Celeste...
Nov. 16th, 2020 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zarathrustra_ink"My name is Celeste and I'm an alcoholic."
I repeat those words so many times in my mind and yet, every time I stand in front of the group, our community of addicts, for some reason, the words shrivel up like raisins. Why? Because this was not supposed to be my life. I don't have piles of stories about an abusive childhood to sift through. My story should have been one of success, but someone stole that from me and I don't think I can ever go back. Why would I want to share my story with people who were obviously struggling with their own?
Now Meredith... Meredith, the star of this show who stands up before anyone can get a word out and starts to cry before she can even manage one syllable, because, in her words: "My alcoholism destroyed my marriage. Amongst other things." She has no problem airing out her dirty laundry. She starts to sniffle, as only she can. Long, drawn out breaths, as if she was gasping for air, but we all knew she wasn't so no one moved. No one dared flinch. "After the death of our son," We all knew the story of baby Cory. Cory, with the chubby cheeks and huge blue eyes that seemed to span his entire head. Cory, who suddenly passed away in his sleep one night when he was only seven months old. Cory, whose burial site was only three blocks away from where Meredith took her first drink. "Matthew buried himself in our nanny whom he'd swore he would never approach because she wasn't his type... I mean, I should have known. No one's tits are that perfect without a thousand men ready, willing and able to drool over those perky little nipples." She had a tendency to ramble, our Meredith. "I buried myself in vodka. The cheap kind. Not that it matters. I just," She inhaled a long, pained breath. "I didn't want to feel anymore unless I could feel the weight of my son in my arms, you know?"
In that room, the basement of Saint Margo's Catholic Church, there were so many stories like hers or in some cases, like Maddox, worse. Maddox, whose name was probably as fake as his forth nose. "My first drink was poored for me when I was eleven years old. I don't even know if I was sipping on the expensive set or some crap shit, but that wasn't the point. The point was, I was given a drink to relax me. Every part of me became loose and I could feel myself float away. When you're a kid, you don't realize what it means for your senses to leave you, but in retrospect, it was probably the best thing for me. He didn't even have to hold me down. Physically, I was there. Mentally, I was off to somewhere protected where kids like me didn't get liquored up so that some old fart can get his rocks off." He, unlike Meredith, didn't need to pause for sniffles. Maddox had this way of peering through you that pressed tears from the corners of your eyes. He didn't have to cry. Once his deep, dark, depressing gaze crawled across your face, his tears became yours. His pain gripped the base of your spine and didn't loosen until he was finally back in his chair, done sharing until the next time the feeling moved him. You weren't supposed to interrupt people during "their time", but Maddox's stories always reminded me of what could be behind each shot glass. Each wine glass. Each cheerful looking, brightly colored umbrella.
Then there was Aubrey. "Hi, I'm Aubrey." "Hi Aubrey." Of course she's an alcoholic. Aren't we all? Aubrey had been practically mopped out of a gutter no less than seventeen times due to alcohol and one of those times, her junkie boyfriend beat her for having to throw away his stash before the cops and ambulance could come poke around. We all knew about Junkie Jr. Junior because Aubrey, for the life of me, could not bring herself to blame him for the life he led because he was raised by junkies. "Two junkies in... One junkie out." She'd said once, shaking her head, this time with a slightly healed black eye. She would drink to forget he was trying to beat it into her that he wanted her for himself and no one else. "He does love me", she would proclaim, her words shaky with doubt. She was in too deep though. He'd soiled the best parts and left her to pick up the pieces. Yet, like any other puzzle, some were lost under a couch somewhere. Today was somehow different. She was different. She stood before us, behind the tall, wooden podium wearing this yellow sundress with matching sandals with this calm, happy smile stretched across her lips. Her "Hi, I'm Aubrey" didn't sound somber and drenched with regret. She was moving on, she reported. Junkie Jr. had finally been tucked safely in the local prison and his departure was all she needed to pack the baggage she'd accumulated and become reacquainted with herself.
Plain Jane looking, one hundred year old grandmother name cursed, Muriel, our moderator, was certainly caught off guard by the news. I mean, why would anyone want to move on from the dusty, religious, basement sanctuary she provided daily for us to whine about our various assortment of situations? Her mousey head snapped to attention. At first glance, no one would believe not a hint of volume, flat haired Muriel had a story of her own, but how did the saying go again? "Never judge a story but it's dust jacket?" Or something to that extent. You know what I mean. Muriel was a killer... and not just any killer. She had been in just about every news publication across the globe. Unlike Maddox, Muriel definitely wasn't her given moniker and for the life of me, I could not figure out which hat she'd chosen that one from or why. On my first day, she'd encouraged me to share, but I was too busy combing my memories for her face. I knew I'd seen it somewhere before. That night, while flipping through the pages of my twelve step manual, it hit me: She'd hit her husband with her car. Her hair wasn't always flat and dreary. Oh no, our Muriel used to be a stripper that some rich, old geaser had plucked off a pole like a rose from a bush. Only a talented florist could appreciate the art behind the beauty of plucking a rose and this man was no florist. He'd forgotten the mark of such a treasure: Roses have thorns.
After ten, glorious years of marriage, she'd come home to find him twisted around the frame of his secretary. Cliche, yes. Instead of alerting them to her presence, she'd hopped in her car and gone to a liquor store. She'd drank and drank until she could barely see. Swerving all over the street, somehow she'd managed to drive home, only to be greeted with the two of them kissing on the porch. Without a stitch of care in the world, he'd walked her to her car, only to make the error of kissing her again. As soon as the secretary drove away, all the neighbors could hear was the sound of her tires squealing through the neighborhood. She didn't even break. Later, in front of the judge, from one side, the jurors were treated to the story of a faithful wife who was slapped in the face with her husbands infidelity and from the other, a tale of a woman who had slithered her tongue across a set of old, wrinkled balls for years, just lying in wait for the opportune moment to murder him for the insurance money. Okay, so maybe it wasn't worded exactly that way, but we were all well versed on the story. From rags to riches to prison.
We watched Aubrey as she left the podium. The skirt of her sundress swished slightly with each step as she went back to her chair to grab her purse, but that wasn't what I was focused on. Could no one see how high her head was? This wasn't for show. These were the steps of a changed woman... And I was envious.
The door swung shut behind Aubrey. For the longest of seconds, no one moved. No one spoke.
Finally, when silence had crept across every inch of the basement, Muriel spoke: "Anyone else? Anyone?" Her eyes searched every face, practically begging someone to open their mouth.
"Hi, my name is Celeste." I almost didn't recognize the sound of my own voice. "Hi Celeste." The response was shaky at best. "And I'm an alcoholic." Of course, I'd always been aware of my alcoholism, but hearing the words aloud, saturated with my own voice, was completely different. I was not only voicing my truth, for the first time, I was living it.
"I had my first drink when I was twenty one just like the government says we're supposed to." Once it was on, I couldn't stop the faucet: "My closest friends were always throwing parties, but I never drank. I was Celeste, the goodie goodie. Everyone expected me to do the right thing. I was on my way to becoming a nurse, you see." All eyes zeroed in on me as I made my way to the podium. "My friends encouraged me to let my hair down, I was twenty one on that day, six years ago. So I drank. I drank and I partied like I'd watched them do so many times. At some point, I'd opened my eyes to one of my oldest friends, Brendon, pressed against my naked body. I had no idea how or why or where my..." I cleared my throat, recounting the details. "Brendon and I had been friends since we were five and there he was pumping away because he thought I was still passed out and yet, I was wide awake with him slurring my name into my skin with his alcohol drenched voice. He smelled of spoiled peaches and gallons of cheap cologne. Like he'd taken a bath in Creepy Granddaddy No. 9. When it was over, he curled against me like we'd always done when he spent the night. I cried myself to sleep. He was still there the next morning, behaving as if nothing had happened. According to my therapist, I have been searching for twenty one year old Celeste with all her hopes and dreams at the bottom of all those bottles since that night. She was never there, of course. I used to wonder would my life fall back in place were I to tell Brendon I knew what he'd done to me, but oddly enough, within days of me joining this group, he died in a car wreck. I almost went to his funeral to expose the truth to all our family and friends." I chuckled humorlessly. "Who was I to ruin everyone's perception of perfect Brendon, who masqueraded as his mother's perfect son and my perfect best friend who supported each and everyone of my perfect dreams?!" I was screaming now. "Do you know what the worst part is?! His mom bringing me this box of his shit because I was his best friend and why wouldn't I want some of his crap to remember him by?! And she was so sad, missing her baby boy because she's just a mom, burying her son. Not a woman burying a rapist."
I didn't have a purse to grab or a skirt to sway. The door slammed on my back and there I stood, breathing in the night air, musing over the irony of Aubrey feeling the need to wear a sundress in the dark.
I reached in my pocket for keys to a car I no longer owned. DUI. I didn't get to talk about how after that night, I never stopped drinking. I was still Celeste from that night, pressed in some sheets because I was supposed to be passed out.
Peering up at the stars, I lit a cigarette. I keep telling myself I'm going to quit. Which I am. Just not tonight. I watched the smoke circle through the night sky. I hadn't expected a grand gesture. Someone to follow me, I mean. Each person planted in those chairs needed help, same as me. Maybe they too were searching for who they used to be at the bottom of a bottle. It started with standing at that stupid podium, feeling their feelings. Sharing their stories.
Something on the ground caught my attention. I smirked, realizing what it was. I flipped it over and over between my fingers, allowing the moonlight to shine along its edge. It was a thirty day chip. I glanced up the street, wondering if in the rush to start her new life, had Aubrey dropped it. Maybe this chapter in her life was truly over and she was off to start a new life... In a new book.
That's who we are, you know? Our stories. We are made up of words and sentences. Carefully formed paragraphs that make up the foundation of who we are. Cracks are formed by our heartache and pain, but it doesn't break us. We are only broken if we choose to be.
I turned on my heel and flipped the coin over my shoulder. Plink! I heard the metal connect with the sidewalk. I took a long drag off my cigarette before hailing a cab.
Still at the bottom of a bottle.
Still battling for air.
Still drowning.
I opened the cab door. Music swept across my face like a crystal stream; carving a slow flowing path through my thoughts.
"Where to?"
I closed the yellow door then told him my address.
Still Celeste.
I repeat those words so many times in my mind and yet, every time I stand in front of the group, our community of addicts, for some reason, the words shrivel up like raisins. Why? Because this was not supposed to be my life. I don't have piles of stories about an abusive childhood to sift through. My story should have been one of success, but someone stole that from me and I don't think I can ever go back. Why would I want to share my story with people who were obviously struggling with their own?
Now Meredith... Meredith, the star of this show who stands up before anyone can get a word out and starts to cry before she can even manage one syllable, because, in her words: "My alcoholism destroyed my marriage. Amongst other things." She has no problem airing out her dirty laundry. She starts to sniffle, as only she can. Long, drawn out breaths, as if she was gasping for air, but we all knew she wasn't so no one moved. No one dared flinch. "After the death of our son," We all knew the story of baby Cory. Cory, with the chubby cheeks and huge blue eyes that seemed to span his entire head. Cory, who suddenly passed away in his sleep one night when he was only seven months old. Cory, whose burial site was only three blocks away from where Meredith took her first drink. "Matthew buried himself in our nanny whom he'd swore he would never approach because she wasn't his type... I mean, I should have known. No one's tits are that perfect without a thousand men ready, willing and able to drool over those perky little nipples." She had a tendency to ramble, our Meredith. "I buried myself in vodka. The cheap kind. Not that it matters. I just," She inhaled a long, pained breath. "I didn't want to feel anymore unless I could feel the weight of my son in my arms, you know?"
In that room, the basement of Saint Margo's Catholic Church, there were so many stories like hers or in some cases, like Maddox, worse. Maddox, whose name was probably as fake as his forth nose. "My first drink was poored for me when I was eleven years old. I don't even know if I was sipping on the expensive set or some crap shit, but that wasn't the point. The point was, I was given a drink to relax me. Every part of me became loose and I could feel myself float away. When you're a kid, you don't realize what it means for your senses to leave you, but in retrospect, it was probably the best thing for me. He didn't even have to hold me down. Physically, I was there. Mentally, I was off to somewhere protected where kids like me didn't get liquored up so that some old fart can get his rocks off." He, unlike Meredith, didn't need to pause for sniffles. Maddox had this way of peering through you that pressed tears from the corners of your eyes. He didn't have to cry. Once his deep, dark, depressing gaze crawled across your face, his tears became yours. His pain gripped the base of your spine and didn't loosen until he was finally back in his chair, done sharing until the next time the feeling moved him. You weren't supposed to interrupt people during "their time", but Maddox's stories always reminded me of what could be behind each shot glass. Each wine glass. Each cheerful looking, brightly colored umbrella.
Then there was Aubrey. "Hi, I'm Aubrey." "Hi Aubrey." Of course she's an alcoholic. Aren't we all? Aubrey had been practically mopped out of a gutter no less than seventeen times due to alcohol and one of those times, her junkie boyfriend beat her for having to throw away his stash before the cops and ambulance could come poke around. We all knew about Junkie Jr. Junior because Aubrey, for the life of me, could not bring herself to blame him for the life he led because he was raised by junkies. "Two junkies in... One junkie out." She'd said once, shaking her head, this time with a slightly healed black eye. She would drink to forget he was trying to beat it into her that he wanted her for himself and no one else. "He does love me", she would proclaim, her words shaky with doubt. She was in too deep though. He'd soiled the best parts and left her to pick up the pieces. Yet, like any other puzzle, some were lost under a couch somewhere. Today was somehow different. She was different. She stood before us, behind the tall, wooden podium wearing this yellow sundress with matching sandals with this calm, happy smile stretched across her lips. Her "Hi, I'm Aubrey" didn't sound somber and drenched with regret. She was moving on, she reported. Junkie Jr. had finally been tucked safely in the local prison and his departure was all she needed to pack the baggage she'd accumulated and become reacquainted with herself.
Plain Jane looking, one hundred year old grandmother name cursed, Muriel, our moderator, was certainly caught off guard by the news. I mean, why would anyone want to move on from the dusty, religious, basement sanctuary she provided daily for us to whine about our various assortment of situations? Her mousey head snapped to attention. At first glance, no one would believe not a hint of volume, flat haired Muriel had a story of her own, but how did the saying go again? "Never judge a story but it's dust jacket?" Or something to that extent. You know what I mean. Muriel was a killer... and not just any killer. She had been in just about every news publication across the globe. Unlike Maddox, Muriel definitely wasn't her given moniker and for the life of me, I could not figure out which hat she'd chosen that one from or why. On my first day, she'd encouraged me to share, but I was too busy combing my memories for her face. I knew I'd seen it somewhere before. That night, while flipping through the pages of my twelve step manual, it hit me: She'd hit her husband with her car. Her hair wasn't always flat and dreary. Oh no, our Muriel used to be a stripper that some rich, old geaser had plucked off a pole like a rose from a bush. Only a talented florist could appreciate the art behind the beauty of plucking a rose and this man was no florist. He'd forgotten the mark of such a treasure: Roses have thorns.
After ten, glorious years of marriage, she'd come home to find him twisted around the frame of his secretary. Cliche, yes. Instead of alerting them to her presence, she'd hopped in her car and gone to a liquor store. She'd drank and drank until she could barely see. Swerving all over the street, somehow she'd managed to drive home, only to be greeted with the two of them kissing on the porch. Without a stitch of care in the world, he'd walked her to her car, only to make the error of kissing her again. As soon as the secretary drove away, all the neighbors could hear was the sound of her tires squealing through the neighborhood. She didn't even break. Later, in front of the judge, from one side, the jurors were treated to the story of a faithful wife who was slapped in the face with her husbands infidelity and from the other, a tale of a woman who had slithered her tongue across a set of old, wrinkled balls for years, just lying in wait for the opportune moment to murder him for the insurance money. Okay, so maybe it wasn't worded exactly that way, but we were all well versed on the story. From rags to riches to prison.
We watched Aubrey as she left the podium. The skirt of her sundress swished slightly with each step as she went back to her chair to grab her purse, but that wasn't what I was focused on. Could no one see how high her head was? This wasn't for show. These were the steps of a changed woman... And I was envious.
The door swung shut behind Aubrey. For the longest of seconds, no one moved. No one spoke.
Finally, when silence had crept across every inch of the basement, Muriel spoke: "Anyone else? Anyone?" Her eyes searched every face, practically begging someone to open their mouth.
"Hi, my name is Celeste." I almost didn't recognize the sound of my own voice. "Hi Celeste." The response was shaky at best. "And I'm an alcoholic." Of course, I'd always been aware of my alcoholism, but hearing the words aloud, saturated with my own voice, was completely different. I was not only voicing my truth, for the first time, I was living it.
"I had my first drink when I was twenty one just like the government says we're supposed to." Once it was on, I couldn't stop the faucet: "My closest friends were always throwing parties, but I never drank. I was Celeste, the goodie goodie. Everyone expected me to do the right thing. I was on my way to becoming a nurse, you see." All eyes zeroed in on me as I made my way to the podium. "My friends encouraged me to let my hair down, I was twenty one on that day, six years ago. So I drank. I drank and I partied like I'd watched them do so many times. At some point, I'd opened my eyes to one of my oldest friends, Brendon, pressed against my naked body. I had no idea how or why or where my..." I cleared my throat, recounting the details. "Brendon and I had been friends since we were five and there he was pumping away because he thought I was still passed out and yet, I was wide awake with him slurring my name into my skin with his alcohol drenched voice. He smelled of spoiled peaches and gallons of cheap cologne. Like he'd taken a bath in Creepy Granddaddy No. 9. When it was over, he curled against me like we'd always done when he spent the night. I cried myself to sleep. He was still there the next morning, behaving as if nothing had happened. According to my therapist, I have been searching for twenty one year old Celeste with all her hopes and dreams at the bottom of all those bottles since that night. She was never there, of course. I used to wonder would my life fall back in place were I to tell Brendon I knew what he'd done to me, but oddly enough, within days of me joining this group, he died in a car wreck. I almost went to his funeral to expose the truth to all our family and friends." I chuckled humorlessly. "Who was I to ruin everyone's perception of perfect Brendon, who masqueraded as his mother's perfect son and my perfect best friend who supported each and everyone of my perfect dreams?!" I was screaming now. "Do you know what the worst part is?! His mom bringing me this box of his shit because I was his best friend and why wouldn't I want some of his crap to remember him by?! And she was so sad, missing her baby boy because she's just a mom, burying her son. Not a woman burying a rapist."
I didn't have a purse to grab or a skirt to sway. The door slammed on my back and there I stood, breathing in the night air, musing over the irony of Aubrey feeling the need to wear a sundress in the dark.
I reached in my pocket for keys to a car I no longer owned. DUI. I didn't get to talk about how after that night, I never stopped drinking. I was still Celeste from that night, pressed in some sheets because I was supposed to be passed out.
Peering up at the stars, I lit a cigarette. I keep telling myself I'm going to quit. Which I am. Just not tonight. I watched the smoke circle through the night sky. I hadn't expected a grand gesture. Someone to follow me, I mean. Each person planted in those chairs needed help, same as me. Maybe they too were searching for who they used to be at the bottom of a bottle. It started with standing at that stupid podium, feeling their feelings. Sharing their stories.
Something on the ground caught my attention. I smirked, realizing what it was. I flipped it over and over between my fingers, allowing the moonlight to shine along its edge. It was a thirty day chip. I glanced up the street, wondering if in the rush to start her new life, had Aubrey dropped it. Maybe this chapter in her life was truly over and she was off to start a new life... In a new book.
That's who we are, you know? Our stories. We are made up of words and sentences. Carefully formed paragraphs that make up the foundation of who we are. Cracks are formed by our heartache and pain, but it doesn't break us. We are only broken if we choose to be.
I turned on my heel and flipped the coin over my shoulder. Plink! I heard the metal connect with the sidewalk. I took a long drag off my cigarette before hailing a cab.
Still at the bottom of a bottle.
Still battling for air.
Still drowning.
I opened the cab door. Music swept across my face like a crystal stream; carving a slow flowing path through my thoughts.
"Where to?"
I closed the yellow door then told him my address.
Still Celeste.
