Nov 17 

Written By Zoe Niemiec

For as long as I can remember I spent every day, every waking minute running from who I was, from my emotions, from the people who genuinely cared about me, and even just minute to minute how my life was going. Running to stand is something I have written all over my journal since I was 11 years old. You run and you run, but it’s pointless, you don’t get anywhere, you’re still standing, stuck in the same spot you started, I was, no matter how much I fought my reality. I thought I would always be stuck, sooner than later bound to sink into the quicksand I had created with my reactions to my actions and those around me. 

Running got me nowhere, whether that was changing my appearance every other day, or changing the drug I was using to numb the pain, it changed nothing, I was still me, I still hated the girl staring back at me in the mirror, and those who tried to help me. Running got me nowhere, except bolting into the most wrong horrid places I could find myself, then I just had to run from those. Those dark rabbit holes I fell down where I shouldn’t have walked out alive, and that haunted me, that I’m still alive. I only ran from that to, covered it up, pretended the things that had happened, the things that I saw hadn’t been reality. And no matter what those types of things don’t ever leave. 

It is only when I stopped running, when I woke up, sober, beat up, and terrified, what had really happened, what life my decisions had led me to living, how bad it had really gotten, and how much worse it could have only gotten. So I stood, and took a sip of the poison I had brood. I fell into a psychosis, and there was nowhere to run even if I wanted to, I stood, and dealt with it. I realized then how powerless I was over this addiction, it had taken my life, my sanity, and I didn’t know if I would come out of it. But when I did, I began crawling like a child beginning the journey into life all over again.

I had to start over, and when I came to Graceland I began to take my first baby steps, to being able to walk stably again, and now I can run again, but the difference now it’s not from who I am, or my past, it’s into the future, into happiness, everlasting friendships, and a healthy life in general. I’m not stuck anymore, and that’s what this house has helped me achieve, a future.

“We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they are old, they get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end and so it cannot fail.”