There are a number of places in the city I avoid simply out of fear. The sensory effects of these areas awakens memories and emotions I was incapable of processing in the past. My recent move in many ways was my first step in reconciling some of these fears. Saturday night was a particularly intense experience.
I was on my way to my home group standing at this bus stop. I had been here before, many times in the past. In a fraction of an instant I relived the day that I quit my job at the hospital. Coming to two hours after my shift started. I had wasted the whole night thinking in elongated ellipses about ice and death and the sands of Hawaii, but most of the time was spent ruminating the simple question, "why?" I frantically gathered my shattered fragments of thought without giving any consideration to their proper arrangement, shot some dope, and walked to the bus stop. My blood and the air felt as a single extension of the same cold. It felt like everyone could see me, but that was the point. I did everything I could to broadcast my pain and confusion, my life force reduced to four letters Morse code: help.
I sat in the back of the bus pining out the window, through the rain, for something I couldn't describe. It wasn't long before my brain found it's way back on to the hippodrome of the previous night. I wanted so desperately to start making the right decisions, to battle life in such a way there was no chance of failure. I still didn't realize that the act of fighting only made it breed. I transferred to the light rail at Westlake Station. Everything was moving so fast around me that I couldn't keep up. A train came, so I boarded it, oblivious to which direction it was headed. It was then I found a familiar face. A man I used to see regularly as part of a political group I had been in. I was aware of his past and after one look at me he was aware of my present. I don't remember the words that we exchanged but three stops later, when I finally noticed I was heading the wrong direction, I exited the train with the halcyon feeling that that was supposed to happen.
The rest of my trip to the hospital was coated in a veil of serenity. For the first time I knew with certainty that I was supposed to go to Hawaii. I still didn't know why, but in that moment "why?" didn't matter. I walked into the hospital and didn't even bother putting my scrubs on. I very calmly told my supervisor and coordinator (a man who had done everything he could to help me) that I was leaving for Hawaii. I told them that I would finish out my last two weeks (although that was a lie) but that I was unable to work that day. I didn't tell them about my addiction and the inferno that I was living in. In many ways I was still in denial about it myself, but not for long.
Before leaving the hospital I slammed again in the bathroom adjacent to the pharmacy stockroom. I'm not proud of that. It was the first and only time that I used on hospital property. I just wanted to forget the past two weeks had been one momentous life decision after another.
Later that evening was a milestone in my acceptance. I texted my coordinator and told him everything. I told him that I was in the grips of an terrible meth addiction. I told him that it had been progressing the entire time I was employed there and that it was only getting worse. I told him that I didn't know what I was doing or how to help myself. Most of all I told him that I was sorry. He forgave me, agreed that it was best I not return to work and offered to help in any way he could. I did another hit, and went to sleep.
The past surged through my head like an electric shock. It was nearly two years ago that I first experienced this particular tsunami but the emotional current had lost none of its potency. There was one thing that was different this time, me.
Just as I could smell the mist of the forward waves there was a rumbling in the earth beneath me. Waves of energy split before me, allowing for a rising plateau to break the tide. I could feel the cold wet of the past spray on my face, racing across my heart. I gasped for breath, expecting a mouthful of kelpy water. All I found was salty air.
The water continued to rise, so did the mesa on which I stood. Vertical waves thrust higher and higher around me, dulling the onslaught till it was no more powerful than the quarter moon. Then a familiar voice,
"I have not forgotten you, or the promise I made."
You told me you would take it all as long as I forgive myself.
"We each have a part to play. Try to remember that as things get more difficult."
More? Haven't I been through enough. I deserve a break.
"Yes but you won't get one yet. You still have unfinished business."
The desert.
"When you're ready to go I will be there too."
Not yet, but soon.
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