My Compartmentalized Life

Huh!?!?

Compartmentalized. You know, those separate sections that you keep separate from each other and the people in your life as a whole. Well, maybe you don't look at your life as different compartments, but...

A few years ago I had many compartments. Business person, family man, community pillar, and art and music aficionado. Oh yes! And crackhead. I was a different person in each setting. While this may not have been a multiple personality disorder, it sure as hell wasn't healthy.

In most normal people lives there are facets, parts of their lives that required different duties and responsibilities. But as normal people,these blended together and made the whole person. They enjoy a complete and whole life with divergent interests and responsibilities. But through all those facets they are one person.

There are people who can describe what compartmentalization means to them much more clearly than I. For a better description, click the title.

As time went by and my drug using increased my other facets, or compartments shrunk. My smoking crack and all the things that revolved around that life took over. Crack squeezed out anything else that competed with it.

Funny thing is I was the last one to know. I thought I was the perfect actor. The different masks cracked, so to speak, and everyone saw what or who was hiding behind them.

So here I am. Trying to if not seal up that one compartment, at least shrink it to a manageable size. Trying to explore those other compartments that are recoverable and turn them into facets of the whole me.

Some things will never be part of my life again. That's not going to stop me from trying to maximize those areas that can make me at least a little bit more a complete person.

That's why I'm here. That's why the past six months or so have been given over to telling you folks what it's like living this kind of life. Also it's about letting you know when I've gotten high and when I've been straight.

So it's important to tell you all, as well as myself before I forget. Last Monday and Tuesday I did get high. If I didn't write that down, sure as shit, I would have been the first one to forget.

Six months from now, or maybe in a year remembering this may be important to me.

It might even save my life.