Think sad snow. Think snow that has been belted with splashes of mud and motor oil on a highway for a week. This is what I flew across the country for. This is what I flew across the country next to a burly man who wore his baseball cap backwards for.
Rehab number two.
I have yet to meet anyone who longs to be in Connecticut. Think cheap cathedral skyscrapers. The plan was to cut and run back in San Diego—ditch strong, baseball cap guy at the airport and catch a flight back to Seattle. There were two-hundred dollars in my pocket. It might have just been enough for a CA->WA ticket, but the second I saw my guide, Mr. burly, I knew there was no getting away. His arms looked like they were about to pop right out of his jacket, and I couldn’t even stand up in a strong wind.
The car hit a puddle, spraying another bank of highway snow, while I chewed on my latest cigarette. At least, he let me smoke in the car. The world, the sad, real world, rolled past. Think outdated road signs. Exit 2A a.k.a Old Exit 2C. The mile markers ticked up and down in no logical order. Something was slipping away from me.
“It’s a beautiful facility,” Mr. burly droned.
There was nothing beautiful out here. Think dead trees clawing at the sky, trying to pull themselves out. Two-hundred dollars may have been enough from CA->WA, but it certainly wasn’t enough from CT->WA. I needed more money, and soon. The snow was melting into peppered liquid. Something was slipping away from me.
Mr. burly kept talking. “Right next to Yale too, and they’re expanding.”
I crushed the butt of my cigarette and stuffed it in my pocket like spare change. Could you even call it littering, in a place like this, tossing a smoke out the window? Think a collapsed vein of a road, cars struggling to push themselves through. Would this ride ever end? I could sleep for a thousand years. Exit 14 a.k.a. Old Exit 3A.
“I wish I had gotten this opportunity when I was your age.” Mr. burly turned off the highway and guided the car down the road towards a winding driveway.
It slipped away, whatever it was, but only for a second. Opportunity? Dead trees and packed snow gave way to a large house. Think cobble-stone manor. Think isolated writer’s retreat. Mr. burly threw the car into park. Ride over. I had to get out.
When it comes to fear, I have always been partial to the “Fuck Everything And Run” approach. Why be scared when you can…well, not be? Drugs were a great tool. Briefly. Until they kept me awake for three days straight because I thought my own shadow was a lizard demon that controlled me when I slept. My next option was to obsess over every choice I made. I couldn’t be worried about the future, if I methodically planned out every hour of every day. Unfortunately, that also only worked briefly. It worked until I became a paralyzed, anxious mess that never left my house.
The last option, the lowest on the list, was to actually face my fears.
A big one, during initial sobriety, was the fear of losing myself. Of course, I was still scared of homelessness, detoxing, losing friends and family, but for whatever reason my identity was a real sticking point. I liked who I was (even though I really, really shouldn’t have), but more importantly, I knew how to be that person. By being an addict and an asshole, my choices were already laid out for me. I didn’t have to think too hard about them. It’s like having your clothes picked out the night before, it’s a lot easier when you don’t have to try and figure out what to wear when you’re half asleep at six in the morning.
Well the metaphorical six a.m. had arrived, and here I was stark naked.
Bargaining with myself came first: “Okay, you can pretend to be this sober person for now, trick everyone, wait out the clock. But don’t worry, after all of this is said and done you can still go back to who you were before.” Fortunately, the thing about pretending is that I learned a bit along the way, whether I wanted to or not. So, inexplicably, I became accustomed to my new freedom—actually waking up at dawn and going to sleep at night, making friends with people who actually care about your well being. In short, I came to value all the tiny, perhaps even boring, things that come with living a relatively normal life.
Pre-sobriety, I could only see that kind of life as a miserable, bleak battle that had to be fought through each day (think living in Connecticut.) Instead what I found was, yes there’s no denying it feels that way at first (in fact, that’s how it should feel at first.) But as I adjusted, the things I valued changed. This was key for me. Just because I loved heroin more than anything else in the past, did not mean that I always would. And just because I hated being sober more than anything else in the past, did not mean I always would either.
Things change, and apparently there’s no way around it. So what I’ve found is that when I embrace change, or at the very least, pretend to embrace change, then I get something new from life that I never could have found otherwise. My experience here packs a layer deeper. Think light snow. Think snow that kids use to build snowmen with.
I know I never longed to be in Connecticut :) Beautiful writing, as well as a confirmation of what we were told during our first visit--“We don’t need him to want to change, we just need him to be willing to do what we ask. Gradually, the tiny effects begin to add up.”
Fantastic work. I love how you morph the snow. The "think" call to action is really working throughout. I love this image: "The car hit a puddle, spraying another bank of highway snow..." Besides this being great writing, I'm also glad that you were able to take that next step in your life. Thank you for sharing your journey.