Passing Freedom

She grew up rough. Taught a lot of shame and humiliation. Hurtful words sailed through the air like streams flowing into rivers, steady and constant. She spent a lot of her time trying to just disappear, it was better to be lost.
The drinking started when she was 12. It was introduced to her by some kids in the schoolyard. It was great. From that first taste, she was in heaven. A heaven she did not know existed. She forgot about her rough times and her awkwardness. She forgot that she wasn’t supposed to amount to much. She saw an exciting new world of hope, fun and promise. What a glorious feeling. She would give anything to feel this way all the time.
Now that she had an escape, things at home were starting to look bizarre. She could no longer brush things off, which in the past had been second nature to her. She started to see her father as the mean and vulgar man he was and her mother as his full-time appeaser. It seemed that in this house anything went, in as much as, her father looked the hero to be cheered, and her mother always the martyr, the saint, always worthy of pity. What was acceptable conduct and which behaviors to question still was not clear in her mind. Again, she tried to disappear into the background. This was the exact moment she realized that this faithful elixir, which took her to paradise, could also quiet the shame and turmoil in her head.
She kept drinking this magic potion because it made all the sadness inside her go away. When she drank. she was bright and beautiful, funny and smart, everyone wanted to be around her. These are the times she wanted to always hold on to. The nagging inner voices of self-doubt and self-loathing were being silenced. She could finally get some breath into her captive lungs
Well, things change. The world turns. Friends grow up and leave to follow their own dreams. It is no longer the pack that decides what happens next, it is now the individual who chooses. She did not want to change. This steady intoxication was the only safe place she had ever found. She had no idea what to do at this point. She never learned how to imagine. Her goals up till now were to stay away from home as much as curfews allowed and not react to anyone’s outbursts. So, she went on to more friends, the ones she met in bars, who had only one thing in common with her, the search for liquid freedom. She fared well at first, especially with the men. Those harmless flirters were flattering, and she did not question their intentions for she enjoyed the attention way too much to risk losing it. While others went off to college, she made a career of trying to make her frequent husbands stay in love with her.
As smooth as her affair with the shot glass began, her decision to leave the relationship was that much more troublesome. The alcohol had taken over her life. She could not stand on her own merits. Her reputation had been tarnished and battered long ago. The feelings of shame and everything else that came before were now magnified and paralyzed her. She was that same, 12-year-old girl who had sought release, this time with the adult form of one who “should know better”. It took a long time and a lot of floundering for her to realize, that, what once made her feel good and acceptable, was now shaping her into a disposable recluse. The storm of trepidation was catching up to her. She has now learned to respect its strength. She tries to go back under the radar, where she can at least pretend to accept this limited life. The alcohol, at last, consuming her soul.