things to quit & commit

notes on men who gave me the ick, exorcising shame that was never mine to carry, overcoming addiction, and deciding to fetch my fucking life.

The moment I got the ick was when I realised how stale the air was, how stale he was.

It was as if I’d been shrunk to the size of an ant and fallen off the lip of a bong into the ghosties (swirls of plume that the smoker embarrassingly failed to inhale).

I felt as if I was just hovering there, my weightless ant body held up by the smoke as I struggled; slowly suffocating, sinking, destined to drown in the sludgy bog beneath.

I felt outside of my body, enveloped by fumes of inertia and decaying dreams. All around me slim, men-aged boys with cat hair on their unwashed jerseys and lint pills on their beanies sat prawn-hunched over a long table on the balcony–the only piece of furniture to be seen between there and the bedroom.

What should have been a lounge was an excuse for a grow op. Two tents, two large plants challenging the air’s wretchedness of bygone bongs and idiotic conversation with a comparatively sweet-and-sour tang.

I stood up so fast everyone stopped talking. “I have to go.” He looked in my direction, eyes barely open, moved the tobacco-flecked rolling tray off his lap, stood to kiss me goodbye.

When I got to my car, I hyperventilated. I couldn’t tell if I was triggered or just desperate to taste normal air. I held myself, hood up, rocking side to side, tears streaming down my face.

Then I remembered. I remembered when I was 14. What it smelt like after my boyfriend raped me. I remembered the green-blue shards in his eyes, how they reflected my own horror back to me.

I remembered his impatience when I cried, gently pleading for him to stop. How he didn’t until he finished. “I’m going to smoke a bong,” he announced, zipping up his jeans.

I remembered all the bongs I’d smoked to forget how forgotten I felt at home. To help me stop crying like I was told to by the person who was supposed to hold me. I remembered being screamed at to shut up when I had my first panic attack.

I remembered all the filthy lounges I’d sat in listening to man-aged boys talk about Nothing. No ambition, no drive, no substance. Only substance abuse. Sexual abuse. While I faded into the cut-up corduroy of their third-hand couches. I remembered forgetting how smart I was. How capable I was. How worthy I was.

All the dreams I had to achieve, reach, learn, strive. Smoking, couch, forgetting. Substanceless conversations, smoking, couch, forgetting. Emotions, left alone, no one is at home. Stale bongs, dirty couch, sexual assault, never mind, didn’t happen. Smoking, couch, forgetting. Forgetting ambition, forgetting ability, forgetting, forgetting, forgetting.

For all of my early life, I surrounded myself with people the school principal thought would end up in a ditch with a needle in their arm. Or at least selling the shit that would land others in that situation. One time, he even told me as much.

My rapist boyfriend brought weed to school in grade nine. He showed me and a few others; too proud, too fucking stupid. I got called into the principal’s office. “Did W show you anything this morning?” he asked. Adamantly believing that one should never snitch to pigs nor principals, I replied with effortless denial.

“W told us he showed you the weed, Cherisse. Why are you lying to protect someone who doesn’t care about you? This boy is going nowhere. You, on the other hand, are one of the brightest students in your grade. Do not waste your life on this good-for-nothing degenerate.”

I was in the top-ten academic achievers for four years straight. Raped, slut-shamed, bullied, emotionally neglected and abused by my parents, hanging out with fucking losers, barely applying myself, barely surviving. And yet my unpolished potential glared. I was not performing how I could have been. Should have been. Trauma’s fault.

I was 14, damaged, and in love with my abuser. My principal was old, boring, and very right.

W was expelled later that year for some related crime. I can’t remember which–there were too many to count. He couldn’t even make it through South African grade 9. Or was it ten? Doesn’t matter when. All I know is that it’s some of easiest shit to pass in the world. And he did not fail for lack of privilege. He was, is, simply a fucking loser.

A liar, a cheat, an abuser that thinks the world owes him something when it is in fact he who has stolen worlds from countless women I know. And he wasn’t the only one in my life. These are the types of men I idolised. Dad, is that you?

If I were to list all the moral transgressions W has committed in the last 15 years since, I’d ruin the tea I intend to spill for the rest of this series. Get your fucking rusks.

But this series isn’t about him. Or any of the corduroy couches where my dreams, self-belief, and freedom from addiction went to die. It’s about how I saved myself my life.

For the last fours years, I’ve had one Russ song on repeat:

I'm tryna see what my zenith is
What it looks like to believe in strength in all of my weaknesses
Inconveniences are hurdles, discipline jumps over
I wanna see how it feels to do twelve months sober
I wanna feel self-love without the vanity
I wanna feel what it be like to give a Grammy speech

I wanna heal the trauma from my childhood, I'm pissed off
I wanna learn to snap less, and use Wim Hof
I wanna celebrate myself instead of waitin' for others
I wanna be a better friend, better son, better brother
I wanna stop thinkin' that I gotta go through hell
To get the credit, I desperately need to give to myself
Across the board, I wanna see what my best is
I wanna prove it to myself that I can get this tunnel vision

I've been
Pridin' myself on all of my patience
Pridin' myself on all of my diligence
Pridin' myself on all of my curiosity
I know I'ma get far if I work hard
Givin' shit up that I fuckin' love to death
When we called it quits, I was a fuckin' mess
But I gotta stick to my decision
Got that tunnel vision, baby

I’ve been thinking about my Grammy speech. But less the podium and more the process.

I’ve been wondering what being in the lab with a pen and a pad should feel like. I want to know what it’s like to finally kiss the version of me trauma made goodbye. Goodbye addiction, goodbye doormat behaviour, goodbye forgetting who the fuck I was born to be.

I want to find the person who can complete 75 Hard, Iron Man 70.3, and a Docorate in Pyschology. I want to know how she walks: the woman who bags brand deals and gym-wear sponsorships and scales both her businesses.

I want to know her morning routine, when she practises French, how she gives back to her community, how often she trains to become that impressively good at calisthenics, which demons she had to exorcise to become that comfortable in her body. Because, my god(dess), does she looking fucking good on a pole.

But then I realised in order to look forward, I have to go back. Back to the source of the traits I’m fighting to erase: the procrastination, the perfectionism paralysis, the self-doubting analysis, the perpetual attempts at sobriety, the immobilising insecurity.

At four weeks sober from weed (the fourth attempt in four years after fourteen), I’ve been remembering more than I ever have.

I remember why I started smoking. I remember watching my “father” never finish anything he started. I remember him lying, cheating, and chatting tall stories that made him appear better than he ever was.

I remember looking around for role models who’d show me how to release the greatness and finding nothing but emptiness. Empty food cupboards, empty wine bottles, empty promises.

Weed was all I had. And that’s okay. We do what we need to survive. But I’m not 14 anymore. I’m old and wise and very right. I finally have power over how I live my life.

How did I get it? How did I do it? How did I overcome everything, even my substance abuse? I did it by telling the truth.

A lot of bad shit happened to me that wasn’t my fault. It changed my brain for the worse. I was, am, a victim. But I let that make me my own abuser. They kicked me down, but I lay there waiting for the world to tell me how much I deserved a hand up.

And sure I did, I do. But you know what? Life doesn’t always pan out that way. Sometimes no one comes to get you. None of the heroes you deserve come to fetch you. Life’s hard.

But so are you.

One day you have to ask yourself if it’s really about the trauma anymore? The day I turned that question onto myself I found someone I didn’t like staring back at me.

At first, I saw a genuine victim with whom I deeply empathised. But some voice told me that there was something beyond those eyes. I looked closer, desperate to understand what was between me and me.

Then I saw her. The lazy coaster who relied on talent that cost zero effort. A liar. A cheat. A demanding, entitled brat who ran at the first sign of accountability and difficulty and responsibility. I saw someone who never finished what they started, or at most half-arsed it.

I saw someone with no ambition, no drive, no substance. Only substance abuse. A victim of sexual abuse. Someone who ran from hard feelings just like my parents did when I cried. I identified in me traits of all the people who hurt me. And something came alive. A voice that said, “I’m not them and I never fucking will be.”

So I decided to get out of my own way. Did that change the fact that I’m a victim of others’ violence? Hell no. Did it stop me from being a victim to the version of me pain made? Damn right.

So I quit. I quit the couches, the coasting, the forgetting. I quit people who’ve never been as good as me acting like they’ll ever be as ill as me. I quit staying down.

I quit stale air and vacuous conversation and anything or anyone who attempts to break the spirit I fought to get back into a body people took away from me.

I quit hanging out with fucking losers. I quit being my own abuser. I quit leaving things to the last minute. I quit tricking myself into believing I work well under pressure. I quit second-guessing my purpose, my art, my ability to go beyond The Hard Part.

I quit shame, running, hiding, forgetting, forgetting, forgetting.

I quit.

I commit.

I commit to writing and academia and coaching and dancing and poetry–especially when it’s cringe. The start is the best part. When did it become embarrassing to try things? Anyone who thinks that is a fucking loser.

I commit to training hard and eating well and honouring my body every. single. day.

I commit to going well past The Hard Part, to chasing it like my life depends on it. I fuck mistakes for fun. Even and especially when it means going alone. Because, damn, my life really does depend on it.

I spent every day skirting maximum effort until the day I looked in the mirror and decided I wanted to know what version of me was on the other side of trying, fighting, striving in ways the people who made me like them could never dream of.

I commit to cutting off enablers who refuse to be mirrors to behaviours I need to change.

I commit to marrow-deep supportive, reciprocal love with go-getters in their own right, in their own light.

I commit to carving blood and bone from stone because the thought of never becoming art when I’ve been art from the start eats me alive. I need to know. After everything I’ve been through. I need to know. At all costs. I need to know.

Life is long. But only if you stop wasting your time stifling your own potential. You were a victim of others, but you don’t have to be one of your own. So, I ask you two things:

1. What and who will you quit to today?

2. What and who will you commit to in their place?

Go fetch your fucking life. It’s waiting for the only person who can realise it: you.

Yours in revolution & reclamation,
cheri wolf.