What's on your mind?

Oh, not much. Just the relentless march of time.

August 11th, 2014

I’m one month sober, but it’s not going to stick this time. Next time? Yes. This time? No one ever said shit about the second time being the charm. And the first time certainly didn’t do the trick.

I got a DWI last month, and the experience revealed a deep-seated personal truth, a surprise to absolutely no one: I do not bode well in non-kinky handcuffs.

I was supposed to drive my sister to the airport the next morning for a writing program on the West Coast. It was the only thing my parents asked me to take care of while they were in Italy. Instead, I made transatlantic collect calls from Travis County Jail.

I bawled my eyes out and asked the arresting officer if I would be out in time to get my sister to her 9 am flight. He laughed and shook his head. Then the booking officer said she liked my butterfly earrings. I wiped the snot from my tear and sweat-streaked face and muttered through choked, hiccuping sobs, “Thanks so much.” *wet, crackling sniffle* “I got them at Buffalo Exchange.”

My parents were less than pleased when I called and insisted they “do something.”

“What is it exactly that you think I can do from here? What is it that you think I can do, period?” I could hear my dad’s eye roll from an ocean away.

They did send me a lawyer in the morning. He asked me if I wanted to see footage of the field sobriety test. “Do I look fat?” I almost asked.

Anyways, it’s the summer after my Junior Year of college. I’m one month sober at my parents’ insistence, and I’m not happy about it.

I park my car, which I illegally drove to the coffee shop with a suspended license, to meet with a potential recovery mentor for the first time. It takes six tries, but I manage to parallel park on one of the side streets off South Congress. I sit in the thundering AC as it battles against the 104-degree day just beyond the tinted glass window, waiting until the last minute to walk to Jo’s so I can do as little socializing as humanly possible.

I pull out my phone and begin to scroll through Facebook.

Robin Williams Dead at 63

I feel something in me break that I didn’t even know was there. What the fuck. I scan the article for more information. Depression. Suicide. Hanging.

It feels hard to breathe. Something about the role he played in my life growing up feels monumental. The Genie from Aladdin, granting me three wishes. John Keating from Dead Poets Society reminding me to seize the day. Armand Goldman from The Birdcage modeling queer love and introducing me to drag culture. Sean Maguire from Good Will Hunting imploring me not to look for the negative thing ten miles down the road. Mrs. Doubtfire making me laugh so hard I pee my pants, no matter how bad my own depression is at the time.

I get out of the car in a daze and head to the coffee shop. The evening sun begins to set, the low-angled beams less oppressive than in the mid to late afternoon. But the sweltering heat of the day is sufficiently baked into the concrete and will take hours to dissipate. It seems to rise off the pavement, palpable if not visible, clawing at my ankles. When are you going to throw in the towel, too? I shake away the thought and go up to the counter to order.

“Hey,” the barista says, a strange look on his face.

“Hey.” He seems about my age. “Did you see that Robin Williams died?” I don’t know why I say it.

“Yeah, I just saw that, actually. It’s honestly really affecting me.”

“Same. He was our childhood. The good parts, anyway.”

“For sure,” he agrees, brow furrowed, staring down at the cash register. He looks up then. “Which movie was your favorite?”

“Hard to say. I just loved his voice, you know?”

“Yeah…”

“What was yours?”

“Would you think I was crazy if I said Flubber?”

“Oh my god, I totally forgot about Flubber!”

‘Right!? So good.”

“So good.”

I order my drink and go sit at the table with a girl I’m not willing to give a chance. She doesn’t seem that upset about Robin Williams. I don’t understand. It feels like we have nothing else to say to each other.

Two months later, my parents will tell us they’re getting a divorce, and I will do everything in my power to make it about me and my epic, ongoing variety show of drinking at people who piss me off.

August 11th, 2015

I’ve been drinking and using again for ten months, and I’m hanging on by a thread. I’m more depressed than I’ve ever been before, and all I want is to break free from the confines of my body and mind. Genie, you’re free.

Most of my time is spent getting fucked up on my couch and scrolling on my phone, and today is no different. Another headline:

One Year Since Robin Williams’ Suicide

How has it been a whole year? How have I somehow fallen even further down the rabbit hole than I was before? Aren’t I supposed to be getting better, not worse? I put on The World According to Garp and make a memorial post for a man I’ve never met.

That night I’ll meet a drummer at a bar and beg him to save me in exchange for drunk sex and a pitcher of beer. He’ll politely decline, but for some reason, it will be the thing that pushes me to the edge of the cliff. In early September, I’ll start my free fall.

September 11th, 2015

I sign myself into rehab, and when I ask the receptionist for the date, I think she’s making a sick joke. She’s not. But I never get fucked up again. I’ll make a lot of mistakes. But never that one.

Every year on August 11th, I think of Robin Williams. I think of how the best, brightest, funniest human beings battle things inside themselves that no one else can see. I think of how lucky I am to still be here. And I begin the countdown to my sobriety birthday. It will be a decade, FOG willing.

And some days are still so hard it feels like I could crawl out of my skin. This summer in particular. The life I’ve built continues to flourish in ways I don’t believe I deserve, and yet my mind is still one of the scariest neighborhoods to walk through alone.

The things I’m sick with don’t go away completely, only into remission. BPD. Depression. Addiction. Bulimia. And there’s still so much shame sometimes that I feel like I’m choking on it. But it does get better—most of the time. And on the days it doesn’t, it gets different enough to keep me interested.

Here’s to recovering from the things that hurt.