Homecoming

Dear Day 62, 

(again)

Step Four

"'Life is a river,' she repeated. Only in the most literal sense are we born on the day we leave our mother's womb. In the larger, truer sense, we are born of the past - connected to its fluidity, both generically and experientially.'" I Know This Much Is True - Wally Lamb

I arrive at this open document after a long journey home. Home, in the loosest sense of the word. The place I grew up might be a better label. For years, I stayed away, having left that place in my rearview mirror the first chance I got. I left at eighteen with no plan, no concrete idea of where I was going. I only knew what I was running from. The pain, the story, the watchful eyes of all who knew me. I wanted distance, I vowed never to return. 

A couple of months ago, I was captured by a sudden yearning for family, for closeness with those who watched me grow up. I thought that maybe, just maybe, sobriety would show me something I hadn't seen before; that it would make clear how important an active relationship with my family is, and that at last I could stop viewing it as a weight that serves no purpose in my life. I wanted to spend a day with my little sister, to make sure she knew I would be an active part of her world, hoping that in some way, somehow, another visit could make up for the years I wasn't present in her little life. I thought nothing of it. Except that maybe now was a good time to visit some of the other people I haven't seen or spoken to since I left. People who meant a lot to me and sacrificed a lot to try and save me from the inevitable spiral I was headed for. Everyone could see that I was a loose cannon with one mission: to destroy my life and seek revenge on those who'd wronged me. (Note that revenge was mainly more self-destruction, and of course, the anger I would unleash on everyone and everything that had nothing to do with the source of my pain) 

It's funny, because I've been back a few times since I moved, at least three. Each visit felt manageable at first. I'd go see my grandmother and head straight to the fridge. She always bought a few bottles of wine in preparation for my arrival. Red for me, and white for her. We'd sit together and reminisce, pouring each other "just a titch" more to drink every half hour like clockwork. We always recalled memories from her childhood and mine. Laughing, crying and dancing. Each time, I'd find that I felt okay for the first night. I was always wrapped in a warm blanket of delusion, courtesy of wine and good conversation.

I'd slip into my grandmother's guest bed with a Zopiclone and awake the next morning with stars in my eyes, nursing a hangover and the sudden realization that I had just woken up in the city where I grew up. Those first few visits, I had plans. Grand plans to visit everyone I missed. The friendships I'd made and left, the people I wanted to thank, the businesses I used to frequent… Yet most of the time, I'd stay inside my grandma's house, using the excuse that I was "tired" from travelling, from work, from my life in general. I was on vacation, and it was all right if I just stayed in. I never made it to any of those places, not even once in the three times I visited, and I never lasted longer than a few days before I was hit with a sudden urge to run.

I left early in the morning each time, driving quickly so I wouldn't have to spend another second in the vicinity of all those memories.

"How was it?" Coworkers and friends would ask upon my return. 

"It was awful. Never go there. Shit town, I always forget how much I hate it." 

That little jab would be as close as I was willing to get to admitting it: I couldn't even look at the city, I was too scared.

This time, I wasn't awarded the "gift" of denial. I wasn't able to drown out my feelings or wrap myself up in that warm blanket of delusion and avoidance. Apparently, I've become someone who faces things... Though I'm still working that one out.

The drive to the city was brutal and long. Bumper to bumper traffic raged on through most of my trip. My car ran out of coolant twice, and I was forced to stop at a Mr. Lube and beg them to give me a fill even though they'd already closed. They did it kindly and didn't charge me. I didn't appreciate it much; I was so overwhelmed with frustration. In retrospect, the anticipatory anger and resentment had already begun to build a home inside me. However, I was far too caught up in it all to try to clean house then. Just need to get there. I thought. Then I'll deal with whatever emotional relapse is unfolding right now. 

See, I'm working on my anger. I'm working through resentment. Trying to rid myself of the idea that I deserve reparations for the injustices in my life, and that my suffering is not of my own choosing. Anger, they say, is what kills us the quickest. At the rate I was going with all of my unchecked resentment, I would've been dead by next year. So I must let it go. The thing I love most. The emotion that makes me feel the freest, the most immune, the most powerful. 

When the road rage started, I was a tad thrown off. Not enough to understand what was happening, or what I would be facing in a few short hours, but it was enough to set off a few alarm bells in the rational part of my mind. 

It wasn't until I drove into the city, when I saw the lights above the lake I spent the summers of my childhood swimming in, that the body took over. I had to pull over because, very suddenly, there came a massive panic attack. The likes of which I haven't seen in a long time. It persisted. The initial shock and hyperventilation subsided, and my vision eventually returned to normal, but the feeling lingered. I am not safe here. That's all I could think. I am in danger. 

I drove around with my mother, who was eager to show me the new developments that had hit the city since I moved. Skyscrapers selling for millions per unit, brand-new restaurants and stores, a little LEGO four-plex placed on the lot where my childhood friends' house used to sit. The yard I used to run around in as a child was reduced to nothing but concrete and metal fencing. We passed the place where my high school friend's car crashed into a fence, killing her instantly, and I was overcome by grief. The tears disappeared, and my heart began beating again, but the feeling lingered. It is not safe here. I am in danger.

The sun rose on my little motel room, and I couldn't help but notice how quickly the city had seemed to move on without me. My old friends had different jobs, new lives. The people I popped in to see were otherwise occupied. Nobody in that city was willing to cooperate with my fantasy. I was ready, finally, to return home. To be welcomed back with open arms to a familiar place, to face it. I wanted a red carpet to roll out at my feet and for the town to erupt into applause. Yet it wasn't there anymore, the town. Nothing was the way I remembered it. No one remained in place to roll the carpet out for me. The sidewalks were filled with people I didn't recognize, the sky was a different shade of gray, and lineups formed outside of restaurants I had never heard of. Where did all the people come from?

I changed, but my hometown was supposed to wait for me. Yet there it was, a giant pedestrian crossing lit up in green and red lights, intersections that had never before existed. Strange little boxes of wildflowers perched upon newly built medians, decorating now busy streets that had once been deserted. I began to feel out of time, as if I were sand in a broken hourglass, falling to the floor once the bottom gave way. No open arms waited for me, no joyous reunions, I said none of my "thank you's". What I was left with was grief, the crumbling of an idea I had tried to hold onto despite every instinct inside of me telling me to expel it from my mind; that one day, should it all become too much, I could always return home. 

The only semblance of home that remains in that town is the memories. The fear, the pain, the anger. Nothing and no one awaited my return aside from my little sister and the feelings. I was stuck, trapped in a body that didn't feel like my own, occupied by the mind of a fifteen-year-old girl who was very, very afraid. 

I got back to my real home the following day. Fireworks crackled across the ocean, as part of a celebration of lights that I forgot was happening right down the road. I ate a microwaveable enchilada and sat on my patio, feeling a strong sense of gratitude for the gift of escape, the gift of hope, of freedom, of safety, and of home. I looked around my apartment, as onlookers cheered down by the water, and I felt overwhelmed by all that I had, by the fight that had gotten me here, and the unflinching belief that I would be okay, no matter how badly it hurt to leave behind all that I knew and start over again. 

I am getting somewhere, and the light has not dimmed. I have seen the first gifts of recovery, I can put my finger on my growth and the ways my perspective has shifted, but for now, I must grieve. I am grieving heavily. Grieving the home I once had, the feelings I used to rely on, the outlets of chaos and destruction, and of course, I grieve drinking to cope with it all. That sweet escape, instantaneous relief followed by more chaos, more destruction. The self-fulfilling prophecies that had me believing I could control the pain that entered my mind and body. Now I must sit here, with all that I have uncovered, and continue on about my day. 

I know this grief is real because it feels like I should be granted a sabbatical from my life to reckon with it. Life goes on. I must go on. I must continue like my world isn't constantly shifting and breaking apart, like I don't still free-fall for a while each time something new is uncovered before I'm able to fly. Is this facing it? Do I give up? Or should I enter the storm? 

Somewhere, beneath my powerful desire to let this feeling go, to wrap it up and bury it deeper, I have a feeling that this is good. I have a feeling that this grief and all of the sadness mean something. I have a feeling that one day I'll look back on this moment and understand why. It also feels pretty impossible to sit with right now. I am scratching at the walls, trying to free myself from the reality that there is no going back, and that I don't know what lies ahead. I may fail at this. I may give up. Or I may grieve for the rest of my life. I may yearn for a childhood that ended too early, and for a life devoid of all of this recovery, until the day I die. I just hope I keep fighting. I just hope that in the end, if only for a fleeting moment someday in the future, this will all seem worth it. I hope I'll grow around this grief.

I hope that buried somewhere deeper than I am willing to look right now, this grief is an indicator of love. Love for myself, for my family, and for the place that I'm from. 

Wouldn't it be nice? If grief was my homecoming, because I was born full of love?  

Day 62, you've been something else. You were also the day I decided to begin placing stock in my days again, to let go of the shame of a relapse and continue on. The signs of recovery are just too clear to ignore. Everything is different, and I have to learn to be okay with that. Uncertainty and discomfort are things I walk towards now; I don't run. The time for running has passed.

I wish I could write the way I used to, but nothing is the way it used to be, and maybe it never will be again...

Sincerely, 

(albeit a little bit resentfully) 

Charlotte