Please Stop Drinking.
Back at the house in Myrtle Beach, sunrise brought a flurry of activity. Every adult in the house was awake, making breakfast and packing to go home.
My mom’s sisters looked up as we came inside.
“Kirsten!” my aunt said.
Another aunt hugged me. “We’re glad you’re back.”
My mom had been fairly silent for the entire walk, and this didn’t change. “Pack your stuff,” she said, heading upstairs. “I’ll tell Daddy you’re back.”
My whole extended family had forever graciously accepted me into their homes for visits and holiday dinners. These people had raised me as though I were one of their own, and loved me even though I didn’t love myself. These were happy non-alcoholics who had never tried to change me.
And I’d run away. I’d left them, purposefully, and made a plan to live on the beach rather than go back to Pennsylvania and spend my life as part of this loving family.
My reason? Nobody drank.
I didn’t fit in. I didn’t feel like part of this loving family. I felt like an outcast, a reject, a person undeserving of their love. I felt like an imposter. Childhood Kirsten, who made straight A’s and loved animals and just wanted to do the right thing … that person was gone.
I packed quickly, then walked out onto the porch to look at the ocean one last time, this time in daylight.
I lit a cigarette.
My cousin’s wife stepped outside. “Can I talk to you?” she asked. When a prodigal returns, I guess it’s customary to be wary.
“Sure.” I took a short drag on my cigarette, confused.
She was quiet for a long moment. She didn’t seem to know what to say.
Finally, carefully, she said, “Please stop drinking.”
This was new. Addressing the elephant in the room when it was standing there felt unfamiliar, crazy. No one in my family, other than my parents, had ever really addressed this enormous, fat beast.
But this woman was doing it, and she did it with love.
“I’m trying,” I squeaked.
“Try harder,” she said. “Please quit. It affects everyone in your life, even if you don’t see it.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know,” she said. Her eyes welled with tears.
I didn’t understand. “You do?”
“I do.”
Her eyes filled with pain from someone in her life who’d also been an alcoholic. She made quick work of telling me her story, purposefully not crying, choking a bit on her words, then got quiet quickly. I’d never heard her story, never known any of this.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I felt numb and guilty. I didn’t know how to do better.
“You don’t have to be sorry for me,” she said. “Just don’t do it to anyone else.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
I meant it. Although … what had trying gotten me thus far? My family was disappointed in me again. I’d hurt people again. This time, I’d hurt more people than I realized.
And I hadn’t even gotten to live on the beach.
Soon, we all got into cars and drove to our respective homes. I crawled into the backseat and fell asleep, dreaming I was sleeping in the sand, and that sleeping in sand was beautiful.
I woke up hours later, sweaty and parched, achingly alone.
I felt terrified that I was going to drink again, that I’d never be able to quit, that I’d never have a real life.
But I felt – again – like I needed to try.
It had been eight months since I’d seen that shooting star, and somehow I was still a drunk.