Well I’m not exactly sure how to start after a longer-than-one-year lapse in posting (again), so I believe I have no choice but to go for the jugular here; it’s going to be messy, a little dark, and a bit cheesy…plus lots of vomit. And glitter. 

I’ve fallen horrifically short of anything that resembles a regular writing practice, and to be honest, I haven’t had time for it. It’s been painstaking and required increasingly creative lengths to sustain my double-life of hidden binges and hangovers.  

But it didn’t always lead to blackouts in the beginning, and I could usually get away with a sheepish “one too many” excuse/lame day-after apology. By the end, though, it was a complete and utter shitshow of numbing behaviors and increasingly toxic shame spirals.

My apartment fridge has always been a pretty good indicator of my state-of-mind…is it filled with thoughtfully prepared chickpeas and spinach, or is it a spectrum of half-eaten takeout and empties? Is there a bottle of GT’s Kombucha with the lame-yet-wholesome inspirational quote on the label? Or is it a misguided purchase of Prosecco consumed in a dark and dusty and overpriced apartment?

There is no in-between–it’s 99% either one or the other, even when I have tried to moderate to not an entire bottle of wine in one night, or five out of six IPAs instead of the full six-pack. Before, I tried to distinguish myself as a wannabe wine connoisseur (on a budget), and by the end, I was drinking miniature bottles of tequila in the LaGuardia Airport bathroom. Sneaking out of the movie-theater showing of Babes to purchase beer that I would shotgun before returning to the seat beside my mom.

 My obsession with alcohol had convinced me that I needed it in order to “relax”for almost anything, including: outings with friends, concerts (“shows”?), birthday parties, holidays, Friday nights spent alone with Netflix, weeknights spent alone without Netflix, family vacation, or to really “tap in” to what I thought was a creative side, among many other crappy reasons. 

By the end, the only way I could stop was through an  inpatient detox, which I had always reserved  for the “real” alcoholics. But I was on the verge of a DUI and spoiling all of my relationships, spent one too many days out “sick” from work. Something had to give, but in order for that to happen someone also had to pull the bottle away from me.

At midnight tonight (tomorrow?), I’ll have seven days. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the most I’ve been able to put together in months. The alcoholic fog is only just beginning to lift, and this morning, I could appreciate the sunrise, sober. Yesterday, I could walk to the park and feed crackers to the snapping turtle named Teeny (for all the crushed up Saltines she ate). In the spirit of Mary Oliver, I can show up to life as a “reporter.” I can write, witness, and ask hard questions. Like why do I get an extra shot at this when so many others, including my older brother, Sam, did not? To numb out to life at this point would feel like a betrayal to Sam, the world, my family, my friends, and myself. Not that I’m any kind of saint who is going to come to everyone’s rescue. But at least I can be a voice (among many).

I think of my brother every day. He’s not gone, but he’s not here either. He was an addict too.  And at the end, he got an anoxic brain injury. Exactly how he got that injury is a story for another space and time. But for now, I listen to The Byrds and and am transported back to our  morning drives to high school, or it’s Pink Floyd, and we are on a long-forgotten drive to Cedar Creek Lake; dad is blasting The Division Bell. When I am listening to that music, I know we are connected somewhere on a plane that is beyond my simple understanding, and that plane is infinite. 

“Nothing in this universe happens just once, Angela. Infinity goes in both directions.” – Dr. Temperance Brennan, Season 1, Ep. 17 of Bones

When I Am Among The Trees

“When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

-Oliver, Mary (2021, December 1). When I am among the trees.
Madison Public Library.
https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/engagement/poetry/poem-a- day/when-i-am-among-trees