Prolouge
You know I can't ever really remember being normal, fitting in, I suppose. It seems that I'm destined to stand out, to be noticed, even when I don't want to be. The spotlight just doesn't seem to turn off when I leave the ring, I just can't escape the blinding flashes and live anonymity, and now I don't think that I want to. The spotlight has become my life, and I don't think that I can live without it anymore. Which begs the question, what am I going to do after I retire, I mean you can only hang around so long, there's only so much time before the fans get tired of you, or maybe you get tired of you. Maybe you get tired of yoursalf. That doesn't change the fact that I have no one to turn, really turn to, who will understand what I'm going through. It's like I'm an addict, yeah I'm addicted to being famous. Some people might tell you that being famous is a lot of fun, don't believe them. Being famous is like a disease, it eats away at your heart, at your soul until it's all you can think about. I used to think that I'd be in the business for a long time, that maybe I'd get used to the idea of retiring, or maybe I'd just never retire. I had my life all planned out before me. I was going to wrestle, I was going to live my dream for the rest of my life and die a contented old man still connected somehow to the world Wrestling Federation. Only it didn't work out that way, something went horribly wrong, something I, in my naivete, never planned for, and it changed my whole life.
~~~~~~ End Addicted Prolouge~~~~~~~
Addicted
Chapter 1
On the tape, the fall doesn't look so bad. When you see it, you kinda go, oh wow, but he's done more dangerous stuff, he's jumped off ladders onto tables and nobody was home. This was different, the others, they hurt, I won't deny that but this, this felt like every bone in my body was breaking, that all my muscles were being torn to shreds. Oh how it hurt. I remember being unable to finish the match, lying on the ground outside of the ring, writhing in agony. I remember my brother and Amy carrying me up the ramp, well I remember them starting to carry me up the ramp, and then I remember being in the trainer's roon, being poked and prodded and God dammit that hurt, that almost hurt worse than trying to walk, almost, but not quite. I'm sitting in the trainer's room and they tell me Jeff, you've banged your knee up pretty bad, we're going to send you to the hospital where they'll run some tests and stuff. At least that's what I think they said, but by then the pain killers they'd given me, at my request, were starting to kick in, the most pleasant side effect, at least in the opinion of the person in excruciating pain, was that I was feeling divorced from my body, I was floating above the pain and the uncertainty, the ominous feeling I had, even then, that I would never be able to wrestle again. But, oh how I hoped that I was wrong, oh how I hoped.
My brother drove me to the hospital, Amy sat in the front seat, while I stretched out in the back, living in my own hazy dream world. The trainers had obviously called ahead becouse there were people waiting for us when we got there. Matt and Amy sat in the waiting room, talking quietly while I was carted off so that they could do this test or that scan. I think that they did tests for the whole night, carting me in between rooms, but I was floating on my cloud of painlessness and I sure as hell didn't want to come down. That's not to say didn't, I did. somewhere between four and five in the morning I think, and when I woke I thought it was all a dream, until I tried to move my leg, that is. That was when I found out that it was, in fact, not a dream, but the real world, I had onjured myself in and it still hurt. Sitting staring out the window into the cloudless blackness of the night sky, I didn't want it to be true, I wanted it to have happened to someone else, anyone else, but it hadn't, it had happened to me, and I had to deal with it, even if I didn't want to. I wanted to cry and scream and feel sorry for myself, but I did none of those things becuase it was five in the morning. Okay, maybe I felt sorry for myself, but I did it very quietly, so as not to wake the other people in the surronding area, the ones still enjoying sugar plums dancing in their dreams, or does that only happen on Christmas Eve? I never was quite sure of that. I sat in my small, standard issue hospital bed and felt sorry for myself. Deep down I think that I knew, even though my surface thoughts continued to hope, I continued to hope that it was just a minor injury, even though I could feel it throbbing in the back of my mind, or maybe I wished that it was the back of my mind, because it was making it it pretty hard to think by now. But I continued to believe that I could get back to wrestling, just take some time off, maybe have to get surgery, but I hoped that somewher along the lines I'd make my triumphant comeback. I'd be back, better than new, and the fans would embrace me, because they had missed me, and I could continue to climb the ladder of WWF success, that I could maybe even become the WWF champion before my time was done. The pessimistic part of my mind kept telling me that my time waas done now, that I better be proud of my accomplishments in the WWF, because I wasn't going to get another chance. It told me that I would never hear the fans screaming for me, or feel the thrill of flying through the airin front of 20, 000 people ever again. tried to push that side away, after all keeping a positive outlook is half the battle, right? I hindsight, maybe I should have listened to that pessimistic side a little more, maybe I would have been better prepared for what I was to learn, come my meeting with the doctor in charge of my case, at a time when sane people were up, not at 5 am, when I don't even think half the night shift nurses were awake. But me, I was wide awake, widw awake and worrying about my future. No, I wasn't worrying about my future, I was worrying I didn't have a future anymore. My dream in life was wrestling, I loved to hear the fans scream, loved to know that these people knew who I was, they respected what I did, and loved me for it. I was addicted to the spotlight, I craved being known, and being cheered, and deep down I knew that one stupd mistake, one botched fall was going to take that all away from me.
At nine, after four hours of intensive worrying, I was taken to see the doctors. I couldn't even walk, not eve with crutches. I had to sit in a wheelchair while I was wheeled around a hospital I ould have ran around not 24 hours ago. There's nothing quite like a wheelchair to make a person feel helpless. Sitting in my wheelchair trying desperately to keep my knee still, not an easy feat with all those cracks it the floor, and I think that we hit every one of them. It ws the most painful ride of my life, that wheelchair ride, and it was followed my the most painful news of my life, I would never wrestle again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ End Addicted Chapter 1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Addicted
Chapter 2
It's been a while now since that day, the day I found out I would never get in a ring again. And for a long time I missed going out there to entertain the fans while my brother and Amy still did. It hurt me, it really did, to watch Matt do what I still wanted to be doing, to listen to the cheers i wanted to be hearing, to feel the love that I wanted to be feeling. For a long time I was bitter and depressed, I didn't have anything to live for. My dream was gone, all I had were the memories, and they paled in comparsion to what I knew I could still be experiencing, if only I hadn't fallen wrong. I suppose you could compare what I was going through to what happens to an addict when they go through withdrawl. I felt like every fibre in my body needed to be out there, standing on that stage, listening to the people. and how ficle those people were, out of sight, out of mind. I was angry that they didn't remember me, felt that no one remembered me. I lived in my own bitter little world, no tresspassers. I wanted the world to just leave me alone, it had already taken everything from me, after all. I wanted to scream and rail and cry, but I didn't, and I don't know why. In my bitter twisted kingdom there were no emotions, only numbness and the intoxicating aura of hatred. I hated the world, for doing this to me, but most of all I hated myself, I hated myself for getting hurt, I hated myself for not being able to heal it, I hated myself for existing. And something in me just snapped one day I think. I just couldn't stand it anymore, if I couldn't wrestle I didn't want to do anything. So, being young and foolish I tried to end it all, tried to take my own life. Only I hadn't remembered that this was the day that Matt was supposed to come a visit, tell me all the things that were happening in the WWF, all the things I didn't want to hear about. I suppose it gave him a shock, to find his brother sprawled out on the floor, empty pill bottle in hand. Well, as you can see, it didn't work, ot rather it wasn't given enough time to work. Not like I regret that, don't think that I do, because I don't.
So anyway, I was back at the hospital, my brother sitting in the waiting room again. A serious sense of deja vu here. Anyway, yeah, the doctors they fix me up, make sure I' not gonna die and all, and tehy decide that I need a shrink, they feel I'm not adjusting well to my new life. My brother thinks that I just need more time to reconcile with the fact that my dreams have been shattered, by the end of that whole speech I think the doctors are ready to recommend a shrink to Matt, so he can get himself sorted out. So Matt has to explain the whole sad story to the doctors, just outside my door, while they think that I'm asleep. The doctors remain unmoved, but Matt puts his foot down, no shrinks for me, yah! Perhaps the doctors should recommend a good shrink for Matt, after all who would want to keep me around now that I can't wrestle. Nevertheless, Matt takes me home with him, and I soon realize that the onlt reason Matt said no shrinks is he's better at what they would have done than they ever could be. Matt understood me before, he thinks that he can understand me now, and unlike with a normal shrink the time never ends. I tell you it was Hell. Some people will just never give up on anything, one such example is my brother. Before he was done he had heard the whole sad story, a story I had never intended to share with anyone. But I suppose Matt isn't just anyone, he's someone special. Although if you tell him I said that I'll deny it, do you have any idea how unbearable he would become if he were to find something like that out? I shudder to think of the consequences.
Matt helped me put my life back together, a life I didn't know that I still had. Anf during the long, ardous process of trying to understand myself I realized that although I hadlost my career wrestling I still had a life, I was still Jeff Hardy, even if I couldn't step into a ring anymore. And I realized that my life hadn't ended with the injury, it had merely changed. I had lost one dream, that didn't mean I couldn't have another dream to shoot for, that I had to give up everything, just because I had lost wrestling. Now that's not to say that my brother didn't give me a hand in making these discoveries, after all, he was the one spending so much time with me, trying to get me to see the light of day, metaphorically, of course. He was the one telling me I had so much to live for, in typical caring big brother fashion, and telling me I was stupid for trying to end my life. Matt's a great person to have around, but sometimes he doesn't do much for the self esteem.
And he really helped me, which I've got to say I still look back on and say, " huh, how did he do that?" Perhaps my brother missed his true calling, perhaps he should of got a job helping people like me put their lives back to together. But that's not to say, that in the moments just before the sun sets, and when it's just starting to peak over the horizon I don't mourn the loss of my dream.