In the months since I started seeing Dr. C, we’d done a lot of great work – or so I’d thought. I believed I’d come to deep personal revelations that would help me be happier in my future.
Dr. C thought I couldn’t progress any further in my life if I didn’t give up alcohol.
Suddenly I realized: he’d had me talk about the consequences of my drinking, try to count my drinks, collect bottle caps – then can tabs – to determine how much I was drinking, and talk for hours and hours about both my dreams and my failures.
It didn’t seem fair that, after building a rapport with him for so many months – now he didn’t want to see me anymore? The alcohol is what gave me purpose, kept me sane and happy. Beer was my best friend. How could Dr. C not have realized this?
I actually cried when he said he didn’t want to see me anymore. I didn’t hear “you need to quit drinking.” I heard “you are not my friend.” I felt betrayed and abandoned and deeply hurt.
But also, I knew how to analyze my own dream, and that dream had been clear. There was no denying the bloody, slashed and brutally beaten body that my subconscious created while I slept. And I remember the recognition, looking at my battered bones, that I had done all that harm to myself.
Most notably: I couldn’t feel any pain, even after destroying myself so completely.
So after crying and begging and fighting more than was necessary I told Dr. C: “I don’t actually know how to stop drinking, so I guess I can’t see you anymore.”
“You can learn how to live without drinking,” he said. “Would you be willing to go to rehab to do that?”
“I can’t! I have to work!” I wailed. I loved, loved, loved my job. And rehab sounded a little scary.
“You might need to take a medical leave of absence.”
A leave of absence sounded nice. That meant I didn’t have to work and I could keep my job! “Will you keep seeing me if I go to rehab?”
Dr. C paused, considering this. “If you complete the program, yes,” he said finally.
I thought about my life. I would need someone to take care of Kitty. I would need to tell my job that I needed to go to a hospital. But that was it. I had exactly two responsibilities.
I thought about the rest of the things in my life – the people who would care that I was going to rehab. My entire extended family would be elated, but I wasn’t going to go to rehab to appease them. I was thrilled to be getting away from Gregg; his lies had destroyed our relationship. I thought about that scary LSD experience with Bonnie, who was finishing her college degree in Ohio. Exchanging letters with my other college friend, Debbie, wasn’t going to stop if I went to rehab.
And any other friends I still had … well, they only visited to drink with me. And even those friends had been gone for awhile.
Rehab wasn’t likely to end my loneliness, but I sure didn’t feel anything pulling me to stay at home.
Plus I could go to a place where someone would feed me and take care of me for however long it took for my “rehabilitation.” And I therefore didn’t have to worry about taking care of myself.
Maybe rehab wouldn’t be so bad.
“Okay, I’ll go,” I said.
After all of the nightmares I created for myself in my waking life, it was a dream that changed everything.
**************************************
THE DREAM:
I am inside an enormous, very crowded drinking establishment.
The place has a four-story-high sliding board centerpiece. Its top touches the ceiling; slick, smooth curves swerve atop the crowds below, delivering a dramatic and exciting ride.
Surrounding the giant slide are dozens of bars: glossy wooden platforms with varying themes. One bar is rodeo-style with mechanical bulls. Another is a nightclub, another a hotel bar, another dark and dingy, smoke-filled. Another is a pool hall; another has darts and a bowling machine. Another has a band playing, with swaying young adults waving their drinks above their heads. Everything is in one warehouse-sized building.
All the people look familiar; these are people I know. They are dancing, chatting, drinking, laughing.
Nobody is on the giant slide.
I’m as happy as a kid at Christmas in this place, with the music playing and the thrilling slide in its center. I run back and forth to the various bartenders and get drinks, which I then carry with me to the slide – and I am there for the slide, more so than the drinks. I climb like an ape to the top of the slide and then – WHOOSH! – I zoom down to the bottom, taking the curves at breakneck speed, enjoying the wind in my hair as I fly. And as soon as I reach the bottom, I leap up the ladder to the top again.
I run back to the bar – there’s Larry! ‘Hey Larry!’ – I kiss him, and zip away with my drink. Then – zoom! – I’m up that ladder again and flying down the giant slide, laughing all the way. I go back to Larry after this ride and say, ‘Hey! Why aren’t you sliding?’ And Larry laughs and shakes his head at me, like Larry always did.
The next time I ride, I land in a grocery cart – just an empty cart, so that when I go flying off the end of the slide, the cart catches me. I assume that I can use it to get to the bar faster, and get back to the slide faster, but neither happens. It doesn’t move, so I climb out and walk. I grab my drink, go up the slide, WHOOSH! down the slide, CRASH! land in the cart – then I hop out and do it all again.
And again.
And again and again and again.
Then suddenly, there’s Bonnie at the bar – ‘Hi Bonnie!’ I yell. ‘You gotta try this! It’s so fun!’ Bonnie looks at me, her mouth agape. She says, ‘Kirsten, look.’ And she points at my mid-section, which makes me look down at myself, and I see that I’m not wearing any clothes.
I appear to be tattooed head-to-toe, covered in scrawls.
But upon closer inspection, I realize that the “tattoos” are actually innumerable bloody gashes on my body. I’m completely covered by giant black and purple bruises; slashed, torn skin; crusty scabs; deep scrapes and gaping wounds.
Not one centimeter of clear, unharmed skin remains. And I’m standing there, drink in hand, numb.
I can’t feel a single thing.
I realize: THIS is why no one else was sliding. Because this is what I’ve been doing to myself.
**************************************
I woke, gasping for air, my battered body still visible in my mind’s eye.
My therapist and I had analyzed dreams for many months; I didn’t need him to decipher this.
I told him about it anyway.
Dr. C said, “I can’t see you anymore until you stop drinking.”
I remember quite vividly the day that I finally did exactly what I wanted to do.
I prepared on a Friday by picking up a carton of cigarettes and two cases of Natural Light beer. (“Light” because I have never not been on a diet.)
I rolled out of bed and changed it into a sofa. I lit a cigarette, guzzled some Diet Coke, then settled down with a beer to watch Pee Wee’s Playhouse and My Little Pony.
My dream of drinking with zero interference from the outside world was finally coming true.
It was raining outside, so I stayed inside blasting music, thrilled to choose whatever songs moved me. Judas Priest‘s Hell Bent for Leather seemed like a good way to start a Saturday. By mid-afternoon, I’d run through AC/DC, Donny Osmond, John Schneider, The Carpenters and Ten Years After.
I drank with purpose; I wanted to inject the alcohol directly into my soul. I drank and drank and drank.
As the sun started to set, the music stopped making me happy. I felt – quite suddenly – extremely and unbearably lonely, and didn’t know how to handle that loneliness.
I turned on the television – blah blah blah emitted from the tinny speaker. The music continued to blast. When I realized the people-sounds weren’t enough to quell the creeping sadness, I looked for other things to fill the silence. I turned on the water in the bathtub – PSHHHH! – loud, but not enough.
Kitty raced to her spot on top of the refrigerator.
I turned on the water in the bathroom sink. I flushed the toilet. I turned on the water in the kitchen sink. I turned on the microwave – empty – for 30 minutes.
The clamor was insufficient.
I made a circle out of ashtrays on the floor. It’s amazing how many ashtrays I had, considering I’d never purchased one. I sat cross-legged with my beer in the center of my stolen ashtrays. I ashed my cigarette in every ashtray, then lit another one. I started burning holes in the carpet next to each ashtray, just because I could. I put out my cigarette in the carpet and lit another one.
The stereo blasted. With the TV, the rushing water and the microwave, my apartment blared like a distress signal to another planet.
I held my breath, trying to soak in the external influences. This made me cough.
Suddenly I knew what I needed to do.
I raced into the bathroom and looked into the mirror. And there I was, after a full day of drunken partying my way, with the same dead eyes I saw in every bar bathroom.
I turned off the water in the sink and the tub. I turned off everything in the kitchen. I toppled the ashtrays and ground the ashes into the carpet, destroyed by my pathetic attempt at self-care. I turned off the TV and put a new album on the stereo.
This time: Yaz. An appropriately chaotic song called I Before E.
I flopped onto the floor, into the ash, and curled into a fetal position, every bit as dead inside as I’d felt every previous drunken day. I couldn’t even cry. I felt lost and abandoned and completely hopeless.
Worst of all, I was utterly alone.
I drank another beer anyway, then another. I lit another cigarette and ashed it onto the floor. I drank and smoked and drank some more until I passed out on my face without so much as a pillow.
I had created my dream day and I hadn’t fixed anything.
I was still me.
Because I worked a standard 9-5 job on weekdays for the first time in my life, I was starting to feel a little bit like I belonged in the world. I loved my colleagues and I was proud of myself for working at such a prestigious institution. I did my absolute best to show up every day, in spite of my insane home life.
But I started to feel guilty showing up at work with a hangover. Especially since I was doing it every day.
I set my alarm for the latest possible time I could: 7:30 when I had to be there (20 minutes away) at 8:00. “Snooze” was a luxury I could not afford. I’d slept through too many temp jobs by hitting “snooze.”
Getting out of bed was excruciating. Some days I could only get up with enough time to brush my teeth, feed the cat, and throw on the same khakis I’d worn the day before. I did better earlier in the week, when I would manage to force myself into the shower, sometimes even washing my hair.
Then I’d drive to work with a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke between my legs, which makes it hard to shift gears in a VW bug. It’s even harder when chain-smoking out the window for the entire 20-minute drive through stop-and-go traffic.
It was well worth it. I wanted this job. I liked this job. Like with The Pennysaver, I felt like an integral part of the team, and I was proud of the work we did together. It was the internal motivation I needed to help me push forward.
But my head throbbed straight through till lunchtime. By then I was so sick, it was hard to choke down whatever I grabbed from the museum cafeteria in my allotted (paid!) lunch hour. (I got a whole HOUR for lunch!) I felt incredibly guilty doing sub-par work in the mornings, but it never occurred to me to get up any earlier, to eat breakfast, or to leave the bar before closing time on a weeknight.
I thought not doing hard drugs was enough to keep me going.
In fact, I felt extraordinarily proud of myself for getting the five or six hours of sleep I did, for staying off of acid and cocaine, for never going to the museum drunk or high. I prided myself on being the employee I believed I was, rather than the employee I actually was – and when my dreams collided with my reality, my delinquency shouted above the din.
I worked with an older woman who chose to take her lunch break after everyone else was finished eating. She would go into our department’s break room and turn off all the lights. Then she’d lie down on the couch and zonk out for half an hour, every day. I was amazed that this behavior was allowed – and that no one minded.
I thought it was odd and unprofessional. My parched throat, throbbing head and sub-par performance every single morning aside, I compared myself to the woman who napped at lunchtime and thought, Well, at least I’m not that bad. At least I don’t sleep in the break room.
I also thought she was wasting the most important part of the day by sleeping through it. Lunchtime was supposed to be fun! Also lunchtime meant drinking enough Diet Coke to categorically dismiss the day’s hangover and prepare for another night of drinking beer until I passed out.
Then I would get up and do it all over again.
I went to see my therapist on Tuesday, right after my LSD-influenced revelation that all I needed to do was “do and feel and be.” I was thrilled with my knowledge, with the great wisdom that would allow me to take on the world – finally! – without being so anxious and inhibited.
My therapist, for some reason, wasn’t as enthused.
“If you want to use that knowledge in your daily life,” Dr. C said, “you need to be sober.”
“What do you mean? I am using that knowledge in my daily life!”
“Okay,” he said. “Tell me how you’re doing that.”
“Well, I think about it whenever I start feeling bad, and then I don’t feel so bad.”
“That’s great,” he said. “Are you still drinking?”
“Of course I’m still drinking but …”
“Do you think you could test your new knowledge on a day that you’re not drinking or using drugs?”
“Of course,” I said. I felt confident that my brilliant “do-feel-be” revelation would carry me through almost anything.
“Do you think you can go a week without drinking and let me know how it worked for you?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Tell me all about it next week.” Our session was over.
Gregg – who had somehow been released from jail and come back – got us some pot. While getting high, I told him about my plan to not-drink and be wise.
Gregg sucked on the joint. “Good idea,” he choked, holding in the smoke.
The next day at work, I decided I would wait until I became anxious about something, and then I’d just feel my feelings and be in the now, which would solve everything.
I didn’t wait long. I discovered that I was anxious about everything, all the time.
I was so anxious, in fact, that my anxiety about talking to my colleague because I felt inferior overlapped with my anxiety about answering the phone with the right tone of voice, my anxiety about answering within the correct number of rings, my anxiety about hurting the feelings of my colleague who was interrupted by the phone, and my anxiety about the person on the other end of the phone asking me a question I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I could answer without asking someone else and what if the person I asked didn’t want to be bothered or what if I should figure this out on my own, … and why didn’t I know the answer in the first place?
And that was just one thirty-second exchange. My whole day went this way. My whole life went this way.
I did not have time to do-feel-be because “the now” was too hectic; I was 100% anxiety.
So I went home and got high with Gregg again. We smoked all the pot on Wednesday so, by Thursday night, I was drunk.
On Friday I wanted to do acid but Al told Gregg that all the local acid was laced with something that was causing bad trips. I didn’t want to take a chance with that, so I just went to the bar again on Friday. And Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
On Tuesday, I went back to my therapist.
“How did it go?” asked Dr. C.
“Not very well,” I grumbled. “When I was at work, I couldn’t figure out how to do and feel and be.”
“What about after work? Did you stay away from drugs and alcohol?”
“Not really.”
“Do you think that had anything to do with your lack of success with this experiment?”
“Not really,” I said, and meant it.
As my life continued to spiral out of control, Bonnie and I reconnected.
First, I went to visit her at the University of Akron, where she lived in a student apartment. We hung out with her new friends; I felt completely out of place. We got drunk for two days, then I went back to my dive bar.
Then in April, the Grateful Dead came to Pittsburgh – and I got tickets. Bonnie reappeared in Pittsburgh for the concert. We did not invite anyone else.
Since the Grateful Dead was known as much for its drug-addled followers as it was for its music, we knew we’d find acid in the parking lot. And we did – immediately. We put those little LSD tabs on our tongues and wandered around, doing beer bongs here, dancing there, eventually feeling daylight fade as we melded into the Dead scene.
Finally, our tickets somehow intact, we went into the Civic Arena.
Whereas it had been beautiful and freeing outside, inside we felt a bit claustrophobic. The sounds echoed off the interior walls, the music a crackling drone in the background behind stomps and clunks. When the Dead started playing, we wandered right up near the stage to gawk at the band from only yards away.
On any other day, this would have been glee-inducing. But Bonnie and I hurtled ourselves away after only one song. We virtually flew to our actual seats, which were somewhere near the rafters.
Too. Many. People.
We sat down and tried to breathe, but couldn’t. My heart was beating too fast, my eyes wildly searching. My limbs felt like lead; the hard chair was like quicksand. I felt invisibly, painfully caged.
“Is everything bad?” I asked, confused.
Bonnie said, “I think we got some bad LSD. I’m fuckin’ freaking out!”
Then I noticed a guy wearing a floppy hat and sunglasses, casually leaning against a wall. Inadvertently, I smiled.
“Nope,” I said, recognizing our conundrum. “It’s just us. Look at that guy with the hat! Everybody else is okay.”
Bonnie couldn’t focus, didn’t understand, saw no guy. She continued to panic. “This is not okay!” she shrieked, her eyes the size of golf balls.
I closed my eyes. Breathed. It helped me concentrate on the music, instantly calming my heart. “Everybody is okay, and we are, too,” I said. “Close your eyes!”
I opened my eyes and Bonnie closed hers. “What’s this supposed to do?” she asked.
“Just be here,” I said. “Just be here, listen to the music, feel the air.”
“Oh right!” she said, starting to relax. “But I need something to do!” Her eyes popped open again. “What can I do? I think my heart’s going to explode!”
“Just do whatever … and feel the music … and be where you are,” I said. “We are here right now, and we’re okay. Just do and feel,” I smiled. “And be!” Arms calmly outstretched, I suddenly became a buddha.
“So just do … and feel … and be,” Bonnie said, nodding, relaxing, finally enlightened.
“Just do, and feel, and be,” I agreed.
We went from being completely whacked out to being perfectly fine in a matter of minutes.
Do. Feel. Be. We repeated it like a mantra.
We experienced the rest of the show as it was meant to be experienced.
For the first time, though, I’d been close to having a “bad trip” and totally losing my mind. I decided to stop doing acid for awhile.
I never did hallucinogens again.
But that do-feel-be mantra? It still works to quell my anxiety.
It’s the only thing I ever learned while on acid.
To say I sobered up quickly when I saw the flashing lights … that would be an understatement. Or at least, I believed I’d sobered up.
Between the scene with Gregg in the parking lot and driving nearly all the way home, I hadn’t had a drink in maybe an hour. But I’d had several drinks, made with four kinds of hard liquor, and I was definitely drunk.
The policeman got out of his car and strolled to my window. I assume he asked for my license and registration, but I don’t recall exactly. I only remember the gist of my shaking and slurring, which went something like this:
“I’m sorry I ran the red light, but I just wanted to get home. I’ve had a really bad night and – “
“Have you been drinking?”
Alcohol oozed from my pores even when I was sober. “Well, not for awhile,” I admitted.
“Get out of the car.”
I got out of the car. “I could just leave the car here and walk home,” I said. “I only live two blocks away!”
“What’s your address?”
I recited my address. “It’s just right over there,” I pointed. “I don’t need to drive. I can just walk home!”
“What’s the alphabet?”
“Huh?”
“Recite the alphabet.”
“Um, you mean A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K …”
“Now say it backwards.”
The policeman had no idea that memorizing the alphabet backwards had been one of my favorite ways to escape boredom in school, so he thought this was a challenge. If he’d asked me to count backwards from a hundred, I would have been completely stumped.
Instead I recited: “Z-Y-X-W-V-U-T-S….”
“Good enough,” he said. “Now I’m gonna need you to walk a straight line. Right over here. Toe to toe.”
He pointed to black asphalt in the black night. I thought I’d be given a chalkline to follow – some tape maybe – but no.
I put a foot in front of me, too drunk to realize that taking a larger first step would have been helpful for balance. I put my other foot in front of the first and nearly fell over – but didn’t. I expanded my arms at my sides and started blabbing at the policeman. “This is just like walking the balance beam in middle school,” I said. “I always hated the balance beam but I can do it.” And indeed, somehow, I did it without falling far off the imaginary line.
The policeman was dumbfounded. I was obviously wasted but I hadn’t failed any of his tests.
“Where did you say you live?” he asked again. “Can you really walk home?”
“I can! But where should I put my car?” There was no actual shoulder where we had stopped.
“How about I follow you home,” he said. “And you drive straight there, nowhere else. Got it?”
“I can do that!” I stood there, bloodshot eyes glistening as I gazed up at him in the dark.
He handed me my license. “Get in your car and drive straight home,” he repeated sternly. “I’ll follow you to make sure you get there safely.”
I put my license in my back pocket, where it lived. Then I did as I was told.
He followed me, silently but with lights flashing, to my house. I parked, got out, and turned to wave – to show him I hadn’t screwed up – but he was already gone.
He didn’t even give me a ticket for running the red light.
But being almost jailed twice in one night? That fact knocked the wind out of me.
And after passing out on the floor, I started drinking again the next morning.
The music was still at full volume inside The Decade, but watching my boyfriend being dragged away by the police had been sobering – metaphorically speaking. Although I normally closed down any bar I visited, I decided to just go home.
I started walking to my car, pondering my options. Should I try to find Gregg? He’d humiliated me and then left me, thoroughly ruining my night. I assumed I could figure out how to post bail and then Gregg could come back. But I didn’t want Gregg back.
Instead I stomped my way back to the car, more alone and angrier than I’d been a long time. That mother fucker, I mumbled, seething under my breath, storming past groups of college kids. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna pay his fucking bail. He should be paying me!
I nearly ripped off the door of my little VW Beetle, opening it as I did with such great vigor. There wasn’t a single cell in my body that wasn’t fuming with rage. I threw myself into the driver’s seat and roughly shifted gears, taking out my anger on my beloved car.
A stick shift requires a little more patience than an automatic car, and my fuse was already blown. I didn’t have the patience for shifting, or for waiting for drunk college students to cross the street in front of me, or for sitting at the stoplights on my way home. It was late and I was livid.
Drunk driving – well, driving in general – became easier for me if I pretended it wasn’t real. I drove like I was in a video game. This method had helped me before: stay between the white lines, take the turns sharp and smooth, floor it on the straightaways. As long as I thought I was in a video game, I could concentrate and get myself home without crashing.
I got out of the city, into the suburbs, and almost home. The whole time, I was fuming. I muttered, screamed and spat: mother-fucker-stupid-shit-asshole-fucking-liar until my voice was hoarse and my throat was raw.
When I reached the last red light before my house, I was in no better of a mood than I had been when I’d left The Decade. There were no cars anywhere but the stoplight changed to red as I approached, in spite of the post-midnight traffic lull.
Fuck this fucking light, I thought. I am so fucking sick of fucking red lights! I purposefully hit the gas and pounded right through the intersection, still in fifth gear and less than a mile from home.
The flashing lights appeared behind me in mere seconds.
I froze, my foot still on the gas. I stared into my rearview mirror like a deer in headlights. What am I supposed to do? My stomach lurched. I was so drunk, I couldn’t think. What AM I supposed to do!
I’d just watched Gregg taken away in handcuffs. And now I’d run a red light, drunk.
Pull over, a voice of reason said, as though it were reading me an instruction manual. You’re supposed to pull over.
In the darkness I pulled over, put the car in neutral, and waited.
Like most alcoholics, I blamed everyone else for my loneliness. I whined to my therapist, “I don’t go anywhere! I don’t do anything!”
“Maybe you could try doing something different this weekend,” he said.
“Maybe,” I said.
I thought all week about what I might do. I remembered good times, before I’d discovered that Gregg was a pathological liar, when we’d gone to clubs in Oakland.
I wasn’t sure this is what my therapist had in mind, but Gregg and I headed to The Decade, where a cover band was playing and drinks cost too much. I deemed this to be exactly what I needed.
I wanted to drink something special, too. Tonight would be more than just draft beer! I chose a “slow comfortable screw,” because it was the best drink name I knew. Gregg got Jack and Coke. We ordered two drinks each.
I had no idea how this would help me be less lonely, but I got drunk fast.
I stood in the back of the room and guzzled very strong, very expensive drinks, swaying slightly as the music blared.
Gregg, who never went anywhere unless someone else was buying, walked straight up to the stage and started dancing wildly, holding his drink above his head and screaming “woooooo!” every few minutes. This went on for many songs; it was embarrassing. I stayed away from him.
Eventually Gregg jumped up on stage with the band and gyrated at the musicians, obnoxiously bumping into guitar players. They laughed and shooed him back onto the floor.
A few minutes later, Gregg was back on stage again yelling “woooooo!” and waving his drink.
“Get off the stage, man,” said the singer between lyrics.
But Gregg jumped back up there again. I stood in the back of the room, humiliated.
By the fifth leap onto the stage, no one found it funny. Security pulled Gregg down and walked him through the crowd to the door. They tossed him out into the parking lot.
I went out after him.
“What the fuck!” I screamed at Gregg. “What were you doing?! They told you to get off the fucking stage!”
“Well I’m off the fucking stage now!” Gregg shouted, laughing, completely plastered. “WOOOOOO!”
“What the fuck!” I shouted back. “You got us thrown out of the fucking bar!”
“I was just having a good time!” he yelled. “Wooooo!” He laughed. I screamed at him.
We continued in this manner until the police appeared from nowhere, along with their giant paddy wagon. The cops took one look at Gregg, who was at least sixty pounds and eight inches larger than me, and they stepped between us, facing Gregg.
“Wooooo!” Gregg hooted at them, spinning around. “We’re having fun now!”
The police cuffed Gregg immediately. They started walking with – or rather, pulling – Gregg toward their vehicle.
“Hey!” I yelled at their backs. “He really didn’t do anything!”
One of the policemen spun around sharply, glaring darkly down at me, his eyes glowering, his weapon too obvious at his side.
“Do you want to go with him?” he snapped. “Because we could make that happen!”
I cowered. “No.”
“Then stay quiet and get out of our way.”
“But …!”
“Stay quiet! And GET. OUT. OF. OUR. WAY.”
I blinked and stepped back. “Okay.”
After one last “wooooo!” the paddy wagon doors closed on Gregg.
I watched the vehicle pull away and stood there, stunned. The space was suddenly devoid of all life.
I felt grateful to be standing on solid ground rather than going to jail.
But I wasn’t home yet.
In spite of my new job at the museum and all of my wonderful colleagues, I started to get bored. I loved the work I was doing, and I loved the place. I even loved the people. But – as was the case with every permanent job I ever had – I felt stuck within a few months. I started to question if I wanted to work for the museum for the rest of my life, like so many of my colleagues seemed to be doing.
I hadn’t had a full-time job in a very long time. My commitment to my future felt tenuous at best. I took the job because I needed a job; but what if I had to stay here forever?
I started to question the rest of my life, too. I was still going to therapy every Tuesday. We were talking about my dreams, analyzing what they meant. But what difference did it make? I mean, it was cool to understand whatever symbolism or meaning might be contained in my subconscious, but it had no effect on my conscious life.
And on weekends, I was still somehow enmeshed with Gregg. I had wonderfully independent weeks where I’d get up, hang out with smart, independent women all day, and then go home to a blissfully empty house. Sure, I was still drinking at the local bars, but sometimes I left at midnight. I had a job to do!
Then on the weekends, Gregg would reappear as though I actually wanted him there. I didn’t want to be lonely, but I didn’t want to be with Gregg, either. My options felt mysteriously limited.
I didn’t know what was limiting them.
Every morning felt like, Oh no, not again. And every evening felt like, Everything sucks. And in between, when I was actually doing my job or drinking – the only two things I ever did – I felt simultaneously numb and guilty. The alcohol no longer muted the guilt and it never created spontaneous joy.
But I thought it would. I thought if I tried hard enough, did the right things, drank the right drinks, went to the right places, hung with the right people, then all that fun I’d discovered during my freshman year of college would come charging back, full-force, and I’d feel joy again.
Somehow, instead, the world was letting me down. All the good things were tainted by … something. I didn’t know what was flattening me, graying out my future.
I felt my future as a bright, sparkly thing that had been dropped in a mud puddle.
It never occurred to me that I’d singlehandedly created the mud puddle – and dropped that sparkly thing right in its midst. Then I’d stepped on it and rolled it around to make sure it was completely destroyed.
When it came to the surface – like it did when I got my new job – I doused it in mud again. Then I blamed the world for being too muddy.
I didn’t know I was making choices about my life. I didn’t consider that my drinking played any part in my inability to smile, my dead eyes, my severely compromised future. I thought life was just happening to me, one agonizing minute at a time, and that I had no choices about how it went.
I was 24 years old and my life felt over.
At least, I thought, I’ve been spared from all the really awful things like death and jail and mental institutions.
I had no idea how close I was to all of that.
