What's Your Heroine?

I watched the movie “The Basketball Diaries” last night and still almost 24 hours later I have this nauseating feeling eating at me slowly as the images of a beaten Leonardo Dicapro replay over and over behind my eyelids, and the sound of “It hurts. It hurts,” ringing loudly in my ears.

Still, even writing about it makes me feel sick to my stomach, and it probably wasn’t the best time in my life to be watching it. After the movie, he said, “See. We have no problems.” While some people watch those movies, they let themselves feel better about their concerns mulling over in their mind, I do not. I tend to start asking the questions, “What’s my heroine?” Don’t get me wrong. I by no means can even begin to understand the struggle of someone who is fighting that type of an addiction. I by no means mean to come off saying, “Oh you’re a heroine addict? That’s nothing, listen to my relationship problems.” That’s not what I’m saying at all.

Instead of letting the movie give me perspective, I start thinking about all the negative forces in my life that I let consume my everyday life, and at what cost? How far am I willing to go, and most importantly, what is it going to take to get out? I think that glaring black and white moment is going to come, and I’ll know exactly what to do because the universal “they” knows how to handle bad situations and the solutions have been there all along with sayings including: “say no to drugs,” or “If your husband beats you, leave him.” “education is important.” Then the grey comes along and I think: just one more time because it’ll never happen to me. Then the one more time never comes, and the battle of the misery commences; the misery I created and continue to allow. Then the suffocating thoughts of “maybe I’m wrong” “this is where I want to be” “I’m not the only one” surround me, and the sea of doubt drifts away with me standing on the shore thinking – “I’m ok. This is my choice. I just need 5 dollars maybe 20.”