I was the red-headed, step-child of young, Vietnamese immigrants. I was the valedictorian of my high school. I graduated with honors from Harvard. I am an astronaut. I live in a country home in the Big Apple with my live-in lover and our 7 children. For fun I like to build and fly model airplanes and go boating. This is my life. Welcome.

I am so totally kidding. Although parts of my life read like a sci-fi, horror novel, it’s probably rare that I’ll touch on those subjects here. I was born in New Jersey, but I have no accent whatever, on October 4, 1978. That just means I’m 30 if you’re reading this now, but very likely I’m older. I spent the first half of my life competitively riding horses, arguing with my parents, passing Chemistry, and hanging with my peeps. Most of the time I loved my life, but pictures would definitely tell the story of a flannel shirt wearing, angst ridden, bang sporting teenager.

During the second half of my life, I built an addiction to opiates that nearly killed me and my family. I spent varying amounts of time homeless, in treatment, clean & sober, begging for money or working off debts, on & off methadone, or helping others to find the freedom & serenity I now had. I only mention my addiction because A) my life took a very different track than the one I had planned for myself and B) to lie about it would be to deny a very important part of myself. I would love to say the story ended when I laid eyes on my first, beautiful son, but addiction holds its prey in its fangs forever and frankly, it didn’t end there. I realized that unless I arm myself with weapons to combat this disease daily, I will always use again. I am an addict and I am responsible for making sure that I never fall back into active using again. I suppose that if I had to wind up with any disease, at least I got the one that I could put into remission with a 12 step meeting and helping others through service work.

I spent most of my life overachieving. I was balancing a 4.0 GPA to prepare my entry into medical school and competing at a national level at top horse shows, so imagine my surprise when I became a homeless drop-out. I met my husband during one of life’s many second chances and though I didn’t realize it at the time, he would become a major catalyst for change many times over in my life. I was attending the University of Miami while juggling two jobs, one at a doctor’s office and one at the morgue. Through lots of hard work and some majorly transcendental experiences, my life was finally starting to take shape and I was again headed in a positive direction.

I was alternately shocked, horrified, amazed, and terrified when I found two pink lines staring back at me from the stick I had just peed on. Nine months later, I finally stared into the face of a love so unconditional and profound that I would tremble in its presence. I knew nothing of it. My first son taught me so much more about love and life than I ever had the capacity to understand before his arrival. I grew up and matured in a way that both delighted and alarmed me. I realized that life was no longer about me.

To abbreviate an incredibly long and painful story, I wound up relapsing again and experienced some of the lowest levels of human degradation and filth known to man, or perhaps not known to man which would be better. Regardless, it may not have been an active decision to use that lead me to picking back up, but I take full responsibility for the actions I took that got me there. Through a series of horrific experiences, too hideous to recount here, I very gratefully ended up back in treatment. Many people have asked, “What’s so different this time?” I’m not really sure I can answer that. Every time, I always wanted to be clean, but I’m not sure that every time I was always willing to let go of every addiction that went on along for the hayride. I wasn’t willing to do whatever it takes. I wasn’t willing to be with just myself, faults, short-comings, and character defects, alone. Now I am, so I guess what changed is me.

Every day I am not using, is one I cherish. I hold my family close because I love them with every fiber my being is made of. They help to keep me grounded. They continue to show me what is really important in this world. I tell you who I really am because I am tired of the stigma addiction holds. It affects everyone, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, economic status, or religion. I want to attempt to normalize addiction, to show that people just like you and me may be afflicted. It’s not the homeless guy on the corner, or it very well may be. It’s the mom next door, the dude mowing the lawn, the kid on the bike.

After all of that, I’m still the mom of two very precocious and gregarious boys. I still want to remember the highly amusing things my children say and do. I still need my creative outlet, be it knitting, sewing, or writing. I still experience the jolting highs of first smiles and the desperate lows of two hours of sleep in four days. Sitting here writing this, I probably haven’t showered in five days and have the stink of a thousand dirty diapers. They may not always be pretty, but they’re always unique to my experience. They’re my memories and, for lack of a better word, I want to remember them.

So this is it. This is my life, lived in the Always Sunny part of South Florida where I neither relish in the mid-day sunshine, nor particularly even like the warm weather. Perhaps I look much like a cave-dwelling, Medusa-like figure because brushing my hair is a daily luxury I no longer have the time for. Maybe it’s because I hold no particular affinity for the sun and this demanding mothering gig requires more effort than I have to give, at times. Either way, my hair is rarely brushed because I’m usually holding a child in one arm and a cigarette in the other. I kid, of course! My hair is usually brushed and I only smoke outside. *wink*

Anyway: Welcome to my website. This is my life.