoke from the devil.

The Concrete Motel

They have you sit for hours in a tiny exposed cell. Hours. It's restlessly quiet, except for the opening and slamming of metal bar doors. The sound of it is jarring. These damn awful doors. The buzzing of the security system as they do, like late night corner stores when you buy a pack of smokes through a glass window. Makes you feel like a criminal. Which I am, I've been sitting here for hours while the olive suit wearing guard processes my paper work. How long can this take really, I mean don't you just throw me in,and toss away the key? It's too quiet in here. I shove my face into my arms,which are crossed over my knees, staring down at the greasy floor below. It's gray, what isn't in this barren place. Gray, gray, gray. Cold dripping agony, I hate it.
I'm jolted awake out of my daze when a guard yells..
"Sawatzky!!" throwing something at me, "A bundle." I stare down at a forest green mass of clothes at my feet, a towel wrapped around it, holding it all together. He must have seen the confusion on my face..
"It's your clothes, now you shower." I nod my head, and pick up my new uniform.The shower is like some kind of shower you'd see in a horror movie. Dank, morbid and stinks of black mold. The curtain to shield my shame is thin and partly see through. Never mind the huge rip down the one side. It's okay though, when I woke up this morning, I had wanted my nakedness to be displayed for all to see, especially to the overweight, jaded, muffin eating female guard standing 3 feet away from me. It's not like I didn't just perform the squat and cough at strip down for her, what difference is it, taking a shower in front of her now. She looks at me like I'm a useless waste of space, maybe I am.
I do my best to cover myself with my towel as I step into the shower, but it's one of those tiny towels, you know the ones that only reach around half of your body.The tiny stupid ones that belong in your bathroom for guests to dry their hands. Yeah, one of those, it's slips down regardless and I just give up. Shes seen me naked like a million times today, I'm done, shame washes over me. The shower is this rectangle box sitting on floor tiles. It actually sways back and forth with each one of my movements, and for a second I actually think it might tip over. Hilarious. Wouldn't that mess this broad up, if I just go flying over and landing this stainless steel shower box right on top of her. Classic.
It doesn't happen though, what a shame.
They gave me hotel soap. That's it. Ever washed your hair with soap? it leaves this nasty film everywhere, and you feel like a savage. My new uniform consists of a sexy pair of forest green joggers, and a green sweatshirt. Can't forget the granny panties and a dudes beater. I realize these underwear have probably been passed around between every female inmate in this place. I try not to vomit. I'm going commando here on in folks. I put my hair up with a rubber band the guard gave me from her desk. Well at least she did ONE nice thing for me. We proceed to leave the "take-in" area and head down a narrow and  humid hallway. Her keys banging back and forth on her belt. Those huge damn awful keys. I hate them. This will be the sound I hear for the next 3 months. It will wake me up in the night, give me a jump when I get sent out to yard, and rise me awake every morning. I will develop a nervous twitch from here on in, anytime I hear that metal clanging sound, a unsettling chill down my spine...and I will clench my fists. Sweat will form on the inside of my hands and I will remember I can still breathe.
We continue down the corridor, metal door opening, metal door slamming closed. Keys clanging. Hands shaking. My heart is racing, I'm sweating, and I think at any given moment I may have a full blown panic attack. I'm doing my best to hide it.
I'm eighteen years old, and on my way to my first ever adult jail experience. I will be sharing a dorm room with twenty odd women who come from the depths of dark and gritty lives. All I'm thinking about is how I'm going to stay safe. I'm thinking of the movie, Shaw Shank Redemption, and wondering if I should just pick a fight right away and get it over with,but I know I won't. Are you kidding. I'm pretty sure Ill get eaten alive in here.
We stop at the beginning of another long ass hallway. The guard stops for a minute, opens a door beside me and pulls out a mattress and pillow.
"Pick it up," she bellows, " You want a mattress, you carry it yourself."
I look at it. What?
If you know me, you know one thing, I'm awkward. Especially when it comes to carrying mattresses. Ever moved? then you know I mean, unless your a big tall guy, it takes two to carry a mattress. So I feel like a complete ass trying to pick this thing up in front of her. Little do I know, I will also be passing ALL the male dorms on my way to the females. Which is at the very end of the hall. So I will be struggling, dragging my ass, carrying and dropping this stupid dirty mattress in front of say 200 convicts. My moment of glory.
Literally all the guys begin to line up along the plexi glass walls of the dorm rooms. Banging on the walls and yelling a barrage of perverted bullshit. I'm suddenly grateful for the female guard walking along beside me.
She can probably tell....I mean, I'm still a kid right?
I'm telling you right here and now, this was the longest walk of my life. It may have only been about 100 ft, but it may as well been a mile. How many times did the thought run through my head...what the f**k have I done. I've ruined my entire life. I'm gonna disappear in this place....
We finally stop at the end of the hallway, the dorm here is much quieter then the males. I can hear the t.v squawking out some foreign language. My head is down, I realize I should probably look up, find my inner actress and appear to have some confidence. I imagine the women smelling out my fear, like rabid dogs or wasps. I was right.
As I step inside my new home, and the guard reminds me to fight for bed space, I see this lanky, wiry woman hop down from the top bunk facing me. She has one eye that works, the color, blue. Her other eye is completely white, like  Method Man in the video "Bring the Pain". Seriously.
She swaggers over to me, one pant leg up like LL Cool J, seriously.
Corn rows and all, she spits out her mouth...
"Fresh Meat..."

To Be Continued.

Prove me crazy?

I want to start off with one thing.
One very important thing.
You may not believe a word I say in this entry.
Now that I've put that out there, I want you to know this isn't easy for me. I want you to know, I'm struggling with the idea of even telling you this...but...I'm gonna tell you anyways. It begins with a plane ride. This one fateful plane ride to a rehab facility in Aurora, Ontario. A tiny little town, that if you took one second to press shuffle on your i pod, you'd miss it. Its just that small. I was sixteen years old. Angry as hell, and completely lost. I had been given two options at the time, 2 years probation, or entering the rehab and finishing the program. Initially I had said a big F-U to both options and just took off and hit the streets. I spent three months in the dirty ends of downtown Ottawa before I wrecked myself and had no other options left but to surrender to the authorities in my life, and get on that damn plane. I was 95 pounds when I boarded that flying machine, the effects of acid, alcohol and street life had eaten my body to twigs. I had nothing left to give or even take. I was sickeningly empty. I left by myself, and arrived alone.
I'm not gonna sit here and say the rehab was an amazing place. Nor am I gonna say they even helped me, 'cause they honestly didn't. Other then teaching me more concrete surviving skills( not the pro-active kind either) and giving me a place to live. They broke me down, and tried to build me back up. They succeeded in breaking me down, but left me on the ground. This whole building me back up thing, was laughable. I didn't trust one person in that place, and to this day still have nightmares of being forced to go back there.  Surprisingly, now that Ive actually spent time in adult prison, I would have rather spent my time there. At least in prison most people are solid, and don't play games behind your back. If someone has a problem you'll know about it, no surprises. Sounds wack, I know. I just hated this place.. THAT much. Still do, obviously.
So what's this friggin' crazy secret your gonna tell me Ang...
Well, it's the only good thing that happened to me there. It lasted about two minutes in totality, and has dramatically changed my entire existence on this planet. Heavy right? haha yes. It truly is that big. That enormous. To me.
There was one, and one person only I respected at  the facility. This man, who just the thought of brings a smile to my face, was the Father of the church I attended while being held captive in this hell hole. Initially I only said yes to the offer of attending church, 'cause I could get three extra smoke breaks if I did. Classy right? whatever gets you there I guess. This guy was after my own heart, he smoked two packs a day, and always had a cup of coffee in his hand. He was sarcastic, hard, soft, and the best cook. Once every three months, he would gather up some of the kids to have dinner at his house. It was the only time we could just be ourselves and chill the eff out for a minute. Where we weren't held accountable every second of the damn day and could just breathe. We weren't judged or knocked around, we could just be human. Which at the facility seemed outlawed. So to say the least he grew on me, and so did the church. I actually DID escape at church, and not from smoking in the back parking lot...from falling in love with Jesus. Nobody really had to tell me how awesome Jesus was, it was something that just began to grow inside of me, and I was literally heartsick for Him from the moment I said aloud, I love you. So here comes the big secret.
It was nine p.m, and we had finished our multitude of tedious chores, so, bedtime. Yay.. bedtime at nine. I'm like seven again. I couldn't stand any of the dumb ass girls in my room, seriously, the giggling, the boy talk, and the gossip made me want to knock them all out. So, I would roll over and stare at the wall until the lights went out and finally.....quiet.
This is when I would talk to Jesus. I remember, just tears falling out of my eyes as I repeated His name over and over. Why I was doing this, I don't know. I just missed him that much I guess. I said to Him, Jesus it's just not fair. How can I love you so much, when Ive never even met you. Ive never seen you, hugged you, or held your hand. I was utterly in love and heartbroken. This is what happened....
I heard a voice in my heart, it said...close your eyes. I did this immediately. Didn't think about where the voice came from or what was going on. Total trust. I felt myself become very light. Then with my eyes closed, I saw the light. The brightest most astounding light I have ever seen and probably ever will see. Out of this light came a man. His face, beautiful. His body dressed in white.....dressed in light? The light emanating from behind Him was miraculous, like holy white fire. I lost all breath in my lungs and wanted to fall to my knees, but realized I couldn't feel them. His arms were outstretched to me, like someone walking up to hug you. He was and is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. He looked to me like the paintings I had seen as a child, not the wretched, painful Jesus we see on the cross, but the gentle, inviting Jesus you see with kid eyes. It was then, that I was lowered back into my body. I only say this because I remember suddenly feeling my weight again, and feeling the crappy mattress under my shoulder blades. I went to touch my face, finding my breath again, and it was completely wet. My shirt, wet. Like I had just cried a kegs worth of tears. Tears of utter joy and peace. I remember thinking to myself, no effing way did that just happen...sitting up in my bed with my mouth all slack jawed in shock. Did Jesus seriously just listen to me?and then...like...show...himself. Like...to...me. Yeah dude, he did. He so actually just did. You can understand why I don't go around telling people this right? You know how many people would just blow me off as a liar? As an attention getter...as someone who thinks they're all self righteous. Lot's. It really sucks. 'Cause shouldn't people want to accept this as a possible reality? And it's not even so much as people just not wanting to believe me, but people taking great relief in proving me crazy. Thing is though, it wouldn't make a diff to me in the slightest. Nobody can take this away from me, and wouldn't even care if you tried. There is nothing special about me to deserve this. I make sense of it by saying, well Ang, Jesus actually really cares about how you feel. He cared about those tears falling from my eyes, of that broken heart in my chest. He saw the genuine desire to know Him and He came. I didn't do anything unique to deserve this,but believe. I was still a rotten, rage infested teenager who didn't trust the world. He came anyways. Why? cause people are His passion. People are beautiful and deserving of all things. People are an amazing creation of love. I mean look at us, look what were made of, our hearts, our minds, bodies and souls. The way we feel and see. The crazy ass lives we go through, the struggles and the intensity. Our creativity and immense compassion. Our babies, our breath and our blood. It's astounding the things we face and over come. Through Jesus, Im insanely in love with huminaty. We all should be. Shouldn't we? I think so. So yes guys, Ive seen and met Jesus, face to face. Yes, these things DO happen, it's not just left for the Bible. Jesus is the same now, as He was then and forever will be. It's just my truth. He's in love with you, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. He listens to you, whether or not you want to listen to Him. I'm not at all implying you have to believe what I believe, I just sat down here today to tell you a story. Your journey is your own, I only wish for each one of you a sense of purpose and abundance in this decadent and messy world. It's a hard place to live man, and we can get lost so easily. I know I have, like a million times. So, here's to people, you are all amazingly beautiful, talented and powerful....an astoundingly precious race. Here's to US.

Boo-ze.

Picture this....
Its 10 pm on a Tuesday night. I have to work in the morning, but since I don`t start till 11am, this pitcher of beer in front of me is looking even more appealling. Im wearing heavy black eyeshadow and a bitchy punk rock tshirt. My chucks are visibly dirty and my nails are covered in black polish. Im texting everyone I know to come meet me, cause Im bored and need serious distraction. This world is boring and underdramatic, and the beer will releive that. I chug. Wait for replies to my texts, no one is awnsering, I feel unpopular, I chug. I wonder how the other people in this dingy bar percieve me, hopefully as mysterious and a girl you dont eff with. Thats what I was going for anyways...and I feel satisfied with that. I chug. By the time midnight rolls around, Im taking to people I hardly know, and probably if I was sober wouldnt even like. But Im distracted from my inner bullshit and my outer facade so thats all that matters. In the morning I wake up sick as shit, eyeshadow running down my not so rested face and probably still wearing my dirty chucks in bed, wondering what time I got home. I feel depressed, insecure and lonely. But I wont tell anyone, probably still post the pics of last night to facebook, just to prove I have a life. Wow. Im pathetic. I know better then to do this, so much so that when I was done my make up last night and gave that final look in the mirror...I said aloud..great job Ang. Knowing I was gonna do this anyways, and have no control over my insatiable need to numb out. That at this point, alcohol has the control,and Im too weak to even fight it anymore. This makes me hate myself even more. Pfft, like I needed another reason. At this point, Im likely very late for work, and am about to get fired AGAIN. wow, im a winner. Im sure this sounds familiar to some of you. This was deff my reality for a long time, not to mention that two years I fell in love cociane, but well touch on that another day. Its been 4 months since I had a drink, okay I lie, I had three in thunderbay last weekend....and to be honest, it did nothing for me. Cept make me restless and unable to sleep properly. Which reafirmed the stuffs poisen for me...and Im not saying Ill never drink again...I am saying though..that Ive come to a very serious reality about alcohol. It lies to me man. The big fat stinking liar it is. It says...drink me...like in alice and wonderland..drink me and youll be free. Drink me and youll have fun. Drink me and youll be confident. HEY ALCOHOL!!!! SCREW YOU!!!!! you dont even like me, your not my friend...you want nothing good for  me. You wanna see me fail, and then make fun of me for it. Cause isnt that always the case...it suckers you in, then late at night or early in the morning it laughs at you. It says hahaha Ang..you did it again loser!!!!! it says, youll never get rid of me, your too weak. Your pathetic. And for a long time I beleived these lies...I aloud myself to fall victim to it, and not take personal responsibilty for my actions. Well I have now alcohol, and you can kiss my ass goodbye. Your little and pathetic, and I dont need you. What I do need though, is freedom. I do need to give myself a chance to have fun without you, I do need to find who I am without you. I do need to be able to say Im cool with being sober...and mean it. So here`s to giving you the finger alcohol...heres to throwing it back in your little glass face and saying, Im done. Go lie to someone else and get off my back...then standing up and being willing to be uncomfortable for a while. To saying no to that glass of wine at get together, even when I feel insecure, and just trying. To being that sober quiet girl in the corner if thats what I have to do. Not falling into the pressure of my peers, or feeling like I owe it to people to be the life of the party...cause even when I was sitting infront of that pitcher on a tuesday night, and I WAS the life of the party, it wasnt me. Maybe Im not that funny, maybe Im not that social...and thats okay. And you know, maybe I am, and just have to find that girl in me again, the one who doesnt need liquid courage to be fun and free. Maybe God IS all I need now. And that is an AMAZING blessing....oh and the fact that hangovers blow chunks. Just sayin.

Someone unplug the Big Machine!!!!!!

Yes. Today I rant. We all need a good rant every so often.
The world is SO loud. I just spent two full days in the confines of my flu infested bed. I slept probably a good 25 hours. I was feverish, bitchy, restless and exhausted. Good times. BUT it was quiet. Quiet seems to come  rarely if its not diligently sought out and aqquired. Add on the fact that I have a toddler and times that by a million. My alarm clock this morning was Landon screaming in my face while copping a pathetic two year old attitude, that thing they do when they roll their eyes in the back of their head and ignore you..yeah its fun. You hear yourself saying aloud, kid, I invented attitude, try me!! and then you realize your arguing with a child who doesn't even come up to your hip, and you feel like an ass. Just saying. So this is how I woke up this morning, which isn't unlike any other morning, except today I just couldn't handle it. Everything from my cell phone, to the movie playing on the laptop was SO loud. Logging into my facebook didn't help either, a barrage of opinions, faces and ego...yes I am a part of it. A culprit as much as anyone else, but I have my days where I could just delete it all. Just turning the t.v on lately I feel like a chump. The marketing and consumerism just irk me to no end lately. Its days like this I dream of a small country house in the middle of nowhere. A place I can plant things, cook things and just honestly..shut the eff up. So as I'm sitting here, dreaming of this house I cant afford, I realize that if I want quiet. I have to find it. I have to create it, and its not easy in this society. This is no news to me, but as a Christ Follower, with these new eyes, its a new lesson....a pretty big one actually. Our society doesn't offer much in the way of peace. Inner or outer. To find this quiet spot, you have to literally unplug yourself. You have to say to yourself, I'm gonna put it all down, the expectations, the pressure, the rat race. I'm going to make the choice not to react to all this noise, and honestly just turn it off. Inside and outside. I mean Ive never been a huge fan of societies rules, the way it stacks us up against one another, the competition, the comparison. Everything propelled forward by money and selfish desires. So for me, finding this quiet time, means letting go of that facade. Because to me, its just that, false. Bying into that falsehood, only makes me feel overwhelmed and little. Makes me feel I'm pretending I have a choice, cause didn't the big machine make it for me already? and yes i realize, that without the big machine this blog wouldn't get to you, so there!! ill take the meat and leave the potatoes...
Anyways, what I'm getting at is this...its really hard to hear the voice of God when your plugged into so much noise...when your kids screaming, your phone is ringing, your boss is blabbing, your t.v's yelling at you to buy a new couch, and your msn is beeping you of the hook...so TURN IT ALL OFF. Just cause society has all this to offer, doesn't change it from being an option, to a 'have to'. Its still just an option. I think we forget that sometimes, I know I do. Its funny too cause people can even take it personally, like you changing your views and reactions, holds them accountable or something. People get so shaken when you decide to do things differently. Makes me laugh. So maybe I got a lil of track, maybe I didn't. Maybe this makes total sense to you, and if it does, do one thing for me? take 30 mins today to turn off all your beeping trinkets. Go one day without the stupid t.v on, make these things an option for a little while. I know for myself, once all the racket is gone, and I'm sitting alone in silence, it frees up the space to hear His voice. And I know this sounds funny, but usually, He says...Finally...
One of the biggest lessons Ive learned on this path...is the value of quiet. Society is always pressuring you to be loud..to be busy..and God wants you to be quiet and give yourself a shot here...to honour yourself enough to offer yourself the peace you deserve. To shut down your overactive brain(ladies:)) and give it a chance to process the stillness...you'll be surprised what you'll find underneath all that noise....

One yellow rose....

It was a cold Friday afternoon when we pulled up to the funeral home. The wind whipped and pulled at my hair as we walked to the site where Dina Madsen, Montys Grandmother, would be laid to rest. I held my husbands big warm hand as tight as I could as we stood there in silent respect. I hadn't met most of these people yet, but as we stood there in silence I felt....right. Ive never been to a grave sight service before, every funeral Ive ever attended has been in the comfort of the dreary funeral home. Something about standing outside in the cold cold air made sense. That when your toes begin to freeze and your face gets kinda numb, you stay. You listen. You cry. You honour.You Respect.

One thing I can say for certain is that Dina Madsen indeed deserved my respect.
When Monty says, "They don't make 'em like her anymore." I know beyond a doubt, that hes telling the truth. This woman built cabins with her bare hands. She helped rivet planes together in world war two. She lived in the wilderness, hunted and fished to feed her family. When in labor for one of her daughters, she snow shooed across the lake to get to the roads to meet her husband so she could get into town. That walk was at least 5 miles. And I got pissed I had to be driven to the hospital without pain relief...pffffft. I can only hope that one day I can call myself half the woman Dina was. I will forever in my heart honour this woman. Speak of her with a glimmer in my eye...just like everyone else that stood with us on that Friday afternoon. I never even met her and she makes me want to be a better person. A more solid person. A woman of courage and strength. A woman that takes what she gets in this world and is grateful. A woman that works hard and sacrifices for her family. The kind of woman we should all strive to be more like.
So as the wind blew and tears fell, loved ones stepped forward to speak stories of bravery, laughter and wisdom. Stories of love and courage....and the time came to close with the passing out of yellow roses to the immediate family....to her children, her grandchildren. I stood back as I watched my husband slowly walk up to her casket which was blanketed in red velvet, and gently place his yellow rose and say a final goodbye to his Grandmother. Tears whelling in my eyes. My heart beating out just for him, for his family. He walked back to me with his Mom Sandy at his side, and I noticed she was still carrying her rose. She approached me gently, as she always does, and whispered to me...
Angie, I want to share my rose with you.
As I even write this, tears are falling down my face.
I was shoked...I didnt know what to say. This rose was for her. It was HER Mom. How many people would have been taken over by grief in that moment, so taken that they are blind to anyone else but themselves. Most. I know I would have been. I didn't feel right reaching out to receive it from her hand, but when I did and saw the love in her eyes... I knew in my heart that she was teaching me something so important, something so valid and real..that I could not take that away from her. From myself. And as I walked up to Dinas resting place and knelt down to place that rose, in my personal experience, my place in the Holladay family was finalized...and my heart and soul EXPANDED. I cant explain it, it just IS. I am filled with a kind of gratitude I have a hard time putting into words. That one single act of selflessness has changed me forever. I was once a runaway criminal teenager, homeless, drug addicted and jailed. Ive faced rape, domestic abuse, and a multitude of pain and suffering. In some way or another, havn't we all? but not all of us are given the Grace of God to press restart in our lives..I guess not all of us ASK for it either. I did. God heard me, and from the moment, 5 years ago when I called my Mom Chantal on the phone, asking if I could leave my ex and come home, Gods been leading me back to His heart. Its been a hard road, a road you bleed all over and stumble over. A road you yell at and abandon, only to come back too. A road you hate and a road you love.
Having said all this, I could NOT have ever made it this far on my path without myamazing family..My strong and loyal father John, My passionate and wise Mother Chantal, My creative and compassionate Mother Lisa, My gentle and selfless Mother In Law Sandy, My joyful and patient Father In Law Leonard, My understanding and kind brother Joshua, my handsome perfect little son Landon who's taught me more about love and grace then anyone ever could. And Monty...the man  who saw my heart and my truth before I ever did..who lifted me up when the weight of my pain and struggle could have been a million pounds...I love and honour every one of you with every breathe I take...and God...the all that ever was, ever is and ever will be...You rise above all these beautiful people..and I give all the glory back to you, to your Son, my personal saviour, Jesus Christ. Tell Dina Thank you for me...she has helped shape my future, and for that I am eternally grateful...tell her, I look forward to the day Ill get to meet her face to face and hand her a single yellow rose...

The time in between...

Sitting here at the Porter airport lounge in Toronto...its dull and generic everywhere I look so I figured Id get my blog on while I sit here waiting..keep my mind off of the little biting fears in my gut. Like how Im actually kinda scared of planes to be honest...each person that boarded on the last flight..I sat there thinking to myself..Is this the people I'm gonna die with? my brain flashing back to that scene in Fight Club where Eddy Norton visualizes the plane crashing..and he doesn't even care if it does..diff between him and I, is that I do care.
Thinking of my son back home..knowing hes all good, but wondering if he even misses me yet. The insecure mother..haha..wow Ang...get a grip. Maybe its just because I havnt had enough coffee yet, so Im cranky. Maybe I'm just sulking. Probably both.
Anyhow, this is what I wanted to talk about..I can feel in my heart that this weekend has something special in store for us. Like Gods throwing us a surprise party, and I happened to get a sneak peak at the invite.  Funny you might think, because we are going to Thunder Bay for a funeral...u picture rain, black dress cloaks and tears. Bouquets of flowers and crinkled faces. Vegetable platters and sweaty cheese. Small single serving sandwiches(yay another fight club quote :))
See, this is so important for my husband..he came all the way here from Alaska just to marry my ass...so suffice to say he hasnt had the time with his family he so well deserves. I'm so excited to see him BE HIMSELF fully with his family. With his wife at his side, showing off pictures of our son. I'm excited to finally meet all these people, not without the admission, of how nervous I actually am....shhh. So here's to my husband, for the opportunity to mend broken relationships..to hug his Mom and Dad and just Be with his family. The past three years we've been together its always been MY family events, MY traditions. So here's to yours my love..I love you with all my heart.
And just a p.s...airport authority kinda remind me of my time in jail..not as constricted, but just as much attitude and displaced power...get over yourself and smile for once..just sayin'...now to fetch more free peppermint tea<3

One foot in front of the other....

So Im standing in the shower this morning..well sitting actually..Im too lazy when I get up in the morning to stand haha..plus I like the water washing over my face and neck...wakes me up. Anyways as Im sitting there with that warm water running over my face youd imagine id be relaxed, or at least enjoying my quiet time, but I wasnt. I was thinking..as I always do in the morning...which can lead to being far too stressed out when your just beginning a new day. Im sure a lot of other women can relate to that..u just open your eyes and your already bombarded with the daily grind, and all the stuff you hafta get done..bla bla..sounds normal and stuff..but honestly it can screw up my entire day and mood if i don't center myself. So I try to take time in the shower to reach out to God and check myself, before I wreck myself ;)
So this is what I was trying to do this morning. The last few days I hadnt been in genuine prayer..I had been trying to regain control with God..trying to put myself in the front seat again. It had snuck up on me..as it always does when you don't take the time you need to be with The Father.  I had started to feel selfish again, and that led me to rebel for a week or so. K lemme restart here for a second, in the last two months my journey with God went from frustration and complete blindness to being awake and aware in Him. In the Truth. He literally walked back into my life..and made Himself known. Anyone whos had a kick in the ass from The Father, knows exactly what Im talking bout. The kind of thing, where no matter how hard you try to explain it, to control it, to reason with it, or make it tangible...you cant. It just is. And what He wants, just is. You can try to ignore it and go do groceries, make feeble attempts to live your life without looking at whats directly on your heart and in your face. But you know. Youll never be the same. And good riddance right? I mean if your life has been crazy hard, and your walking around with all that pain? good right? yes good. Easy? NO. I mean in the beginning your so high on God, its all easy!!! You want to listen, make a difference..the surrender is simple when your face to face with trust, and honor. That is until...time goes on and you realize..that keeping up this relationship depends on you. And that my friend..puts you in one place. In front of the mirror. So that's why I started this blog...to surrender, to face myself..to put it all out there, and vunerabilize myself to everyone who decides to take the time to read this. Why? cause Im scared. Cause Im afraid Ill be judged as this new creation in Christ...and that's what I was worrying about in the shower this morning. So I decided to listen..and all I heard was...go all out then Angie..tear open your chest and show yourself. I realized I had been hiding my relationship with God..keeping it in my living room and in Bikers Church. Yeah Ill post the occasional inspiring facebook status update...but thats still copping out. And I promised God..I wont sell out on you. I wont be ashamed of you. You made me, and I wont be ashamed of me either. So here goes..Im going to try and publish a Blog everyday...an online open journal..and I wont hold back...I figure If I can advertise my humanity, mistakes, failures...to all of you? God will teach me how to accept them in myself. Feel free to leave me comments, and help me on this journey...Im just a human being walking around in insecurity and ego like everyone else..but Im done in that life..there is nothing left for me in the big machine. My goal? The Truth. I got it tattooed on my arm for a reason ;)
So here's to You Father...for never letting me sit still for long..for loving me enough to push me through my fears...and for teaching me everyday the value of people and grace...and for most offering me the gift of a new heart...even though I don't deserve it at all.